What has lockdown highlighted to you about your life?

[Ilovetea09]

Morning. I'm on day 54 of self isolation now. We are stuck in groundhog day and The kids are finding homeschool difficult and they miss their friends.
But we have been so lucky with the weather and to have a garden and are trying to make the best of it. We camped out there the other night which was great fun. Something we would never normally do. My husband is still working but when he's home I've noticed we've spent a lot more time together as a family which has been nice. Just doing simple things like playing outside, playing with toys.
We have been getting more exercise than we usually would which is a positive. We are eating less and spending less.

It has shown me how much I love travelling and going to the seaside /or on holiday. I really need something to look forward to it seems! And going on days out and the weekend, we really miss that.

But it's also shown me just how introverted I am, and my husband. My husband has always been antisocial, he had a few work friends /aqaintencies, but he's let them slip away and now has none. He says he's perfectly happy with this as hes never enjoyed friends!
Im similar in that I don't have a large group of friends. I have one best friend who I've not seen since February as she's living at a hospital with her sick baby for at least 6 months. My only other friends are school mums who I chat to at the gate. I aren't sad we haven't got friends but it has highlighted it to me when I see on social media people hosting quiz nights with friends and having group video chats etc.
Lockdown has also shown me how we aren't close to other family members and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. We all live locally to each other and we saw my parents and in laws every weekend before lockdown . But it was tedious and I don't have a good relationship with my narcissist father so the meetups were never fun anyway. I feel terrible saying this but to not see them has been quite freeing for me. My anxiety around my father has gone and I feel relaxed for the first time in years.
I don't know what our new normal will be going forward after lockdown but I do know that I want to change some things to live a happier and more fulfilling life than we were.
What has lockdown highlighted to you about your life?

That we need much more space and the children would love a garden. They have been so good about being stuck in our small flat (the care they are taking over some seeds we are trying to grow in a tiny window box makes me genuinely emotional) and I am very proud of them for their resilience.

Also my guilt at not being able to give them more than we have is eating away at me.

That exercise is so important for your physical and mental health. I've taken up running and my moods and sleep patterns have improved enormously.

Also that I never want to use Zoom/Skype for any form of quiz/social event EVER after this.

Lockdown has taught me how important is it that Chinese people like myself live in London. It is so important to be able to go outside freely without worrying about people spitting at you. i feel a bit envious of those people staying in 'lovely villages'. How nice is it to be white, live in an area without worrying about the demographics, and the n be able to go to the village shop without the shopkeeper locking up the shop to keep you out. A pub in amersham once did this to me and that was pre covid.

That stress was having a real impact on my health, relationship and day to day life. Bizarrely, I feel more like 'me' now than I have for about 18 months. All the crap that's been bubbling away has just stopped, the pause button has been pressed and it appears we all really needed it in this house.

That life carries on nicely regardless for the wonderful creatures of this world. in fact I'm sure the birds are getting tamer and singing louder.

That I am already alone and also a confirmation of my future re caring for my parents.

That I need to be doing things. Or have things to do. Otherwise I eat. And get irritable.
That much as I love my family I am constrained by their expectation.

That living in the countryside is bliss
That I love walking and walking for hours
That our house and garden bring huge amounts of pleasure and I don’t need to go on holiday to be happy

@Desiringonlychild - that is really bloody awful. It shames and disgraces our society.

My Chinese friend once took this sort of abuse in the northern city where we were both at university, when racial slurs were yelled at him by some yobs leaning out of a car. It was about midnight on a cold, rainy winter evening, we were walking home, and he had a parker zipped like a funnel over his face so that only a tiny amount of him was visible. He turned to me and laughingly said: 'But how did they KNOW?' I was glad he was able to take it with humour, but I felt sick. I asked him whether he'd taken much of this throughout his life: his parents had owned one of the first Chinese takeaways ever to open in their (very middle class) area, so of course he had. It really saddened me.

Incidentally his parents were Chinese and he was first-generation British but had never set foot in China during the whole course of his life. Anyone looking vaguely middle-eastern got abuse like this in the wake of 9-11 and it's sickening to think of it happening now with the Chinese because of Covid-19 - as if its 1.5 billion populous and descendents elsewhere are really collectively responsible for the outbreak of a fucking virus.

It's one reason I feel wrong joining in with WWII commemoration/VE day parties as long as these types of attitude - the very ones our grandfathers were fighting against - still persist.

That I appreciate the simple things in life.
That other than my family and one or two friends, I don't miss human contact.
That my work life is at such a frantic pace - I've realised that it makes me very mentally ill.
That if I didn't have to work I'd feel great. Never bored.

That I so desperately want to be a SAHM. I have gone back to work as soon as each of my dc reached 8 months and I genuinely feel like I have been given a second chance at spending time with them again. I want to keep them all to myself forever.
My job makes me very unhappy (new leadership and changes creeping in - I’ve realised expectations are unrealistic and having a huge negative impact on my mental health).
I have a beautiful big garden and I’m going to take better care of it from now on. I am extremely lucky.

