World of hand sanitizers and gel

It has been a long hiatus from us! The world got crazy starting from January 2020 and we are still coming up for air!

The pandemic began in Wuhan, China as early as December 2019. However, this was not taken seriously by the local authorities despite some doctors claiming it to be deadly serious. 

On January 2020, it started to get featured in worldwide news — that a novel virus is circulating prompting the lock down of Wuhan. I guess people were quite dismissive and not paying attention to the impending doom that has gotten us to where we are now. Who would have thought?

February 2020, it is evident in Singapore news that it has widely spread and the deaths are fast increasing, some are unaccounted for. I was following the news about it closely and I started to get anxiety attacks. I wondered what are we gonna do and what is the solution or prevention if any? I knew this was going to be a hard hit for almost all of us. 

It is true that almost ALL countries were very lost on planning and taking immediate actions to prevent the spread. And everything was too late for all of us.

March 2020, it is becoming serious in Singapore and we are still allowing tourists and foreign business meetings to continue despite the earlier warning from China. I never knew a full lock down was gonna happen not too long now. Especially in Singapore as one of South East Asia’s business hub, it is impossible to lock down this city.

April 2020, first week, the lock down was announced with bated breath. People were panic buying, endless queues to groceries and food and rummaging the much needed supplies for survival. We do not know what to buy and how much to buy but we are going through the motions of survival. Hand sanitizers were sold out, alcohols were also gone. All Zonrox and disinfectants flew from the grocery shelves and even the infamous toilet rolls are out of stock. 🙂 It was my first time to queue for two to three hours inside a grocery just to stock up on our essentials — food basically and okay I admit one to two packs of toilet rolls. The world has gone mad. Crazy would be an understatement. Everyone was worried about their health including their children as we can only rely on investigations and relevant information from China and WHO. 

Singapore coined it as Circuit Breaker akin to a lock down to some countries. However not quite a lock down as there are public transport — buses, mrt, taxis are all available. What is not available are the malls, retail and restaurants. Groceries, hospitals and clinics are the only ones that are opened. Our family did not dare to go out for more than three months because of the invisible doom waiting for us outside, count the stress and hassle that we guys have to go through just to get an item. I know right?

I managed to get boxes of items from the USA to be brought forward to Singapore, some items did not make it and I was able to re-route it to my friends who needed the sanitizers as US supplies are also gone. Unbelievable right?

The circuit breaker was painful for everyone, including myself. I can stay at home for as long as I like but living with restrictions and on circuit breaker did not make it easy for me. I thought I have prepared for this mentally but it felt like doomsday and there is no end in sight. The cabin fever effect’s too strong to ignore. I have watched all Netflix series that I have been dying to watch since birth. I have scoured the movies that sparked an interest in me, and I am picky when it comes to watching movies. I have had moments where I so badly wanted to get out just to eat extraordinary food — apart from the house food that we cook and the ones that we usually buy at Hawker’s. It was painful but it was worth it.

It took many months for my family to be able to adjust to this new way of living and in three months of the circuit breaker — we got accustomed to living a simple life. Basic and essentials. Furthermore, there is not much that we really need!

Then comes the realization of living minimally everyday does not hurt anyone. In fact, it should be intentional for us to live simply and just be happy with the fact that our families are all well and alive. 🙂

I am lost for words when it comes to defining what it means to be grateful now. To this day, I am grateful that we are all healthy!

July 2020 it is starting to ease up in Singapore albeit slowly and the reopening of some snacks and dessert bars were welcomed with open arms. If you have been here, bubble tea is life! Yes, I am also one of those people who wants to drink bubble tea everyday. Life just does not make sense without it 🙂 Imagine ordering a milk tea without a bubble — disaster! There was a complete turnaround of the advise against wearing surgical masks. Earlier announcements told us that wearing mask is not mandatory and has no added benefits. Because your eyes, face and hands are exposed to the virus. So why do you even bother? But now the government has changed its stance with the mask and made it mandatory for everyone. And I loved it. They have also given us reusable masks for each family member in our household and we are grateful. It took three rounds to get us the nicest reusable mask (the white one) with the adjustable ear loop. Life so far has become manageable and well-adjusted in this pandemic stricken world.

August 2020, here comes the remaining half of 2020! I can’t imagine that we have reached this stage of acceptance and going through the motions. I have stopped planning for my life since January 2020, so why make plans now? 😀 Living by the hour and winging it is the new norm. Also I got tired of the people overusing the word “new normal”– when are we going to stop with the new normal and face our REALITY. I guess we are never coming back to the way that it once was, and the new mentality that we should promote is to try to live with IT.  Coz there are so many things to be thankful for 🙂

September 2020, we have reached the middle of September and boy I know that it has been almost impossible to think how we managed our home life, the kids school activities, communicating with families and resuming our life albeit the weirdness of it all — we survived and still trying to figure out and pick up the pace. Fortunately, I am the type to easily adapt to changes especially when LIFE tends to slow us down. Instead of trying to fight it, I just go with it and take it at face value. With our activities dwindling down and establishing our new routine I can say I did pretty well in the adjustment phase.

Take care everyone and take it easy!