One year ago today, Boris Johnson announced that the UK would be plunging into lockdown. Fear, uncertainty and murmurs of what might happen had been rippling through the country for weeks, and I remember sitting cross-legged on the sofa, holding our breath as we watched the announcement and then springing into action once it was official; I had to get Archer, and I had to get to my mum’s house. Fast.
(For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Archer is my cat. A large, vocal, ginger creature whom I adore more than any living thing on God’s green earth. One year ago today, my brother and I packed some of my clothes, my laptop and Archer into the car, and off we went.)
At the start of it all, I’d assumed (as I think we all did, then) that the lockdown would only last a matter of weeks, and everything would right itself and normality would resume once the dust had settled and the virus had been nipped in the bud. I don’t think any of us anticipated that a year later, we would be in ‘Lockdown 3’, looking back on the strangest, most unwelcome anniversary.
One year ago tomorrow, on the 24th March 2020, I wrote my very first Lockdown Diaries entry. I’d documented the very real fear that I remember had swallowed me whole – I’d lost my job, was terrified of losing my home, and had no idea what was on the horizon for me professionally or financially. I was already in an incredibly mentally fractured position, even before the pandemic hit, so I was completely and utterly lost.
In that first entry, I wrote; Yes, the future for the foreseeable is considerably blurred and uncertain. I don’t have a crystal ball, and trying to predict what will happen next is akin to squinting fruitlessly through mottled glass, trying desperately to interpret the shapes and colours on the other side. The truth is, I simply do not know if things will get better or worse.
The truth is, dear reader, is that things are better in some ways and worse in others. That’s the thing, with life, it’s never black and white. Nothing will ever be perfect all at once, and so it’s on us to focus on the present – not to try and predict the future, but to take what we can from ‘the now’ and be grateful for what we know, not afraid of what we don’t.
Professionally, and financially, things got better. A lot better. I was unemployed for three long months, until I was finally offered two jobs at once and had to make a head vs heart choice in where I was going to go. True to form, I followed my heart, and a six week temporary contract turned into the best career decision I’ve ever made. I’m now Head of my own division in arguably the best company I’ve ever known, and while I’ve never worked so hard in my life, I’ve also never felt as valued – and I truly don’t believe that I would have taken that leap if the circumstances of the pandemic hadn’t pushed me to do so. A spectacular leap of faith, if you’ll forgive the eye-rollingly terrible wordplay.
I’m grateful to my heart for leading the way at that particular fork in the road. There were two decisions that were solidly heart-led last year. That was one of them. The other, was Jack.
When speaking or writing about my love life, as I’m wont to do, I usually attribute a nickname to the men – it allows a degree of separation because they were question marks. They are anonymous because they are anecdotes. The Sailor. The Detective. The Australian. But Jack? Is Jack. There was never an anecdote, because he was never a question. The decision was never about how I felt, it was whether I would allow myself to feel it.
It was nearly a year ago, too, that we first spoke. And it was four short weeks after that, in April, that I knew I’d fallen in love with him. Of course, I didn’t tell him that until July (we didn’t even meet in person until June), but I knew.
Of course, it was entirely on-brand for me to fall in love during a pandemic, especially as we all know how much I love a good story. But falling in love with someone through a screen? Not only that, but falling in love with someone immediately through a screen, on your very first date? After years of being famously guarded and (I will begrudgingly admit) a little cold?
It was the second head vs heart decision. Should I trust in how I felt and hand my heart over to someone for the first time since my early twenties? Should I take the leap? Truthfully, there wasn’t really a leap to take. If love was a cliff edge, I’d already fallen from a hell of a height. It wasn’t about the jump, it was about accepting that I was already tumbling down like Alice through the rabbit-hole, instead of trying desperately to scramble back up. So, I let it happen. I fell. And you know what? He caught me.
Of course, I won’t gloss over the difficulties of the last twelve months. Yes, there have been days where my heart has been bursting, filled with love and pride and joy and gratitude. Yes, I am closer to my friends and family than perhaps ever before (not in proximity, but the conversations we’ve had have been far deeper than they were pre-pandemic.) Yes, there have been brunches in the garden, walks in the park, my love of baking and writing and nostalgia resurfaced and I have found genuine happiness in some of the simplest things.
Handwritten notes have never meant so much to me, and I have watched more cartoons and played more PlayStation in the last year than I ever thought I would as an adult. There has been so much good – new houses, new babies, picnics in parks, banners hung in living rooms for homemade birthdays, mutual smiles on Facetime calls and surprises aplenty; care packages, cards, flowers, cookies with heartfelt messages etched into icing.
But. There have also been days where tears are streaming down my face before 10am. There have been days where I have been trembling with physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. There have been days where I have stayed in bed from morning til night, or worn the same clothes continuously, or repeated over and over that I simply cannot do this.
There have been a lot of those days, recently. As the anniversary of the first lockdown crept ever-closer, many of us have hit a wall – unsurprising given that we’ve been trapped between four of them for months now. It’s an amalgamation of things; repetition. Loneliness. Fear. Uncertainty. Loss of identity. Loss of control. The inability to separate work and home. Insecurity. Grief. Consistent bad news. Political and social upheaval.
For me personally, there has also been the crushing weight of my own expectations. I haven’t been the kindest to myself, and as a result, slipped into a depression that I tried to solve by throwing myself into work. Have you ever tried to fix unbearable sadness with deadlines? Let me tell you; it doesn’t work. Fighting fire with fire will scorch everything around it, and fighting mental health with self-criticism and a mountainous workload left me burned out and emotionally brittle.
But… I am here. I have survived a whole year of this, of it all. Of every new development, of every worry, of every ‘I can’t’.
I have grown. I have learned. I have tried my best. I have kept going. I have hoped. I have had the courage to pursue what I wanted. I have been the best part of someone’s day, just as so many have been for me. Despite it all, I have made memories and progress, found reasons to smile and to laugh and to give thanks. I have had reasons to be proud of myself. I could. I did.
I am not a fortune teller. I don’t know what the next twelve months will hold for us, for me. But I can start with what I know, in ‘the now’. I know that I am struggling, but I know I will be okay. I know that I am lucky. I know that I am loved, and I know my loved ones know that I cherish them too. I know that I will continue to try my best, to learn, to grow.
And really, even if that is all I know for certain, that is enough.
And so am I.
