Eurgh. If you’re feeling anything like I am today, you might not want to read this post. It’s unlikely to cheer you up.
Maybe I’ve subconsciously been pacing myself through three weeks of lockdown and now the reality of three more weeks has hit me. Maybe it’s the end of the holidays (yeah I know, what holidays?) and the imminent return to the Kitchen Classroom. (But this time with a lot more assignments from school to coincide with Henry’s spectacular lack of interest in anything that requires concentration or sitting still.)
Or maybe it’s just that this relentless tedium, complete lack of control, huge insecurity and mind-numbing monotony is getting to me.
I’m running on a cycle of emotions that all feed into each other but that I can’t seem to break.
It begins with something small: I start off most days feeling impatient. I desperately want to come up with a solution that will allow us, at the very least, to see our families. There has to be something we can do that will enable us to do that safely. There MUST be.
But no. Unless we hole ourselves up indoors, and don’t bring anything into the house - like mail or groceries - for a fortnight, we can't guarantee we won't somehow pick up the dreaded Covid and then spread it to the nine people we desperately want to see.
And then I just end up feeling so, so sad. My parents are in their 70s and my dad had pneumonia last year, so they have to be really careful. They are missing their five grandchildren - Henry is the oldest and my youngest niece is not even five months. Not only are they missing them physically but they’re missing these precious early days. Xander’s trying to crawl. Anwen has started giggling. Bunny spends every video call telling us all how TALL she is now. They can only watch through a webcam.
Back in 2017 Bella’s first word was 'Papa' because she spent so much time with my dad in her first year. Just remembering that makes me cry. We’ve talked about going over and sitting in mum and dad's garden for shouty chats but they think that would be harder - to see the kids and not be able to cuddle them (or in Xander’s case, sniff his little head) would be too much. And that’s if we can get through the 40-minute drive without being stopped and turned back by the police.
And the sadness then gives way to anger. I’m indescribably angry that at a time like this the country is being run by Boris bloody Johnson, who by all accounts could not have given less of a toss about anything other than his own lazy arse in the months running up to this nightmare. When there were warnings from the scientists - all those experts that Michael Gove and his weird face doesn’t think we need - and very, very suspicious stories coming out of China (why have we started to take their word for things?), Johnson was sending Matt Hancock (don’t get me started) to represent him at what would turn out to be critical Cobra meetings, and popping off on a mini-break instead.
It's bad enough that the entire cabinet is made up of people who only qualified for their current jobs because everyone else had been fired for not blindly backing Brexit. And that in their support of Brexit they so spectacularly shafted the very people they are now suddenly so incredibly fond of - the NHS. How have we let things get to this? How as a civilisation have we become so hoodwinked by the concept of celebrity that columnist, TV presenter and clown-for-hire BORIS JOHNSON - faced with no viable, votable alternative - is the best we can do?
And then I get frustrated. Because I know nothing will change. In a year's time the political situation will be the same, we’ll just be in a different type of hell to the one we're in now.
So this leads to worry. I honestly believe that if Andy and I were considering starting a family now I would think twice. If I dwell on it too long I get genuinely scared for the children's future. I understand that every generation has its struggles that must be lived through, be it war or recession or the wet perm, but at the minute I can’t see how the good will outweigh the bad for the generations after ours.
They have to deal with the fall out of climate change (because no government has the balls to do anything significant enough to effect any real change), of more pandemics (and let’s face it, we won’t learn from our mistakes and act any quicker next time) and of the decades-long recession that the Coronavirus will probably push us into. They just seem so happy and carefree and it breaks my heart that they have no idea what their future holds.
And then I am full of self-loathing because, despite all that, I am just so horrible to them. I’m so snappy and short-tempered and moody. I have no patience. I tell them to go away or to be quiet dozens of times a day. I tell them I’ll play with them ‘in a minute’ but that minute never comes because there's always something else that needs doing.
And the worst part is that at bedtime they cuddle me really hard and tell me they love me, smother me in kisses and say I’m ‘the best mummy in the whole wide world’. They have almost certainly developed Stockholm Syndrome.
I am all they know and they think I’m a good mother and that kills me because I know they deserve better. I keep telling myself I’ll be nicer to them tomorrow. But tomorrow I make the same excuses for why I can’t be more chilled out. Why I can’t ignore incessant shouting from 6am. Why I can't just accept they take an hour to eat a meal, complaining throughout if it’s not sausages or pasta pesto. Why on the mornings that I’m not on earlies they still come in and wake me up to ask if Daddy is downstairs. Because his absence in the bed + Xander's open bedroom door isn’t enough of a clue. And why I’m ever surprised that, when I’m having a wee, one of them will knock on the door to ask if I can get them a juice/take their bogie/put on a cartoon. You know, stuff that can’t wait 25 seconds.
And I’m so chuffing exhausted. We get through - give or take - 100 meals a week. Five people, three meals, seven days a week. My maths is bad but I think that’s about 100. And Xander of course eats at different times and eats different food (because I’m too disorganised and once he's hungry I have about 30 seconds to provide sustenance before the Real Tears) so that’s an extra three sittings a day. I essentially spend all my time thinking about what food to serve, preparing it or clearing up after it. (To be fair Andy does an awful lot of the last bit.) And then I get complaints if what I put on the table isn’t cereal or carbs.
And to top it all off, every muscle in my body hurts. I’m on day seven of my 100 workouts in 100 days challenge and I am in a fair bit of pain. Seven days and my jeans aren’t loose nor my chins reduced. How long do I have to keep this up before Henry doesn’t once more use me as an example of ‘something that’s not lean’?
So I'm back to being impatient, and then the cycle starts again.
***
In a bid to end on a cheerier note, here's a photo my friend Luke sent me over the weekend. It shows he and I and our mate Kev in a bar in Brighton one very hot summer in the early 2000s, belting out what he remembers with startling confidence was an Elton John number. It has made me smile a few times during what was a pretty tough weekend.
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