Author: arlanadya

Part II here.

We had the symptoms but overall we’re fine alhamdulillah. We had been doing our days as usual, eat well and slept all through the night.

Fully vaxxed and boosted for the adults and completely vaccinated for the little girl, the cough has been the hardest and longest symptom stayed.

Other than having coughing choir few times in a day, no other significant symptoms.

Mild fever only lasted for one day.
No specific medicines consumed other than panadol and drug store vitamins. Also, liters of honey lemon water.
Literally.

Ah, the other symptom that looked significant on me : anxiety.

That was why I brushed the balcony, decluttered the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom and the fridge, and many more.

Few things we have been doing slightly different. Curfew is usually at 8 pm, now it has been 7.30. Short afternoon nap time inserted to the schedule. Gallon water usually lasted for 9 days, now it goes down to 3-4 days.

Got the virus is not something that we could be grateful for, but, if there are some silver linings, here they are. I am grateful we got it after booster for the adults and complete doses for the little girl.

Since we have it together, no separating this and that hassles. Even if we don’t, there’s no way to escape in this small space we live in.

Being regularly exposed with the virus as our part of daily life since two years ago, it made me quite vigilant.

Been doing and planning weekly groceries with the thought of the risk getting it just anytime in mind.

Basic things must be fully stocked to certain amount. Donc, we got it while we were fully equipped with food, vitamin, and medecine, even cooking oil that I stock regularly.

We also covered by covid insurance purchased once we returned from London (there’s one).

As usual, His timing is always on time.Just like many things before, this one too, we got it when we are as most ready as we could, and to consider the doctor strange request, it came right when he needed the most.

All the test cameback (almost) with one stripe (very very thin line on L’s) as for today.

I truly don’t and won’t take this for granted.

So, let’s close it with Alhamdulillah and another quote from my reading on July 2020 which is still so much applicable for now :

“For now, our social behaviours and personal hygiene are our best vaccine”.

So, I hope everyone out there is safe and healthy and if you haven’t, get the booster asap.

The pandemic is getting better but, it’s too early to say we’re completely done with it.

No matter what, stay negative is still the best option.

Part I here.

For the past two weeks alone, we have been doing the tests for four times, everytime we have schedule outside to make sure everything is safe. Mild cough or slight fever that was once considered as nothing to worry about, now becomes a valid enough reason to do the test.

Until it was last Monday when he came home around 10.30 pm , after a long day of multiple nonstop surgeries, while I accompanied him having a late dinner, he made a remarkable yet (totally) understandable statement,

“You know what, it might sound so absurd, but I am so exhausted until I really hope I could get my turn to rest,”.

No one in the right mind would blurt out such scary request. No matter how huge the possibility we might catch it someday, to voluntarily request for it wasn’t a good thing to ask.

But, I totally understood why such thing came from his mouth. Unlike in London where shift schedule allowed for him to have proper break weekly, off days were available abundantly, no call outside working hours,
here, weekdays and weekend are all working hours. Be it at hospital or at home.

Leisure weekend is much rare commodity than cooking oil.

On Tuesday morning, as scary as it was, he got his wish granted.

Did the antigen self-swab at home since suddenly, (funnily), everyone showed symptoms. After two years of negative test results, that morning all three kits showed positive results.

It was weird feeling to describe. Slightly surprise in one side. Huge relief in another side. For those who exposed daily, we’ve been escaping it a lot for the past two years. So, looked at those three two stripes kits, it felt like there was a voice inside the head that says ‘finally’.

I wasn’t exactly being grateful, but, looking at such results that day wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be.

And also, a fulfilled wish is always scary. Even as simple as saying things without thinking.

So, always be really careful of what you wish for.

It’s been exactly two years,on March 2020, since the first day we received the news that the doctor was having extremely close contact with a covid patient in Queen Square without any single protections. Doing intubation on a tested positive patient.

Since that day, life has never been the same. Sending him to hospital everyday had become constant battle dealing with worry and anxiety.

We fear what we don’t know. From there, I read almost everything about this. People experiences, articles, blogposts, stories, newspapers, journals, anything. It seemed like feeding my mind with more worries. The more I read, the more I overthink. But, it was much better than being left in the dark.

Been thinking about many plans just in case something happened.

Moved back here, the battle was getting tougher. By the time we arrived here, cases were on the peak. He worked as soon as we settled down.

It felt like repeating the cycle on previous March.

Dealing with covid patients daily and intensely especially during the wave at the beginning and on the middle of last year, from morning to late night, weekdays and weekend, to say he was exhausted was totally understatement.

Countless time of having close contact be it from the patients, colleagues, or during surgeries where 8 out of 10 surgery crews got it. Being in the same room with someone (who turned to be) positive without masks during break. Endless swab tests everytime we got the news, yet, we still missed it.

Every time it came back negative, I wondered for how much longer we could escape it.

The wave at the beginning of this year might be not as bad as last year, yet, for the past three months, the amount of test results we collected topped those of what we had last year.

He got more schedules than before to cover many residents or colleagues that got sick daily and weekly. Not only weekdays but also weekend.

No amount of incentives given could pay the battle those healthcare workers who deals with covid daily face​.
(not all healthcare workers deal with covid patients).

I remembered one of the quote from my readings,
“At certain point, covid will arrive at your doorstep, it’s just a matter of when”.

There are times when I just want to rant about things without thinking too much.

