This all started during the pandemic.
The “pandemic.”
They say that when you repeat a word enough times, it loses its meaning. It becomes a string of sounds no different from gibberish, breaking meaning into simple vibrations. What was once an ominous description of a virus that claimed the lives of over 3 million people has now become, at least to me, a distant yet distinct memory of shared confusion and the newness of a strange reality.
We were introduced to this virus as nCoV, or the novel coronavirus—a name given to coronaviruses that had never before been identified in humans.
Everything about it was novel. We didn’t know how to respond. Our bodies were clueless, and our minds, just like our bodies, were confused and in a state of panic. There were no vaccines for the virus and no antidotes for our confusion.
But we tried to concoct something that might work.
Lockdowns had us making Dalgona coffee paired with ube cheese pandesal. Others adopted plants as pets, becoming what the Filipino internet dubbed as plantito and plantita—plant uncles and aunties—as if to say the pandemic was robbing us of our youthful indulgences, pushing us toward more flourishing pursuits.
I, too, searched for a cure for my confusion. I wanted to start something to help me make sense of things. And now, I return to this project with this essay as my mental medication.
This essay isn’t meant to romanticize a period when our healthcare systems cracked under the pressure of their own making. It would be remiss, even downright cruel, to characterize the COVID-19 pandemic as simply a period of boredom when so many of us lost someone to this virus in one way or another.
Instead, I’m penning this as a meta journey—a reflection on the four years since we started this project. I liken it to a surgical procedure: I take a scalpel, make a clean incision in my mind, and examine what I had in 2020 that I’ve lost in 2024.
There’s a word for that
The biggest thing I lost was the sense of dread. In 2020, I was languishing—a term coined by sociologist Corey Keyes to describe a feeling of dullness and emptiness. It’s like dragging your feet through life as the days themselves drag on. That feeling weighed heavily on me, especially because, for the first three months of lockdown, I was alone. My only respite was Zoom calls and binge-watching movies and TV shows. But when your escape is in the same place as your proverbial prison, things are bound to get mentally confusing.
When I wrote the description for this project, I penned:
The idea for this endeavor came from overthinking. We've had countless conversations that begin with the phrase "Isn't it interesting that ..." and most of the time, they turn out to be somewhat interesting and worthy of more exploration.
mushmallows is where we let our minds wander and hope that they will take us somewhere good.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this was probably driven by a deep need to explore and wander, to occupy physical spaces. It may sound basic and privileged, but I truly understand the idea of revenge travel. It’s a layered phenomenon, but at its core, it’s the idea that people are travelling more after lockdowns lifted. Since then, I’ve travelled and gone out with friends more than I ever did before 2020. Perhaps age has something to do with my changing mindset about spending, but I wouldn’t deny that being restricted in where I could go had something to do with it.
The reflection point
But if things seem better now, why am I writing about the pandemic again?
A friend once told me they don’t see me as a passionate person. Perhaps because I don’t like creating rigid definitions of success or what my future should look like. I admit, I’m not tenacious. Part of me resents the need to perform the role of a passionate person. I do have things that fulfil me, but to give my friend some credit, I tend to get sidetracked.
There are many useful, though sometimes trite, metaphors about life—life is a journey, an adventure, a race. It’s also a marathon, not a sprint. These metaphors have mostly allowed me the space to find joy, but they may have also caused me to lose direction.
I knew I didn’t want my life to be an endless string of job titles. I didn’t want to move from project to project without purpose. I don’t want my epitaph to read: account executive/account manager/associate account director. How embarrassing to die and have my tombstone read like my LinkedIn bio.
So, after much reflection, I’ve decided to return to this project with renewed intention. I’ll still be wandering and wondering, but now with a clearer sense of purpose—a path I can be proud of someday. This isn’t just about documenting thoughts; it’s about capturing the journey of rediscovering passion and meaning in a world that has changed so much.
Expect to see more from me, not just as a writer but as someone who’s finally beginning to understand the value of staying the course, even when the destination is unclear.
Comments