It becomes a tradition I recap the year towards the end of it. Let’s go!

January – Felt better with the pregnancy, travelled around South Island for 2 weeks with my family. Covid was raging around the world, NZ kept the border shut, so we were the lucky ones get to travel around the country.

February – Celebrated mum’s birthday on top of skytower. Valentine’s day hosted over 20 people for Isabella’s 4th birthday, towards the end of the party, everyone got a pin on their phone. Auckland went into lockdown.

March – I cant remember how we celebrated Magnus’ birthday, also what happened in this month. It was a blur. I think we went camping up north for a few days.

April – My boss whom I admired a lot was made redundant, there was a lot going on in my team. I went into hospital due to some bleeding. From this month on, I worked from home more and more.

May – Celebrated my birthday with family. Organised a hotpot dinner with my girlfriends, it went on for 4 hours until the restaurant was closed for the night.

June – On the 17th, Ingrid arrived. Our family expanded to 4 people.

July – Spent time at home with a newborn, my mum came over with food everyday, Magus started a new job and worked from the office. We lost my aunty, my mum’s 2nd sister.

August – Auckland went into another lockdown due to Delta. I thought it would last for a week or two just like back in February. We got our first dose of the vaccination the day before lockdown.

September – Home everyday with Isabella and Ingrid, we made cardboard boat. It was pretty impressive.

October – Lockdown continued, it was hard as we felt trapped at home and no end to it.

November – The restrictions finally eased after 100 days, mentally it was draining. I started thinking about going back to work. I published an article on Stuff, recorded podcast with BBC.

December – Back to work after 6 months maternity leave. Almost my entire team has left and replaced with new colleagues. It felt like starting a new job at the same company. I published a short piece on my family life with the help of Asia Media Center.

2021 was a bit shitty, but we managed pretty well. Raising two incredible girls, I wrote things and even got posted on proper media websites. Marriage is going strong, parents are healthy.

2022, I want a pay rise with flexible working hours (who doesn’t?). I want to visit families overseas or having visitors from overseas staying with us. I want my family to be healthy and content. I want all children around the world feeling secure and loved. I want global warming to cool down. I want everyone to hold their beliefs lightly, but have strong values , listen well and speak with honesty and integrity.

Hello 2022, please be less shitty and dazzle me with some good news! Thank you.

Getting into three months of lockdown, who is counting the numbers and days? When this lockdown was announced, I told my friends we would be out of this in a few days. I guess it is possible that I make mistakes too.

This time last year, when the rest of the world was struggling to keep up with the spreading of the virus, we were the rare and lucky ones, My daughter’s day care held the Christmas concert and hosted all the families for the annual BBQ. When my family attended, we almost felt a bit guilty thinking about the restrictions our overseas family and friends were experiencing. Now I am looking at photos of my brother travelling in Southern Spain with envy, hoping that soon we will also be at the airport waiting to get on a flight to reunite with family and friends in far far away lands.

I cant be sure why sometime during the day, I experience this sinking feeling. It feels like I am sinking in quick sand and there is no bottom to it. I am curious why I would feel this way, also once this feeling started it leads to a bit of anxiety as well. I feel anxious of not having enough energy to focus on all the tasks at hands, feeding baby, keeping a toddler entertained, make our home nice and tidy, thinking of meals to eat (luckily I am not in charge of cooking, just to contribute ideas), then thoughts snowball into future work, renovation, money, health, family and even the current political climate. I would catch myself when I start solving world problems, surprisingly breastfeeding a 5 months old baby is great for grounding myself. I look at the sweet and content face of my baby, it helps me to steady my breathing, then calm my mind. Slowly, I am pulled back to the present moments, looking at my family, thinking how lucky I have them close to me, I can hug them tightly whenever I want to.

See, its a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions throughout the day, from boredom to blissfulness, from feeling restless to staying still, from wanting to do everything to choose to do nothing, from making a million plans to abandon them all and only think about what’s for dinner.

I told Magnus I learnt a bit more about myself, I desire to have chunks of time to immerse myself into completing a task. I dont enjoy managing multiple things and with many interruptions in between. However, domestic life is filled with pauses here and there. Children do not stick to appointments, giving me chunks of days to do my thing then when I finish, they fit in the rest of the day. Children are great Zen masters, they seize the moment better than me. They know “now” is more important than “later”, if you feel like doing something, just do it. Do not wait. Try less planning. More doing.

Right now, there is so much to adapt, notice the urge, get curious, and work it out.

These days things can get a little frustrating at home as we are going into week 11 of this lockdown. But my special power is to find quality in the mundane. Here are some words my 4 year old says to sooth my heart and soul.

Bedtime chat:

Me: I love you always.

