Personally, I had enjoyed being in lockdown. It meant quality time for my family. It meant no rushing. No two hours worth of commute. I had anxious moments (as per prior post) but mostly it was a positive experience. I found moving back into a workplace where most people had choices about being there or not when I didn't, somewhat challenging. I, and many others, experienced a kind of lockdown grief. My 13yo daughter said she cried because she had enjoyed the time she had spent (at her father's house) with her 18yo brother, and now he was headed back to work and his social and love life, she would miss him terribly.
We ended up in what our government called COVID-19 Alert Level 1 - which mostly meant life as normal for most of us. We went back to our normal movements. Nyah and I even got in a roadie to Hawkes Bay.
After 102 days of freedom, it all (sort of) came crashing down. Community cases were discovered, so Auckland went into another lockdown. I say 'lockdown lite' as, unlike the first time around, many businesses could still operate and people could still work in some industries. For us, though, it was working from home and kids home from school again. It was non-standard kids lunches, and again, the joy of sleeping an extra hour.
After 102 days of freedom, it all (sort of) came crashing down. Community cases were discovered, so Auckland went into another lockdown. I say 'lockdown lite' as, unlike the first time around, many businesses could still operate and people could still work in some industries. For us, though, it was working from home and kids home from school again. It was non-standard kids lunches, and again, the joy of sleeping an extra hour.
But it hasn't been so much fun this time around. The novelty has worn off. The rest of the country are cautiously business as usual (they are in "Level 2") and that feels a bit crappy to Aucklanders confined to home. Kids have had to cycle rapidly back into online learning, but will likely have to cycle rapidly out of it again. My 11yo son is in his first year at intermediate, and has spent nearly two months of it in various states of lockdown, doing online learning. Its tough for a kid in a new school trying to forge new friendships. He has found much solace in online gaming, where he can remain connected to the friends he cannot see while stuck at home. If I don't feel guilty about the online school work he isn't doing, then there's always feeling guilty about online gaming to fill the gap. Miss 13 has gotten taller than me, is cheerfully resilient, emotionally intelligent, and offers hugs readily. She is maybe doing the best of all of us.
Nyah's eczema and poor sleep betray her levels of stress, but she is calm and comforting in a crisis, and we can count on her to cook her way out of our malaise.
Nyah's eczema and poor sleep betray her levels of stress, but she is calm and comforting in a crisis, and we can count on her to cook her way out of our malaise.
As for me - the bogeyman of anxiety is a constant companion.
This isn't 'feeling anxious.' It isn't 'feeling worried.' Its not the intense sensation of 'fight or flight' that marks an anxious moment, and then passes quickly.
Its an ongoing sensation of not just feeling anxious, but my whole body reacting to and pushing against it in a way that manifest physical symptoms. Its ongoing tiredness, the perception of breathlessness, the feeling of concrete in your shoes as you move through your day, the loss of interest in anything other than mindless scrolling through social media, the inability to hold onto snippets of information and the need to have everything written down, the difficulty focusing.
The worst part is the knowledge that the tight chest, the shortness of breath, the fuzzy head are not harbingers of any sinister health events, but they are nonetheless very real sensations. The worst part is knowing this, but that the reality is that it is still exhausting day to day work it to constantly affirm this to myself, leaving little energy to function normally in the middle of - in case we'd forgotten it was happening around us - a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in over 100 years. The worst part is that there is still a sense of shame that while there is 'nothing wrong with me' there is still something very, very ...well...wrong with me.
Its an ongoing sensation of not just feeling anxious, but my whole body reacting to and pushing against it in a way that manifest physical symptoms. Its ongoing tiredness, the perception of breathlessness, the feeling of concrete in your shoes as you move through your day, the loss of interest in anything other than mindless scrolling through social media, the inability to hold onto snippets of information and the need to have everything written down, the difficulty focusing.
The worst part is the knowledge that the tight chest, the shortness of breath, the fuzzy head are not harbingers of any sinister health events, but they are nonetheless very real sensations. The worst part is knowing this, but that the reality is that it is still exhausting day to day work it to constantly affirm this to myself, leaving little energy to function normally in the middle of - in case we'd forgotten it was happening around us - a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in over 100 years. The worst part is that there is still a sense of shame that while there is 'nothing wrong with me' there is still something very, very ...well...wrong with me.
Today we learned that we are in this 'lockdown lite' for another six days. Then we move back into the steps of 'business as usual.' The steps loss and gain.
Today I went for a skin check at a GP who is also a skin cancer specialist. He was in full PPE, and the site was managed to minimise contact between clients.
"What a year its been." He said. "Pandemics usually take eighteen months to work through," he said matter of factly.
"It looks like we're in for another year of this."
