Tales from Lockdown: Part 3

After my last lockdown post the Easter holidays drew to a close and we settled back into the homeschool routine. However, the kids seemed to be finding it more difficult to concentrate, and I was more shouty as a consequence. It didn’t feel like we were getting much done, and although I don’t normally do parental comparisons there were a lot of proactive parents in the school facebook groups who seemed to be smashing homeschooling, much to my annoyance. Things have calmed down again, just in time for another ‘school’ holiday, yay! (I do wonder how teachers get anything done.)

Kids aside, time seems to alternate between flying by and grinding to a halt. It’s now mid-May and this time last year the garden was nearly up to full speed, but I’ve not done anywhere near as much as I’d hoped to this year. Despite being at home more, the mental exhaustion from doing everything else makes the prospect of keeping another thing alive utterly demoralising. I’ve got some lettuces on the go and my very late garlic is up, but I’ve not achieved much else.

I mentioned in March that a couple of projects were dropped or frozen when lockdown was announced. Last week I finally caught up on my inbox and project list in enough detail to realise that a few more had gone completely quiet. Having chased them up, they’re also holding things for the foreseeable, which is a bit shit. 2019-2020 was my best year ever (in work/financial terms), so it’s frustrating that 2020-2021 will likely see me going backwards. I still have work though, so can’t complain. I also qualify for the self-employment grant from the government, which should land in my bank account any day now.

This all sounds quite negative, and it’s really not meant to be. We’re alive, we’re in good physical health, and work (despite some losses) is still coming in. We’re incredibly fortunate and I’m still working hard on some financial goals that I set myself at the beginning of the year. Mentally I’m a bit less stable, not helped by lack of access to a gym, but I’m used to ups and downs ‘in my head’ and am content to ride those waves as long as necessary.

I’ve been reticent to plan too far into the future (everything: business, life, fitness etc) with everything that’s been going on, but am slowly coming to realise that I can’t just sit on my butt and wait this year to just happen. Even if my options for the next 6 months are limited, there will come a point where things start to move again; if I wait until things move to ‘get back on the horse’, I’ll already be behind. Time to start looking at where things have gone right over the past few months and do more of that. If nothing else, it’ll keep me distracted from those ‘waves’.

Lead photo by Leo Roomets