I hadn’t cried about lockdown until Boris Johnson announced plans to bring it to an end.
My emotions took me by surprise on Sunday evening, a time usually saved for a wholesome costume drama, which had now metamorphosed into a sci-fi horror documentary.
Going into lockdown was scary, for sure… but it was certain. Stay at home, saves lives, protect the NHS. Don’t see your friends or family, don’t do anything other than exercise or buy food. It was clear and it was temporary. Like ripping off a plaster, going into lockdown was a shock, but it happened quickly.
Coming out of lockdown, however, is the careful peeling of a plaster that we’ve grown accustomed to for seven weeks, painfully tearing out hair follicles as it goes.
I have become used to the lockdown way of life. I’ve felt guilt for actually having thrived under these conditions. As someone who has had a fair bit of anxiety and depression in the past, I worried that big changes to my lifestyle would trigger them back into place.
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What actually happened is that I felt peaceful for the first time in years. No pressure to be anywhere or see anyone or doing anything much at all. I faced my fear of being alone and you know what, reader? It wasn’t so bad after all.
When the whole world spun out of control, I focussed in on the things I could control: my response to it.
The next stage of the challenge for me is maintaining that sense of peace and control when the model shifts. As rules relax some will flout them more than others and some will have to remain strong against peer pressure.
Talk of ‘social bubbles’ is already giving me flashbacks to junior school when I was the sixth person in a group of girl mates and therefore surplus to requirement when playing the Spice Girls. If we are eventually restricted to 10 people to hang out with, the potential rejection of being person 11 would undo my recently discovered lockdown zen.
There has been much criticism of the government’s insufficient clarity in their social distancing guidelines this week. As much as I join in with my frustration over their lack of leadership during this crisis, I sympathise with the fact that there can’t possibly be simplicity in something so nuanced and complicated as lifting lockdown measures.
Boris has reiterated many times this week his confidence in the ‘common sense’ of the British people. That’s very kind of him, but we are the same people responsible for ‘Boaty McBoatface’, so perhaps we don’t deserve so much credit.
No one knows how long it will take to get back to normal, if ‘normality’ can even be achieved at all. With talk of potentially never finding a vaccine and slow progress on testing, I worry about the fact that I am no more immune to the virus than I was at the beginning of lockdown, and must now ultimately trust the common sense of other members of the public to quarantine themselves if they are showing symptoms.
But these are members of the public who have suffered huge financial losses in the past two months. People who will feel pressured to go to work, even if they are sick.
Lockdown united us, in a way. Although I don’t consider it to have been a great leveller, it did provide us with a commonality.
As it lifts, the gap between the wealthy and the working class will surely only increase as low paid workers, once considered ‘key’, will use even busier public transport, while those who can afford can get taxis.
Going back to work isn’t an option for families with children who remain out of school and can’t afford childcare.
I still don’t know enough about the science surrounding coronavirus to know whether it’s best to wear gloves or a mask, or both. I feel as though that information would arm me with the confidence to protect myself and others in the outside world.
During Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Kier Starmer criticised Boris Johnson for his lack of clarity over the science behind how coronavirus is spread.
Scientific facts haven’t been at the forefront of the government communications. Whether that’s because they simply don’t have that information, or they’d rather the wider public didn’t use it to form their own ‘common sense’ rulings, only time will tell.
Facing the outside world and ‘staying alert’ against an invisible enemy is far more anxiety inducing than simply staying at home.
Without the security of a vaccine, I just don’t know if I’ll feel comfortable doing ‘normal’ things again. The Tube? A lift? Remember lifts? God help you if you work on the fourteenth floor of an office block. The choice between the stairs and a moving incubation tank will be a toughy.
As lockdown slowly lifts, I hope you are managing to stay on top of it all and continue to be kind to yourself for freaking out at times. Quick, drastic changes to our lives are often easier to deal with than gradual ones.
Going back into the real world will be like returning home to find your furniture has been moved. It will feel unsettling at first, but in time you will adjust to a new normal.
It may take a while, but like the removal of a plaster, once it’s over with, it will be okay and the healing process continues.
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