Lockdown Day 147

 It's safe to say, most people have found 2020 an incredibly tough year. Whether you're a front line NHS worker risking your life for others or an unemployed person who is struggling to find a job amongst the thousands of people who are currently job seeking, it's not been easy. For me, as a normal person, I would never ever want to repeat 2020. And I'm thoroughly looking forward to the year ahead hoping for a sense of normality to resume amongst all this craziness.

Towards the end of March when we were eagerly tuning into Boris's daily 5pm briefings, I started to feel a little anxious. There were all sorts of questions going around in my head, would my daughter still be able to attend school? Would me & my husband still have a job? Would my Mum be able to go & get her shopping herself or would someone need to do this for her? However, I didn't fear about getting COVID-19; the stats were in my favour thankfully, but it was more to do with the other things - the food being available in the shops for all my family, the education being available to my daughter, the employment that my husband and I rely upon so much. 

As lockdown intensified, I was one of the lucky ones who was furloughed for a short period of time - 7 weeks in total. Meanwhile, my husband was still working full time and had converted our spare room into a makeshift office combining two bed side cabinets. There are times that I will cherish during those 7 weeks, being able to watch our daughter learn and develop through the school work that was set by her fantastic village school, taking our dog for crazy long walks using routes I never knew existed and exploring my local area on foot through the numerous runs that I completed during the week. There were also times of complete desperation and sadness for me. I missed seeing my family, my work and at times, I felt completely pointless. I have never suffered any form of depression or anxiety in my life, luckily, I'm quite a strong person, but lockdown really tested me, my sanity, my worth, my trust in the human race. 

April was an incredible solitary month and the holiday blues hit home for me as we'd planned a lovely Easter trip to Nuremberg; taking in the Playmobil Theme Park. I'd become withdrawn, I'd stopped my writing, and I became frustrated with life in general taking it out on those closest to me. It took one night for me to sit down with my husband for a heart to heart to realise that we needed to make the most of this time together as a family and focus upon the positives. He too felt a sense of guilt as he was unable to help out with our daughter's home schooling whereas I was able to dedicate the full school day to her. None of us had become ill, either myself or my husband were able to get a food shop as and when possible and an evening walk with or without the dog had become a real escapism for both of us.

Before I knew it May was upon me and I started gaining a bit more confidence. VE day was a game changer for me. Living in a small village, we had a socially distanced street party with our fantastic neighbours and seeing our daughter in her element and playing (at a social distance) with her friend with whom she hadn't seen face to face in almost two months made me feel happy again and gave me that sense of purpose that I had been craving for so long. The week after VE day, I rang my boss asking how he was, how he was coping, how the business was doing during this time. Three days later, I heard from my boss again asking me to return to work. The relief that washed over me was indescribable. I was still worth something in the outside world, I still had a job, I still had my purpose within the organisation. I adore being a mum, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an auntie, but for me, my fulfilment is going to work and even more so during lockdown, I felt fulfilled doing my writing be it short stories, ideas for a novel, creative writing courses, I did the lot.

From then on, my life has slowly taken on a new normal. Our daughter returned to school on a part time basis on the 8th June, it was magical to watch her come out of her shell once more, without realising it, my mood had in turn affected her.  In order for her to remain happy, I had to be happy even though at times I felt frustrated, upset and angry with the whole lockdown situation. I returned to work, but working from home and not the office. We've even been away for a few days in Yorkshire to recharge our batteries and get away from our four walls. I've re-connected with my family by going on walks, seeing them from a distance in their gardens, and now, I'm even celebrating birthdays at restaurants which in my eyes, provide a much better experience than pre-COVID-19.

As we readjust to a different kind of normal, I find that there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Will I be able to go abroad again without the worry of being quarantined upon my return? When I do go abroad again eventually, will it be as fun with half of the attractions still closed or never likely to re-open? And when on earth will I have to stop wearing a mask to go to a retail outlet? Who knows? But if a mask is the way forward of driving down the number of COVID cases, then I'm all for it. What we need to do now is manage the fallout post COVID lockdown. I read many reports of doctors and nurses fearing the number of cancer diagnosis's which will be missed due to cancelled appointments or rescheduled chemo sessions which are too little, too late. However, on the bright side, a good friend of mine managed to get her cataracts operated on only last week which had been postponed in March, so the NHS are getting through it, just a question of whether we have the manpower and resources to cope with it in the long term.

I find myself looking forward to September. It will be another turning point once the children are back at school in a normal routine. I've been really fortunate with childcare - I work in childcare so our daughter has been absolutely loving the holiday camps, giving her that interaction with other children of a similar age as well as getting messy, playing outdoors, the usual kid stuff. Meanwhile the moral of my lockdown experience is to smile even when you feel like shit because there's always someone having a worse time of it than you. I thank my lucky stars that my family and friends have not been ill during this time. And fingers crossed that we are now turning a corner back to the real world.