It’s been a while

2020, what can I say? You’ve been sh!t.

At first I thought it was okay. Quite nice, even, to spend time at home with my family. That hasn’t changed, and I’m grateful to have had that time. But 2020 has been less than ideal in many ways, and today (yesterday now, it’s 02:30) was the final nail in the coffin of a terrible year, when our country’s bumbling oaf of a prime minister cancelled Christmas.

Before I continue writing this post, I want to say – I’ve seen a lot of toxic positivity on the socials lately, and perhaps I’ve been guilty of it myself. And I’m sorry about that. I try and find a balance between being grateful for my life and trying to find joy in small things, but I also don’t want to invalidate other people’s feelings because everyone feels a different way about lockdown. And especially Christmas.

Anyway – for my part, I don’t feel that awful for myself and my little family. Because I will have a good time regardless. But I do feel really sad for my parents because my mother’s really suffered during lockdown and the promise of a family Christmas was keeping her going. And my sibling who lives overseas was meant to be coming too. Overall I feel like it’s a kick in the teeth when we are following rules and we’ve been isolating and not taking risks and we show no symptoms… but now we are in Tier 4, which is full on lockdown again.

What’s really cruel for us is that in the UK they have backtracked on the promise for people to have a few days to mix with other households over Christmas. So we would have been seeing my family. And it was my “turn” and I really missed not seeing my family on Christmas Day last year. And B’s birthday is just after Christmas and he had to miss it last year because he was sick, and this year was meant to make up for it – and now it’s 99% likely he’ll miss the next birthday too. It’s a shame.

Of course I am grateful that we have our health and our jobs and a nice house to live in. But I can’t say it’s done wonders for my mental health. Even though I’m generally healthy. It’s been difficult, and we have argued way more than we usually would, and I’m sure that’s because we spend all day every day together. And B is the sweetest child but he’s been difficult too – that could be being a Threenager but it’s equally likely to be the fact that he’s growing up in this weird and crazy world that isn’t easily explainable to a three year old.

Added to which, this is the year that my close friend Briony died. And that was just… terrible. Not unexpected but just so tragic how it happened and we didn’t get to say goodbye or even have the funeral and wake that she deserved. And not a day goes by when I don’t think about her and miss her. I always think of things I want to tell her. It’s so sad she isn’t here any more. And it will be so difficult for her husband this Christmas.

I sort of stopped blogging a bit after Briony died. I think about it a lot and I think of things I want to say but a malaise just came over me and I stopped wanting to say them. I have felt a bit low level depressed I think. I’m fine, but I’m just a bit… meh.

We’re keeping the magic for B and I think he will have a great time at Christmas even if we don’t have a normal kind of day. Luckily I bought all his Christmas presents (and birthday overflow) so I think he will be fine for that. I just don’t know when I’ll have the chance to wrap them!

One of the things keeping me going is the weekly calls I set up at the beginning of lockdown. They have been really fun – we all catch up every Thursday night and it’s all my friends and it’s been great. It’s quite funny as they mostly didn’t know each other before this, as I have a lot of 1:1 friends. They all love each other now! We also did a little secret Santa gift exchange which was really fun. Everyone came up with super thoughtful gifts. It’s one of the nicer things about lockdown, to think we have this great virtual group of friends and we plan to meet up in person when all this is over.

So, that was my mini update. I know we are not that badly off. We’re very lucky in many ways. Our house currently smells of Christmas tree, and it’s shedding needles all over the floor! I have a whole lot of wrapping to do. And we even got a cheeky visit to Santa before lockdown came into full force. I’ll try and do a post on that at some point as we had a lovely time. Hope everyone is staying safe… We will get there in the end! Merry Easter?!