This Girl During Covid-19

 

This Girl During Covid-19

-W.N. Hazirah

 

The changes a person could go through their life is just amazing and these are just some of the changes a girl went through this whole COVID-19 period. Well, still going on period.

A girl who was terrified about the COVID-19 virus outbreak never understood why there were some people find it so hard to abide the movement control order (MCO) rule that was implemented by the federal government of Malaysia. Going out in public without any good reasons, getting close contact with other people who has no idea if they’re infected or not. In her mind, “isn’t this to help themselves too? Don’t they have loved ones that they wish to protect from getting infected by this awful virus? Do they not get the news on how the virus can spread and how it can kill? How those infected people are suffering, fighting for their lives? Dead!”

This bothered her so much that she was stressed and upset that some of her family members were a part of that group of people. She tried so hard not to go out, not even to fulfill her need to work nor to have a social life too, just to make sure that her family has a very low risk of being infected especially when she knows that the ones that are staying under the same roof as her aren’t in good health as well but alas, some people don’t even care about that.

One day, she cried knowing the fact that one of her family members’ colleague’s husband was tested positive COVID-19! Everyone from the office that had came into close  contact with her were asked to self quarantine at home. That means that particular family member too, has to self quarantine at home. The same home that she’s in! Not entitled to choose your expiration date is probably not the best feeling ever. Especially when you’re a believer of a certain religion. Deep inside your heart, you just know, how unready you are to go to the next life. So she often pray to God if she could be “taken” when she’s absolutely ready. Hopefully she can, she always hope, but knowing her true self, sigh, there is just so much to be “fixed”. Oh, how grateful she was when that person’s test came back negative. Another day, another chance to become a better person.

However, it really didn’t help with her attitude of feeling so disgusted and treating that group of family members who took the MCO rule so lightly, so poorly. Although the number of COVID-19 cases has decreased to 1 digit these couple of days, that has not decreased the level of fear in this girl, but her mindset, her mindset towards the situation changed somehow and I’ll tell you how that happened.

 One day she started feeling warm and in addition to that, she had coughs. “Oh no! Could it be that deadly virus!”, she feared. By now you must know how paranoid and overthinking this girl already is. She started telling herself that the people close to her are going to be infected too and how others will be disgusted by her, exactly like how she is feeling toward the others, and worse, they are all going to blame her and hate her because she is the reason that the virus is spreading to them. So starting from that day onwards, never again she instilled that feeling of hatred. She started welcoming the people from the “outside world” into her home with a smile just as she used to have before the pandemic but with safety measures of course. She still hates the virus.

That wasn’t the only change she undergone. That girl went through a break up during the pandemic and no tears was sheded like her previous break ups. Boy, was she proud of herself that day. To be able to move on very easily was something she thought she could never do, but she did it. Guess the quarantine period probably helped a little. She didn’t had much to do, so she had all the time she needed for herself to think rationally. She realized that if it’s not meant to be, it’ll never meant to be, but to try, it’s fine. At least there wasn’t another “what if” situation haunting her mind.

She also started doing things that she doesn’t do so often before. She started to cook! Instead of just only watching those cooking videos that makes her drool, she finally tried out the recipes! She would have never knew that replacing ingredients that she didn’t have at home and adding with whatever she had, would still turned out scrumptious. Not only that, one day when she decided to cook, her mother thanked her! Her mother was really grateful that her daughter cooked that day. Apparently her mother was just too tired to cook but as usual, it’s a mother’s thing to still try her best to make sure that meals are provided for her children, even though her children are all passed 20. Mothers, right? There was this one time her father told her, “I only love you guys this much (showing the length of his thumb and his pointing finger), but your mother, she loves you guys this much (spreading his arms wide open)”.

Since during the MCO, this girl chosed not to meet people, which was basically a part of her job. So that means, no income for her. But that didn’t stopped her from looking for other job opportunities. She learned new things and wow was she amazed on how there are so many things that she can do to generate income from the comfort of her home. That means she can always be there to help out her mother and her special sister, something she has been considering doing for a very long time already. She developed her skills, learning subjects that she didn’t learn in school or university. And since she has more free time than she used to, there is no more good reasons for her to procrastinate from doing the things she wanted to do for years. Realizing that courage was the only thing was needed to get those things done.

Besides that, this girl who cut her brother’s hair horribly, in the words of her family members, “macam kena gigit tikus” when they were little can now cut her own hair and making it look like it was done at the saloons. Well, at least she thought so like that since she finally got her fringe looking the way she likes it and getting requests from her aunties to cut their hair too.

Her need to care for her cleanliness improved a lot too. From the girl who never washes her hands before eating, to the girl who washes her hands after touching basically everything! It took that COVID-19 to get her started on that new habit. Unbelievable.

Not only that, she was surprisingly amazed to the beauty of having people that care and still keeping in touch with her despite having the pandemic cancelling all the plans they had with each other. Video calls were the best for her. It’s like having that person really infront of her, spending time like if there was nothing seperating her with that person on the other side of the screen. She still managed to watch movies and play games together. How lucky are we to be living in an era of technology she thought. 

Since never knowing when we’re going to “go”, she learnt to be more appreciative of others too, realising how for one second you have your loved ones with you and the next second they’re gone. She lost her father just a couple of months before the pandemic. That was the moment she realizes that one can never understand how another person is feeling when they lose someone they love. Yes they’ll feel like the world is ending but to say she understands how that person is feeling should never cross her mind, she keeps reminding herself. She lost her father, she felt that was one of the worst feeling ever but people who lost thier family members during the pandemic must have felt worse especially not being able to even kiss the person they love for the last time. So she took something from someone who came to her father’s funeral. Instead of saying that she understands how that person is feeling, telling them to  be strong, to be patient, instead of telling their responsibilities towards the ones that are still alive which was a help definitely and she’s very appreciative of that. But all that one particular person said was, “doa for your father, your father was a very nice man”. The comfort she felt from that lady, woah! Honestly, she thought that aunty was one of thier relatives that she never met but apparently she was her father’s customer. It was something that she thought did not only helped her throughout that tough moment but also hopefully will help her father too in the hereafter.

Her dad was the one with the saying you need to think with 4 dimension. Whatever does that mean she thought. But seeing how her dad thinks and handled situations, she probably gets what her dad was trying to say. It was something that made her observe and realize more from each situations she was in.  It was something that made her learned even more. It seems like she learnt a lot before the pandemic, she learned more during and hopefully even more after too. Hopefully this girl will never stop learning and continue to improve herself on so many things, adapting towards changes positively. It’ll be nice if I can do so.