Life as UNusual
It’s been almost a week since we are in lockdown. The first couple of days it was mostly our own decision, gradually the gouvernement set rules and tightened them further. It’s sometimes still hard to believe the situation and the past week has been a rollercoaster.
At first it felt a bit like an unexpected holiday: no school, no work, no driving around for sports practices. Instead there was time to play and relax. All this free time felt promising until it started to dawn on us all that we didn’t have many of the usual options to fill in that time.
I can go play football with my buddies … oh no, I can’t
We could take a trip to the coast … oops, only necessary transportation
I could do some model shoots … shit, not contact with people outside of our family
I could go to the toilet … damned, no toilet paper
…
In the mean time schools were scrambling to provide at least a bit of education. Nobody has a manual for this, so everyone is just doing their best to make it work and kudos to them. But with our combined 5 kids in different schools, there’s no common structure. Some of the kids are bored while another has to scramble to be present at the virtual classroom and the youngest seems to have more to do than the 4 others. On top of that my girlfriend and I have a slightly different parenting style when it comes to school work ;-)
By now certain patterns start to emerge and both kids and parents are slowly getting used to it. I’m not much of a structured person and I’m used to deal with a very unpredictable schedule. But even I need some habits, some things that anchor my days. And the other members of the family need that even more. So we’ve been looking at ways to get a sense of normality: getting up at a set time, daily exercise, … It’s a work in progress for sure, but we’re getting better at it every day.
One moment everything seems so perfectly normal and the next it’s all weird. Today I went for my first grocery hunt since the lockdown. It felt great and normal to drive to the grocery store but having to wait outside in line, spaced apart by 2 meters was a new experience. Picking supplies and putting them in the shopping cart was business as usual but having other people avoid getting close to me was a new sensation.
There are moments when time slows down and we don’t know how to deal with slow anymore. At other times life seems to move even faster than it was a week ago. Slow and fast alternate constantly through the day. Sometimes that creates friction and later it creates understanding. That’s what I mean with: it’s been a rollercoaster. And it’s one we haven’t ridden before.
Our habits and structures are fragile, wobbly at best. But if something collapses, we can always build it back up.
It’s all weird but interesting at the same time. I’ll keep documenting life as usual and unusual.
Stay safe my friends and look out for each other!!