On Valentines day it was minus 5 degrees and the ponds and canals had frozen enough to skate on. (which we did, and we didn’t die!) Five days later, it was 16 degrees and my garden was carpeted by crocuses. And we had a BBQ. This is our weird pandemic life.
This weird timewarp of weather got me all introspective (even more than normal).
This whole last 12 months, since the start of the pandemic, has been weird as shit.
Sometimes I’ve been ok. Sometimes not. Right now? I’m in an in between place. How about you? How are you doing, really?
My thoughts on Pandemic Life
I think video is best way to share my thoughts with you at this time, to ask for something that I need, and to offer the same back to you.
If you do want a chat (no sales, no agenda), just to share musings, questions, weird ideas, I’d love to join you in that.
Get some time with me for random musings, connection, and fun with this link.
Transcript
Hi, I’ve got some thoughts and I thought the best way to share them with you is in a video today. So here goes.
It’s been a year now, almost, that we’ve been in this lockdown and there’s a really strange bizarre situation, where we’re all working but it’s such a completely different way.
Something I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks is there a sense of unrealness in my life. And to be fair, to be all the way through this pandemic. It’s been so bizarre, so strange to live this way that it doesn’t really feel like this is life.
My sense of time is all over the place. Like I feel like I moved house in 2019. I felt like we’ve only been here a few months, because the whole of last year it was, I don’t know where the time went. Time is doing something really strange.
I think that’s one of the things that contributing to my sense of this is all unreal, and at the same time it feels deadly real.
There are only 3 people in my life that I actually feel like I speak to on a regular basis. I haven’t hugged someone who isn’t my husband or my children for a year. I haven’t really gone out and spent time with people the way that I do my work even though I’ve always worked online, I had moments of contact. I’d go out, and be around people. Which is weird, because I’m an introvert. I love this isolation, but I miss those little bits.
So there is a massive amount of unrealness in my life, and I’m looking for something. I know there’s something missing because I’m starting to want to eat.
And all through the lockdown, I haven’t, I had an aim last year to lose weight and I did. But the last few weeks I just want to eat, so I know I’m missing something.
This is what I’ve come up with – I think I’m missing that realness. The real connectedness to life – to feel alive. To not be in this suspended place.
This is one of the ways I’m doing it – I’ve slowed down. It’s been sunny this week, so I’ve slowed down, sit in the garden, let myself feel the sunlight and the warmth on me. I think I’ve got to connect to sensation. When I was doing the gardening, it was like I’m picking up some weeds and I’m really noticing just that short amount, these muscles, I haven’t used these muscles before. You know those gardening muscles that you get in the back of your legs, the pain that you get when you haven’t done gardening for a while.
I’m using these physical sensations to help me connect. Another way that I’m doing it is to get back into life, is to make videos again. My preference is to write, I love the process of writing, I think I do some of my best expression of my ideas through writing, but I’m disconnected from the rest of you. So when I put this out on video, then I’m reconnecting to the rest of you.
So this is part of me reconnecting to life and sensation and being back in it – to break through this feeling of suspense that this pandemic and the lockdowns that come with it have created.
Love to hear how you are shaking off that unrealness of these times – how do you stay connected to real life and to yourself and others. Love to hear because I need suggestions too – leave them in the comments, connect with me, and share. I’d love to hear from you.
This is part of my Thought Piece Series where I explore topics related to leadership and provide both answers and questions. My intention is to start meaningful conversations that help us move forward. Want to connect? Click here.