To be completely and utterly drained from all this uncertainty?

[Borisjohnsonshairbrush]

Supposed to be abroad from the 18th Dec to 5th Jan in the far East but I'm dreading it. 4 pcrs each to do. Travel rules constantly changing. My anxiety is through the roof

I'm going to do an Xmas food shop on the 17th I'm case it all goes tits up. I hate all this not knowing I genuinely don't think I can take another year.

I know we should "suck it up" but never having anything to even focus on or look forward to is just utter and pure misery. Life is for living and I'm sick to death of constant bad news about covid etc

@IsThePopeCatholic

I know what you mean, op, but ‘first world problems’ is what jumps out from your post.

Well we live in the “first world” so yes that is what problems will be. It is still a real concern.

@MoominGang

We also booked to go visit family abroad for Christmas. First time in three years. We either suck up the multiple test bill and there's seven of us traveling or wait till it passes again. In the meantime people around us managed multiple Mallorca holidays. We waited, protected the elderly, got us and the children vaccinated. And it looks like we'll have to cancel again... I turned to a closed door at nursery today, due to covid they'll remain closed until Wednesday. I cried on the way back. It's too much to take and I'm on a brink of giving up...

Don't you feel like a sucker? I definitely do. I decided not to travel over the summer to see loved ones because there were lots of restrictions we were assured that once everyone had been offered a vaccine, we would be free to travel without tests and restrictions. I thought I was being responsible and doing the right thing, while everyone around me, including the CEV people we all gave up everything to protect, jetted off here, there and everywhere on nice holidays in the sun. Now my plans to visit family have been wrecked.

I feel absolutely shafted. I feel like a mug.

YADNBU OP. It's utterly draining and my anxiety is really high.

My family live abroad across several countries. I managed to see my DM and one of my brothers about a month ago, just for 3 nights, after not seeing them since 2018. It was a hugely expensive and rushed trip but I'm so glad I did it because I got back about 2 weeks before all the Omicron nonsense started up. My other brother I have not managed to see, and now won't be able to for the foreseeable future (he's in another country). Also last saw him in 2018.

These may be dismissed as 'first world problems' by some, but actually this whole situation is getting really unbearable, and like most people I am fed up to the back teeth and simply don't want to 'suck it up' anymore.

I completely understand. I work with two Polish ladies who are both planning on moving home after 10 years - they were used to hopping on a plane to see their families and the distance didn't matter. Now, with all the restrictions and constantly moving goal posts, they are a very long way from home. One lost her dad early in the pandemic and she couldn't get to his funeral. It's heartbreaking. As is the total empathy bypass demonstrated by some of the posters on MN...

@tigger1001

I'm not travelling so don't have that stress but op I hear you about the uncertainty.

Last year I was just resigned to a quiet Christmas with no shopping trips or days out. And that was fine. But this year it's the worry that things will have to change last minute. Either because the rules/restrictions have changed or one of us tests positive for covid. I don't like uncertainty. I get that's it's unavoidable but it does turn me into even more of a hermit than I already am.

I've said similar - last year in a way was easier, we knew it was rubbish and that we pretty much couldn't do anything, this year is just a whole lot of uncertainty - events are being arranged only to be cancelled (work Christmas party and school plays so far), and there is the worry over what will be next. I'm struggling so much this year with Christmas, what's the point seems to be at the core of it.

Fuck off with your first world problem shit. When you have someone you love take their own life because of the misery and loneliness of lockdowns then it doesn’t matter what part of the world you are from.

Hear, hear @OlympicProcrastinator.

And for you.

I wouldn't make any travel plans for the foreseeable future, certainly not to travel abroad over the next few years - if you do, they may not come to fruition."

It's hard though. Holidays are "my thing". I generally live a pretty quiet life, head down and work hard, and save my money for a week or two of heaven 2 or 3 times a year.

