I moved to the city when I got a job at a startup in Makati as a developer.
A few weeks before starting on my new job, I went to look for apartments
that are conveniently located near my new workplace.

After checking different apartments, I finally settled with the first one I checked out.
It's a small apartment unit, it's just 15sqm and since I just own a few things (trying to practice minimalism) I'm totally fine with it. I was just thinking that I need a place to stay, sleep and rest.

 

I don't have any intentions of staying in that place all the time as I'm busy with work, I'm active with the tech community, and I was also able to work part-time during the weekends for another startup.

But when the pandemic hit and the lockdown were announced in March 2020, all of us are required to stay at home. During that time I was still naively thinking that this lockdown will just last for a couple of weeks. and of course, I was wrong.

I was sleeping, working, working out, eating, doing chores, basically any activity in one place. At first, I was able to deal with it but things started to take a toll on me during the last quarter of 2020.

I started to get really depressed, my sleeping pattern got really messed up and my motivation on anything is just not there. I'm not blaming it all for staying in the same place for a long period of time as there was stress with work and personal stuff, but definitely staying in one place alone for a long period is a factor.

I was trying to convince myself that I'm ok, trying to self-medicate through different supplements, I even started eating a huge amount of carbohydrates to check if my low-carb diet is a factor, but none of them helped me improve my mood.

So I decided to move out of the city and get closer to nature. I was quite hesitant to move because my work is in Manila, but since everyone is working from home, it's not that bad of an idea after all. I talked to my colleagues and they are very supportive of it.

I started looking for a place in the province and was able to find a suitable one with help from a friend. After almost 3 years of living in the city, I decided to move back to the province to this place.

I'm just very excited to move back to the province, I'm very thankful to my friends Niko and Lester who helped me move my stuff, and I can just say that a new environment closer to nature just gives a different feeling. I started to get energized and motivated to do stuff again.



Here is the last photo I took of my apartment in Makati, since the picture is a bit dark, I quite view it like leaving a dark past.

And now I'm enjoying the view on my balcony every day, it also reminded me to enjoy the simple things in life.