Life In Lockdown - It’s OK To…

You may have noticed a decline in posts with the title “Life In Lockdown”. As I’ve gone through weeks four and five of house confinement, I’ve had a few days here and there where it’s been tougher than I expected to get through and I’ve retreated to a standard coping technique - avoidance and distraction. Not one of my more appealing traits, I realise, but these are the mechanisms which are helping me get through. I’ve dropped off in the amount of news coverage I’m looking at (after all, at the moment it’s largely a Groundhog Day-style greatest hits of “still stay inside, not easing off yet and our government is either massively incompetent or wilfully murderous”) and cutting down on that has helped a little.

In the social media linked world we live in, as much as it can be an important lifeline and connection to other people, it can still be that source of unnecessary pressure that it was before all this started. The key thing that I'm taking away from all this right now is that whatever you’re doing to get through this safely and out the other side, that’s the right thing to do. Whether you’re a one-woman powerhouse juggling work while sewing scrubs for NHS workers (yes, Tam, that’s you!) or curling up into a ball with TV, films and comics until it all goes away (three guesses who that one is…), it’s all good. Here’s a list (because I’m a listy person) of what’s OK:-

• It’s OK to get involved and help out
• It’s OK to do nothing and keep your head down
• It’s OK to get upset and struggle with your emotions
• It’s OK to enjoy yourself
• It’s OK to reach out to others
• It’s OK to need time by yourself
• It’s OK to exercise like you’ve never exercised before (within reason and safely away from others, naturally)
• It’s OK to sit on the sofa in your pants eating crisps and trying to complete Netflix
• It’s OK to use the time to be creative in ways you haven’t had the chance to before
• It’s OK to feel so foggy that you can't do anything you normally would
• It’s OK to do your best to engage your kids while in lockdown
• It’s OK to not worry about their schooling while you try to balance everything else as well
• It’s OK to do any or all or none of things all at once
• Whatever you need to do, it's OK

It’s not OK to put yourself or others at risk and it’s not OK to avoid doing what YOU need to do to get you through this.

The goal at the end of this? We shall be catching up in person again, we shall raise a drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic, your choice - mine will be 100% extremely alcoholic), we shall “cheers” and we shall enjoy ourselves. If you’re not doing what it takes to achieve that end goal then I will be very disappointed with you. And none of us wants that.

Much love and stay safe,
Your Baldy Fella