Lockdown 2.0, Day 24

Just under 400 cases today. It’s alarming the first reaction I have is one of relief. It’s still so high, but it’s not six or  seven hundred, so I feel relieved and then disheartened. It’s a long way back to normal from here.

I slept badly (had Amelie and the cat in my space for most of the night) but woke up feeling pretty good. I had some more alarming bleeding but talked to the doctor and she has a bit of a plan for going forward so I feel like there might be an end to this at some point. I’m working on the emotional side of it - trying to let go of control a bit and relax into what is actually happening in my life and hopefully that will help. 

I was able to do a bit more today, a bit of work outside and organising a few things inside. Still spent a lot of time on the couch, watching tv with the girls, or on my bed chatting on the phone to mum and to a friend. Tony was home (because it’s Saturday) and it was nice to have him around to chat to as well. My mood was good for most of the day then I crashed in the late afternoon. Had a shower then did some writing and photo stuff in bed. I feel a bit better now, hoping I get a good night’s sleep.

Lockdown 2.0, Day 1

When we went into self-isolation in mid-March, and then when the whole state locked down, and we were home all the time along with most people we knew around the world, I kept thinking that it would be useful and interesting to blog about the experience. I thought about it nearly every day, and just never got around to writing a post. When restrictions started to ease I thought about writing a summary of our lockdown time - but kept finding other things to do. Now that we are back in lockdown, my aim is to stop thinking about writing about it, and just turn up at the keyboard each day and write something.

So. Here we are again, with only 4 reasons to leave the house. Which means the kids will basically stay home nearly all the time, I'll go out once or twice a week to do the shopping and get the mail, and there might be some Zoom meetings or classes from time to time. In a lot of ways things won't change too much. We were very slow in coming out of restrictions, mainly only seeing local friends and only 1 or 2 at a time. We weren't going to public places much - I'd only ventured to Chirnside Park shops a couple of times. None of our regular activities had started up again. So we were still self-isolating in a lot of ways. We had started to have friends over a few times a week and the number of different people we were seeing one-on-one had increased - so I guess that will be different. But the kids are good at chatting to their friends on their phones or computers and I can easily keep in touch with people so it won't be too bad.

I do like having few demands on my time, so another 6 weeks of that is not a bad thing. I had visions of getting heaps of things done around the house last time - and in the end I did do a lot, just in little bits and pieces of time rather than spending days working on projects. I have some higher aims this time (some house stuff, also some creative ideas with my writing and photography, and maybe looking at ways of earning an income) but I also want to hang on to the things I learnt the first time - that I'm happier and more productive if I listen to myself and do what feels right in the moment, rather than pushing myself to achieve a pre-set goal for the day. (Earlier this week I was telling Tony that I was frustrated because I hadn't been able to get much done that day because other things kept happening. I was recounting my day and only up to about 2pm and he said 'That's a really busy day already, you actually did heaps!' ).

The kids seem OK with the idea of lockdown again, although sad that they won't see their friends for a while. Caitlin was about to go back into the gym for Cheer - Zoom trainings are not as fun or motivating as training with the team, so she was looking forward to that. We had plans for Liam to spend a day or two a week with one of his friends, and Amelie had just met some girls that she was hoping to see regularly. I was thinking about starting our Ninja classes up again. So all of that is on hold and we're readjusting to spending our time entertaining ourselves again. Caitlin had just bought a bunch of fabric (we got 2 trips to the op shop in this week, our first time back that, so that was exciting) and she's busy making clothes. Amelie is drawing and listening to audio books and playing cards with me. Liam will continue playing his computer games and working on his fitness. There's plenty to do and we're comfortable and happy at home.