People are having very different experiences of lockdown in the UK.
a) Some are working all the hours God sends, at their normal place of work (nurses, paramedics, NHS staff, doctors, police, the military etc)
b) Some are working pretty normal hours, but from home (white collar, what-I-call computer/phone-based jobs – bankers, HR professionals, accountants etc) – with or without children they’re trying to home-school
c) and some (like me) are doing virtually nothing because 95% of our work has been cancelled (creatives, airline pilots, hospitality, actors, performers, hands-on types). I suppose I should be glad – I can spend this time (as I am) learning new skills (singing, Grade 4 anyone?!), doing yoga, catching up on all the TV box-sets and movies I’ve never seen, reading, cooking for the family (and eating too much, yes!), plus hanging out with my teenagers home from uni/sixth form etc.
In fact, hang on, I have just talked myself in to the fact that I am having the best of all worlds in the pandemic! I haven’t had COVID, I have been well for the last year (no coughs or colds), and I have my loved ones around me (who are also well). We have enough WiFi for all of us, enough rooms so we can all work in different parts of the house, enough devices so we don’t have to fight for the TV/various laptops etc.
So I’ll shut up.
Of course, it’d be great to be back working. Creative work is such a buzz – it’s stimulating, fun, interesting, challenging (in a good way) and really lifts the spirits. But we’ll get back to it, we’ve just got to wait it out.
My parents (who are both 90) have now both had the vaccination. They lived through the war and they’re much more used to embracing ‘make-do-and mend’, ‘keep calm and carry on’ and other slogans. They just hunker down, get on with it and wait for better times. They don’t expect to be having a whale of a time every minute of every day. Part of that acceptance comes with age, and I have got better at it in recent years. It doesn’t mean you need to put up with intolerable cruelty because you think you don’t deserve better, or stay in a terrible job because you can’t see a way out. DO try to move onwards and upwards, but also take a breath and find the strength to deal with tough times.
We’re running the “hard yards” at the moment – the bit in the middle of a race where you’re not near the end, but it seems ages since you started. Just hold on and keep going. We also serve who only stand and wait.
