As we near the end of 2020 (hooray!) I don’t think any of us could have forseen quite how our lives would have changed in such a short space of time.
If you had told me at the beginning of the year that “S**t! I forgot my mask” as I walked out the house, would become my most used phrase this year I would have thought you barmy.
If you’d said I wouldn’t leave the house for six weeks except for very minimal food shopping I wouldn’t have believed it.
If I’d known that Monday 19th October would be the first day I would be alone in my house for a few hours for over 35 weeks I would possibly have lost my mind!
And even a few weeks into our rapidly changing world in April, if you’d told me that by the end of the year not much would have changed and our lives would still be very restricted I probably would have cried.
Right now there appears to be no end in sight. Without a reliable vaccination programme in place that is regularly talked about but often in the distant future tense, there seems to be little hope of change at the moment. I fear that ‘normal’ life will definitely get worse again before it gets better.
School life
As it is we have gone back to the ‘new normal’ (I hate that phrase) and it’s a little bit rubbish. Yes my children are all at school now which to me is the most important thing but it’s not the same. I feel disconnected from their schools and their education.
I would love to go into school and help out with reading in reception with my youngest and his class as I did with my elder two but they obviously can’t allow parents in.
My two children who are in Reception and Year 6 at the same school aren’t allowed anywhere near each other as they are of course in year group bubbles, so when they see each other in the distance they have developed a sign where they both hug their arms around their bodies and pretend they’re hugging each other! It’s lovely but also quite sad.
I am trying to choose a secondary school for my daughter but whilst the schools are obviously doing their best (and in some cases doing a really great job) it’s just not the same as going in and wandering around in my own time, getting a feel about what would be right for her. Add in to that that as a result of a delayed Kent Test this year the applications need to go in before we have the results meaning with just one week to go before the deadline I am still unsure as to what to do for the best.
And these issues are being played out everywhere. Students trying to pick a university that suits them without even visiting the town where the university is situated and seeing where they might live. Picking a primary school for that very first school experience without going to speak to the adults who in some cases might be the first people you ever leave your four year old with. It’s tough for everyone.
Sports
One of my children competes at an elite level in Acrobatic Gymnastics. For months her and her teammates trained five days a week over zoom alone in their bedrooms just focussing on conditioning and strength work. Even now they are only just being allowed to train in their partnerships. A lot of moves will have to be learnt almost from scratch again. Her last competition was in Portugal in March. At this stage although they are planning for that same competition to go ahead again in March 2021 I can’t see it happening. This is a sport where their careers are generally over by the time they leave school so they don’t have years and years ahead of competition. Two of the partnerships she trains with every day had qualified for the World Acrobatic Gymnastic Championships in May 2020 which was of course cancelled – they have no idea if they will get to fulfil their dreams of representing their country. Finding the strength and motivation to keep going week in and week out for athletes in all sports and at all levels up and down the country in different situations is so difficult.
Jobs and mental health
here are so many people who have lost their jobs in 2020 or have seen their businesses shrink or close altogether or are watching industries they love hang on by a thread because they are not deemed ‘essential’. I love the theatre, I love going to the cinema and I love watching live music but not only are those things still not really able to go ahead I personally still don’t feel like I want to put myself in indoor environments with many people I don’t know anyway.
Not forgetting those who have worked tirelessly all year in frontline services helping everyone, not just those who have been unfortunate enough to fall foul of this awful disease. There are many who are completely on their knees now and there must be a lot of suffering going on with their mental health which I fear could be the next wave of this pandemic.
As ever, I don’t know what the answer is (apart from an effective and affordable vaccine which I’m not likely to produce myself anytime soon) but my goodness I hope 2021 brings more hope to everyone and we can all find things to look forward to and work towards even if they are on a slightly less ambitious scale than when we started this year!
