Wow, what a week, month, year. From bushfire, to floods, to coronavirus.
I have A LOT to say and so many thoughts bottled up, but haven't had the time to write them down until now. Whilst there may be a lot of negativity, I have to remind myself that I am still grateful to have good health and shelter over my head. So here we go...
First of all, wedding is postponed. A week ago (18th March) was supposed to be 'one month to go,' and on that night they banned gatherings of over 100 people. Blair did mentally prepare me that this might happen, since beginning of March, Ireland, Estonia, NYC amongst other countries/cities already banned gatherings over 100 people. Even just last week, for overseas people it was a 14 day quarantine, and this week it has changed to complete travel ban and weddings only can have 5 people. Everything is changing every hour of every day. Blair also did mentally prepare me beginning of February that our honeymoon may be cancelled, as even in Feb cases were popping up in Europe, which is now the new epicentre. Initially I was really sad, but since March it's gone exponentially worse, which obviously forced the government to ban travel.
So, even before the 100 people ban was implemented, we were in the process of postponing the wedding. It's just the mental energy and effort needed was too much for me to bear. Again, before the 100 people ban, I had my breakdown on March 8th, because I knew Aus would ban gatherings, and it was just so disappointing and frustrating. Been planning even before we got engaged in Feb 2019, and now the planning has to continue to Jan 2021. The process of redoing invites, chasing up RSVPs, sorting out details all over again and reconfirming everything is just time wasted to me. I was hoping to invest my time this year further building my relationship with Blair, the church and with God. Tbh, I am so over planning. I didn't even bother to start planning a runsheet, since once things were getting bad overseas end of Feb and beginning of March, I knew in my heart, the 'peak' would hit before our wedding. I really don't care if it rains, hails or shines on the wedding celebration day, or if a million things go wrong. I just want it to be over and done with. It's been dragged out for so long. I guess postponing it might mean my relatives may be able to come from overseas. I'm also glad that all the vendors relaxed their strict cancellation/rebooking policies, and we could retain our deposit and postpone to another date free of charge. Also, everyone was someone free again that date. We both absolutely despise summer, and no doubt will suffer in the heat, with melted make up, and sweat, but compared to this crisis we are currently facing, it's literally no big deal.
This ordeal has been a good reminder, particularly for me, to not focus about making it the 'perfect' or 'dream' wedding I had imagined when I was a young girl, but to remind me it's the days and years which are the most important. I was happy to settle with a registry wedding, but before the Government even announced a 5 people wedding, The Uniting Church of Australia already banned any events, official or unofficial. Since our pastor has his celebrant licence under the Uniting Church, it means we can't sign the paper or else it would be illegal. Getting a 'normal' celebrant isn't meaningful to us. So I guess the Uniting Church will lift it's ban once coronavirus has subsided. Hopefully it doesn't take until Jan 2021... Legally and for logistical purposes, we want to sign it ASAP.
With rumours last Wednesday of a potential full lockdown last Friday, Blair and I weren't taking any chances of being separated indefinitely. We already secured a rental apartment for mid March, so last week we already started to pay rent. This past weekend was literally emergency moving. Multiple Ikea trips to buy essential furniture. Moving the TV, storage shelves, heaps of computers/screens, and mattress in storage from Blair's house, moving a spare dining table and lots of bits and pieces from my house. Only moved my work clothes and some home clothes (since no one can go out, so no point moving 'going out' clothes). Luckily Blair moved all his computer gear since he needs to WFH and run multiple online tutorials from USYD and UNSW. I'm so thankful for my parents helping to clean the apartment, building and moving furniture. Timing wise, things worked out well since the bed we ordered beginning of the year was already ready to be picked up the day I moved in. Panic bought a fridge last Friday (apparently the whole truck was full of fridges, since people panic buying and need to store more food), but thank goodness we have a fridge to store basic food necessities. If we were looking for big pieces of furniture now, it would be so risky going into shops furniture browsing, and I wouldn't be surprised if they halted or slowed production in this crisis. The couch we ordered a month ago had a projection time of 4 months to make, so won't arrive till June, and probs not even later if production is halted. Due to panic moving, our home feels more like a hotel since the apartment is fairly new, and we are both way too busy to personalise it, or take knick knacks from our homes to make it more homely. Covid crisis, panic moving, apartment mess everywhere. I'll clean once we're in lockdown.
I'm thankful we didn't purchase any property, since heading into a recession and possibility losing jobs we would not be able to repay the mortgage. Even if we can't repay the rent in time, we can always ask our parents for help.
