Grounded and not giving up

17 months grounded, and counting…

So this blog has come to a hibernation… because we haven’t been traveling anywhere… because, yeah, Covid.

My mental health plunged to the lowest, darkest point in my life in the past one and half years. I tried to get out a couple of times, eat healthier, be more active, write more, try new hobbies… but then I fell off the wagon too many times too. I sulked and ran into a fantasy universe called K-drama, I think I lost myself for a while. I have stopped for more than a month now, considering it as a detachment of addiction, and tried to write random thoughts here and there, and after a couple of incidents, I finally started therapy. I really want to get better, for everybody.

For someone whose goal in life is traveling the world, one city at a time… Covid totally shuts down my goal, and living as a goal-less individual demotivates me to wake up in the morning. I’m running out of time, each day I’m not traveling, or planning a trip. It’s hard to shake off this hurried-off feeling, like I’m always being chased.

Covid also domesticated me, and god I didn’t know how much I hate being domesticated until now… I lost my freedom of being a free and easy adult. It wasn’t so much because I’m a mother now, coz Bandi has always been more than happy to have time with Alessandro, it’s really more because of Covid restrictions. Just when things started to seem to get better, it got worse again, and then it was repeated a couple of times, so I think everyone started to lose faith in ever going back to normal life again, if that’s even a thing.

In the beginning of Covid, we tended to hold out everything, I held out, I compromised, because I thought I could wait until things got better. Now that it’s never getting better, I tried to adjust it to this new normal, but guess what, the new normal sucks big time.

I don’t go to yoga anymore, I don’t go out having fun anymore, I did but maybe what, once in the last 1 year? God that’s pathetic. I used to go drinking every Friday night with my co-workers and oh how I missed those good old days, talking non-sense under influence, playing beer pong, board games until midnight, just having a good time. And traveling to different cities almost on alternate weekends.

I bet if there was no Covid, we’d still do that. Even with Alessandro, I bet it would even be more fun with Alessandro.

The thing about being depressed because of Covid is that your feeling is diminished, because you’re suffering in a first world country, while people actually lost their jobs, lost some lives, so compared to them, your sadness is irrelevant. You should be grateful. Trust me, I’m not ungrateful. I am so grateful I am safe and physically healthy. But you can be grateful and sad at the same time. And I know I’m not good at handling my feelings, and it’s eating me alive.

It’s funny how I stopped blogging about my feelings for years… This blog used to be my outlet, the fluffy pillow of my extrovert soul, because I felt too much, my emotions have always been all over the place. There were times in my life when I couldn’t regulate my emotions, like a child.

I’m seeing this in my 2 years old son. He is a little guy with big feelings, if I don’t handle that well, he’d turn up like me. He can’t turn up like me. He deserves better.

I know I’ve been fixing it for years since I came to Singapore 11 years ago, yoga, lots of reading, finding purpose (in traveling) and all of that self-help stuff, so I’m so freaking mad when Covid just trumps my decade long efforts! Here I am again, going back to zero and finally looking for help.

I will write more, unfiltered, coming back to this blog, like a child who comes back to their mother after years of venturing in the wild. Back to my first love, writing. I also created a private insta for micro-blogging, to start feeling safe again for posting things online.

I am proud of myself for admitting that I need help. I’m sick and tired of sucking energy off of my loved ones. I’m gonna be better, either I’m flying or grounded.

So until we’re back on globetrotting, I will try my best to let May rest and calm and stop hurting others, and maybe cut back the drinking a little bit.

Cheers, May