March and April Notes

It’s honestly hard for me to pinpoint moments that happened in the last few months. For one, I spent May lost in so many different lives and worlds through reading books that my brain is still too wrapped up with, deeming everything else unimportant and, thus, forgotten. But, mainly, my days have each been too trivial and too indistinguishably monotonous—each one seems to be mixing with and bleeding through one another that I cannot, most of the time, tell them apart.

I guess it’s for that same reason why the last few months have each both felt so long and short. I would often find myself wondering how my month went by so fast (It’s June already?!) and get surprised that it has only been a month (It’s only June?!) in a span of a moment. It feels like it’s been a whole year already but also not. It is a weird feeling. I feel weird. I’m weird.

Yet, here I am trying to make sense of everything, find something special in my mundane life, and write a life recap post. Forgive me in advance if anything written below won’t make any sense. This is just rambling, truth be told, veiled with a shiny (perhaps a bit pretentious) as a ‘Life Update’ blog post.

March Notes

March was half good and half… a bit weary to deal with. For the first two weeks, I was so happy coming from a great previous month and felt so inspired after learning new things from finishing editing a video. I also took a very minor role of helping my father with the little I know of painting a mural and felt really good about it. But, around the third week, I felt my mental health dip and slowly spiral down. The pandemic also hit really, really close to home.

My cousins—more like my sisters, really—and our grandparents that they’re living with were all required for COVID-19 testing when one of their friends tested positive.

It was an odd time for the family to say the least. Terrifying at the start, especially when one of my cousins tested positive and was taken to one of the city’s quarantine centers but our terror and panic mostly turned into exasperation about how everything was handled. Like, how my cousin was sent to be quarantined in what could very be described as a detention center. She was sent and isolated in a classroom, in one single bed directly under the sun and with no fan to ward off the many mosquitos. Not one person to talk to. No doctor. No consultations whatsoever. Not even an opportunity to walk for a breather for even just an hour or two while she was quarantined. It was ridiculous.

And I know, I must sound very privileged but hear me out, the quarantine center near our home (where my cousin’s friends were sent to) was the complete opposite—beds are closed off into cubes for privacy, there are doctors, everyone was given consultations and vitamins, and morning and afternoon walks for patient’s mental health, and etc. My family reached out to friends and apparently it was a known fact that this particular center, where my cousin was sent to, was… abysmal with their program or system. With great effort and difficulty, the family begged and reached out to friends of friends of family friends for my cousin to be transferred to the better center near our home.

Thankfully, we were heard and my cousin was transferred. Thankfully, she got better quickly and came home healthy, physically and mentally.

With all of that and my mental health taking on my visiting demons too, I actually craved for things to either distract or calm me down. In retrospect, dealing with this month pushed me to be creative, the most I have been in a long while and I guess it’s a positive outcome I can cherish.

• Movies: The Basis of Sex, Palm Springs, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man, John Wick, Se7en, half of Django Unchanged, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
• TV Shows: WandaVision finale and also the first two episodes of Falcon and The Winter Soldier. I also rewatched some of my favorite shows like CSI Season 12-14 and Friends.
• Anime: caught up with Boruto episodes and weekly Jujutsu Kaisen new episodes.
• For laughs and warmth, I watched Korean variety shows. Honestly, they’re the best and they’re basically my anti-depressants. I caught up with Run BTS episodes. Also watched The Return of Superman and Hospital Playlist Camping.

This month I also painted and was finally able to try something I’ve always wanted to do: crochet! I spent the last two weeks exploring the craft and was able to make coasters off of Youtube tutorials. It was what I fully fixated on and kept me distracted. It helped my focus from drifting down to overthinking and, well, the darkness that nothing good can truly come out of. I am utterly in love with crocheting.

April Notes

The melancholy from March was brought over when April came. At the end of every month, I would always dedicate myself to introspection with everything that happened in my journal. For April, I wrote that I was angry. I wrote, “The month was tough. I mean, I was tough, merciless for the month. I look back now and my days are too clouded and muddled with anger. And it made each day and the entirety of April too unbearable—for my body and mind.”

I remember I was very easily angry and irritated about almost every little thing in April. Worse, every time the anger filled fog surrounding my mind and emotions would clear reasonably enough for me to replay every moment—examining every detail and agonizing over every subsequent word said and assumptions thereafter—I would find myself empty and confused, not entirely sure if anything was authentic.

This month I learned that, perhaps, I wasn’t as safe and immune as I thought I was from the trials of the new normal. Of being in close quarters with people despite them being my family (or maybe because they’re family makes it worse?) daily. I don’t know if I’ve always been subjected to this and I’ve only noticed it in April, a whole year in this pandemic. I don’t know if this is a long time coming. Either way, I’m glad I was aware and conscious of the growing pains and hopeful that I could fully learn and integrate it for the betterment of myself.

Oh, we got another dog! Her name is Blaise. She's tiny and energetic. She's very cute, I die everytime looking at her.

I abandoned all my hobbies in April knowing that such activities would keep me in the headspace I don’t have the energy and courage to confront. Instead, I turned to distractions and hyperfixations. The need for escape or hide myself (which was frankly stupid—how can one hide from one’s mind?!) was very heightened. I even found myself watching Twilight movies, cringing at every scene in every movie but also growing a huge crush on Robert Pattinson. How I just had a crush on him until now, I could never understand. I have grown a new level of excitement about his upcoming Batman film. I replayed the trailer a thousand times—cue NO RAGRETS gif.

• Movies: What We Do In The Shadows, which is a new favorite of mine. Twilight movies. To All the Boys I Still Love You and Always and Forever, The New Mutants, and some of my favorite movies: The Matrix, Avengers: Engame, and Spotlight. Also, after watching and loving Zack Snyder’s Justice League last month (I also waited and begged for that movie for a long time, btw) I watched DC films, Man of Steel and the Dark Knight movies, again.
• TV Series: Okay, I went into a Netflix craze, watching The Irregulars, Locke and Key (binged it in one night lol), and Shadow and Bone. Falcon and the Winter Soldier every week.
• Anime: I watched Jujutsu Kaisen and caught up to Boruto episodes. Also, this is not an anime but I binged Invincible for one night. I love it!

That’s it, for now. I was planning to include life notes from May but I think this post is getting too long for my liking. Maybe I’ll write a separate one for that. I was feeling fairly better last month so it might be less morbid to read. Definitely more comprehensible. I think I'm getting the swing of writing better. I honestly miss updating my blog. I forget how fun it can be. I’ll forcibly try to write and create things again.

Hey! Thank you for staying and reaching this part! How are you? I hope you’re well. Stay safe and healthy. You’re awesome.

Always,
Dems.