B: I love you to the moon. When I love you, I love your whole body, I love you to the whole earth, I love every leaf which is the shape of you.

Conversation after she didn’t listen to what I asked her to do:

Me: Where is the Bella who listens well, I miss her.

B: Well when you say stuff like that it makes me sad. I am still me. When you say where is the Isabella who listens make me think you don’t want me anymore. It makes me very sad.

I hug her tightly and say sorry for the words that hurt her.

Conversation after she explained something really cool in a scientific way in front of me and her Dad.

Me: Thats is super clever, where did you learn that?

Dad: Of course from me, Dad knows everything.

She adds in a small voice: …and the TV.

Her age does not define the wisdom of her words.

This lockdown I went on lots of walks. Ingrid sleeps well in the pram, so going for a long walk during the day not only tick my box of the daily exercise, also she gets to nap. Thats how I found this podcast on BBC Sounds – World of Wisdom. On this programme, they collect questions from people around the world, they are then answered by spiritual leaders.

So after listening to it one day, I decided to send in my own question about having children in a middle of a pandemic. I want to know how to be strong for my children even though sometime I am terrified by what is happening around us. The day after I sent it, I got an email from the producer and they wanted to have a chat as they thought my question could relate to many people around the world. After two weeks back and forth with emails and video calls, I sat down in front of my laptop and had a chat with Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth. During the recording session there were some technical issues with my microphone, we were stopped twice to fix some minor issues. However, these little pauses didn’t affect the flow of our conversation, and I really enjoyed the half an hour chat with Mpho.

The final editing version added more depth and clarity to my questions and Mpho’s response. My biggest take was that “Love is an action”. Sometime I can get too caught up from thoughts (hence the name of this blog) and feelings, I forget that action can be the most effective way to empower myself and my children. In Chinese there is a saying “撸起袖子，干就对了！” translated as “Roll up your sleeve, get on with it.” Love is not just about feelings, sometime it’s about despite not feeling like it, still doing the things for our loved ones.

Here is the conversation, it is a bleak question to begin with but the answers are filled with positivity and power. We can all take matter into our own hands, change is up to each one of us. We have the power to make decisions which show our children that life is full of wonders and possibilities. After all, what experience is more miraculous than a birth of a child? To me, none so far.

Today Ingrid turned 3 months old. We celebrated at my parents place with some yummy dinner together. We are in the 5th week of the lockdown, this is probably the 4th or 5th lockdown we had since the pandemic started. For some reason, I find this round a lot harder than the previous ones.

I heard a very good podcast by Brene Brown and Amy Cuddy on Pandemic Flux Syndrome. It explained quite well why lots of people finding life is not getting any easier. First of all, our nerve system depleted. I recall at the start of pandemic, I felt full of energy, I was part of the 5 million in NZ to fight this virus. As a community, friends and neighbours reached out to each other via texts and video calls, we checked on people, work organised Zoom tea parties. People were reaching out to those they normally would not spend much time with face to face. There was a real sense of facing a global issue together. There was lots of fear but equally lots of courage and kindness.

But now we are over a year and half into this pandemic, I am a little tired of trying to be brave, kind and courageous. I just want to know for certain when we can resume travel again, I want to stand in queue outside a boarding gate holding my ticket to hop on the plane and visit somewhere I have never been, or visit families and friends abroad. I am tired of feeling worried and concerned about all aspects of life. The constant worry of hand sanitising, wearing mask, wipe off groceries, keeping my kids safe really start getting me impatient with daily activities. Actually I have not wiped groceries once since this lockdown started, and I stoped wearing masks in outdoor spaces.

Another thing I noticed with myself and people around me is that many people want to change something big in their life. Half of my team at work have quit and moved on to new companies. It may be due to people have lots of time to reflect on their life and career.

Psychologists find that we are not very good at forecasting how good or how bad we feel when something happens. For example, many people thought post lockdown they can finally be out having dinner with friends and families, but the joy and excitement they felt were not as strong as they expected during lockdown. Also reading news about the devastating numbers of death around the world, people can still carry on with daily life and not affected too much by these tragic numbers. In summery, we may not feel as good as we thought we would be when something positive happens. Equally when something bad happens in life, we may also surprise ourselves that we are resilient enough to face it.

I felt a little more reassured that there were many people felt it hard to be at this stage of the pandemic. I am not naive to think life will go back to normal, we most likely will never have the pre-covid life back. It’s the uncertainty and the take 5 steps forward 3 steps back making me feeling fatigue and impatient.

Often I am good at seeing the silver linings in life, but this time, I just gonna tell myself it sucks to be in lockdown, it may not get any better. Even if it gets better, I may not feel as amazing as I expect to be, let the past year and half teach me being comfortable in the uncomfortable. Take uncertainty as the only certain thing in life.