The Corona Chronicles: One Year Later

I decided to sit down today and write a blog post, as I am currently on a few days holidays from work. It’s been a whole year since all this sh1t began, and I felt like I was overdue popping on here to say a few words.

During the initial six week lockdown our country was in when nobody was working, I kept a journal, as well as posting here on the blog semi-frequently with a segment called The Corona Chronicles. I think I only ended up writing 4 or 5 parts in the end, but I decided how apt it would be to return to this little segment now one year later…

… where we’re no better off now than we were then. Everything is still closed unless deemed an essential service. The only positive is that things are slowly getting better with vaccines starting to make the rounds, although not as fast as they should be considering how small a country we are compared to others.

When I sat down with my journal and started writing, more or less just recapping the weekend events, Mother’s Day etc, I decided to take a photo to upload onto Instagram. It was as I went to write the caption for the photo, I realised I had a bit more to say than intended for an Instagram caption, and decided: let’s write a blog post.

One Year Later, and we’re still in a lockdown. Number 3, if I’m not mistaken, but I could be wrong — is it 3 or 4? I think everyone has lost count. This time though, there are a few more business’ open although not many. Cafes and restaurants are allowed operate as take-away service only, and the list of Essential Services is a bit more lax than it was initially. I’m lucky that I am in a job that is deemed as an essential service, so I am working a Monday to Friday job, which I am very lucky to have.

While I was writing it reminded me of those initial few weeks off I had. Going through a monotonous motion of getting up, making coffee, writing for a while in my journal and then going about trying to fill my day. I usually got up early enough, and spent the morning watching a few YouTube videos after my bit of journaling and then going along with whatever was happening that day. We were so blessed with the weather this time last year, most of the days were spent outside watching the kids play, and having a bbq in the evening while having a few drinks.

This year I’m looking out my window as I’m typing this and it’s slightly overcast, and I’m wondering will we be as blessed with the weather as we were last year? I know I won’t get to enjoy it to the extent I did last year, because of work, but even knowing I’ll be coming home from work to a some-what sunny evening and still being able to enjoy those few drinks.

I say all this, but at the same time I’m wondering, this cannot be the new normal. Surely the world will have to return to normal at some stage?

I hated the winter months, especially during the lockdown, because it was get up in the dark, go to work, come home in the dark, rinse and repeat. Before this stricter lockdown I was able to go to the gym, I was painting, I was productive, and then winter hit as well as lockdown No.3 after Christmas and I stopped doing anything productive. I made a few drawings on my iPad, but that has been the height of it. I guess the purpose of this blog post is to make myself snap out of it! I’m using these few days off to reset, and get my sh1t back together.

I can’t go to the gym, but I can stop eating like crap, and I can be productive. The evenings are brighter now when I get home from work and the clocks will be changing in the next week or two which will mean they’ll be brighter for longer!

I’m also giving you permission to kick me in the ass if I fall back on these words, and you’ve managed to keep reading this far. (And thank you if you did read this far). So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bring the dog for a walk!

Until the next blog post… 😉