Well, I had a couple of weeks off from blogging, which was supposed to have been an exercise in stepping back a bit from social media, work and deadlines, aiming to spend the yuletide break enveloped in the warm bosom of my family. I had visions of the newly refreshed me, bouncing like an overexcited Tigger into 2021, raring to go, grabbing the new year by the balls with earnest enthusiasm, itching and eager to kick-start familiar normality again. Instead, I feel I have been dealt a right hook and a low blow as here in the UK, life is yet again is on hold. Ding, ding. Welcome to Lockdown, Round 3.
With a sense of predictable familiarity, four days into the new year, we all fell back into the roles learned and practised during Lockdown Round 1. Loo roll started running out in the shops in the inevitable panic that was rising. Tesco re-introduced their queuing system. Our hair started taking on the Lockdown Look. The boys accepted the challenge of home schooling yet again, resigned once more to be separated from their peers and mentors. The news of cancelled exams, closed gyms and postponed driving lessons didn’t come as a shock to them. They seem to take every obstacle in their stride, humbly conceding that is how life is at the moment. My own plans of getting back into a decent routine after the inevitable Christmas slob have been scuppered. The house is a tip, resembling a messy classroom with books and paper strewn on every dusty surface. The dining table is now a desk and there are charger wires trailing over floors to accommodate the numerous phones and laptops needed when four people are all working from home. The dog is getting walked twenty times and day and the What’s-For-Lunch mantra has started back in earnest. The food bill has tripled as the boys have hollow legs and my liver is convinced that every night is a Friday. However, this time the weather is pants, it is dark at 4pm and the novelty of zooming friends over a glass of wine has worn very, very thin.
Life as we know it is on pause again, yet this time there is a public sense of agitated Deja-vu. Here we go again. Really? The glimmer of hope drummed into us at the beginning of December of miracle vaccines and New Year cheer seems so very far away. The news instead is full of fear with an added sense of doom as the NHS is overstretched, there is a new variant of the virus and the death rate is rising at an alarming rate. No-one is to blame, yet the constant hum across the airwaves is full of accusations and finger pointing. Social media, TV and the radio all feature various talking heads and experts telling those who listen what they should and could have done. Politicians accuse colleagues of confused public messages. Images of stables, bolts and horses jump to mind as those in power defend past actions while the world watches with interest as we hope to jab our way out of this. I listen and watch with overwhelming sadness to the stories of people who are suffering, to the front-line workers at the end of their desperate tethers and get angry at the Covidiots who refuse to play ball. I feel powerless, yet the one thing I know will make a massive difference to help - is to do nothing. To sit it out. To stay at home and wait.
I have always been a pretty impatient person. I learn a new trick and think I can perfect it in minutes. I burn food as I turn up the heat hoping it will cook quicker. I skim read articles and wonder why nothing has sunk in. And I have been guilty of loud rude tuts, whispering under my breath ‘come on, come onnnnnnnn’ whilst standing behind chatterers holding up queues. Patience was a virtue I was never blessed with but is something I am desperate to perfect. Waiting, being mindful and being in the moment has never come easy to me, although I have had to learn new skills to tackle my anxiety, which incidentally I am having to keep a check on as I find it is slowly creeping back – tentatively inching upwards, tightening around my thoughts, creating a knot in my stomach I can’t seem to shift. However, I am acutely aware that a rise in anxiety is inevitable and allowable during the current climate and just knowing that helps. I know that getting anxious about being anxious doesn’t help. What helps is knowing that other people feel like I do and that it’s OK to not feel OK. As I read somewhere – we are all in the same storm, just some of us have different boats to cling to. And this storm will pass. It is just taking longer than we initially anticipated.
2021 may not have the start we were all willing it to be, but there is hope. I am trying to perfect my coping skills - I am learning to be patient. I am learning to sit and be. I am learning to wait. To look around me more and note. Instead of galloping ahead of myself wishing time away, I have forced myself to stop and look around and use my senses. The house is crowded and the days are short, but I am trying to find a space in every day just for me. Whether that is to ponder – a skill which needs perfecting in my opinion as daydreaming is a luxury worth indulging in; or just sitting in a bath for 5 minutes longer than usual. We are all playing the waiting game. It is our duty. Be still. Be patient. Be safe. Lower those expectations. No-one is going anywhere. It’s dull. It’s boring but let’s all batten down the hatches, hibernate and look forward to a time when we can emerge again, blinking and squinting into the Spring sunshine.
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
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