We had three holidays cancelled in 2020 (all booked before) so I learned my lesson and booked nothing in 2021. I can last a year with no holidays.

But it's been two years now and people are still saying "you'd be mad to book anything" and it's like... that's the thing I work towards? I miss it desperately. I miss seeing friends and relatives who live abroad. I miss the excitement. I miss the feeling of warm sun on my skin and watching my kids in the pool or walking into disneyland or sitting on a balcony with a book and a cocktail.

We live in a shitty flat in a shitty area with no garden and the past two years have been hell. I just want something to look forward to!

'First world problems' and 'WE'RE IN A PANDEMIC' people can shove it imo. We live in the first world whatever that means and if we're still in a pandemic now with vaccines and treatments and 90% positive for antibodies, we are never going to be out of one.

So when are we going to stop changing our behaviour to suit the state of the world and start changing the state of the world to suit our behaviour?

Where are all those extensions on the hospitals, and the accelerated ITU nurse training course, and the bursaries? Where is the access to gyms - via creches or vouchers or whatever - so people can lose weight?

Yeah, two years on and we're still waiting with apparently no end in sight to this PANDEMIC.

I think pp nailed it when they said many people really enjoy this.

Just go @yaldy. I've had four holidays in the last two years. It's entirely doable and very much worth it.

Omg spot on @yaldy

@sunshinelover69 I was literally on the cusp of booking somewhere for spring and now with the new variant and rules changing and uncertainty over kids ages and vax passports I've decided to hold off. It would just be another thing to stress over and I feel like a lot of the fun is the build up excitement?

2020 scarred me (I'm being hyperbolic but ykwim)... it was literally touch and go until the day before we were due to go, and it took months to get refunds (I've still not been fully refunded for one of them!).

So yeah, holding off for now but I don't think I can do another year (of any of it - not just holidays it's the uncertainty over everything). Last Christmas I found out it was cancelled on Xmas Eve so sat home alone (kids at dads) with a microwave lasagne. I'm not doing it again even if we're all riddled with covid!

I do know what you mean @yaldy. The only way I got away was with lots of time and effort spent cancelling and rebooking with the ever bloody changing red/amber/green list and whatever the equivalent was in 2020. I was lucky enough not to lose any money so I can see why you would be wary. I have two booked for 2022 already. Never thought they'd be in any doubt when I booked them but who knows.

It's utterly shit. I couldn't see dp for six months as he was working overseas in a country which closed its borders without warning. I tried to get out there 3 times but was denied entry visas, flights were cancelled etc etc. One occasion would have also meant attending a once in a lifetime event.

We've missed so many trips, plans and fun that I've become quite inherently pessimistic. I hate that.

He's back now, thank goodness. So sorry for all of you. Being kept apart from loved ones by circumstances beyond your control is just absolutely awful.

@HeartsAndClubs

I do wonder wether this pandemic will make people think twice about e.g. accepting jobs abroad.

So often people post their dilemmas asking whether to move to x or y country, and people are so quick to say “well, you can always visit/they can visit you,” but now we see first-hand that that isn’t necessarily true.

I think it’s shit for people to be abroad and away from family at the moment, but I do also think that in future those who might want to consider moving abroad need to be realistic about the possibility that if they do they might not see family for years during which time their children will grow up and have a limited relationship with them.

I grew up abroad at a time where people really didn’t travel home regularly, it just wasn’t the done thing, and we didn’t come back for 10 years. Now I have a whole load of extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles etc who I have 0 relationship with, because I just didn’t grow up with them in my life. They’re family in name now only, and I think that is a reality people need to consider when they’re also thinking of moving abroad in the future.

Likewise, I grew up at a time when most people didn't travel abroad - or, if they did (like a distant second cousin of mine who emigrated to Winnipeg), you kissed goodbye knowing that you were unlikely to meet again.

