I thought that I would get sick of this lockdown very quickly. As much as I love my family and my home, I thought I would be desperate to leave the house and see new faces after two weeks. But here I am, in the sixth (or more) week of lockdown, and for some reason- I don’t mind it. Perhaps because it’s not too drastic from my daily life, I don’t usually go out with my friends every weekend, or cycle around Singapore. However, I do miss going out to eat in aesthetic, energetic and relaxing restaurants that we had the privilege of going to. The beautiful restaurants that line boat quay, the exquisite greek restaurants in Dempsey, the Mexican restaurants in Orchard, and more, almost every weekend. But I’ve also realised that perhaps we don’t need to go out every weekend, spend so much money in a fancy restauarant, to have family time. This quarantine has forced us to think of creative ways to create the same ambiance that our favourite restaurants had, but at home. My sister and I set up the balcony with pillows, fairy lights and music to try to replicate going “outside”. We talked for 4 hours after we ate dinner, and it introduced a completely new atmosphere, which would have never been discovered if it wasn’t for this lockdown.

If it wasn’t for this lockdown, or this pandemic, my sister wouldn’t be back home from Cornell in America to celebrate her 21st birthday with us. It’s like all the things that were considered “set in stone”, like semester dates, exams, and summer internships, were taken away to showcase its fragility, and the possibility of change.

17/05/20 

For all birthdays, our family loves celebrating big. It doesn’t mean spending $500 on a yacht party. It means decorating the house, ordering a secret cake, hiding gifts, watching movies, going out to eat your favourite food, and most importantly, spending time with friends and family. On 16th night from 8:30pm – 12:00am, my sister had an online exam. She locked herself in her room, and we started to decorate the house. We put gold and silver streamers with the “happy birthday” banner draped across it, we put up confetti balloons with surprise chocolates in them and made cards, all while dancing to Bollywood music. It was such a beautiful few hours, because I felt absolutely NO obligation to do anything else – finish this homework, research this, read this book, watch this. Doing something so free of technology in an even more digitalized world nowadays was the refresher I needed. We cut the cake at 12.30am, we showed her the (surprise) video I was putting together with messages from her friends and family from all over, and we sat and talked till 2am.

Many people have told me that they don’t celebrate birthdays. I couldn’t imagine my family not celebrating them, because it brings us equal amounts of joy to celebrate others, than to be the one who’s being celebrated. Preparing for her birthday made me realise that it’s us who construct the monotony of daily life. Each day has immense potential, but we struggle to see that when we don’t take a step back from our routines. So if this lockdown’s taught me anything, its that we don’t need a fancy restaurant, a big party or anything else if each and every one of us is in the moment. It’s heartening to know that we can still create everlasting moments in circumstances like these.