I Missed my Mother

I found lockdown one new, exciting, and scary. I experienced a cacophony of emotions and thoughts at the realisation that life would never be the same again for reasons I could not have imagined. It was a welcome novelty to be at home every day, not to travel on trains, planes, and automobiles. I had grand plans of using the extra time to write my book that I’ve been talking about doing for many years. I had grand ideas that I would exercise more and do all the things that having a full-on job didn’t give me the time to do.

I’d look on social media and see people spending time with their families, baking, learning new things, smashing step challenges. I felt envious at times of those who were unfortunate enough to be furloughed. I am grateful and feel privileged for the fact that I wasn’t furloughed. COVID didn’t financially impact me, and I did not experience the pain and loss that I know many have endured and continue to do so today.

I ended up working more hours than ever before, and my work-life balance became more messed up than it ever was. I obsessed with watching the news and trying to get a handle on the new threat to my freedoms. I was scared for my family and friends because I was so far away from all of them. My 82yr old mother still insisted on going out every day on the bus to do her daily shop. She dismissed my pleas to let the family get her shopping, to say inside and continued to go out with her trolley with a Rambo like attitude with anyone and anything that threatened her freedom.

My mother lives in a small bungalow, which houses senior citizens on both sides of the streets. Her stance was/is that if she stayed at home and spent her days sitting down all day, that she’d never be able to get up again, and worse, be incapable of leaving the house. She is fiercely independent, stubborn, and proud. When there is nothing she particularly needs, she’ll go to the bus stop, and her destination will be whatever the sign says on the front. Us kids never know where she is. We often text each other to find out where she is or could be and to figure out what time she will come back. She has a mobile phone, but it’s often in the bottom of her trolley or in the shed! We fell out a couple of times because she refused my invitations to come and stay with me. As she said, she didn’t know how much time she had left, and my mother wasn’t going to spend it in her tiny house on death row, where the highlight of the day is watching another ambulance pull up and take someone away.

I diligently followed the rules in lockdown one. I didn’t see my family or friends and spent copious hours on video meetings and taking care of my immediate family. Home-schooling was a new nightmare to figure out, and being in the house 24/7 with three other people was also something I’d had to learn to adjust to. At the time, I lived in England, and most of my friends and all my family lived in Wales.

I’m someone that needs time out. I like my own company, and time alone with my mind is something I’ve always been able to have. But, six months into lockdown, I felt claustrophobic. I missed my family, friends, and colleagues, and I realised that I am a people person after all. I took a lot for granted pre-COVID, and today I see and feel the value of family.

I have a new appreciation for my family. I know I never want to go six months without seeing my mother ever again.  Being at home 24/7 is no good for the people I live with or me. As the world starts to move forward again, I can smell freedom, taste freedom, and I want it very much. I want to work to live, not live to work anymore and put front and centre those who are dear to my heart.