Last night we all sat glued to the television watching CR announce the way forward. These are surreal moments for me, so reminiscent of scenes from war movies of families huddled around radios waiting for life-changing news. We were at close friends for dinner the fist time that CR spoke. He was delayed and we all sat waiting (watching jokes and memes roll out over his tardiness) to hear what he was going to say: the adults to get an idea of what the future would hold and the children primarily to find out whether they would have to go back to school or not. I remember thinking then that we were part of history and wondering whether the children had any idea of the import of the moment. Of course, we are always part of history, but some segments of history are more memorable than others. The moments of that evening are indelibly etched into my mind, most especially the huge discrepancy between the responses of the children and the adults to CR's speech. The kids cheered and hugged each other; among the adults there was silence and an anxiety that was almost tangible. Although last night, four weeks later, we were home alone with only our small family, there was a similar sense of history. I felt proud as CR spoke: proud to call him our leader and proud of the way in which South Africa has handled the pandemic thus far. Of course, the worst is still to come and we will all be far more greatly tested in the next few months, but it was nice to have a sense of hope for a while.
Our expectations of last night's speech were rather insignificant compared to those of CR's first speech: my husband and my main concern was about whether we would be able to start exercising again and the kids was about whether they would have to go back to school or not. Frivolous concerns, but the reality is that at the moment the major concerns, about whether our economy is going to collapse and our population starve to death, seem so out of our control that it feels almost like a waste of energy to worry about (except from the hours of midnight to about 4 am, when that is all I can think about).
The bottom line is, that not too much has really changed. It looks as though we will be able to do limited exercise (yay!), but there wasn't much clarity about going back to school. Also, cigarettes- really? So I can look forward to my current reality for the foreseeable future: a thought that fills me with terror, especially since the powers-who-be have not relaxed the ban on purchasing alcohol.
From what I can deduce from social media and chatting to friends, people can be divided into two main groups depending on how they are managing the lockdown. There are those who are bored, tired of reading and doing crafts and watching Netflix series, and there are those who are highly functional and efficient and are taking this gift of time to learn four new languages between running marathons around their gardens. I feel like the odd one out, the lonely kid on the playground who doesn't fit into either group. These are some of the pearls that I've recently come across:
"I've never been in better shape in my life! My husband and I run 10km around the garden each morning." What the hell? I really don't want to be the only person rolling out of lockdown. This is not team-playing. It's not helping to fatten the curve.
"I'm using this time to do a free online course on sports nutrition." I know about those (courses, not people). I signed up for about 10 at the start of lockdown and managed approximately half a lesson before I got distracted by a child needing me for something. Now I just get about a hundred email reminders each day encouraging me that it's not too late to start.
"I'm so bored. I just can't face reading another book or watching another movie!" Really?? Please can I have some of your bored? Is it too much to ask just to be tired of reading? Because somehow my life looks like a chaotic mess at the moment. Let me give you a brief rundown:
6:30 am: Wake up. I know I could set my alarm for earlier to get more done (5 am club and all that), but the prospect of cleaning my house or skipping alone on my deck doesn't excite me enough to set an alarm clock for. Also, because of trying to sort out all of the problems of the world every night, I usually only fall asleep around 4 am.
7 am: enjoy a cup of coffee on the deck with my husband. Highlight of my day and entirely necessary for my sanity. Remark on the beauty of the sea and feel a vague sense of peace and hopefulness that this day may be different from the previous day.
7-8 am: Make breakfast for the family and unpack the dishwasher for the first time for the day. Still feeling pretty upbeat and positive. Maybe fold some washing while I drink a second cup of coffee.
8 am-sometime during the middle of the day: this is where the schedule starts to get hazy. 8 am seems to be the witching hour after which I am simultaneously answering work phone calls and messages (can't afford a receptionist currently), trying to clean the house (joke borrowed from somewhere else but it's remarkably accurate: Mommy maths- if a mom picks up 23 cups from around the house over 4 hours, how many children does she have? Two. She has 2 children) and attempting to home school two rather unwilling boys. Note that at this stage I am usually still in my dressing gown and haven't got around to brushing my teeth. And I may or may not have had my daily meltdown yet*. At some point during the afternoon I will get dressed into the loosest clothes I can find and probably go in to work to see any emergency patients and try to make sense of my practice accounts, which will leave me feeling stupid and frustrated and remind me why I never studied accounting. During this time I will also regularly be fielding calls from my sons about extreme household emergencies such as their brother using their cup, or their iPad running out of battery. By the time that I leave work for home I will be single-mindedly focused on when I will be able to have my first drink (at which point if you are reading this, you probably don't really want me to be your doctor anymore, but please remember that I am waiting until after getting home to drink...)
4-5 pm Get home and decide that my children don't really need to pass this year, wonder what the point of packing anything away is, decide that clothes no longer need to be ironed, eat half a chocolate cake and beg my long-suffering husband for any form of alcohol. The rest of the evening isn't usually too bad, especially since I have recently managed to convince myself that screen time is actually probably beneficial to my children. Which is why, in a nutshell, I would love a little boredom in my life. Or productivity. It would be nice to learn French.
There was a point to this post, other than to showcase how spectacularly I am not coping. Actually a few points:
1) If you are managing to suck the marrow out of this time and learning a host of new skills, congratulations. Honestly, I am in awe of you and think that you are incredible (and probably don't have children).
2) Perhaps, like me, you are also feeling like the lonely kid on the playground. Now you know that you aren't alone. I would invite you to come and sit with me for lunch, but social distancing. Just know that you aren't not coping alone.
3) Things are unlikely to change too much in the near future, so we are just going to have to muddle through it and, if necessary, stay in our dressing gowns all day.
4) Thank you CR for making me feel proud to be South African and giving me a glimmer of hope.
*I think my family awaits my daily meltdown with a mixture of fascination and fear. It is completely unpredictable when it will happen and what it will be about. To them and to me. It may be over the fact that someone has packed dirty dishes into a dishwasher still half full of clean dishes, or that I am unable to do up the zip on my jeans, or that a family 10km from ours is unable to afford to buy food for their next meal. It just depends on the day.
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