Sick, Stateless and Starving. (January 2020 catch-up journal)

"This month feels like an impossible mountain to climb. It also feels like time travel, as if we are back in 2006."

I didn't post on this blog for a few months as I lost interest in reading and wrting, but now I'm feeling ok, I feel like catching up. So here is a bit of what I wrote to friends in early January: 

"Hi friends, hope you are staying cool and safe today, the news from Australia is awful!

This month feels like an impossible mountain to climb. It also feels like time travel, as if we are back in 2006.

If we don't hike up the mountain of our January to-do list it feels like we will be sick, stateless and starving.

Happily we have reconnected with 4 friends from 2006 who are helping us with this mountain.

......... life admin is going to consume more time, energy and money than usual this month. Feeling overwhelmed!"

Expat life admin means a trip to the capital city

Also that month on Facebook I posted a link to a news article about a new virus. During SARS in 2003 I lived in China so I was interested to read about this new corona virus. 

I started remembering all the crazy things that happened during that time, and all the hype around it. 

Friends evacuated back to the USA overnight, no time to say goodbye. 
I had a go bag packed AND was stocking up on food. Go or stay??? 
We were constantly checking the CDC and the WHO websites, as well as news sites and exchanging all the wild stories people were telling. Thankfully no Facebook back then or it would have felt even crazier.
Those 5 days in quarantine  when a friend was in hospital as a suspected SARS case. 

I decided that I wouldn't get caught up in all the hype this time around, it was fun last time, but I don't have spare time and energy now, with a family and sickness. Planned to try to stay informed but to try not to become too obsessed. 

If I wrote this at the time I probably would not have thought to include a bit about the 'Rona, but as I'm writing in April, after it turned the world upside down, it gets a mention.

Photo credit: unsplash