Life In Lockdown - The Groggy Bit

As always, this is a personal reflection on how a weird change of circumstances is affecting me. I’m conscious that there are people who have got it much worse but I can only comment on how I’m experiencing things. Funny, isn’t it? In today’s social media world where, if you say one thing that automatically means you’re ignoring or opposing any other possibilities, that we feel the need to have to add disclaimers in an attempt to ensure nuance. Anyway, first paragraph and I’ve already digressed…

I passed the three week mark last weekend for being completely inside the house (with only trips to the garden for outsideyness) and I found that I was really struggling to focus on anything. I’ve struggled to focus on reading books - a big comedown from the start of the year when I was averaging nearly two books a week - but this struggle hit everything. A general feeling of sluggishness.

Work in particular was tough. Again, I absolutely appreciate that I’m in a privileged position compared to many - I don’t have to leave the house to perform my job and I still have one that is employing me full time (something that’s affected people I know). What it has made me appreciate though is how much of your day contains natural little breaks and an amount of walking around that you take for granted. Stopping to chat to someone as you pass by their desk, having to walk some distance to go to the toilet, going outside to grab something for lunch - all these things add up. Even if I’m in back to back to meetings, I’m likely to be still moving between rooms, floors or even buildings.

All of this movement was gone. Sure, I was getting out on the exercise bike at lunchtime and going out for a run after work but, if I had meetings that ran into lunchtime, I wasn't doing this and I wasn't running every day anyway. Prior to lockdown, I walked every day - my average across the week was 5 miles per day. The lack of this was definitely hitting.

I’m on leave now until after Easter - the recommendation is to still take your leave because a) people still need a break from work even more so now the line between home and office is non-existent; and b) if you save it all until later in the year, everyone will try to take it and some people will be denied. 

I’m two days in to holiday mode now and I already feel more recharged. I’m giving myself some structure to the morning so I can be justified slobbing around - the morning is spent going for a run, writing things like this, spending some time on the exercise bike so that I can then justify having the rest of the day open. I’m also going to try and force myself to sit and read for a defined amount of time every day. I’ve got tons of books, I should be reading the buggers.

I suspect it’s going to be cyclical - some days the energy will be low, some days higher. We’ve still got some way to go before we get back to something like the life we had before...