I would like to sleep and wake up after all is over. A month-long hibernation is what we all need. I know it is not a matter of personal struggle, because we are all experiencing the same thing. Correction, the health care professionals, the ones struggling under ventilators in the hospitals or these who hope everyday their loved ones will make it and will be put in the green colored number at wordometer and the ones who are still working so that we can have food and toilet paper are those truly experiencing it. We, the rest, have just the difficult task of staying in our couches, staring at a screen all day, which is marginally more difficult now that we are forced to, than before, when we just wanted to.
However, despite the carefree nature of my situation, my selfish human urges cannot help, but make my bones ache under the pressure of an unprecedented situation. I can feel them shiver in pain and agony (which might be the same word). And before I start sounding like an opening of Riverdale, I have to justify myself and my angst by the nature of these peculiar times. I mean, if we are not going to let ourselves be consumed by the Erebus of our times, now, like some sort of teenagers having their first break-up, then, when will we? Hopefully not soon again, hopefully our lives will soon return to getting angry because our avocados are not getting ripe fast enough or other similar situation that any self-respecting adult cannot make a fuss about.
But in all seriousness and devoid of existential dread, the disease is not the one scaring me. I am lucky enough to be young and in good health, so even if I catch it, I will, statistically, be fine. And if not, oh well, it is beyond my power or knowledge to do something about, except when it comes to prevention, and I decided long time ago not to worry about things I can do nothing about. What scares me is the uncertainty of what is going to happen tomorrow. Not in the terms of the disease, but of the obliteration of my way of life. Again, selfish human urges, thinking about the trip I cannot have, when nurses are pulling day shifts trying to save people. But it goes beyond that, it goes to thinking if I can have a job during the summer with which I was planning to pay for my Master’s degree, it goes if the financial consequences of the disease will bring us all to a deep depression that will freeze the economy and any opportunity I or anyone my age or even older would have on the job force. My issue is not how I will survive the disease today, but how I and the world will survive the aftermath.
It is the first time in my life I feel uncertain about the future. The first time I have no plan or backup, because I cannot have any plan or backup. Everything is frozen and no one knows when the circulation of things and people will be able to start again. I don’t know if I can do a Master or if I will have to survive on 50-cent ramen for the following year. I know it sounds very melodramatic, especially when we are only in our second week into this thing, but expert opinion indicates that it will continue for months. And I cannot help but sink in anxiety. That is why I want to sleep and wake up when it is over. When we will know how the future will look like and I can plan for it, when I will not get overwhelmed by the numbers and estimations, that I cannot help but look away from.
To get back to the topic of my blog, how is Indonesia responding to all of it and how is it living far from your country in such times? Well, Indonesia is lethargically slow in taking any precaution and most initiatives seem to be coming from the private sector (like Grab Food giving you instructions on how to receive your food without getting in contact with the delivery person), as companies are closing down, events being postponed and many people are trying to stay home. The fact that Indonesia has the largest mortality rate in the world doesn’t seem to bother many, although attitudes seem to be changing. Quite frankly I will not feel safe getting in an Indonesian hospital with severe symptoms, especially as their unpreparedness is sure to cause a situation like Italy, that is why I am trying to avoid the disease or hope that my immune system will prevent me from going there.
Many people in this time have opted to return to their countries. It is not something that I have not thought, but the possibility of contracting it in a 30-hour transit flight seems bigger than in my home in Indonesia. Furthermore, booking a flight that will get cancelled is a lot likely as well. Besides the danger, young people whether in Indonesia or in Greece are very likely not to have to go to the hospital, so either I contract it in Greece or here, I will be spending my infected days at home, so it does not make much of a difference. That is why I have for now decided to stay here and hope that it will pass and I will be able to finish my program and return to a corona free country from one, in June.
The Indonesian Chronicles 