The days are getting quieter and quieter relative to my expectations of this time of year. There is usually so much buzz because of how the holidays are impending, and the rush just compounds the movement, the delays, the noise. Everyone being stranded just cause of how people are all gathered at all the hotspots in the commercial districts is what this season usually spells for us inhabitants of the greater metropolitan area. And though there are a lot of attendant inconveniences this brings, I have to admit that there’s some sort of undefined hole somewhere in my psyche just because I’ve been so used to all the hullabaloo, and its absence is proving to be just as deafening.
A good friend is having a birthday soon, and I found myself having the urge to go out and celebrate for the night before, at least, now that the curfew’s been moved and bars are already operating. But I also soon found how it shifted quickly to me telling myself that there is a set meet with the gang for the said birthday, and that I don’t need to saturate my nights again just to fill it the way I used to, or just to satisfy the urge to make noise every chance I get. I have to admit this was how the decisions used to be made pre-quarantine. I’m stunned that I was able to stop myself, and that I actually decided against the knee-jerk reaction I was accustomed to before the quarantines changed all of us and our psychosocial homeostasis.
It’s so amazing that I get to note a certain loneliness in me these days and am able to fully lean into it, and somehow be comfortable amidst the perceived discomposure. I feel myself watching me sometimes and being proud of the person I am seeing. Just enjoying my time alone, doing my own thing, fixing my room, accomplishing chores, finishing my tasks, doing my work, and just reveling in the solitude. I’d like to give myself a pat on the back for being at home in this new kind of normal for my own personal routine.
Tonight was a pretty lonely night, I almost wanted to do something I knew I shouldn’t be doing. But I got to message my friend instead, and that was a good checkup. And then someone else randomly messaged me, and as I was showing appreciation of his short but sweet checking in, he told me how he appreciated how appreciative I was. And I guess my expression somehow translated how grateful I deeply was for the quick talk, even though it was unceremonious. This is also what’s great about the contrast – I get to appreciate more the small yet meaningful exchanges. Maybe somehow, the ones with less quality, the fillers that just put fluff to the days, got sifted out, too, and that’s what we should all be grateful for.
The noise can be comforting, but I see now how the emptiness makes everything that is welcomed in all the more eloquent. And here I see the beauty in this void that was once filled with fodder. Thank you, Universe, for the much needed clean up that happened because of this global outrage. Everything – or at least, most of the things we have been used to – the sabbatical from the pervasive noise meant not a dead spirit, but a more nourished one from a purified version of ourselves, as we involuntarily went through a decontamination process without even knowing it.