Dear Home, I intend to stick with you as long as it takes to break the chain

Dear Home,

The year started off on a bad note with the Australian bush fires engulfing the entire nation in horror and the world in empathy. Parallelly, the US-Iran tension mounted and forced all companies to rush into tighter security & monitoring. I vividly remember falling into a routine of checking the news first thing in the morning during my bathroom time, checking the COVID-19 count rising alarmingly in China last year December. The virus wasn't even termed as COVID-19 by WHO, it was then only known as "novel coronavirus".

I had this deep fear during the last days of 2019 that this is definitely going to turn into a worldwide disaster if things are not in control. Was I crazy? I don't think so. But WHO downplayed the crisis for a long time due to a lower death rate and after Jan 15, the COVID-19 cases started spreading across other countries with India having its first case 15 days later.

When the WHO declared it as pandemic and my country took the necessary steps in advance to break the chain, I was ecstatic. Ecstatic that I will live inside you and surround myself with all the cozy and cute stuff you have, to provide me comfort all day long for 21 days straight. You're not too big, not too small. I can't complain either way because there are daily workers who are stranded inside construction buildings, who are unable to see their family and who are sleeping without fans over their heads in the summer season.

Every day, my morning & night routine switched to reading news and checking the count of positive cases, reassuring myself that everything is going to be just fine as long as everyone stays inside their humble abodes, temporary abode and wait for the chain to break.

I realized after a few days of lazying around, I need to be doing something creative, something productive. We generally complain that we don't get enough time to take care of ourselves or take up a hobby, learn a language, etc. that we always wanted to do. Guess what? Time to break the lazy cycle too!

I stopped my mind from feeling restless due to a complete ban on travel. I was a tad bit sad when I ultimately had to cancel my trip to Varkala since it fell during the new extended lockdown. Nonetheless, I felt a renewed purpose to make use of my time and your space in every way possible.

I neglected you during the times your window sills collected dust or the cupboards smelled of expired products. You suffered silently between my obliviousness and laziness, never forcing me to clean you. I intend to rectify that.