Old Home, New home

Being an introvert definitely did not mean that I saw quarantine as a paradise.

When classes got suspended, we were lucky to already have taken our midterms the previous week. The first thing I remember saying when we found out about the suspension was I left my chess set on my chair. Having my chess set with me might not be a priority and is certainly less compared to my textbooks that I also left in school, but I still think about it everyday and wish I have it with me. Quarantine came up 4 days later. March 16, the start of quarantine and also my father's death anniversary.

With the class suspended for an entire week, we already expected the tasks to be given. The memory was vague, and all I remember was that things got worse. Quarantine extensions, new cases, lists of guidelines, and a heaping amount of requirements to add on my to do list. On the bright side: nature has time to heal, I can choose my sleeping hours, there are many opportunities to create, I could help with the shop, there's plenty of time to binge my books on Choices, I have a better chance of being less stressed that usual. and etc. Over time, I have come to prove myself wrong.

Let's start with creating. Most of what I have created over the course of quarantine is either for business or for the sake of requirements. I looked at the time as a chance to practice painting after putting it off for so long. It still hurts to paint, but the good thing is that I managed to make a killer painting this quarantine. Surprisingly, I'm more proud of the apples than the flower. Also, maybe I'll write about this painting in another post someday.

During quarantine, me and my co-author also friend got to work out a lot of issues and details with our novel entitled Elyys. Other than that, we were able to come up with more material. While she worked on story bits to keep on hand, I managed to finish the full rewrite of the first three chapters. Now, if only I could find other people to read them so we can get decent opinions. Because of Elyys, my notes are now full of series shorts, backstories, tables on certain story details, and character design drafts.

Another really fun thing that I got to enjoy this quarantine is binge playing Choices. By the time extended community quarantine ends, I would have finished 63 books and half of which were played entirely during quarantine. It might not be something worth being proud of, but it certainly is something I look forward to everyday. I also give a well amount of time to finish off my stories and and achievements in Two Eyes (a nonogram puzzle game with a story line), Air Force: Reloaded (a plane shooting game that I have been working on to complete all the medals for years now), and Codycross (a modified crossword puzzle game).

Those two activities, art and games, I did during my own time. To me that meant what ever spare time I have starting from when I get up until about two to four in the morning. Working during wee hours helped me focus more because it was usually so peaceful. My usual amount of sleep still meant eight to ten hours, but following an interval schedule. Sometimes, I did feel sleepy during the daylight I was actually awake, but it was nothing some music couldn't fix. That is . . . the fact that I have been listening to a lot of contemporary country for over a month and that it keeps me calm and focused means it's effective. I have all the current thirty-five songs by Dan+Shay, and I memorized by heart which song belongs in which album. My love for Lady Antebellum has also been rekindled. Along with that, I discovered some songs that I like from other country artists while giving a chance to listen to the songs I already have on my phone. Some of these songs are Goodbye Summer by Thomas Rhett and Daniel Bradberry, Beer Can't Fix by Thomas Rhett, Wanna Be That Song by Brett Eldredge, Orphans by Coldplay, There's A Place For Us by Carrie Underwood from the OST of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and a lot of other songs. I might have developed focusing better while certain sounds are present, but I can't decide if it's a good thing or bad thing.

I definitely enjoyed having my own time. It started to become problematic in keeping when we started up the bakery again with the first delivery last twenty seventh of April. Everyone had relatively normal sleeping time, so when ever I was needed in the morning, the day would be marked as one where I lack sleep. I can be flexible with my energy, as long as I am occupied enough not to think about how tired I could actually be. The quarantine was hard on business, so I'm really happy we started to go online.

We all promoted the shop on our Facebook accounts and pages and everyone tried to get orders, but generally, everyone had their own posts. My mom bakes, my sisters do marketing, my brother holds their share of finances and takes care of deliveries, and I make all the promotional material and graphics requests. I'd get as low as twenty (or sometimes nothing at all because the dedication was for a friend) and the most I've made so far with just one dedication was as birthday card that I charged sixty for. It's nice to know that I get a little something every now and then, and that my bookshop actually has something to be considered alive for. Still, I'm lucky that I have enough skills and materials to make the dedications.

Before I made the dedications for the bakeshop, my only customer was my sister who had me print her children's modules every week. At least I got to put two hundred in my bookshop jar every week for every 70-90 pages of printing on scratch paper that used to be our Internet Addiction Research questionnaires back in tenth grade. Doing all the bookshop stuff became annoying sometimes. I'm doing my requirements then suddenly I have to design and print a rush dedication that they didn't write down for me to do the night before. Still, I enjoy making the dedications. The first time I made one was not a good story, but I rather not dwell on it. I'm just hoping for more orders to come for the shop and that I could maybe get another challenging graphics request.

I have great music on my phone, chances to add to my bookshop jar, enough materials to continue creating, we started up shop again, but sometimes I wish I wasn't here at home. Being introverted makes me hardly bothered by being stuck at home. Still, I have to admit that I miss going to the market and taking walks to town and home again. Maybe it's also strange the rush deliveries that used to really annoy me. The requirements became a pain too, but I enjoyed some of them. There were lessons in subjects that I actually understood better without the teacher, and there were those that I seemed to hardly care about without the teacher. Overall, I can say that I went above surviving my quarantine challenges.

Sometime I feel like this place isn't home, but that's just the anxiety. The guidance center set up ways to contact them with the Facebook page and all that. I'm supposed to have my monthly counseling, but I didn't contact their page. I didn't even think to try. Quarantine has not improved my anxiety like you might think it would have just because I'm an introvert. Things have been hard for me, but I sometimes feel like it couldn't get easier than this. There is now a board at the back of our cabinet after we rearranged, and I turn to that for emotional support. Despite being introverted, the life I would have enjoyed seemed like a cage sometimes.

I've learned a lot this quarantine to believe that this is still the same home, but somehow it's not. The experience has changed everyone. If not, it has given a good serving of perspective —some food for thought. Okay, maybe not everyone, but it certainly will not be forgotten. I know I'll never forget the feeling of how something old could feel new again. I like being at home and doing the things I love, but it just doesn't feel the same way. It's the fact that I'm only stuck at home because quarantine requires everyone to be, but I know it's more than that.

It's time to appreciate the comfort of home differently