This week marks one year since the end of life as we knew it. It might sound dramatic, but, I think we are all starting to realise that while lockdown easing is beginning, the reality is, life has changed for good.
Some of these changes are positive. Like work places are more likely to grant you the right to work from home.
Some of these changes are negative. Like home schooling is likely to be on and off as children are required to isolate due to exposure or positive tests.
As usual, single parenting means we feel the extremes of this.
The idea that I might be able to pick and choose how often I go into the office rather than beg and be refused additional hours from home, is hugely positive and could make immensurable change to my life.
The idea that I will be the one having to isolate with the kids every time we are exposed, is hugely worrying and could make immensurable change to my life.
But what’s it been like for the past year?
Yesterday, I sat on the wall outside Dominic Cummings house talking about exactly that. It’s an odd place for a chin wag, granted, but I was talking to a radio reporter who wanted to recreate the moment I dropped the infamous letter round there almost a year ago.
We spoke for 45 minutes (the reporter and I). The conversation we had will be distilled into 3.5 minutes. I have no idea how I will be edited until I hear it for the first time along with anyone who happens to be listening.
Will they take the worst bits, or the best bits? Either way it won’t tell the whole story. Mainly because I didn’t tell her the whole story. How could I? I only had 45 minutes. But also, because I’m not sure I could ever quite capture the whole story and relay it to another, even other single parents, because ultimately we all see things through our own lenses.
If this last year has taught us anything it’s surely that we are all not in this together, but rather, we are all in this entirely alone; alone in how this pandemic affects us financially, practically and emotionally and this will depend on so many factors – our backgrounds, our race, our gender, our financial resources, our mental health, our employment status/sector and many things beside.
When 2020 started I was feeling positive. I had ideas for how I could improve life, and I was putting them into action. It was the most positive I’d felt in a long, long time. Only it wasn’t some over the top – I’m transforming my life shit – just a nice gentle contentment with the world plus a side order of I know what I want/ need and how to get it.
Since then I’ve completely lost my way.
How could I not?
There’s a reason we are social animals. Without social interaction we literally lose something of our humanity. For it is sociability which marks us out as humans.
In the first lockdown I went weeks hardly seeing anyone bar the odd food drop. It was rare that I spoke with another adult – in person, or over the phone. I was ill and exhausted and – quite honestly – depressed. I didn’t have the energy to stand on the doorstep and make small talk and I never spotted my neighbours over the fence.
I’ve learned, quite dramatically, that the longer you go without human interaction (beyond small people), the harder it is to reach out.
And so I stopped.
I stopped answering phone calls.
I kept messages brief.
I did what I had to do to get through and nothing more because there comes a point in the human psyche when reaching out is just too hard to do.
Since then it’s been an uphill battle. We’ve had varying levels of restrictions over the past 12 months. There’s been good times, of course there has. Mainly in the summer when things were looking like they were going back to normal and the sun was shining and I’d given up on the battle that was homeschooling and embraced the freedoms instead.
But there’s also been bad times and busy times. I’ve had two bouts of Covid, as has my youngest (eldest had it once). I’ve been furloughed. Unfurloughed. Worked. Volunteered. Studied. Researched. Campaigned. Written. Parented. Cried. Laughed. Soaked in the sun. Shivered in the cold. I’ve done all manner of things, but those things are not what mark out this pandemic for me.
What marks it out is that I’ve done it all alone. It’s something single parents are often used to, and something I am incredibly used to. But this last year has been next level. The isolation – practical, physical and emotional – has left its mark on me.
I feel like I no longer know what normal childhood behaviour because I’m so rarely around other kids or adults to discuss it/ witness it and clearly there’s no partner to discuss any concerns with and get a second opinion. And so I’m left alone worrying I have ‘an issue’ on my hands, and then worrying that I’m going mad and I have the most mundane kids alive.
Socially, of course, I’ve been alone. On a practical level that’s meant noone to chat to about the weather and noone to tell when I’m feeling broken. I was relatively used to this prior to the pandemic, but even still I’m shocked by how much intense isolation can affect you and I fear it will be hard to rebuild from it. I can count on one hand the number of phone calls I’ve had over this year, and on the other hand the number of ‘social’ zooms I’ve done. When you pair that up with limited face to face interaction, especially in the lockdown phases, it equates to a fraction of the normal human interaction an adult is designed for.
And lastly, I’ve been alone on a practical level. Yes people have assisted with childcare for the odd hospital appointment or kindly friends and family have dropped off food/ done on online delivery, but we all know that’s not the same. My youngest has spent about four months of the last year in nursery and I guess for my eldest he’s had school for just shy of six months. That’s a lot of time to do the caring 24/7, especially when for much of that there’s been paid work to do too, let alone all the unpaid work.
Like many, I’ve felt like I can’t ask for help because partly – I’m just no good at asking for it in usual times, but also because – this is not usual times. There’s so many concerns – am I putting them at risk? Is it breaking the rules? Everyone else is stressed so why should I add my burdens on to them? The list goes on. It’s not just childcare, so many modern supports have been removed. I’ve had two online deliveries in the last year and I’ve not been able to hop on the bus to the supermarket, so even basic tasks have become mammoth ones especially when you throw in two small humans to the mix. It’s been exhausting – I’ve eaten crap and lots of it. Put on huge amounts of weight and aged about ten years.
As things begin to open again – if I’m honest – I feel a little battered and bruised. I feel worried that the realisation of just how alone I am in all this will make it even harder for me – and thousands of other single parents – to reach out. Something which many of us already struggle with.
Although the rules may be changing, our feelings are not necessarily as quick to catch up.
Single parents have spent a good part of the last 12 months alone. In every sense of the word. For me, my mental health spiralled and most people didn’t get it. Why would they? I can throw out words here – like paranoia, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, psychosis fears – all of them words that will bring out the heart and sad face emojis. But those words won’t really tell anyone what it’s been like to be me for the last 12 months – to live my life as I have lived it.
And the biggest – BIGGEST – irony of feeling alone is that you pull into yourself. You don’t really talk about it. You don’t reach out. So of course, how would someone understand how you feel?
Perhaps in a few short months all will be forgotten. The feelings of the past year will be pushed to the side, or under the surface. Friends will come out of the woodwork and things will go on as before.
Or perhaps they won’t. Perhaps those feelings will wait to come out when you’re least expecting. Or perhaps they’ll be there curling up with you every night as once more you place your head beside an empty pillow.
It’s been a hard year for everyone. I just hope that as we begin to return to some form of normality, people try – as hard as it might be – to imagine what a year of isolation might have felt like and how single parents might be faring as we come out of this because I speak from experience when I say, it sends you a little bit crazy. Chances are we might need some hand holding to get out of here.
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