Longterm Lockdown

I started this year with a spring in my step. There’s photos of me and the kids seeing in the new year on a night train in Egypt, travelling again just how I’ve always loved. Things were going well. I could feel the gentle waft of hope once more. And things did go well until the virus that shall not be named ravaged it’s way through our shores. I fell sick, the kids fell sick and some of the long term complications are still affecting me now. Despite no test to proove it, the doctor and I are in agreement that we all had Covid-19.

Before I get into the gory details, I want to caveat this with I’m OK, cause to be honest I’m bored of it now. Five years of moaning how hard it is to do this solo, even I’m thinking well why don’t you change the fucking record. So I guess that’s why others steer clear.

Only I have changed the record, many, many times. But the old one comes back to haunt me every fucking time; we aren’t actually all in charge of our destiny no matter how much we might like to think we are.

Lockdown was shit. There’s no disguising that. There were some good bits – more time for cuddles, a slower pace of life, but overall it wasn’t my finest hour (or even finest 7398 hours or whatever it was).

Heading back to work at the start of the month and sending the kids off to school and nursery should have meant things were OK again. I’d be getting a break, I foolishly thought. Only things aren’t really returning to normal are they? The childcare hours have shrunk but my work hours haven’t. I can’t really do anything. Even if I could get a babysitter, which to be fair I can do I just have to pay out the pennies, it hardly seems appropraite to suggest a girls night out as people (rightly or wrongly) fear a second wave.

And so I work away in the day, collect my kids, do the dinner, read the stories, lie for hours with them begging them to sleep and then collapse beside them.

And then I wake up and repeat it again. And again. And Again.

Life has shrunk and the opportunities to widen it have all but disappeared. It had been my priortiy at the start of the year to make friends with people who had a child my youngest’s age so I could make more connections and he could have play mates, but that got scuppered. In place of a life which had the promise of things to come, monotony has taken over. Even the non-stop rain seems to agree with my own dour mood. For the first four weeks of the return to school/ work I was battling another horrid virus which seemed to rewaken THE horrid virus. Thankfully things are looking much better health wise now but of course it took its toll.

I’m still trying to get counselling which might actually make a difference but the waiting list isn’t short. I’m still waiting to see if I can sell my place and move but the uncertainty and doubt of whether this is a good plan for me and my kids underpins my every thought. And in the meantime the liklihood of it happening seems to slip through my fingers.

As usual I’ve taken off more than I can chew. Besides the actual paid work I do, I’ve been working on some big writing projects, but it’s hard work, I’m behind on my studies and the campaign for single parent rights has all but taken over my life (trust me, there’s lots of stuff that goes on behind the scenes in trying to get this off the ground – meetings in the evenings/ on my days ‘off’ with littlest jumping on my head, tonnes of emails out to potential partners, developing materials etc, etc) and to be honest, knowing that only 929 people think it’s worth signing the petition to make this change in law makes me feel like I’m on to a losing track.

The thing is, I shouldn’t even be doing this campaign. It’s NOT MY JOB. But that’s the point isn’t it. Single parents are discriminated from the anti-discrimination laws and even when we raise the point no one really gives a shit. Not really. Why is noone else raising their voice for the single mum or dad? Because they aren’t. They really aren’t. I try to smile politely when organisations tell me they can’t support because they only have a small team, do they realise, I wonder, that when I send the emails at midnight, it’s not cause I’m nocternal, it’s because it’s the only time I get when I’m also raising two kids solo and have my own numerous jobs to complete?

Maybe I’m hormonal. Maybe it’s the change of weather. But for now, it seems I spend my every waking moment working on something or another and very little of them will bear fruit for a long time if at all, it’s rather like parenting. And, as a single parent, there’s noone to appreciate the effort behind the scenes on that either.

This will be a long winter. I can feel it already. Longterm lockdown, even if not full lockdown, but restricted movements; no ability to see my parents or other family members who would otherwise have been able to provide the odd hour or two respite, as they are shielding, makes things feel even lonlier and harder than ever, but we aren’t in lockdown so everyone seems to have forgotten that you might be going stir crazy with no adult to confide in. The risk of more self-isolating due to more coughs, or a positive case in school/ nursery means there’s a constant feeling that everything could collapse again at the drop of a hat, and it’s just me to carry the can. I’ve been lucky so far, the kids have had two coughs since their return to school/ nursery and both times I’ve got tests and results super quick so our return to isolation has been shortlived and not interferred with school/ nursery, but that luck isn’t going to last forever. Other year groups in the school have been sent home – it’s only a matter of time.

I’m depleted. Like much of the nation. Depleted and with no way to restart the engine. Although socialisation hasn’t been totally outlawed, the isolation of the current restrictions, layered on top of an already lonely soul, just feels like too much. This weekend I’ve hardly spoken to any adults, and when I have it hasn’t been about how I’m really doing not really; although in truth it rarely ever is, who has time for indepth chats with kids and work and lockdown rules to get in the way. It hurts though, being alone so much. My brain is churning up about so much, and all I can see is the rain outside creating another barrier between me and the rest of the world. It feels like everyone is just holed up in their homes once again and noone really cares. I’m sure objectively that’s not true. I know some people do indeed care. But some of those who used to be close to me aren’t any more and it still stings.

Everyone says it’s the six month mark, the low point in any longterm emergency. And hopefully they’re right. Hopefully it’s just a blip and next week will be better. From a hideous morning (think children screaming non stop at me and each other), the kids played well in the park in the puddles once I eventually got them out of the door, and I shoved them in front of the telly for two hours when we got home so I could do some emails (not at midnight – yay!) and have a bath alone. I’ve not done that in months and months and it felt good. I’ve even got them both into their beds and quiet before 9pm so that’s a master piece in itself.  

There’s no real point to this post, I’m too emotionally flat to even make it remotely well written, but I know that other single parents are struggling now, I know lots of people are feeling alone. And so I guess I just wanted to say you aren’t alone in your lonliness. And hopefully one day soon we will all be out and about making new friends again and until then there’s always zoom.

If you liked this you might enjoy reading my other posts on lockdown: exiting lockdown (which in hindsight wasn’t really exiting it fully) the best bits, the worst bits, the impact of it all and why we are well placed to deal with it (though I stand entirely corrected on that initial assessment!).

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