Oh hello lockdown life, it’s been about five weeks since I packed up my desk at work and a month on from the the official start of lockdown. The first few weeks were a strange adjustment and I suddenly seemed to have way too many hours in my day to fill. Without the routine of going to work, commuting or seeing friends, each day seemed to stretch out endlessly.
Fast forward to today and I can confirm that I’ve settled into a routine but the everyday is so repetitive that the flip side is that each day is over before I know it. Weekends mean nothing anymore which is so weird because even as a kid, you look forward to the promise of the weekend. I’ve reverted back to my favourite sleep/wake pattern which is usually only saved for the Christmas break and involves lie ins and very late nights. Honestly though, I’d be more than happy to be able to fall sound asleep at midnight again and wake up bleary-eyed at 6am.
I mostly miss interactions with people – not so much eating at restaurants or holidays (but those would be quite nice). I want to walk to the station, sit next to a stranger on the train, get to the office, drink tea out of my favourite chipped mug and just chat about nothing at all with no worries about crowds and germs. It’s hard to not feel a bit down when you think about when we might be able to return to some kind of normal. I can’t wait to hang out with friends again and give them all very tight hugs when this limbo is all over, and we can finally kick lockdown life and Covid-19 to the curb.
I don’t know anyone close to me who has been badly affected by the virus and I’m hoping it stays that way. I’m immensely grateful and proud of my friends that work for the NHS and also the technology that allows me to see my favourite faces. Even though I’m not really fond of video calls and often position myself just out of frame like that first image, I do feel much happier once I’ve spoken to friends and family. Most of the time I’m plodding along, but sometimes anxiety catches me unawares, washing over me and I’ll feel a bit low. It doesn’t last for long but it’s always lingering in the background and creeping around the edges.
To keep me distracted, I’m still trying to stay as creative as possible and doing things that make me feel happy. Whether it’s photographing daily life and playing around with colours on Lightroom, creating art, reading magazines (Cereal in this case) or even typing my thoughts into this post. Even as I write this, some of my friends are suggesting a movie watchalong (if you know me in real life, KeanuFest is alive and well) and that has made me laugh. I’m yet to tackle the pile of books I have next to my bed, bake anything fancier than cookies/banana bread or set up an Etsy shop of some kind, but I’m doing my own thing and I’m okay and I hope you guys are too x
