Lockdown Was My Lifesaver
Being In Lockdown Saved Me…
Like everyone else, I was bracing myself for the inevitable lockdown. The powers that be dropped hints, nudged us to staying indoors and outlined the dire situation we were in. We all knew this was coming.
I have always believed in having a plan for life. Hence, my so-called plan was to occupy myself with doing as much as I could, to prevent myself from spiraling into an uncontrollable state of loss and uncertainty. “ There were still things that were within my control,” I consoled myself.
And so I busied myself with baking. Yes, after having not tied on my apron strings in ages, I emptied out my kitchen cabinets of dusty baking equipment, tools, and various types of trays for cupcakes, whole cakes, cookies and the like. Confession: I’m one of those guilty of emptying the baking aisle of supermarkets with different types of flour, sugar, food flavourings and slabs of (salted and unsalted )butter. I truly felt my life was over when I eagerly rushed to the freezer section of the store only to find the shelf of butter emptied and looking so forlorn.
The perfectionist in me scoured over countless recipes from old hand-me-down cookbooks to YouTube and other online baking websites. To the uninitiated, baking is a science. The type of flour, sugar, butter, oven temperature and humidity of your kitchen matters. Through a series of trials and errors, which involved the tedious but necessary process of getting to know my oven, I finally felt confident enough to give the end products to family and friends. The homemade snacks and desserts were well-received, but I always felt that something was missing or lacking. I just couldn’t put my finger to it.
On top of baking, I decided to attempt to be a Martha Stewart in the cleaning department. I spent hours searching for the perfect cleaning products for my bathroom, kitchen, floor and tabletops. The pungent smell of chlorine bleach, sodium hydroxide, lemongrass-scented floor wipes, somehow seemed soothing to me instead. It was as if while I cleaned and scrubbed the dirt away, I was also getting rid of the internal garbage that was pilling up in my life.
The truth was I was living in a toxic environment, desperately clutching at straws, to cope, to deny the painful reality and to protect my sanity. No matter how obsessed I was in weighing each scoop of dough before placing it on the baking sheet, I could never escape the truth of living in a situation where I felt I had to be on my guard 24/7. I was in a constant state of anxiety and I was always second-guessing myself. Did that actually happen or was it all in my mind?
Over zoom calls with my bestie, she noted that I was a shadow of my former self. I knew I wasn’t in a good place physically and mentally. But I was afraid to leave, I didn’t have the courage to do so. I had no sense of identity; I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I felt I didn’t deserve anything better.
But the last nail in the coffin was the simple fact that I couldn’t journal my thoughts down because I had no safe place to hide my journal.
Not long after, I woke up one day and decided that I couldn’t live in that hellish state anymore. With the very last ounce of strength I had left within me, I gathered some of my belongings and left.
It took the last reserves of courage in me, but I did it. I had to battle the magnitude of conflicting emotions, even as I began to embark on a healing process and calve out a new life for myself. The path hasn’t been easy and at times, I wished things would get easier. But by taking small steps, one day at a time, and keeping my focus ahead, I ‘ve come to realised that I’m making slow but steady progress. As long as I keep trying and exploring new options, the blurred vision of my life would gradually become more defined. There would be light at the end of the tunnel. The journey had only just begun.
