Lockdown

As this is such a weird moment in history I thought I ought to record it in a blog post.  It's been surreal, but also very quickly, normal - it's crazy how quickly humans can adapt to new situations. 

NZ went into lockdown on Mar 26th.   Lockdown.  It sounds like something out of a computer game doesn't it.  We heard about this crazy new virus in China around January time, but as with SARS and Bird Flu I figured it wasn’t anything to worry about –initial reports seemed like it was a bit like the normal flu, and China was really far away, and the previous virus's hadn’t really got out of hand.   In early February time, more reports were coming of people outside of China having contracted it.  My colleague Adele was meant to be heading off to Australia and Singapore for a holiday in March, and was religiously checking the daily infection count.  I thought she was over reacting a little bit, but I like to underplay stuff, mostly I guess for my own sanity. We were planning a work event on Mar 22nd, and I really didn’t want the event to go ahead because I am lazy and thought it was going to be a waste of time.   Some other countries were starting to lock down and people were panic buying toilet paper in other countries - which to this day baffles me because the virus doesn’t often present with diarrhoea, but, people are crazy. That week, our government announced that elderly people and vulnerable people were to stay home because the death rate for them was much higher than it was for younger people.  They also announced a 4 stage alert system - zero being normal life, 1 being a bit aware, and each level had more and more restrictions until Level 4 which was a total lockdown.  I though it was a bit ridiculous and didn't pay much attention to it because I just assumed it was the government playing it safe and being seen to be doing something.   But, the plus side was we made the call to cancel our event because we were aiming the event at families and the elderly and didn't want to seem irresponsible. I was soooo happy it got cancelled!! 

Then, on Monday 23rd, Jacinda did a live press conference, where she announced that we were now at alert level 3, and in 2 days time, we would be moving to alert 4 – a total lockdown.  We would only be able to visit the supermarket, petrol station and pharmacies, had to practice social distancing, had to ‘keep within our bubble’ and not travel anywhere.  This would be for at least a month.   

I watched the announcement in the office with my colleagues, and we were all silent when it finished.  Suddenly, what was something that seemed very distant and a global over-reaction, was very real.  We had been given 48 hours to make our way to our homes and form our bubbles.  I realised this would mean I would be living alone and working from home for a month - I had no where else to go. A WHOLE MONTH! I was going to go crazy.  We all looked at each other, and our HR Manager asked me if I would go home or stay in Kaikoura, and I burst into tears as I had nowhere else to go and felt so alone.  

My colleague Emily was also in a quandry as to what to do - she didn't really want to go back to her family as they lived a while away and she didn't want to isolate in her existing flat as she wasn't sure she'd be able to cope with her current flatmate.  In the meantime Amy offered me to stay with her (thanks Amz!! I really appreciated that!) but there were no flights available to Auckland. To my absolute delight, Em decided to move in with me for the month.  It was a bit of a risk given that we'd only known each other for a few months and we would be living and working together 247 but it worked out really well.  We have similar hobbies except she loves cooking and I don't, and we seemed to know when to give each other space and when we wanted company.

Lockdown was mostly spent eating, drinking (we got through 2 bottles of gin, 4 bottles of wine and some beer and cider and Baileys), creating - I did some really awesome embroidery, she did some cool drawings and sewed herself some tops, reading, and exercising. I subconsciously put those things in order of how much we did them - I've put on 4kg in lockdown so clearly should have swapped the eating and exercising priority.  

Work initially was slow, and we were able to crack on with tasks that we usually put on the backburner, but soon it ramped up and I was working 10-11 hour days to get comms out about Covid stuff.  We usually do a team presentation at the end of the week to update people on the project and starters and leavers etc, it's called Friday Comms (original eh), and wanted to continue this in lockdown, so had the bright idea of recording our voices to power point presentations and Adele would turn it into a video.  It was a hit and we made them as funny as possible and featured videos and memes.  That was really fun and now I want to be a radio presenter.....

Life was bizarre.  Only one person could go to the supermarket from your bubble, and when you went it was a bit like in The Handsmaid's Tale - not allowed to talk to anyone, move quickly, keep your distance. I kept getting told off because I'd forget to keep my distance.  Most days I'd go for a little morning walk down to the sea, or a bike ride just to get out of the house.  Sometimes we went foraging for wild flowers and plants you can eat - under Emily's guidance.  Did you know you can eat dandelion leaves and fuschia buds?  

