374 days... My Birthday Reflections

It’s my 46th birthday today, it also represents 374 days in lockdown for my family, my second lockdown birthday. There’s pretty much nothing I can say about the pandemic that hasn’t been said, all I can add is my own experience to the many millions of peoples global testimony out there and even then I suspect it’s not that unique, not sure if I find that painful solidarity comforting or not. Those first few weeks were fraught with danger, the trepidation, the surreal existence, Netflix on loop. When Boris gave that infamous announcement I was drinking a pina colada from a can (not just any cocktail an M&S cocktail obviously), trying to not let the existential dread ruin my birthday, I had got to 45 ffs, no mean feet!

The thing is, 2020 was wild, it brought me joy like no other time in my life, spending time with my children was a gift, but it also brought the deepest and darkest despair, loss a defining feature. In our little household we lost six people, including my husbands mum Sue and my best friend Antithai, only one of the six deaths was directly covid related but all others impacted in devastating ways because of covid rules. It meant that we spent or last moments with the people we loved via zoom, face time, WhatsApp, technology that has carried the can for human intimacy for better or worse. Zoom funerals in my experience gave way to a new dimension to grief, they gave me the space to express more freely how I was feeling, no stoicism, no quiet sniffing, no black garbs, just you and your grief. The bit where we get to grieve as families is yet to come, parked for now.

We homeschooled, or we attempted to homeschool, I had created this elaborate timetable at first, makes me laugh now. Who was I kidding? I became all jolly hockey sticks for a while, cheerleading at home, jazz hands at work. I got on my own nerves quite quickly, it was when I was still doing Joe Wicks on my own, kids abandoning me for cartoon network that I realised it wasn’t going to plan. Don’t get me wrong, the cheerleading was necessary, I still see this as a big part of my role in life, but when we got to May people were developing what my aunt calls ‘an edge to their voice’, meaning people were running out of steam and losing patience with themselves and each other. Brief moments of relief becoming more and more illusive. The fascination with what new thing you could do on zoom to keep entertained got old. Despite the plethora of resources to communicate with a each other we have available, sustaining long distance relationships are notoriously hard, space is created in families and friendships, loneliness and the just having nothing to say thing, all creeping in, widening the spaces, longer days of silence.

I even went through a phase of hoping to become TikTok famous, but I didn’t get even close to it, even my very cute puppy didn’t win me views (see how cute she is) but I do thank this platform for all the lols, cat videos are my new buzz, throw in a daft dog and I can feel my endorphins flutter with excitement just thinking about it. Social media more than any other time felt like the best example of pleasure pain theory, cat videos on one hand, toxic abusive trolling on the other.

When George Floyd was murdered the danger of racism was brought into sharp focus, the brutality broke so many hearts, mothers all over the world heard his cries for his own mother, and we wept with her. We continue to weep as injustice rages on, seemingly accelerating for some by the day. It brought opportunities for thinking and learning in my home, a family commitment to anti racism that my children talk about with confidence and belief, I have watched their values grow and I am proud off them.

The Kids have been in school when they can, a shielding family of four, five including the puppy, coping together in close proximity sometimes with love and joy and other times with irritation and temper. My two have astonished me, they have been positive, troubled but not in trouble in relation to the virus, tolerant of our shit teaching and our poor attempts to understand 2020 curricular, our demands for more and more. The world became more confusing, and they became more capable. Don’t get me wrong, they are also like bats out of hell when they want to be, like little ruthless capitalist bankers negotiating chores for Robux, I never won this high stakes game btw. They are my pandemic legends, we have our memories, most of them will be beautiful, some not so much.

A year on and we are contemplating our post pandemic future selves, what will life be like, what will I be like? The profound and perplexing losses we have all faced over the last year will have a psychological legacy, no doubt about it. There is a persuasive argument that even those not alarmingly impacted by the pandemic won’t come out of it completely unscathed. Large brooding shadows have been cast over the nation and there is no respite from the truth of it. I shall leave my professional analysis for else where, but suffice to say we know we will have to maintain a vigilance on mental health in a way that runs through every aspect of life, work, schools, communities and within relationships.

There isn’t much wisdom in this short piece, so much has happened, so much I can’t share, but I hope I’ve shared enough for you to know I’m with you. I’m glad I didn’t know when I was drinking that pina colada this day last year that I would still be here, that parts of my life would become so fragile, that we were about to face the challenge of our lives.

2021 lets hope you are less interesting…

Happy birthday to me!