Lockdown sucks. Especially when it is also January. And when we are already worn down from last year.
We’ll get through it, of course, and do the things we need to do. We’ll bake and Instagram our bakes and turn our carpets into yoga studios.
We’ll howl at memes and fall in and out of love with WhatsApp. We’ll walk and walk and walk and start Schitt’s Creek from scratch again (then again) and tell our pets they are the absolute cutest, 87 times a day.
We’ll know it could be worse, for those who still have jobs, health, full sets of loved ones, food in the fridge and a safe home. We’ll know, as is always true, there are some nice bits amongst the crap and chaos too.
But it still sucks. We’ll toss and turn and wake with jaws that ache from clenching. We’ll sob over breakfast bowls and snap and say all the wrong things. We’ll deep-breathe through palpitations and worry about the young people. We’ll wonder when we’ll ever throw our arms around a friend’s shoulders again. Sit in pubs with crowded tables and laugh with abandon. Hop on a train and read in coffee shops. Make plans and stop reading daily death counts.
There are some glorious things the pandemic and lockdown will never take away from us though. What would yours be? Here are 15 of ours…
1. Toasted bagels with butter and nut butter. When you know, you know.
2. Hot showers, because even when the world’s obsessed with the benefits of cold water, how good is a hot shower every day?
3. Tika the iggy on Instagram (@tikatheiggy).
4. Surprise post from a friend/relative/colleague that makes your whole body glow for a day or two.
5. Dancing in the kitchen.
6. Rummaging for a pen and finding one you swiped from a hotel room on a trip a few years ago, and for a few glorious moments being right back there, having the time of your goddamn life.
7. The Vicar Of Dibley.
8. Overhearing dog-walkers, from a pandemic-safe distance, discuss the best ways to clean up a very muddy mutt (“Thankfully, he likes to stand in the shower with me…”).
9. A really good bowl of pasta, when a really good bowl of pasta is all you need in the world.
10. Videos of your nieces and nephews singing (almost) all the words to Frozen songs.
11. Remembering those hilariously embarrassing things you did with your childhood friends – and still talking about them every time you have your bi-annual catch-up, knowing that feeling will never get old.
12. Catching yourself saying ‘Lol’ out loud. Then having a good old lol to yourself about it.
13. Making a perfect cup of tea. Then congratulating yourself for making a perfect cup of tea. With every sip.
14. Treating yourself to a special night in. Which is code for dunking a chocolate bar in a cup of tea while watching When Harry Met Sally.
15. Cat paw prints on your exercise mat.
