Not looking forward to going back to 'normal'

[lorisparkle]

Whilst in many ways I am glad that lockdown is easing there are certain things I am not looking forward to,

Before lockdown I was rushing here there and everywhere - from work to picking up children from childcare to home to some sporting thing to home to some parents evening etc etc. I felt like a hamster on a wheel.

There was also issues at work that I could forget about but with work opening back up I am going to have to face them head on.

DH was also having work issues and now those are all coming back again and he is back to being Mr Grumpy!

Anybody else????

Nature and birdsong.

Afraid that the pandemic has only heightened that sense of rushing and stress here. Frontline NHS nurse, working 12 hour days every day. Desperately missing my children, exhausted on my days off and now working through what the post covid area looks like for healthcare.

More stressed and exhausted than ever

I’m giving birth in a few weeks, OH hasn’t been able to come to scans and won’t be allowed in to see baby post-natally (fine if I’m in for a few hours, what it it’s a few days?!), midwife appointments and all community support have moved over to phone rather than F2F, I’ve not been able to meet other local mums in person, I’m terrified of being locked down with a tiny baby as a FTM and no cafes/baby groups/anything for support. Particularly once the weather turns. I need things to get back to ‘normal’ ASAP.

YANBU. Being autistic, I have loved being able to avoid the hustle and bustle of life. The crowded parking at school pick up time. Traffic jams, anywhere that is overpopulated. At least it has given you time to think about changes that you could try to make. Life is too short to feel like a hamster on a wheel.

And none of this ‘new normal’ crap either.

One thing I don’t like, however is the incessant buzzing of power tools and garden landscaping equipment that has become a daily irritation 🙉

Maybe it’s an opportunity to look at your life a bit more closely and decide how you can change things?
I’ve found it quite liberating to have not the pressure to always be doing something with my kids and I’m going to continue that.

I don’t understand how people can say stresses have been removed by lockdown?
Worries are magnified.

Of the 5 people I know who have died during lockdown 3 were suicide. (None were coronavirus).

Both of us are on reduced salaries now

I can’t work because nursery is closed and my office is closed. I’m on unpaid leave instead.
Life is more stressful.
You have had a particularly tough time however everyone's experience has been different.
Me, my husband and son have continued to work. We are not front line so not on any immediate danger. I have done some working from home and some office stuff so best of both worlds. I've still been able to see colleagues and chat.and have a laugh.
I've not got young kids so no school/ nursery worries.
We wiere still allowed to go out exercising.A massive country park is is 3 minutes walk from my house so that was pleasant.every day.
No going out meant no unplanned spending so we have saved £1000's.
I dont know anyone that has died.
It has made me reassess things. Before I had fear of missing out and felt compelled to be doing something all the time, seeing friends, going to pubs,cinemas, concerts nearly every night to.
I have enjoyed the calm.
I know it's not right though and we need to get back to normal as safely as we can for the sake of the economy, peoples mental health and wellbeing, education etc.

Lockdown has cost me my job , I'd love to go back to normal:(

It sounds like some people think the virus has gone. It hasn't. Boris is now just more concerned about ££ than lives.

There are a few things I'll enjoy doing once there's a vaccination & better treatment for someone in my situation (Over 50, diabetic). But until then I won't be doing those things, I won't be anywhere near as tactile with my extended family/friends nor going to Restaurants/pubs

I won't be going to france, as I usually do, in July/August.

I was mid renovation, but I'm very hesitant to get any trades people back in - but if not now, when? It will definitely have to wait until next Spring/summer.

My partner & I live separately and we decided not to have him move in for lockdown as he has a DS (who moves freely between his & his mums. He's back at school & seeing friends/family. OH is working & seeing family/friends. Altogether too much risk for me. That's not suddenly going to change tomorrow, in fact it's going to get worse! Yet he still wants to know when he can see me.

We're not doing social distanced walks/bike rides or anything else because we are very tactile and when I see him there's no way I'll be able to maintain any kind of social distance.

He wants to know when/what needs to happen before I will let him come here and I can't answer him. If I say 'when there's treatment & a vaccination he's going to despair.

We miss choirs, concerts, theatres (both as audience and participants), community and family gatherings, language courses, workshops. DH's work depends on people coming together and talk and no, zoom is not a replacement.

I do not miss going to the shops - I miss the above, that is: 'community'. I am an ape after all.
And I want it back - I am almost 60.

BestOption wanting, at some point, to go back to our normal lives does not mean we think the virus is ‘gone’ (the likelihood is that it will never go, the only disease we have ever managed to eradicate is smallpox after all).
I haven’t been in non essential shops bar a painful trip to Homebase. I won’t be going to bars or restaurants for the foreseeable. I love restaurants, DH and I spend a lot of time researching places all around the world where we want to eat. Restaurants with social distancing/masks etc don’t sound like an experience I’d enjoy, so I won’t do it.
Like Prokupatuscrakedatus I miss community. I miss my voluntary work, my watercolour painting class, my yoga class, my gym, helping at a toddler group. I can’t do any of those things at the moment, and will be glad when I can. That doesn’t mean I think the virus has gone, quite the opposite.

Gosh I so miss ‘normal’ life and can’t wait for it to resume

No I'm desperate to get back to normal.

If you want a quieter, more scales back life, then make changes.

But ffs don't wish lockdown on us. People are losing their jobs and businesses in droves. People are getting depressed.

If you don't want to do much then don't. But I want my choices back.

