100 Days of Staying At Home (and losing my sanity)

disclaimer:

(Due to my laziness, this post was not complete on my 100th day inside. My 100th day was actually June 29th, 2020. Let's just pretend it is that date, so I don't have to live with the guilt of living in a fake timeline. Thanks.

Hi.

*deep breath*

I'M GOING INSANE.

I have been at home for exactly 100 days due to the coronavirus. The COVID-19. The PANDEMIC. That's right. ONE HUNDRED DAYS. I've been through it all. Quarantine, self-isolation, shelter-in-place, a total nation-wide lockdown... EVERYTHING.

This means I have actually, physically, not stepped out of my house for ONE HUNDRED DAYS.

I think, in my entire life, this must have been the longest period of time where I have had to be at home (counting both voluntarily/involuntarily instances). I don't even think me being a premature baby stopped my parents from taking me out in the early days of my life. Or when I got typhoid as a toddler. Or when I broke my collarbone falling from a slide in a playground at age 6.

completely unrelated image. don't worry.

No matter what happened, I don't think I can recall a time when I've had to stay home for such an extensive period.

It's not even like I'm an extrovert that loves interacting with people who has suddenly got their entire life's purpose snatched away from them. I have always been happy to stay home most weekends, and keep my interactions to people IRL to a minimum. However, that was my choice. Once the choice to go out and meet people was taken away, staying at home stopped being fun.

It didn't happen all of a sudden. For the first month at least, I was pretty much all right. I found things to do, like reorganize the entire store room and whip up an ungodly amount of Dalgona Coffees.

I was (and still am) lucky enough to retain my job, and just switch over to working from home. This played a huge part in maintaining a semblance of purpose and routine throughout this entire time at home. Otherwise, I think my mental state would have devolved even further than it has currently.

So. With all this free time, and not being able to utilize it to have healthy interactions (not to mention just getting some fresh air beyond what I can have from sticking my head out a window), there are loads of things I have been doing at home to pass time.

1. Watching Shows

I was never really a big TV show watcher, so it's been kind of nice to immerse myself into stuff that I normally would not have had the time to experience had it not been for this pandemic. I have come to realize that I prefer shows over movies, for the sole reason of the investment in someone else's life for a change - and for an extended period of time - without having to worry about it ending too soon (LOL, that sounds so sad).

Anyway. Since I paid for PicCollage so that the terrible watermark would go away, I am now going to inundate you, the reader, with a collage of every show I have watched within these 100 days so far.

I know that watching eleven shows (with all their seasons) within a hundred days is probably nothing of note for some people (for example, my fiance blitzed through 400 episodes of Diriliş: Ertuğrul while also watching each and every one of the shows I watched PLUS lord knows how many more, all while holding a full time job and getting 8 hours of sleep - don't ask me how), but for me, this was a massive feat. I mean, back when I first got Netflix, I had literally spent one whole year of my life on Gilmore Girls and nothing else, so I've definitely stepped up my game.

I organized the collage as much as I could to depict the genres I was/am most interested in: Thriller/Suspense/Horror/Dystopia/Mystery, Comedy (with some good old representation) and Absolute Trash Reality TV. On a serious note, watching people being sexually charged imbeciles is a perfect palate cleanser in between shows with heavy themes or intense storylines.

2. Reading Books

Now, with the access to Netflix being available on every device I own, I haven't read nearly enough books during my time at home. Reading is something I have struggled with in my twenties, despite being an avid and insatiable reader throughout my childhood and teenage years. Being a huge Stephen King fan, I continued to purchase all his books as they released, but never really got around to reading anything of his (or of anyone else's, for that matter) since the past few years. So, I have a pile of untouched books that were waiting to be cracked open.

I did read one of these, which is The Outsider. I truly enjoyed it and it sparked my love for Stephen King again. I'm planning on reading the whole pile of these within this year. If you have any suggestions for what I should read next (from the above picture), let me know.

3. Creating edible things

I'VE BEEN COOKING/BAKING AS WELL. (I don't know why I decided to write that in all caps. Fake excitement to mask my disdain for suffering the heat of the stove whilst fasting for 33% of lockdown, perhaps?) Apart from the regular Iftar prep, I managed to make/bake a few things I'm proud of. Here's another PicCollage (seriously, I'm trying to get my money's worth of posting as many non-watermarked collages as possible at this point):

For anyone interested, the pics are of a typical Iftar, dynamite prawns, jalapeno poppers, peri-peri grilled chicken w/ baked wedges, brownies and a chocolate birthday cake. I made other stuff as well, but I couldn't be arsed to dig too much into my camera roll to find them.