The roads were empty so it was so nice cycling everywhere.  We started a sourdough starter and named it Brian after our IT guy.  Emily made loads of delicious food.  We saved loads of jars for making food stuffs.  To be honest reading it back it looks very quaint and idyllic.  It did get boring though.  I ended up taking a mental health day towards the end because I couldn't face sitting at my desk, in my lounge, again after 40 days straight of doing it.  Instead I walked to the peninsula and sat for 2 hours trying to spot whales and listening to podcasts which was wonderful!  (no whales spotted)

Emily decided to record what we called our 'cracks'.  Each time she identified a crack she'd write it on a post-it note and stick it on the wall.  She didn't announce she was doing this and one day I walked past and was nosy and laughed so hard at them.  I've listed them below and they're probably more of a 'you had to be there to find it funny thing'.  Remember that lockdown started on March 26th....LOL

4.02pm 26th March - Naomi cracked (no further detail provided)
5.06pm 26th March - Naomi cracked again (complaining of boredom)
11.38am 27th March - Emily cracked during recording Friday Comms podcast and went crazy swatting flies
5.15pm 27th March - both cracked into Ros's Gin after terrible internet issues
4.26pm 30 March - Emily fell off chair backwards and clicked back. No incident report filed. 
4.53pm 31st March - Naomi not coping with IT issues.  Chips solve everything. 
12.04pm 1st April - Naomi announces she's worried people will shun her for coughing, but it's just Emily in the room with her (and the voices in her head)
12.07pm 1st April - Naomi announces she wants to call the cops on the neighbours as they're having too much fun
1.56pm 2 April - Both cracked.  Naomi vaporised a fly with the fly swat.  Parts of the body were found up the walls.  We could not stop laughing.
7.30pm 2 April - Emily.  Hit her head in the morning and forgot to record it as a crack, and now just spilled risotto all over herself.  now worried she has a concussion. 
10.05am 7 April - Not exactly a crack, but we were having a meeting outside on Zoom, and Ros asked "how is the hot son" just as the hot son walked past.  He probably heard.  We were embarrassed.
12.06pm 9 April - Having a long standing burping competition.  This feels like a crack. 
10.58 am 14 April - 1st day back after Easter. Emily eats ginger slice for breakfast and hunts down flies. 
12.01pm 14th April.  Still 1st day back after Easter. Naomi announces 'OK I'm bored now'
9.44am 15 April - Both cracking.  Cry laughing at the beaver. This becomes a Friday morning watch, every Friday morning to celebrate getting through the week. 
24/7 19 April - Naomi. Completely OVER IT!!! (Also, secretly Emily but holding it together a bit more)
4.43pm 20 April - Naomi.  Hears a helicopter and gets over excited and runs outside to seek help from it. It doesn't spot her. 
3.31pm 22 April - Emily. Smashes 3 bits of ginger slice in a row and cried on phone to mum. 
4.37pm 22 April - Naomi.  She offers to work through the public holiday?!
24/7 27 April - Emily ALL DAY.  So clumsy.  Has period accident.  Spilled or dropped toothpaste, coffee, paint, water and tomato puree.  Worked 3 hours unnecessarily due to a miscommunication.  Should have gone back to bed quite honestly (Naomi's words)
10.30am 4 May - Naomi.  Rages in Comms team meeting over the injustice of not being allowed to get takeaways in Level 3.  This results in a wellbeing call from Robbie where she rages again at being the subject of a wellbeing call. 
4.25pm 7 May - Naomi.  Goes into the bathroom for a wee and comes out with a fringe and holding a large chunk of her hair.
11.06am 13th May - Naomi.  Goes into the bathroom again and keeps hacking away at her hair whilst yelling 'this is what happens when the Comms Team meeting gets cancelled!'
4.34pm 13 May - Both.  Naomi recorded a burp for Friday Comms, and Emily offered to fart for it too, but Naomi didn't want her to fart onto her phone.  The burp never made it into the Friday Comms recording.  It's a good job Adele has higher standards than we do. 

Haha. I giggled remembering those!!! It looks like I cracked a fair bit more than Emily but as she was recording it I guess she was a bit biased....

We were also a bit naughty and burst our bubbles a few times- we'd go for bike rides over to South Bay, and a colleague would spot us and invite us in for a mid afternoon gin.  I'd sit there anxious we were going to get in trouble whilst Em and Robyn would yarn away and this then became a semi regular Sunday afternoon thing which was nice.  On Easter we went over to Robyn's for afternoon tea and she'd made us a basket of Easter Eggs which was so nice and thoughtful it nearly made me cry!! Robyn's our HR Lady and the most un-HR HR lady I've ever met, she's bloody brilliant.  I digress but one thing I've loved about working for this project is the people I have met - it's totally normal to hang out with people much older or younger than you and you realise we're all the same people going through similar things just at different ages and you can be friends with anyone of any age which is super cool. 

