I looked up and spotted a silver aeroplane gliding in the cloudless blue sky. It moved like a giant sparkling bird. How exciting! We don’t see many planes in the sky these days. It’s mostly birds and butterflies that zoom around.
It’s been over 100 days of lockdown and while measures are relaxing, we are still far from being back to normal. Covid 19 still kills people around the world and we are still nestled together in our homes, continuing home-schooling our children and working from our kitchen worktops, lounge sofas, beds and home offices for those of us lucky to have one. By now, most of us have ordered a decent desk and an office chair, a pair of headphones to block out baby cries and children’s screams during ‘Teams’ online meetings and many have become accustomed to the work-from-home routine. At the start of lockdown, I hoped to keep a weekly diary of my experiences of these strange times but somehow the days merged into one and it has now been months since my last diary entry. It now seems like an eternity since the days we were free to roam the streets and hug each other, to freely walk into cafes, restaurants and shops without a care in the world, to grab hold of anything we can hold onto inside public transport and never bother disinfecting our hands with antiseptic gel immediately after. Our kids went to nurseries and schools, we visited theatres and museums, we flew to exotic destinations on holiday and we spend times with our family living abroad. We had it all and we didn’t care. Now we don’t have any of it and really feel robbed of it all.
I personally barely have a minute of personal space and I am beginning to feel the negative effects of this. Even when I sleep at night there is at least one of my three children, sprawled over my back, legs or neck. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids! I have devoted my entire existence to them and I treasure every minute spent with them, especially now during lockdown, knowing it will soon end, but my god, I am missing being alone these days! I run 5k every other day and that is the only time we separate. That is my only ‘free’ time. But who am I to complaint in the presence of so many people turning mentally unstable due to having spent the past 3 months in loneliness?! What about the singletons who have nobody to share a home with, nobody to laugh with or to cry to, nobody to talk to during those late nights after having been home alone all day? While I am overwhelmed with three young children, constantly working, cooking, cleaning, teaching, entertaining, being a good mum, wife and a home worker, others are suffering extreme isolation and loneliness. We all face a different harsh reality these days. Everyone is missing something, which isn’t much different from our pre-Covid days. Back then we complained of missing other things. But somehow our needs and feelings are now a lot more exaggerated. For example, my eldest son is desperate to go to football training with his team. Football is his passion and I have had to perfect my goalkeeping skills as of lately, so I can satisfy his daily need of scoring at least 30 goals. I have also become an excellent defence player and occasionally score a goal myself. My middle child has been full of anger and frustration, due to lack of interaction with children outside the family. He has therefore taken it all out on the poor ferns during our daily forest walks, where he would violently smack every fern on his way with a giant stick picked at the beginning of our woodland adventure. I don’t know why ferns in particular but he just loves smacking ferns with a stick. His little baby sister has been the happiest of all three kids but at the same time, she has become painfully shy and detached the moment she crosses paths with anyone outside the immediate family circle, such as her beloved aunt, uncle and cousin, with whom she was previously so in love with. They are now as good as strangers and at the first glance of them or anyone else unfamiliar, she would hide behind my leg, stick her tongue out and stare at the floor.
As for us the adults, its not only our emotions that have gone through a whirlwind and taken a turn, it’s all the practicalities too – taking a face mask on and off as we enter and exit supermarkets, stepping aside as we are approached by a human, feeling uneasy and stressed out if a human with or without a mask enters our personal space, panicking at the sound of a cough inside a supermarket, entering a busy park while hoping for a quiet one and not being able to drag your kids back out as they have already ran in ahead of you, wishing to wear a nice dress and oversized earrings but not seeing the point and once again venturing out in your leggings, wanting to see your friends but feeling terrified of spreading or catching the virus, meeting friends and their kids at a socially distanced outdoor meet up and having the time of your life, then feeling super guilty and scared that you might have done the wrong thing, feeling like an outsider for having a different opinion from your close friends on Covid 19, wondering if you have been shielding for too long or not long enough, fantasising about hugging your mum, dad, sister and brother and so much more. And there is the scariest part of all – the thought of ‘When will this all end? Will it ever end?’… Governments are trying to tell us what to do and how to do it and apparently we should listen to them and follow their guidance as they take the guidance of scientists but then again, all governments tell a different story, yet again we are all fighting the same enemy. Is a 1 metre or 2 meters distance safe between a pair of humans, should we wear or not wear masks, should our kids go to school or stay home? No idea!
So there we are, almost 4 months on and we still sit and wait. We wait to board a silver aeroplane and fly off like the birds to another place – a happy, sunny, healthy, free and beautiful place, where everyone is together – laughing, eating, drinking, dancing, swimming in the ocean and kids are taking turns on swings and slides, holding hands and giggling. We sits in our sizzling hot, tiny London gardens and wait…I am sure it won’t be long before Covid is all gone and we are all gone, back to our busy businesses and restless lifestyles, dreaming of being back in the homebound Covid era..
Creative bird 