Like how impossible sometimes this little girl behave until I wonder did I miss something important along the way? or is it just me being more impatient? Or is it just me who wants everything to be under control everytime? So, who’s being impossible here?

There are times when I wonder how could this be so hard? I know it won’t be easy, but dealing with a pre teen who already could talk back to you for every little thing you ask her to do, who already has her own opinion about daily things and refuse to follow what others want. Or is it just me who’s being too slow and easily exhausted about catching up with her quick growth?

I don’t know. Or I just don’t want everything to change quickly and stay forever in ‘easy’ zone😭😭😭.

Jump to another rant.

I feel like having more (in this case : money) doesn’t make things necessarily easier. It makes life easier at certain point, but, it’s absolutely much harder when it comes to control. We once defined one specific number which we considered as ‘sufficient’ many years ago. Thought if we got that number monthly, we were good.

Fast forward few years, we have passed way above that number, yet, many times I feel perplexed looking at the expense and thinking how come our mere expense now equals the number we set few years ago?

Although I think we’re doing well on saving, helping, and investing, but looking at our consumption expense, there are times where I feel guilty and feel like need doing more justifications to make it feel right. To be secured that those were for a greater good, that we deserve it.

From my own view, life style is not something that is hard to adjust when you have more. We still use my old car for the last 10 years, we still go around by bus or angkot to many places, the doctor is still using taxi or ojek (rarely) to go to work, we divide house chores among us, no maid, no driver, we use our old clothes, till when I looked at some pictures, same clothes appeared too often😂.

Yet, in the other side, things have been drastically changed. The hardships are more to resist the temptations for better life qualities.

We spend more for higher, healthier, and better qualities for many products or services we use. We spend more to live in better area which is closer to work and school also dealing with less traffic jam. We could dine out , in any kind of places, anytime we want to do it without thinking too hard.

We couldn’t help using real italian or french cheese in making pasta, best quality meat for making steak, the oil we use daily, weekly spending for fruits now equals to a bi-weekly expense for the whole groceries in the past, replacing rice with greens for breakfast made me understand someone who said rice was cheap. Education expenses are on the rise too. But won’t go into details about that.

I had been in certain periods where money was an issue, before and after marriage, and those were hard. The saying money can’t buy happiness is only true once you have the money.

Then, once you’re blessed with more, it comes with certain price too. For me, it means you have to deal a lot with what is inside. Be it your ego or self control. When you have less, there’s nothing much to think about, simple because it’s not there. Dealing with more means it requires more meticulous planning, more disciplined and self control. Thinking is not an easy job to do.

Spiderman uncle was right when he said that with great power comes great responsibility.

Well, enough ranting for now. Still have few more to go, but lets save them for another day.

It’s been a year since we make going around by public transport and little girl’s pink scooter as a routine.

It is not a new thing for me. Been going everywhere around this town by public transport since I was little. One year lived without my family for a year during junior high school escalated my public transportation knowledge and experience quickly. For many years, I had been a person whom my friends asked whenever they need to go somewhere by bus or kopaja.

But, that is not the case with this little girl. Thus, a little effort should be done.

Once in a while, this little girl (and of course, her mother) should go out of her (our) bubble. Going by public transportation, waiting for the bus under the sun, riding on angkot with other people, dealing with this unfriendly-for-pedestrian city on her scooter.

Dealing with bumpy pavements, endless construction works, people’s staring, endless swearing to the motorcycle driver who was leisurely using the pedestrian walk, being grumpy over the luxurious car who wouldn’t spare few minutes to stop for a while to allow us crossing the street .

Any places where the system is not well-designed and doesn’t work well, people will always argue between what’s right and what’s good.

In this city, you couldn’t help swearing a lot on the road, both during driving and walking. Honestly, we’re really getting used to it.

Is that all bad?

Here’s the silver lining.

In spite of all those things above, this city has one big forgivable trait.

If there’s one thing which could make up all those despcable items above, here it is : good to great food with reasonable price, available widely and EASILY in this city.

You name it, he has it. (I choose pronoun he for this city).

Our weekly scooter, bus or train riding session mostly decided based on which park and ice cream shop we want to visit.

If there’s none, move to boulangerie, ramen shop, pasta place, fancy warteg, or just any new eating places we want to try.

There’s a twitter accound called @darihaltekehalte which will show you so many hidden gems you can find in this city by public transportations. That is genius.

Somehow, it makes sense to me why it’s hard for our people to move for good to other countries.

Food is one of the basics thing needed to survive, the tummy is one that should be fulfilled first before doing anything else, and it is also the simplest thing that can make us happy.

Here, we could get that very basic thing effortlessly.

You can be happy and stuffed by paying as little as Rp 20.000 for a main course, if you know where to go.

You can have authentic other countries food in certain places, and it caters all categories of consumers, in terms of the ability and their willingness to pay.

During London days, we were the middle class who could afford eating out regularly without worrying about the expense as long as it was reasonable, but dealing with day to day menu was quite headaches.

Here, we are the middle class who can afford eating out regularly without worrying about the expense, even for some occasional higher-than-usual dining, yet dealing with day to day menu only takes a little bit of careful planning on menu and budget.

Among many things that I am being grumpy, particularly about living in this city, I have to say he has this one huge quality that is quite hard to let go.

Living in this city might be messy, but it’s easy.

There’s one page from Elizabeth Pisani book Indonesia who described this a perfect analogy :

(This is me trying to love what I have while thinking of something I love but I can’t have, in the meantime).

Here some pictures as bonuses.