After a month, our numbers of infections had dropped significantly and we were told we could go to Level 3.  This meant a few more businesses could open, so we could get takeaways and I could take my car to the garage to get a new tyre.  People went mental for McDonalds and KFC and there were news reports of huge queues at both - insane.  Me and Em got a takeaway burger from the local joint and sat on the beach to eat it.  It was a bit of a disappointing burger to be honest, I wanted it to be this delightful, novel experience but it just wasn't.   We still weren't allowed to travel, but we could do a few more activities if we socially distance still.   Our company told us we weren't allowed to get takeaways or go to the supermarket anymore because of one annoying local who shouts super loud on FB and causes huge issues and wanted all of our returning workers Covid tested.  This aspect of my job is worthy of a blog post in itself one day. She orchestrated a road closure and a protest and stopped a lot of work and cost us a lot of money.  Madness.  This is where I got super annoyed and raged about the injustice of the decision of us not being allowed takeaways, and eventually it was reversed. Yay! But between it being reversed, we still went for 3 other takeaways just to break the rules, but had to pick them up wearing hats and scarves in case we got recognised and told off, haha. 

We were at Level 3 weeks, and now we're at Level 2.  That was weird.  It was like I had stockholm syndrome.   I had gotten used to my new normal and didn't want to go back to real life.  But equally, I really missed my friends, and being able to get out and go to places - the monotony of getting up, going for a walk in the same spot, sitting at my desk that I saw 247, eating dinner in the same room and going to bed was draining me.  

I have my next weekends all planned out to make the most of Level 2, which is almost back to normal - we're allowed to travel again, we can have gatherings but only of up to 10 people, and we have to keep a record of where we have been and who we went with - every cafe you have to sign in to, even a takeaway.  It's a bit weird and I am looking forward to no restrictions - but obviously until the rest of the world sorts their shit out, our borders will be shut for a long time and we more than likely won't be able to travel outside of NZ or Aus without having to face lots of quarantine coming back.  It's a weird thought that I may not be able to see my family in person for a very long time. 

Lockdown has made me realise how alone I am.  I mean I guess I knew it before, but it really highlighted it to me.  I feel like a domino that's still standing up, and the dominoes to my left and right have fallen over on their dominoes.  All of my NZ friends have their own support systems - be it a partner, their families, their own friends they live with.  My family are stuck in the UK, and have their own lives anyway.  I'm stuck in Kaikoura, a 2.5 hour drive to my nearest friends who are brilliant, but have their own lives and families and flatmates and friends.  I know people here but the people I like also have their own families and friends.  If I moved back to the UK, my friends have all dispersed and now have their own families and friends.  So I feel a bit lost.  Fuck I said families and friends too much in that paragraph. Even my writing is trolling me!  

This weekend was a weird one.  I found out that Aric has got married and my friends knew but kept it from me.  He got married 7 months after we last slept together, 6 months after we had any meaningful contact.  This is the guy who actively baulked when I suggested we be engaged by the time we did long distance, the guy who told me he was breaking up with me because he didn't want to take anyone to Lebanon because it was dangerous and stressful and he didn't want the responsibility.   I fumed and raged when I first found out but now I've had time to think about it, I find it hilarious.  It's just so absurd and it's not his first time in a whirlwind romance and toying with marriage. I guess it's kind of offensive he never considered marrying me, but he's also clearly very fickle with his feelings and plays hard and fast with emotions.  He's not who I remember and I wonder if I ever really knew him, which is a sad thing to reckon with. But, his life is his life, and he can make all the questionable decisions he wants, and there's nothing I can do, or want to do, to change that.  Now I can finally move on.  I don't think I quite realised how emotionally unavailable I had made myself because he never gave me proper closure.  

It's funny though, lots of people have been saying 'he didn't deserve you, you deserve someone much better'.  I just don't know if it's about that, about deserving something.  I still don't think he's a bad person.  Maybe that's because if I did, then it means I'm stupid for dating him for so long.  I don't know.  I can't quite articulate what I mean.  For example, sometimes it's really clear cut - sometimes good people do date real douchebags and they really don't deserve it - the person doesn't seem like a douchebag but turns out to be a huge gaslighter and mental or something, but sometimes it's a muddle, and the people are both good but it isn't the right time or place for them.  I don't know, maybe I'm being too nice.   In the end its his life and he can do what he wants with it. I'm disappointed in the way it played out - he could have told me himself, rather than putting my friends in a very awkward position, and my friends could have told me at the time, but I guess he wasn't thinking about me at all, and my friends were thinking about me too much.  

Anyway, that's enough of an update.  I think my writing is a bit flat tonight and I'd like to make it read a bit nicer but I really cannot be bothered. I am feeling a bit flat all over - winter blues I guess, and just generally feeling stuck and unfulfilled with life.  But as that phrase goes, 'this too shall pass' (I'm seriously considering getting this tattooed on my forehead).

Comments

  1. Not sure your forehead would be big enough, but great post and so jealous that you're nearly out the other end (or at least way ahead of us) x

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