Day 47: If this is a competition we are all losing

I sometimes worry that I come across as a bit of a self-pitying misery in these posts. While I'm far too exhausted to worry for very long about what the majority of people think of me, I really don't want to use this platform to drone on about how hard lockdown is. It's tough, no shit.

What is abundantly clear - not just from what we read, watch and hear in the media but from common sense - is that everyone is living their own, unique lockdown. In the paper a while back a columnist asked if it was OK to admit she was enjoying herself. She had adult children at home for company and to share in the cooking, she had a job she could do remotely, and she had a garden to tend to in her spare time.

As I read it I expected to be jealous but, you know what? I wasn't. I read it with an envious 'oh wow that sounds lush', bitched about her to Andy (naturally) and turned the page.

I know I've made a pretty good job of having a moan over the last 40-odd days, but I don't genuinely believe we have it hard. We have a reasonably spacious house, a private garden, one decent income between us, friends who swing by for shouty chats on the drive, and senses of humour that, if we're lucky, don't fail at the same time.

So while I bleat on here about my terrible lot, please do know I give a lot of thought to people who are having a genuinely bad time. People who'd swap their total isolation, their sociopathic flatmate, their aged aunt who moved in and has been hogging the remote since March, for my untameable rabble in a heartbeat.

Who needs soft play when you have a climbable tree and a tyre swing?

I had two conversations yesterday with people who are having a different lockdown experience to me and who, to my horror, ended up apologising for that.

My sister has a small baby and a husband shut away in the bedroom working 10 hour days, and she’s not having a wild time. Trying to get some sort of nap structure going, muddling through with no adult company, desperately trying to entertain a baby in the confines of her living room and being massively frustrated that - discounting childcare - she’s ultimately achieved nothing of any substance for weeks on end.

And then at the end of an emotional conversation she somehow slipped in a hasty “I know I shouldn’t be complaining, you have it harder than me”.

Yet in that moment I would rather be me - ignoring two feral children jumping on the sofa in the next room, up to my eyes in washing up, trying to make a bottle while my phone was jammed between my ear and shoulder, tripping over a stool someone had left in the kitchen to reach the sweetie tin at 10am - than be floundering over the eternal, hellish mystery of a baby that won’t sleep.

Meanwhile in a message yesterday morning Mum said she was “doing nothing for the next couple of hours” if I wanted to call for a chat. Which was followed by a quick “oh sorry, that was insensitive, don’t hate me”.

Everyone is having a different lockdown and there’s neither prizes awarded nor apologies needed for that. (With the exception of the time I suggested to Mum that I ring at 9am the next day and she responded with “Ooh I shouldn’t think I’ll be out of bed then.” That was met with a stonier silence.)

My days are hard but they’re no harder than other people’s. Do I wish I was doing this with fewer children? Not really. Do I get a free pass to complain more because I’m effectively living in a zoo? No. None of us are living our best life right now, and no one should apologise for voicing their personal struggles or unintentionally coming across too nonchalant. Life doesn’t work like that.

I take it back - this guy definitely IS living his best life

So let’s not be apologising to each other for every moan. Let’s not trip over ourselves trying to justify our rants, or rank our experience against someone else’s. No one is entitled to more or less happiness than the next person. No one's life carries more or less value than someone else's.

This whole lockdown has been a real leveller - no one is exempt, regardless of wealth, status or situation. Anyone, no matter their set up, can feel lonely, depressed, anxious or sad. And no one should feel guilty if they’re enjoying themselves, using the time efficiently and in no great rush to resume real life.

This whole experience should be reminding us that really, in the grand scheme of things, we are all pretty insignificant.

But I will continue to fall asleep at night daydreaming about which hotel we're going to spend our first post-release mini break at, and mentally packing the kids' suitcases for their month-long summer holiday to my parents'.

I can guarantee Mum will be up for 9am chats then...