That while it's an effort to plan a week's meals and shop for them in one go it's really worth the effort and saves both time and money.

That the simpler my life is the happier I am.

That a lot of the things I was doing pre-lockdown make me quite stressed: driving, having a lot of choice and making decisions, even (and this has been a revelation) doing social stuff with people I really love and whose company I enjoy.

That though I love them dearly not being able to visit my parents several times a week (one living alone, one in a care home) is a huge relief.

That I have a great husband.

That apart from the changes in schools it is exactly the same as it always is.

Similar to you. I always thought I was an extrovert that loved company. But in this weird reality we find ourselves in, I'm actually quite enjoying not having the added pressure of finding the time to fit everyone in. I feel less anxious. I do everything in my own time (bar work) and just enjoying spending time with my immediate family that I live with

And yes, realising how fortunate we are to have a home with a garden, house with space, live in an area with green space to run at a safe distance from others. I don't think I've ever given it much thought before, but I definitely appreciate things more now

That I really do love my DP and having him home has done wonders for our family life.
That I don't miss rushing around.
That I don't miss going food shopping

That older teenagers really do need to see others - being with their parents all the time is not natural - mine really need some independence

That I wish I had a partner. That I don't like being a single parent. That no-one has my back. That if I get ill I'm going to really struggle with day to day things.

That I am alone.

It's highlighted the fact that I had been using going to work as an escape mechanism from the realities of life at home.
Unfortunately I have now retired so there literally is no going back for me. This is my life now and I will have to get used to it and devise new ways of being.

That I'm fucking dreading retirement and am planning to defer it as long as I possibly can.

How much money we would save for breakfast and after school club if my work continue to allow us to wfh once this is over. And that my work-life balance would be better too.

How much DH and I actually get on with each other, we've barely had a cross word since this started.

That DD needs all the activities and socialising that she gets from school and sports clubs because otherwise she is not tired!

That DH is actually quite good at baking (with a bit of help from me and my own ability/years of watching GBBO) and we can cook from scratch almost every night if we have time.

That we waste so much food usually. Now we've got a tub for veg scraps in the freezer to make stock rather than straight to compost. We are actually using up leftovers and our portion sizes have reduced slightly. I'm much better at making what we need instead of making too much and it sitting in the freezer for months or going in the bin if it's something that doesn't keep.

That our little town is quite good for walking around when it's not overrun with tourists.

That I really really miss being able to just say shall we go down to the pub for lunch on a nice day!!!!

That when I used to say I didn't exercise because I didn't have the time, I was right. It is so much easier to do youtube online exercise videos and classes when I don't have to fit them in the morning before commuting to work. I now regularly have an hours' walk and a 30 min workout before starting work at 8.30am - 9.00am.

. Also I can just keep my exercise clothes on which also helps. All that changing and showing several times a day form work to gym clothes etc really did take up too much time

That I truly do not care at all what I look like or what my hair looks like when I am at home with DS and DH and my appearance has no effect on my mental health at all. It is only when I start thinking about going back outside and to work etc that I worry what other people might think and I start to feel down about my grey hair, weight, clothes etc.

That I am feeling healthier and less tired than I have in ages but I do miss my freedom and independence to just go out and wander around. That I do actually miss wandering around shops and coffee shops.

That I don't care whether we go on holiday or not, I don't need holidays o look forward to to be happy

That I have immense capacity to do fuck all.
That my house would not be cleaner if I had more time, I'm just too lazy to do more than the essentials to stay hygienic

@MarieIVanArkleStinks thank you for that. I think that there would be idiots everywhere but unfortunately I can't change the idiots. Look at trump! I just need to try and minimize contact with them. Not that London doesn't have it's fair share of idiots but people generally have choice on where to live. I am banking on the fact that the majority of racists generally do not choose to live or stay in a multicultural constituency like mine which has UK,'s third largest Chinese population (after Westminster and Camden) and is also 22% Jewish.. that is also quite expensive to live in. But yes this also means that I am indirectly paying for the privilege to live in an area where i feel relatively comfortable.

I don't have anything against VE day personally. Its just not a narrative I find super convincing. I am from Singapore and the British lost Singapore after only 1 week of fighting. our fortress was supposed to be impregnanable but it fell and my grandparents suffered 3 years of occupation. My grandfather was forced to carry bombs by the Japanese as a 12 year old and my grandma's older sisters had to either get married or dress themselves as men to protect from rape.
Our take from world war 2 was that we cannot rely on the British to defend us. That's why we fought for independence and in Singapore we have 2 years of national service and 20 odd years of continued military service which can be viewed as quite detrimental to careers. But there is no choice cos we Singaporeans never want to suffer again. If my child decides to be singaporean, I will send him back to serve his country for 2 years and defer university.

Its quite a different narrative from the VE day narrative that British people identify with.