In this time of chaos and dread, it’s easy to lose ourselves in the midst of it all. Everything is not what it seems, and we are clearly afraid of the change that it had brought to our lives these past weeks. It feels like forever even though we are just being quarantined for a month because of COVID-19. Everything is silent, everyone is wary, the streets have been lonely. Me being a health care worker, I worry for my life, on how can we cope with this, and how we’ll be able to adapt after all of this is over.
Keeping myself and the people around me safe in these fearful times takes a lot of work. For instance, I have to distance myself from my daughter. Me and my husband work as nurses, and being frontliners, we are afraid of contracting the virus and passing it along to her and the rest of our family. We carefully take precautionary measures seriously, and taking care of ourselves is one of the vital things you can do to stay healthy.
Right now we may be feeling a lot of emotions — confused, frightened, desolated, etc. All of these are valid and we must acknowledge them. It’s okay to be vulnerable in times like this. It’s normal and a natural coping mechanism to this pandemic. But we must also be mindful and try to relax even for just a couple of hours. The last thing we want is to burn ourselves out and add more problems to this crisis. We must instill in our minds that this is our new normal and adjusting rather than denying this threat will only raise frustrations and uncertainties.
Flattening the curve of the coronovirus pandemic is a tough thing to do because sadly there are still thousands of people who go against safety. Remember that public health measures weren’t established for us to choose whether to opt out or not. There are no shortcuts to this fight and taking this seriously will not only save our family and friends but also ourselves.
xoxo
yuanlibrodo 