Short version: nothing.
No, but for real, I didn’t. It’s been a hot minute since I felt the mental freedom to write. The year feels like it’s on velocity mode and yet the days felt twice as long when the events of Feb. 1 took place.
I left Yangon, my home for the past 3 years and I’m currently in Thailand as the ride their third wave of covid. In order to get into the country, there was tedious bits of paperwork and steps but once done, all that was left was a day hanging out at Yangon airport and 11 days of quarantine.
I ended up completing my quarantine during the school holiday break so I had quite a bit of free time on my hand. I braided my hair, completed school work, attended a two-day webinar, and enjoyed the down time and blackout curtains. Overall, I can’t complain about my experience.
Since getting out of quarantine it’s back to work and trying to create a sense of routine and normalcy to get through the rest of the school year. The ongoing tension in Myanmar didn’t stop just because I left and so the challenges and struggles of my friends, students and coworkers still there are still there. Everyone is just fighting to keep their heads above water.
I’m grateful that I have mon mari to remind me that our fate is tied to our faith in God. I try to remember that I don’t have to figure out the future own. Thinking about all the what ifs, trying to figure out what are the “right decisions” to make is hard. This is the version of adulthood that feels like assembling furniture with only some of the tools and some of the instructions in a different language AND you don’t get to know what the final item is supposed to look like.
These past few months I’ve re-watched Grey’s Anatomy and other shows I’ve already seen because for every new show, I’d read the episode breakdown because not knowing what’s going to happen was just tew much. Like I just didn’t have a lot of mental space for new things.
The comfort of the familiar emotional roller coaster that Shonda Rhimes has put us through with her creation, beats getting emotional invested in new characters (I see you, New Amsterdam. I do.). Or better yet, than dealing with reality of Covid and a coup and scary uncertainty.
Anyway, quarantine wasn’t a bad time for me. I’m in a new yet familiar city for now and I’m trying to embrace this experience before the next wave of changes hit like a ton of bricks.
Life of Neu 