Self-Isolation: You Do Need It

Last Monday, I went to the shopping mall near my bestfriend’s workplace and usually it was one of the rare chances that we grabbed to steal the time to meet and share updates on each other’s life. I didn’t plan to meet her for lunch because she’s always busy so I must be right on lunchtime to catch her. I texted her “What time you go lunch? I’m here now.” A question that I already knew the answer but was just trying my luck if she could sneak and go to lunch earlier. Stumbling with my own mind, “Ah, I don’t think we could make it today.” So I assumed I knew the answer. She didn’t reply. She never replied. Not in hours. Not in days. The 3rd day, then only she called. “I didn’t see your SMS!!! But it was opened! How come I didn’t realize that I opened the SMS and not read anything?”. I tried to explain to her that it was nothing. I knew it that she couldn’t make it because I couldn’t wait until her lunchtime so it makes no difference if she replied or not. I know she’s a very busy person. You never know when she goes outstation and to which district.

The nite before she called, an old friend (a Kelantanese)called me after many years of minding our own business. This friend currently working in KL and we have not met for many years since graduation. She is always remembered as one of our good buddies who shared tears and laughter since matriculation. So we talked all the fun stuff during the phone chat. She almost lost her Kelantan dialect. I could listen very clearly to her words. Unfortunately, she didn’t think the same with me. She begged me to slow on on talking cos she wasn’t familiar with Sabahan dialect anymore. I just carried on talking like she’s just another Sabahan friend. “You call me so you have to adapt to my language”, I thought. Hehehe. So finally she told me the reason she called is because she’s taking a vacation to Sabah this March. She told me about the hotel and others. I asked her if she has informed our other friend (my bestfriend) about it and she said Yes, I have informed her in Facebook. “But she never replied”. Could it be that she’s too busy and her FB account is inactive?” I knew the answer to her question. I always know my bestfriend is Never too busy with Facebook. I’m sure she visits her FB daily. It was when I had a thought about the unreplied SMS the other day. This is more than just her being too busy to not remember opening a text message and not knowing what’s written on it. It’s definitely not for her to overlook the Fb message sent by our Kelantanese friend. “Something is not going on well here,” I thought.

Maybe that explained why I didn’t blow it up. Her not replying a text message is a very small matter. But maybe when she finally came to her senses, then she called me and asked me the questions she should have known the answers to. And when I told her about our Kelantanese friend who called up, she made the sound like it was the first time hearing it. “Oh, she’s coming down?” But when I told her that the other friend has sent her a message in Fb asking her if she can make some time to be the tour guide when they arrive in KK, she said, “Oh ya….belum pula sia ter-reply dia.” So actually she remembered reading the message on Fb but didn’t do anything to reply it yet although it needs an urgent reply.

From her voice, I can sense that this isn’t as simple as she’s too busy. I knew right away that maybe not that she wasn’t thoughtful enough to us, but her little situation made her feel choked to even have the heart to answer the simplest question. I don’t know if I understand how it feels. But one thing for sure, I know that sometimes we need The Space for ourselves that we just want to take a break from anything and just have a quiet time of isolation. Suddenly you don’t want to say anything. Suddenly you don’t want to let people know anything. Suddenly you feel like you just need “nothing” to come in your mind because you just want a peace isolation. Yeah, sometimes life is giving us too much of what we think we can handle. Everything is just sucking your energy away. You need that space to regain yourself and get back all your senses together so people won’t notice the difference before and after the isolation. Yes, maybe I understand it. Maybe we all need that space sometimes. We need to pause and look back to ourselves whether or not we are still in the right track and so we don’t just get carried away with our silly emotion and end up hurting more people unintentionally.

Maybe I myself did that many times already. I just want my own space. Maybe we need the space to really get in touch back with ourselves. Yes, we may do funny things. Suddenly you don’t want to answer the call, you don’t want to talk to people and just mind your own business. But of course, don’t get carried away with that isolation because you need to reconnect back to reality and let the people know that you actually care for them. Maybe you would make many kind of excuses so that they don’t have to understand WHY you do it. But as what you can guess, I think I perfectly understand. That’s why when my bestfriend did that, I don’t make it harder for her. I keep saying, “It’s okay bah. “ She kept saying that she regretted not seeing the SMS because suddenly she felt like she missed the chance to hang out. Guess what? When you deal with something like this…Show them you understand that they might be having that isolation moment cos one day I’m sure you would wish people understand it when you have yours too. :)