For my children I miss normal. School and friends are too important for them (teenagers). I've found it stressful due to working from home plus running my own business with DH on the side and schooling the kids (DS has SEN and needs a lot of help). If the kids were at school (or of they were primary aged as I would have worried less about keeping up with school work) this would have been much nicer!

oh how I wish there a chance of life going back to "normal" any time soon.
I am hating our family's life in lockdown. Me and DH both working out of the home full time, and have been throughout. Im a doctor in mental health services and my job has become beyond horrendous. my children all out of school, so struggling to juggle supporting them with school work etc... plus trying to facilitate chances for them to safely socialise now. Ongoing stress of massive queues for supermarkets or trying to find online delivery slots. 2 uni student dc stressing about what will happen next year - can they move back to uni or not etc....
I am just about done tbh. I am absolutely exhausted and totally at the limit of what I can cope with.

I have been extremely fortunate during lockdown.
My family and friends are fit and well, albeit stressed from homeschooling/ working in difficult jobs for some of them.
I've been locked down with my favourite person who, despite being a very sociable teenager, has coped really well with lockdown.
My self-employed business has remained open, with a greatly reduced but sustainable workload - this resulted in work-related stress disappearing 100% and reminded me of why I love my job. Now that restrictions are easing, the stress has returned and the thought of this new routine being here for the foreseeable fills me with dread. I had already made plans to change things from September but that's now looking unlikely. However, I had also planned to take a year off from September next year so I'm clinging onto that for now and just have to get through the next 12 months.

I do feel very privileged to be in this position and am certainly counting my blessings.

My DH and I continued as normal throughout as both our jobs were required. I’m actually more frazzled lifestyle wise than before lockdown as I’ve had the full pressures of work with my two younger DD’s at home alone (albeit part time).
I understand if your routine has improved it must feel daunting going back I would definitely try to make a change there to reduce the dashing about and stress it’s absolutely in your hands.
I’ve never been so stressed on the other hand so can’t wait to get the girls back to school and have less to deal with mentally. However that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed your fears we have just had different lockdowns.
I hope you can plan how to change the routine before it all starts up again if anything I think the pause has given a lot of people a change to reset how they want to live in big or small ways.

The people who are dreading things returning to normal seem to be the ones who are fortunate enough to have a lovely family life, husband/wife, secure jobs or income, nice home to spend lockdown in, perhaps few real worries about catching the virus, and no other pressing health concerns.

Very nice to be in that position. If only it were like that for everyone. My mental health wasn't in the best place after years of being trapped in a horrible marriage. Finally got my freedom and was making real steps to improve life for me and my DC which are all on hold now. I totally get why and I'm not badly off compared to some but it's frustrating and I hate feeling trapped again.

Whilst it has been nice not to rush from one thing to the next, the price of this has been my children's education, extra curricular activities and social lives. That is not a price worth paying in my opinion and I can't wait to get back to all those things.

Can’t wait. First day back at work today, husband’s back at work, daughter is meeting friends and keeping up with school work, we went shopping yesterday, loved it, bought some bargains in the sale. We’re booking a holiday to Spain end of August life seems to be getting back to normal.

@AlexTurnersCigarette I have a nice family life, home etc but still want to be back to normal, it’s definitely not all of us!
Great if this has made people think they want to reassess certain parts of their lives but you don’t need a pandemic to do that! I was busy before but I enjoyed that - working, seeing friends, dance class, classes for the kids, meals/coffees out.... I didn’t do that under any sense of obligation but because I genuinely like meeting friends, doing things with the kids etc.

I saw someone post something like this on social media - but I can't find it so can't attribute but it's not my original thought. It went something like this:

"If a scientifically informed response to a pandemic causes economic hardship so severe that it is more deadly than the virus, you change your economic system not your response to disease. Condemning some to die of a preventable disease because our society has failed others is disgusting. Surely we can do better as a species..."

I think those people who have suffered during lockdown are disproportionately those who are poorer in a variety of ways and they suffered because they lack resilience and resources, which is a failure of our government. The fact we've been through years of austerity has caused child poverty to soar, mental health services to be cut, NHS run down. The drive for privatisation at all costs - where someone in the 1% HAS to profit from everything we do - which extends even to our inadequate and not functioning test and trace - is the cause of a lot of the misery during lockdown.

The reason the test and trace system is not working is partly because they are putting profit above functionality. Trying to harvest user data even if the systems don't work and experts predicted they wouldn't work, not using local public health expertise.

Profit before people.

I'm not looking forward to returning to that.

@tappitytaptap oh I know, I wasn't having a go at everyone in those situations- and I know that most people just want to get back to normal anyway whatever their circumstances. I cannot understand anyone 'dreading' returning to normal- as you say, anyone can use this time to reassess and think about changes they would like to make- hoping for life to continue like it has been for the past few months is very odd though and must come from a privileged position.

Condemning some to die of a preventable disease because our society has failed others is disgusting. Surely we can do better as a species..."

Who here is condemning anyone to die?
Saying that they want to get back to their normal life because they enjoyed their normal life does not mean they’re advocating everyone going back to ‘normal’ ASAP. It’s not morally wrong to want to get back to your normal life, when it is viable to do so.
I massively regret that the way the government has handled this has led to thousands of preventable deaths. I am also following all the ‘rules’ in order to avoid catching and spreading Covid. Those things aren’t incompatible with wanting to go back to a life that I enjoy.