UPDATE • Stress During The Darkest Timeline

We are living in the darkest timeline.

During this quarantine—shelter-in-place, stay at home, whatever it’s called—you can’t help but be stressed 100% of the time about your health, your family’s health, being around other people (and their careless and inconsiderate stupidity), going grocery shopping, etc etc. That’s me since two months ago where I had spent the first month of my quarantine inside, fighting my sadness and anxiety about this whole pandemic while being furloughed and then returning to work.

In this darkest timeline despite everything, I celebrated my birthday, and although I spent it sheltering in place, I’m blessed to have technology to connect with friends (and my BFF stopped over, who I haven’t seen in person for two months, to deliver me taro milk tea and taro bread!!!!!). I will get to properly celebrate it once this pandemic isn’t a threat to everybody’s health. (Y’know I’ve been told that the quarantine rule for birthdays is that you can challenge a non-quarantine birthday person and fight them to take theirs. ;D)

I haven’t been doing much aside from the initial try to clean and organize my shit (which continues to become a mess) and figure out which books I want to donate. I did learn how to change my mom’s car battery!!! Not a lot of book reading. That’s not the thing me solace during this difficult time—even though I desperately want to escape into the magic words and worlds that authors have woven. (Sorry, books!)

It’s Animal Crossing.

Everybody in the world is playing this game, and I am too, and it’s a goddamn godsend. I get so lost doing mundane task as catching bugs and fishes and talking with my precious villagers. I don’t have to think about the world outside of Animal Crossing, and I can just relax. Animal Crossing is a gift.

Everything has been put on the back burner, and that’s totally okay. You gotta do what makes you relax and not stress about the trash fire that is the world right now.

Also, social distance. Wear a mask. Be considerate of others. Don’t be an asshole because you want a haircut.