So first the whole, entire world is faced with the worst pandemic most of us have known in our lifetime. For some people it wasn’t much more than a minor inconvenience and the perfect excuse not to venture out and see other people (not many I’m sure). But for the majority, the last two years has been a roller coaster ride – unofficial teachers of their own children, online meetings, forgetting what it was like to wear ‘actual’ shoes, only dressing up on the ‘top half’ with the beginning of a shirt and tie combined with pyjama bottoms trend! Then there were the hero key workers who, not only had to make sure their own families were managing all the changes but also working extra long, sometimes back-to-back shifts to meet the overwhelming demand of hospital admissions, whilst trying to keep themselves safe from the virus itself. Add to that the lesser know heroes who delivered food packages, provided PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) such as masks and visors when supplies were low. Businesses crashed, jobs were lost and for some the fear was paralysing. Not forgetting of course the prolific loss of lives and those left with long term side-effects (known as ‘Long Covid’) changing their lives indefinitely.
It’s amazing what you learn from a situation like this when everyone you know is affected in some way. It can bring out the very best and the very worst in people. There’s the fights in supermarkets (sometimes physical) for the last pack of toilet rolls and the shopkeepers whose low moral compass led them to selling said toilet rolls at extortionate prices.
On the flip side, there was an astounding level of kindness and humanity that I personally believe outweighed the bad. We showed that we are in fact a community-spirited nation who really do care. I think everyone would agree that, more than anything, we learned to appreciate. It’s so easy to take everyday, simple things and experiences for granted, like coffee with a friend, playing with grandchildren, going to the gym, catching up with work colleagues, having our hair cut, getting dressed up to go ‘out out’…and of course toilet paper! If anything good could come from the challenges of a situation like this one it is that you begin to realise not just how lucky we really are but the part every individual plays in our society. I mean, let’s be honest, how many of us would have acknowledged someone working in a supermarket as an essential worker before all this? And let’s not forget the invaluable services of lorry drivers, couriers, postal workers, bus and train drivers ….the term ‘key worker’ has been redefined and rightly so.
We discovered ‘cleaner air’ from the reduction in both motor vehicles and air traffic. The birds seemed to sing louder although in reality we could just hear them better and, coincidentally or not, the skies seemed to be much bluer. Despite long lockdowns, people took the opportunity to get fit or stay fit when sometimes a daily walk was the only legal reason to be out. We would cross roads to avoid close contact with others, simultaneously bidding them ‘good day’ because it was the closest thing to socialising outside of our own homes we could get.
Mental health has been high on the agenda throughout this difficult period. With an already increasing number of people struggling with anxiety and depression, cases have reportedly increased by over 25 per cent globally. This was of course not helped by the services being widely disrupted as a result of the pandemic, impeding access to essential care.
We also learned about things that many of us either didn’t know existed or had no reason to know what they were. Of course I’m talking mainly about ‘Furlough’. Hands up who had never heard of or ever had cause to know what this was!
This is a dictionary definition:
• Military – a vacation or leave of absence granted to an enlisted person;
• A usually temporary layoff from work – e.g. many plant workers have been forced to go on furlough;
• A temporary leave of absence authorised for a prisoner from a penitentiary.
Wikipedia describes it as:
“A temporary leave of employees due to special needs of a company or employer, which may be due to economic conditions of a specific employer or in society as a whole. These furloughs may be short or long term.”
If there was a ‘word of the day’ to sum up the impact of Covid-19, other than the obvious, it would have to be COMPASSION. The evidence is in the presence of rainbows, far and wide….
I’m not a religious person but just this once I feel the need to thank the Lord for Netflix, YouTube tutorials, Zoom, online fitness instructors, Amazon and, yes, even Hermes!
It’s not actually my intention to write a blog about Covid. I have already handwritten a journal in no less than four notebooks since the start of the first lockdown period. They are a mix of my own experiences and factual information plagiarised from the internet – developments, statistics, the antics of our country’s leader and his goons, human stories of heroism and courage and other significant news events – Captain Sir Tom Moore’s incredible fundraising journey, the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, the scandal of Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell, the ‘fake’ petrol shortage and Russia’s attack on Ukraine, to name a few. It started off as ‘something to do’ and certainly not something I feel the need to share publicly but it is something that maybe one day our grandchildren or great-grandchildren might find interesting when they discover it in a pile of loft dust. There was a point when it became a bit of a chore and I put pressure on myself to update it but that really takes the fun out of it so I’m writing less often now. Foolishly I thought I’d just keep going until Covid is over but I think it’s fair to say it’s here to stay and we will just learn to ‘live with it’. I may do a ‘Mike drop’ quite soon!
However, in my case, this is just a lead up to a rather unwelcome and ugly situation which has invaded my own life and the real reason for this blog is that I have embarked on my own journey which will challenge my strength, weaken my resolve, test me to the limit and show me a whole new level of gratitude whilst also feeling that life is grossly unfair. This is my personal experience of a breast cancer diagnosis. My aim is not to be self-indulgent but to hopefully inspire and encourage anyone who has been thrown a huge curveball in their life, whatever that might be – and there are no competitions here – “to each his own. My reality and situation is different from yours”. It’s not about who is worse off but if something is a big deal to you it matters. Yes it will be cathartic for me to share my thoughts and fears but I hope that I will also give people an opportunity to share similar experiences or just a chance to offload…..
Hoping for a Happy Ever After 