As I write this, it is the 12th of January, 2021. We have been battling this new way of life, this strange, alternate ‘pandemic reality’, since the 23rd of March, 2020. That was when the first lockdown was announced – 295 long, long days ago.
At the time, we couldn’t possibly have imagined that that very same announcement would be made nearly a year later. That was unthinkable, that those words could be echoed to us via our television screens in the year Twenty-Twenty-One. Not again?
Stay at home, save lives. It sounds easy enough, noble even, that we could be saving lives by simply… staying inside. That us mere mortals, those who weren’t accustomed to striding into burning buildings or sewing the closing stitches on a patient, could be SAVING LIVES.
That’s what kept us going, at first. That plucky fighting spirit, that feeling of accomplishment and teamwork.
295 days later, and my plucky fighting spirit has dwindled down to a sporadic burst of determination that will rear its head after yet more breathy sobs have been placated after escaping my body for the fifty-leventh time that day (if you didn’t pick up on that iconic song reference, you are quite frankly dead to me.)
It’s just so hard, isn’t it? This wasn’t part of our training, this isn’t something that we were equipped for. I’m trying not to let myself collapse under the weight of it all, of the consistent bad news, the anger and sadness, loneliness, loss, guilt… but it’s all just too much sometimes.
As December rolled into January, I naively set about busying myself with resolutions. No takeaways, I said. No unnecessary purchases. I’m going to try and stay upbeat! Look on the bright side!
Reader; on the evening of the 8th of January, I had redownloaded UberEats whilst singing along to Billie Piper’s ‘Because We Want To’, promptly ordering a fish and chips after ugly-crying down the phone to my boyfriend because I was stressed, lonely and miserable. Do I regret it?
NOT EVEN REMOTELY. LIFE IS QUITE LITERALLY TOO SHORT, AND WE HAVE ENOUGH RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON US RIGHT NOW. HAVEN’T WE SUFFERED ENOUGH? ORDER THE DAMN TAKEAWAY.
Why, just why, would I deprive myself of some of the only small comforts we are able to permit ourselves? What an utterly ridiculous idea that was, no matter how well-intentioned. I shan’t be making that mistake again in a hurry.
Right now, all we can do is seek comfort in those little things, the things that bring us even a brief moment of happiness and respite. We can feel soothed by the knowledge that for a little while, things will be okay. That we won’t have to cook tonight.
It’s a coping mechanism I’ve used often when I’m stuck in a disastrous situation. When my heart has been bruised after a man was particularly cruel or careless with it, I knew ‘It hurts now, but at some point, you will laugh about this.’ When I’ve been caught in monstrous train delays, I knew ‘It might take hours, but at some point, you will be home and in bed.’
That’s what I’m trying to do here, too. Know that at some point, everything will be okay.
At some point, we will get there. We will have reunions with dearest friends, throwing ourselves into their arms in amidst declarations of how much we’ve missed them.
We will clink glasses with friends, order drinks in pubs and bars, surrounded by excitable chatter and the buzz of long-awaited catch-ups.
We will meet the babies born during this strange time, look into their eyes for the first time, feel their little hands wrap around ours.
We will fall about with breathless laughter, clutching our sides and letting tears of mirth stream down our faces without a care in the world, smile-lines be damned.
We will devour food in restaurants, merciful that we didn’t prepare it ourselves, and we will devote ourselves absolutely and entirely to the person across the table from us. No screens, no distractions, hanging on to every word and time passing in a blur as we soak up their company.
We will holiday under new suns again. Our feet will tread new streets, old streets, familiar haunts and bucket-list destinations, grasses, sands, snow-tipped mountains – anywhere we can. We will travel aimlessly, we will travel because we can, treasuring every step, every flight, every drive we can take and marvelling at every sunrise, every view, squeezing the most out of every day like freshly juiced oranges, not wasting a precious drop.
We will touch. We will hug and kiss, we will dance until our feet burn and we will sing until our lungs could burst in large, jostling audiences and we will share our experiences again, knowing that this moment can never be relived, never taken away from us.
We will earnestly, emphatically repeat ‘I’ve missed you’ until the words have lost all meaning, we will make damn sure that the people we love know we love them, because we’ve realised we never said it enough.
There will be a day when all this is possible again. There will be hard days ahead, but be safe in the knowledge that with every sunset, we are 24 hours closer to the day we can truly live again. Yes, there will be difficulty, but one truth does not negate the other. As sure as I am that the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow, I am sure of the other truth too – that there will be better days.
There will be joy.