Blissful oblivion or oblivious bliss?

I don't know which one it is, but I've been experiencing it for the last 19 days and it's about to come to an abrupt painful stop in 1 full day. It's going to be over. People will barge into my room, I will have to respond to "mommy!", work, find clients, drive the kids around, host playdates, social outings... no I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that my life will change a lot.. back to where things were 19 days ago.

In my cozy 221 sqm room, even when I got a knock from the staff to drop off a meal or a delivery, I'd think, "don't bother me!", and that was only 1-2x a day total. In two days I will be bombarded... but in a good way. I will finally get to see my family...and go back to the norm, whatever that is in this age of pandemic.

Even though we, the quarantine inmates are trapped in our own rooms we still manage to find a sense of virtual community within our own hotel chat groups. I joined the one for my hotel, Mira Moon chat group and we've shared some hilarious moments together. For example, we named the covid tester and the Q air purifier that follows them around "noonoo" from Teletubbies. We shared our artwork, and boy did we have some talented crochet artists and painters in our hotel! We speculated why we had unstable internet on the weekends. Was it really the zoom parties that were eating up our bandwidth? We even had a zoom call of our own and found that one of them was from Canada visiting her aging parents, the other moved from London for work, another man moved to HK from Singapore to live together with his wife, and another family moved to HK for the husband's job. Best of all, Clara, a French inmate was kind enough to offer a crochet class so I actually started crocheting. Never in a million years would I imagine myself crocheting but I found the energy and time, thanks to quarantine.

One of them even shared the information that he's been partying it up to Britney Spears tune and had a lady audience opposite the building. He also shared that he's been observing people exercising with his binoculars which gave me the idea to get one myself so I can watch Tayden train soccer since I had an open view of his pitch! So I bought a used one on Carousell and had it delivered to me the next day et voila, I could observe his team play!

Another hobby I finally picked up was water painting. I bought the paint, watercolor paper and brush many many months ago but was too afraid to start. But I somehow found the courage to pick up the pencil and sketch then paint over it. The cityscape was much more difficult than I thought as expected but the loose flower paint from the youtube tutorial was a joy.

There's something empowering about being in control of your own time, your own life in a tiny room. Heck, I'll browse through the endless black hole of youtube videos ranging from Rowoon, Park Eun bin, anything related to "The King's Affection", Asian makeup, Asian skincare, Vogue's 10 best dressed, watercolor painting techniques, gift wrapping.... I know, it's a waste of time and I should have been more productive... as a caveat, I did get a bulk of admin work done while mindlessly browsing the internet which was the fun of it all. I'd paint some, then do some work, then WhatsApp, then do mandarin class via zoom.. unlimited possibilities on how I can spend my time productively and unproductively as I please. Maybe I should feel guilty but I may never have another 3 weeks when I could be the master of my own time.

For now, I will revel in my 24 more hours of oblivious bliss and fall into blissful oblivion surrounded by joys that remind me of the love that's waiting for me outside.