It was only the advent of cheap air travel in the 1970s that changed things and people don't seem to realise that global warming will mean that cheap air travel will have to end within the coming decade. Even modest estimates indicate that a return airfare to New York will have to increase by £2000 a seat in order to reduce demand enough to cut flights, with only the most wealthy then being able to fly - at least until we have electric planes, which will be many years away (if ever) for anything other than short-hop flights.

It is the things that have made travel so easy - planes and cars - that will ironically bring easy travel to an end. Not that people will notice until after it has happened, of course.

I agree the uñcertainty is draining. It grinds you down. All you can do is accept it and try not to get pulled under by it.

Obviously uncertainty over whether surgery or cancer treatment will go ahead is worse than uncertainty over visiting family/trips, but it is a backdrop of uncertainty that is affecting everyone.

I have been trying to focus on small certainties which helps a bit. We have to cope with the uncertainty just now I think, rather than hoping it will end at X point.

But I do have hope it will end, eventually.

We've missed so many trips, plans and fun that I've become quite inherently pessimistic. I hate that.

It is natural and protective. It will pass, hopefully.

[quote Borisjohnsonshairbrush]@zoemum2006 yep, I am a planner. I need regime, goals and targets to keep me on the narrow. I need a focus and living day by day is difficult for me as I suffer from depression and anxiety. It keeps me in check xx[/quote]
I'm another long-term separated from family.

What you need is lists, normal checklists for packing, then more checklists for pre departure/pre return tests and passenger locator forms, covid passes and whatever other obstacles are chucked in front of us etc and cross off your achievements as you go. Reminders on your phone to complete or attend the myriad of tests and maze of paperwork due whilst abroad are also helpful.

Once it's all down on paper and in reminders it's less uncertain and far more structured.

Are your airline emailing you updates on entry and testing requirements?

This does all make holidays much more of a chore doesn't it? But our families are worth it. ♥️

Yanbu, I totally agree op.
I'm really looking forward to when holidays are back to normal.
But some people on here (not seen it in real life) are slavering at the thought of another lockdown and more restrictions and they think it's ok to call those that don't selfish

@PinkAndPurpleClouds, do you think couples who come from two different countries shouldn't live together then, or just that they should have been prepared for one of them not to be able to see their family for years in the event of an unforeseen global crisis?

[quote psychomath]@PinkAndPurpleClouds, do you think couples who come from two different countries shouldn't live together then, or just that they should have been prepared for one of them not to be able to see their family for years in the event of an unforeseen global crisis?[/quote]
Probably thinks we should all marry someone from the same village and not foreigners.

@CaliforniaDrumming

I knew it would become an anti-migrant thread. Stay where you are born, live where you are born, die where you are born. What a dull and joyless world it would be.

Just think, if no one was ever adventurous and moved away a few caves in East Africa would be pretty overcrowded by now. Thankfully some people were prepared to look over the hill.

I totally understand what you mean op. I've patients who not seen family for two years. The uncertainty is Awful. How in earth anyone thinks this is a first world problem. Hope you manage to get away but I'm really not sure if we going into another sort of lockdown...wish covid would go away!!!

I'm with you, I'm fucked off as well. I don't give much of a shit about Xmas because I lost my mum in October but an event I was really really looking forward to was cancelled this month. I'm drained as hell, can't be bothered to make any more plans. It's shit.

@Enzbear

Yanbu, I totally agree op. I'm really looking forward to when holidays are back to normal. But some people on here (not seen it in real life) are slavering at the thought of another lockdown and more restrictions and they think it's ok to call those that don't selfish

Yup.

I think people will start thinking more about where they choose to live, and the effect not seeing family has. It is not uncommon to read on here that someone doesn't want to spend every holiday they have visiting relatives who live abroad, so quite happy to go a couple of years without seeing them. This pandemic has shown that things happen out of our control and it may actually turnout you do not see family for 4 or 5 years, by which time children have grown, older relatives died, people moved on. This all negatively impacts on family relationships