At the beginning of 2020 I had a little buzz of excitement in my tummy, things seemed to be flowing nicely. The family unit was more cohesive, mine and Robins roads where running along parallel routes happily and I had a course booked for a career shift that I felt suited me perfectly. Before I go any further, none of that has changed however the year, planet, universe had different plans for 2020.
When I first heard of coronavirus I ignorantly thought that it was a devastating situation that would only effect another country, even when there was talk of if spreading around the world I still had no comprehension of just how big and powerful the virus was. As the uk became more and more effected it seemed inevitable that schools would close, but again I had no idea for just how long. My two oldest children had stopped school a week earlier than the official lockdown as my son had a temperature and was unwell. A week later my youngest developed symptoms and then a week after that I too felt unwell. We self isolated for nearly 4 weeks, playing in our garden and exercising in our car park. In a way those early weeks where the easiest. Although the outside world seemed scary and the news reports devastating, within our little family unit we stuck together, got creative and utilised everything we had in the house. The simplicity of life made appreciating the little things so much easier. We (mainly I) had moments of disbelief and sadness but with the bizarre novelty of it all we lived the surreal groundhog days quite happily.
In those early days and weeks we searched out and used every inch of our house and garden, like many others sorting, clearing and completing diy projects. When we finally started to go for little walks outside our four walls, scavenging became our hook. Collecting discarded draws to make bug hotels, sticks upon sticks to make various pieces of art and a pallet which became a mud kitchen... these items have become some of my favourite things we own!
Thursdays at 8pm the ‘key workers clap’ gave us a chance to wave a friendly faces across the road and truly thank the individuals that worked so amazingly hard.
Although this does all sound like a walk in the park the reality wasn’t all roses. Home schooling was tough especially when we had no direction and even when more direction did come the challenges just shifted as a posed to dissolve. Also as much as we all love each other, we urned for some distraction, a different face, an excuse to not be in the same room. The kids missed their friends and simply messing about with peers. Zoom meetings quickly lost their novelty. Even cleaning a house with five people constantly in it was tipping me over the edge. However the little annoyances of living in lockdown would dissolve into insignificance when you heard the daily number of deaths or one families heartbreaking story.
The reality of Covid seemed overwhelming and I definitely had moments of real disbelief that this was actually happening and not a Hollywood film.
The first time we drove for a walk, once you where allowed to go a little further, I was amazed at how teary I felt. Looking at our community, shutters down on shops, boards over pub windows, the few people that where out, in masks and gloves, markings on pavements outside food shops and the eerie feeling that we where driving though the set of ‘28days later’. I didn’t recognise the streets that only a few weeks before seemed so normal.
We savoured our little walks and although we only did them once a week they kept us a going and gave us a small snippet of life before a pandemic.
As I lay in bed now (July 17th) lockdown still hasn’t fully lifted although restrictions have eased, we have been able to see friends and family. The kids have had PE and art lessons on the heath, our high streets are starting to resemble a pre lockdown picture and for me one of the most important eases, are the playgrounds have finally reopened. However with these adjustments comes increased pollution, busy roads again and a greater problem with mental health issues. For me the easing of lockdown has been harder, partly because it’s so confusing and partly because although your granted more freedom it still is restricted, it’s like a dog tied to a post, it can move around, eat and drink, even run in circles but once the rope gets too taught then that’s where the fun ends. I understand why we have these restrictions it just seems so unnatural to the way I’ve lived my life. We also live with the uneasy feeling that it could return at any point, crashing us back into full lockdown and killing thousands more, although at least we would have some experience with it.
There have been so many quotes flying around about 2020 being the year of change. There has been communities coming together, people uniting in helping the vulnerable and the world making major shifts in combating racism. Within four months this planet has seen a virus sweep across it reducing its population by hundreds of thousands and unfortunately another innocent man murdered because of his skin tone, protests on mass scale and communities making a stand. It has also felt the reduction of pollution and co2 emissions, it’s seen nature flourish and animals thrive. It’s felt the love of a lot of people join together in a powerful moment to create a positive change. 2020 has so far brought us a lot of surprises and will be written about in history books for years to come but with still another 5 months to go I’m intrigued to see what else it has in store for us.
For me Personally 2020 so far has given me the little nudge of the things that are important to me, some I’ve always known, others needed reawakening.
The journey continues.........
