Lessons from Lockdown

Dear Diary,

Is that how you’re supposed to start these things? I’m not sure. The last time I wrote a diary was my year 6 field trip. I remember I included some leaves from one of the nature walks, labelled with the tree they came from, and won a prize from the teachers for my efforts. I was such an earnest child.

Maybe when you’re an adult you’re supposed to start differently? I suppose it doesn’t really matter since nobody will be reading this but me. I have this picture of myself in my head, stumbling across this notebook at some point far in the future and reminiscing about bygones days. I hope I will anyway. These are interesting times after all, and nobody really knows what’s going to happen.

I’m rambling. Let me start again

It is April 2020 and I am starting this diary partly so that, when I look back in years to come, I will remember how I felt at this moment, but mostly as a way to pass the time. Time is something I seem to have in plentiful supply these days. Everyone does. We’ve been in lockdown as a country for about three weeks now. I’m classed as an essential worker so for the first two weeks I have been able to keep going into work and have only had to amuse myself at weekends, which if I’m honest primarily involved recovering from the week. Two thirds of our staff have been furloughed and as a result the clinic has been a touch busy and tense at times, but those of us left to hold down the fort still manage to have a few laughs. Until two days ago, when I started coughing.

I am 99.9% sure it’s just a cold, but we’ve all grown wary of taking chances these days and I have been ordered home and into quarantine.

I feel hugely guilty, like I’m deserting my colleagues when we were already working on a skeleton staff. It’s crazy I know, I could hardly keep going in when I’m hacking my lungs up every ten minutes, but still I feel like I’m abandoning them.

Dear Diary

Day three. Seven more days until I go back to work.

My guilt eased a bit yesterday after I heard a relief worker was being sent to help my colleagues out at the clinic this week. Now that has been settled, I have decided to adopt a Positive Attitude. Note the use of capitals. I am going to use this time to get all the things I don’t usually have time for done. I always have a list of jobs on my phone, things I mean to do on days when I’m not busy (few and far between prior to now), and so I am going to start working my way through it. With this in mind I’m afraid todays entry will be rather short. Spring cleaning here I come!

Dear Diary

Day five. Five more days until I go back to work.

I have spent the last two days being very busy with my jobs list. I’ve done most of my spring cleaning and started a few projects I’ve been toying with for a while. Working my way through my list these this last couple of days has taught me a few things, which I will now record here for posterity:

1.     It really is true that my house would be much tidier if I wasn’t so busy, it’s not just something that I say to make myself feel better about the usual state of my home.

2.     I would much rather be busy than have a tidy house.

3.     Making bread does not need to take a lot of time or effort.

4.     Unless, that is, you’re making sourdough from scratch, in which case you need to plan several days to weeks in advance and have a plethora of baking equipment which I do not currently possess.

5.     Cleaning a vacuum properly is more complicated than you’d think.

6.     Never, ever go over the recommended time between proper vacuum cleans, unless you want the process to last several hours.

7.     The relative merits of strength versus flexibility of sticks when cleaning the hose of a vacuum is extremely important to the process (cleaning the vacuum was a major and pivotal moment in my lockdown journey).

8.     If you forget to buy spinach and cannot get to the supermarket (because you’re forbidden from leaving the house in order to slow the spread of a global pandemic, or for other more normal reasons) you can sub in nettles from the garden and it tastes surprisingly nice.

9.     Eating nettles is an excellent excuse for why I allow them to run rampant over the garden. It’s not that I’m lazy, I’m just really into foraging because I’m middle class (see also sourdough baking above).

10.  Having a garden is much more important to me than I thought.

11.  Video calls are great, but I am extremely easily distracted by the little picture of myself in the corner. We are talking serious budgerigar tendencies here. It’s not that I’m vain (I think), more that I’m constantly worried I’ll do something horrific like yawn and reveal my double chin.

12.  The primary reason I go to work is to see my colleagues. The job itself, it turns out, I’m not that keen on.

13.  There is such a thing as day wear and evening wear pyjamas. It’s like day wear and evening wear clothes, but with the level of smartness reversed.

14.  I like board games more than video games, even when the video games are being played with other people remotely.

15.  Japanese is a really difficult language to learn, but the moment you recognise a phrase while watching anime makes the struggle worthwhile.

16.  There is only so much time you can spend being actively productive.

Dear Diary

Day six. Four more days until I’m back at work.

I’m afraid my Positive Attitude has begun to wane. On the plus side, I’ve discovered a new game. The weather has been beautiful the last few days, and I’ve taken to spending my time outside as much as possible (you never know in the UK, this might be all the summer we have). There is a road which runs alongside my garden which has become fairly busy with families out for their government mandated daily exercise walk. Yesterday as I was sat on the veranda outside my house with a cup of tea, a couple with a young boy walked past. They didn’t notice me at first, until I had a coughing fit. I swear I thought the adults were going to give themselves whiplash they turned to look at me so fast. There is nothing quite so terrifying these days as a cough. I probably didn’t help by calling out to the little boy who looked like he was about to run over to me, “make sure you don’t get too close!”. Needless to say, his parents grabbed him and headed in the opposite direction as quickly as they could, throwing a polite “get well soon” over their shoulders. They were a good ten meters away from me, there was never any chance that I was going to infect them even if I did have the virus, but it was funny. I’ve decided that I get five points for every adult I manage to get a reaction from by coughing as they walk by my house and ten for every child, as they seem generally less concerned about the whole situation and so are a bigger challenge.

Dear Diary

Day seven. Three more days until I will be back at work.

My game has lost its charm, and at this point I’m just feeling bored and a bit lonely. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spoken with lots of people over the phone and on messaging apps these last few days. I can hardly complain of being abandoned to my solitude, but it’s not the same as seeing people in the flesh.

It will be better when I’m back at work. At least then during the week I will have people to talk to and joke with. Maybe then my Positive Attitude will return for the weekends spent alone and I’ll be able to go back to being productive. Really though, I’m longing for the day when things get back to normal. I want to be able to meet up with people for coffee, go for long walks which end in cream teas, to have board game nights and to invite people round for dinner. I want to be able to go visit my family, and to meet up with my friends scattered around the country who I haven’t seen in so long. I want an empty day to be a rare, tantalising prospect again, not a seemingly endless expanse of time to be filled.

That time will come I know, and until then I will just have to do my best to keep busy. Stiff upper lip, and all that jazz. Maybe writing this diary will help. If nothing else, it will fill a few hours. And maybe one day when I read it, when life has returned to normal, it will remind me to be grateful.

Dear Diary

Day nine. One more day to go.

Almost there. It’s only been a few days since I was sent home, but it feels like weeks. I don’t know why it has been so hard. Before all of this started, I often felt exhausted and wished for some time off. I have always enjoyed having time to myself, and I like living alone. But previously living alone has served to give me space to recharge after a busy day, when constant interactions with people have left me drained. Not seeing anybody at all, my days have just felt empty.

I suppose I have never previously been in a situation where I haven’t been allowed to leave my home if I wanted. Staying home was always a choice, and not one I made very often. I think that is what made my time alone special, and that the lack of choice this week has been part of my problem. It’s almost impossible to be starved for entertainment in this days and age, and I’m never lacking for jobs to do or projects to complete, but nothing has really appealed to me these last few days.

Maybe what is needed is balance. To be busy and active and social, but not so much that I feel constantly exhausted. To have time for solitude and to recharge, but not so much that I get lonely. The wider lockdown is not over, hopefully there will be time to allow these lessons to sink in as life slowly returns to normal. In the meantime, I will just be glad to have some company.

Until next time.