In an ideal world - but there is no ideal world, Covid 19 has been said to be economically bad as The Great Depression and WW2, and the world hasn't seen anything hit quite as bad. Anyways, in an ideal world, the 'order' of things would be to get engaged, bridal shower, get married, honeymoon, move in together. Well literally nothing is ordinary right now, with projected 2 million Australians (1 in 10) to lose their jobs. So it looks like once things start to ease, it'll be already moved in, signing of the registry/officially married, bridal shower, wedding + reception celebration, no honeymoon. The date was chosen to fit around Blair's teaching schedule and PhD commitments and for me to accumulate leave. It looks like we'll be heading into a shutdown soon, so it'll mean I'll have to use up all my annual leave, and then won't have enough for when next year comes around. No one even knows how long the shutdown would last for. Lucky I accumulated my leave from last year...I guess if I run out of AL, it'll just be leave without pay. It's ok if I was still living with my parents, but not with rent to pay...I obviously don't have the luxury of wfh, and still see people whose face is 10cm away from me. My risk of catching it from some random person at work is pretty high, so I'm glad we have this apartment, where I can isolate myself, and I don't risk infecting my parents.
Unfortunately I haven't had a single successful holiday since working. HK/Japan trip cancelled last year due to HK protests, now Coronavirus and travel ban around the world. So much money lost from honeymoon, almost all the hotels are non refundable. Some made an exception to refund the money, which was good. I should've cancelled our Qantas flights before the travel ban was implemented, because they are now offering only credit vouchers no matter what type of ticket or booking conditions you purchased. Our were refundable, and just had to pay a cancellation fee. Now, they're only offering travel credit which needs to be used in a years. Our flights just to and from Europe were not cheap, around $2.3kpp, and I don't think we have the time to fly somewhere in 2021 before the travel credit expires...so it's a sunk cost. Most of the small European flights in between countries also giving travel credits for cancelled flights. I booked through like 3 different airlines, so I doubt I will ever use them again for European flights, since who knows, some of them may just be bankrupt by the time we reach the other side of the curve, or they may not fly between the cities. Most of the flights I booked even before the crisis, only had flights to the cities I wanted around 2 to 3 times a week only. Another sunk cost, but as Blair mentioned, it's really our flight credits/non refundable hotel money keeping those families alive. At the end of the day, holidays are really a luxury and definitely not a necessity. I must admit, I'm so glad I did most of my travelling to Europe and America in 2018, and Asia in 2017. Can't go anywhere now for a long time...
I'm actually genuinely worried I'll lose my job. If there's a shut down, it means I can't go to work, and once I exhaust my AL, then go with leave with no pay, which may mean the company may start making people redundant. Again, depending on how long it'll go for. I guess in these tricky situations, it's good to work for a global, corporate company, as they probably have some back up finances compared to a small independent shop whose boss is the owner. At the same time, our global head office is in Italy, and oh gosh, the amount of deaths even with a full lockdown with military guarding the streets is just unimaginable. You see and hear it on the news, but it's just so crazy how it's spreading there...I think I'll tell my future kids ti have a job which allows you to work from home...It's also really sad to see people lose their jobs in a snap of a finger in some many areas of the work force....I'm glad I still have my job, for now...I wish I could help Blair since his tasks have increased 10x, by moving everything online in just 2 days was crazy, and so many things stuffing up, student complaints, and that's no even to starting with the PhD. We're glad that he managed to get his data collection last year, as it involves a lot fo travelling interviewing people first hand experience working remotely (and the irony now is that everyone is forced to work remotely). However, the uni's are making people redundant soon, which means less job prospects next year for when he finishes his PhD...I really hope at the end of this we are both not unemployed, one or half an income is better than nothing. Again, it's a good reminder to us to really trust the plans God made from us, and a reminder of Matthew 6 to not worry about the troubles of tomorrow. Me being always super stressed about everything doesn't help, but everything is out of our control. Just have to make the best out of an bad situation.
I'm thankful to have Blair to keep me sane throughout all this. Wedding planning is already stressing in itself, just in Coronavirus and things just explode...
Also happy that Dandelion's wedding and Happy Apple's sister's wedding could go ahead without any big dramas. Not gonna lie, it's hard to want something that I can't have right in this current climate, but it's understandable for the government to reduce weddings to 5 people now, and really important to implement social distancing. It's really in the best interest of the whole world. It's so weird seeing no chairs in the food courts and taped off with security guarding the area, shops notice outside saying how many people can be inside a store at once, and really being 2m away from everyone. What a weird time we live in...Stay safe everyone and please keep on social distancing.