But yeah.

Don't kiss the chef. We practice social distancing in these parts.

4. Working Out*

*trying to work out.

It's been a struggle, you guys. For the first month, I just let everything go. There was no physical activity whatsoever. My step count never even reached 100 on most days, since all I would do is roll out of bed to my laptop for work and then back in bed to watch a few episodes of the shows I previously mentioned. And not gonna lie, that certainly took a toll on my physical (and mental) health. I was feeling lethargic, irritable and bloated by the end of the first month.

That's when I got inspired to do...

The Chloe Ting Summer Shred Challenge.

I know this challenge became super viral this summer. I managed to finish 2 weeks of it before coming across a thread on how Chloe Ting wasn't a qualified nutrition/fitness expert. So then, that demotivated me to the point of giving up entirely, until I realized I had an old purchased program of FitnessBlender lying around - which I am currently doing. I'll let you know how that goes.

And yeah.

That's what I've been up to in this stay-at-home period. While it may seem like I have been getting stuff done and kept myself busy, it's still really, really tough some days. I know this blog is where I make light of many situations and don't really post about my mental health struggles (*COUGH* wewillignoreeverythingIpostedanddeletedlastyear *COUGH*) but I do wanna say that the title to this post holds some truth. I NEED THAT SOCIAL INTERACTION.

So. Please engage with me in the comments. How have you been spending your time at home? Has your lockdown lifted? Do you have a suggestion for what I should read? Do you want to be workout buddies? Do you wanna swap Money Heist memes? JUST TALK TO ME, THANKS.

Love you. I guess.

Update: I'm Engaged and Before You Say No One Cares - I Care. So There. A 12 Year Old Wrote This Title.

Before the coronavirus was out there destroying lungs, families, economies, livelihoods and mental peace, it was roaming around a random bat's intestine*.

Around this time of COVID-19's bat-intestinal-running**, something else was happening in the world.

MY ENGAGEMENT.

Yes. It happened. I finally became one of those godforsaken people who appeared in the sudden wave of yearly social media posts announcing engagements, weddings, pregnancies or childbirths. I was probably the reason someone rolled their eyes at their feed and scrolled a little extra fast that day. But it's okay.

Thankfully, it wasn't arranged. Lmao. That's all I have to say. Post over. Bye.

But no, for real. I dated my now fiance for many years before we got our families to make it happen. Since the engagement took place in January, it really felt like a great beginning to a new year (LOL at that now). Well. At least for me, my year had a good 3 month run before things started going south with the current situation of the world.

Preparing for my engagement was super fun. I knew I wanted to wear pink, so that's what I wore. I chose the exact color and the fabric, and got my outfit stitched by a tailor. While it was definitely not as convenient as picking something off a rack, I had the satisfaction of the dress looking and fitting the exact way I imagined. I got recommended an event planner who actually did a gorgeous job with organizing the decor, food and photography for the event. There definitely was stress in the process, but I tried to stay as calm and collected as I could. Partly because I didn't want my skin to break out. But mostly because I knew it wasn't worth losing my sanity and not being able to enjoy probably one of the biggest events of my recent life over some bullshit that wouldn't matter the second the ring was on my finger. Haha. Also, I was really unhappy with my makeup on the day.... But that's ok. The photos are fine so I'm not too pressed.

The engagement itself was quite a small function, as only our close (practically only immediate) family attended. I liked it the way it was, but now I'm actually looking forward to a larger function where I can go crazy with the guest list in the form of my wedding.

We plan(ned???) to get married early next year, but who knows if that will still happen. I'm optimistic based on the general statistics and projections as well as my faith in science and modern medicine - but nothing's for sure anymore, and that's a bit disheartening.

So yeah. It doesn't really feel weird being engaged. I don't know why I had thought it would feel weird in the first place. But yeah. It's the same as having a boyfriend, but... idk, having an extra sense of security in the relationship I suppose? Having more people know about us (especially family and community members) is definitely something I'm getting used to. I am so adapted to hiding every facet of my personal life from people that having someone (or everyone) know I'm officially with a dude is still pretty unnerving.

Oh well. I actually wish I had more to say. I'm still getting the hang of writing effortlessly on here. But that's about it. I'm ENGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGED.


*not scientifically accurate
** seriously, not really. please. don't come to me for accurate info. i don't even have a degree. any degree. lol