Day 5 of Lockdown
Good grief it’s been a long week. Never has time gone so slowly. And while I am clearly much less busy than usual, I feel exhausted! Perhaps it is the tsunami of social media in which I am drowning or the mental energy I am expending on trying to figure my way out of this, or at least think myself into a place that feels sufficiently ok. Or the number of calls and zoom connections I have had in the last week. Or perhaps simply the amount of wine and cake I am consuming!
I have had innumerable thoughts since Lockdown began. I can barely keep track of them (one silver lining in this time of global pandemic, is the plethora of subjects to write about and the companionship that comes to me from writing). The one I have settled on today, is what I am noticing about what is important to me in these early days of deprivation.
My life is usually full of “stuff”; activities that take me out of myself and out of the house. For me they consist of film, theatre, nature, travel (a lot of travel), music, restaurants, exercise, books, learning stuff and working — I spend a lot of time working and I love it. I often find myself seeking out things to “do”, partly due to my appetite for life and partly, if I’m honest, because the idea of staying home alone for prolonged periods of time, with nothing but my own company and thoughts, terrifies me.
So how am I faring? Some of those things, of course, are still available to me — many of them, in fact, in some form or another: I can still read and work (to a degree); I can still watch films (on TV); listen and dance to music (in my living room and occasionally on video to bring a smile to friends’ faces on FaceBook); I can still do yoga (in my living room); I can still eat and drink (in my kitchen); I can still learn (online); I can still walk (for an hour a day). So what am I missing? Is it jetting off on adventures in the sun (those that know me have assumed that this would be my biggest struggle)? Is it roaming hills and beaches?
Well, it turns out there are three big things I am missing. And travel is not one of them.
The first is definitely the physical company of other people, especially those I care about. What I would do to see my Mum, to have a hug from a friend, to hang out in a pub with a bottle of wine with my best girl friends. All the Zoom calls in the world don’t replace in person human connection.
Second up, is my freedom. I am deeply autonomous and independent. I live alone and am self-employed. I have lots of freedom and consider this a blessing (notwithstanding the existential chalIenge it sometimes poses). Freedom — for myself and others — is a deeply held value of mine, and getting used to such restrictions is uncomfortable and hard to process.
But last — and definitely not least — is a sense of physical, psychological and financial safety. This is the “biggie”. The radical change that has descended is truly shocking and deeply disturbing. I long for “normal” life when we walk alongside each other, faces uncovered, when shops are open, the streets bustling, when we come and go as we choose (for those of us fortunate enough to enjoy this), when we don’t hear of thousands of people dying every day, and the threat to our emotional and financial wellbeing is not reiterated every hour. That is what I most long for and most miss.
What about you? What have you most missed so far and what does that tell you about what you value most in life? And perhaps what you often take for granted?