Lost in Place

I am failing at Lockdown. 

A friend reminded me that the idea is just to not die and, in that respect, I’m killing it.

But in all the other ways, I do not have this. We are not in this together. Because the zoom call you can’t attend, it’s in my head. And in there, the lockdown is tight, and restrictive, and sucking the breath out of my days. 

I am a fixer. I make all the things happen. I do not pause. I don’t play. I get things done. I’m an A++ type (read Anxiety in those As) though I hide it with whimsy and pretty dresses. I know my tendency to fall. That for this pandemic I need to build fortresses around myself.

It was with this mindset that I approached the stay at home order here in California now 7 weeks ago. 

I printed out all the things: a cute chart for more connection and laughter and peace and quiet. A list of 100 things to do with kids during Coroanvirus Quarantine and Social Distancing. Ideas for science experiments from esteemed institutions. And homeschooling tips sent to my inbox every Monday that would bring hands-on project-based learning into our current world of google-classroom and worksheets.  

I made all the schedules: each child had a whiteboard that we’d look at each day. My son’s would be mostly Maths, which he’d inevitably swap out for reading Harry Potter as he races through all 7 books. My daughters would have hearts and stars and she’d cross out half each morning before hiding under the table.

I even had my own: A morning routine starting at 5.30 to get me through before the kids woke up. To give me the self-care that I’m told I need.

My husband and I had one: dividing up our nights so that each has a turn to binge-watch crappy TV, and each has a turn to watch Disney+ with our kids. We even added nights without alcohol, cause that bit wasn’t going so well.

I made the house fun: I tipped out all the Lego that we own and made a Lego mountain in one of the rooms. My son is a fanatic, his eyes sparkled at the disarray. We turned a bedroom into a disco so that we could boogie unashamedly with glow-up balloons and flashing torches. I’m thinking of buying a disco ball. We even made an obstacle course with marshmallows: one station = marshmallow fight, one station = build a marshmallow tower, one station = marshmallow catch, one station = find the marshmallows. You can eat them at the end but no one wants to.

We did all the things: watched the latest funny video doing the rounds, felt that pang during The Great Realisation, visited the feeding times of sea otters, had Michelle Obama or an astronaut or Josh Gad read to us, got drawing lessons from Mo Willems and science from Mark Rober, visited mud volcanos and geysers, tried the Louvre.

I downloaded all the apps: Plant Nanny for enough water, Couch to 5K for exercise, Headspace for Meditation. I subscribed to Luminary and to Audible, to courses on creativity and small business skills. My phone tethers me now as much as any lockdown requirements.

Then I played it out with all these new tools. I did all the things thinking I was immune. I added in time for myself I haven’t had in years because no-one is now commuting or waking up to go to school. I made space for meditation and running and interesting podcasts because keeping me together matters in this house. I am its heart; I need to stay whole.

And to this once-therapist-in-training it’s obvious what I was trying to do: I was taking back the control I lost when my kids’ school closed. When my writing days became homeschooling ones. When I longed to see friends who lived so, so close, but I wasn’t allowed near. When our plans for the great move home, ended, and we sat in the not-knowing while advice came in harder and the news shifted. As disappointments accumulated and we tried to be ok, to model resilience and gratitude and love for our children.

My dentist sent a note, dated April, saying I hadn’t visited for a while. Maybe he should remove me from his client list.

I missed a kid’s birthday on Zoom.

Online traffic for the guide I write started to go down as those places shuttered. 

I forgot to cancel subscriptions.

I stepped on the Lego now all over the floor.

Food deliveries started costing more because you know snacks and panic.

I put on weight, I burnt the bread, my drawings are awful. 

I hated the weekly wave-thru at my kids’ school though I beamed and smiled through the car window.

I started to resent neighbors excelling at everything chalk. My kids refused to draw the rainbows. 

I started to fail Lockdown. 

And there are no strategies that I haven’t turned to. There’s no advice you need to give me.  Because what I need is to get out of my head and for me, that means getting out of here. Over the years I have learned the antidote to my anxiety. I know enough of where to go when I inevitably fail at life: I recharge with other people, I come alive in cafes, I need bookstores and museums to feel things. I need to walk down streets with strangers, to be in sunlight as the blinds at home start to close for the summer months. 

I know that I haven’t died and that is the only success I should be looking to at the moment. I know that I should be grateful that my husband has a job. I know that I shouldn’t feel these things. I know there are silver linings, and a planet healing, and priorities being reset. I know the good, I feel it too. I can equally write a piece with all that is wonderful and positive and needed as a consequence of this pandemic. I can tell you a hundred things I’ve experienced the last weeks that have been life-affirming. And I know all this as I die quietly inside.