My 2020 Lockdown Experience
2020 has certainly been a wild card of a year. How good that ‘wild’ is I am not so sure. I am writing this roughly thirteen weeks into lockdown, and those thirteen weeks have felt both like a year and a second all at once. Personally, my lockdown has felt like how the last kid to be picked for the sports team must feel. Although the actual experience was good in some ways, it was more the events that occurred that have made it feel utterly rubbish. I just wanted to put a little disclaimer that I did not write this post as a means for sympathy; I am aware that this pandemic is a moment in history, and so I wanted to document my experience.
On March 20th we went into lockdown and life has never been the same since! I had been working both as a LAMDA coach and a Front of House at a local restaurant. One of my school had plans in place to go online via Skype, however, the restaurant stayed open until virtually lockdown began. The last weekend I worked there I remember being sent home about two hours into a Sunday shift. In a way I was relieved- although I was cleaning the doors that the guests used, it felt nice to know that I had reduced my risk of catching coronavirus. Again with leaving the school, it was sad to say goodbye, but I was also aware of how high risk the chances of contamination were. I can remember sitting on my living room sofa when Boris gave the announcement. We were told not to leave the house except for:
1.) Work that couldn’t be done from home.
2.) Exercise (once a day).
3.) Shopping for essentials.
We were also told to not to visit the vulnerable/high risk categories, and to observe social distancing of two metres. To begin with, this seemed very surreal but I was isolating with my sister and mum and so felt relatively comfortable. As the lockdown happened one week before the Easter holidays, it felt like an holiday- but with no activities. It was horrible having to pick one time to leave the house every day. My sister and I started to co-ordinate the days we ran, so that on other days we could go on walks together with our mum. We were very lucky to have an online shopping delivery as well, so to begin with it felt as if we were to be safe inside.
However, anyone else who used an online food shopping service would know that it wasn’t all that simple. The loo-roll-pandemic became the delivery-slot-pandemic with everyone madly booking any slot they could secure. As a trio in our household, we spent countless hours leaving tabs open to the online queue to achieve the same. Although this certainly wasn’t the worst thing to happen to us during lockdown, it did in a way make us change our ways a lot. It also gave us a bit more time to mentally prepare ourselves venturing outside of the house to the local supermarkets. After getting into a routine this wasn’t so bad; a positive is that it really did get us to cut down on our purchases to what we considered our essential items. We became more sustainable and it also made me more conscious of spreading germs. I don’t know if anyone else felt the guilt of picking up an item in the supermarket and then not wanting it, but feeling obliged to purchase it anyway because they had touched it! Masks and gloves were the new fashion accessory. Despite hiding behind the masks, I felt like collectively people were coming together and trying to help each other. This was refreshing, especially considering a couple of weeks back it felt like everyone was competing against each other; it was impossible to get hold of pasta let alone support!
Continuing on the point of everyone coming together, my mum, my sister and I became closer than ever. We found the best way to cope was to set a routine and to set boundaries with each other. It can be extremely difficult for some living with family members all the time during lockdown, and by making sure we all had some time to ourselves ensured a vague sense of normality. Zoom quizzes, FaceTime’s and House Party were easy escapes from Groundhog Day, and it felt good to have more time to check in with my friends. It was also very heart-warming clapping for the NHS every Thursday at 8pm; their work on the frontline will never be forgotten. I felt like it was also a reminder for why we were all staying indoors. As difficult as it has been, it was no doubt the safest thing that we could all do.
Difficulties continued into work. Although I was being furloughed for one job, the arts industry has really been hit. My agency shut down, my weekly copies of The Stage appeared bleak and it seemed as though it would be impossible to tour the show The Neat Freak I was doing with Moon House theatre anywhere due to Covid-19. However, as a company we all decided to keep spirits high and to use the time to fundraise instead in hopes of touring next year! We covered the distance of Bath to Edinburgh and back (770 miles) between the six of us, which estimated to roughly 4 miles each every day to cover it in 5 weeks. We smashed it, completing it in just over 4 weeks, and I personally really enjoyed having a daily focus as part of a team. That is also not the only idea we have planned during the time, so stay tuned for more Moon House updates!
As the Easter holidays ended, online teaching became a big focus for me. I have really enjoyed it so far; although we can’t block the scenes as easily as we would in school, it has given the opportunity to really work on text analysis and character observations. Skype and Zoom have been a god send throughout this. It made me feel very grateful that I could still find a way to work, despite being confined at home, and that the students have responded so well with bundles of enthusiasm.
However, Zoom calls have also been used in our home for more negative reasons as well. My beautiful cat Violet unfortunately passed away due to an extremely rare and aggressive cancer, despite battling an extra eight months than her original life prediction. It was truly horrific having to take her to the vets, wait outside whilst she was examined and then have to receive a call in the car. It was also bizarre talking to a vet on Zoom about symptoms that our other cat Vita had when he couldn’t physically examine her. It was an utterly heart breaking time, and to this day is still painful. The only thing we were grateful for is that we were able to spend as much time with her at home, and that after we could grieve privately with no necessity to leave the home.
Moreover, just as we thought lockdown couldn’t get any worse the final diagnosis was the worst blow. After watching Lorraine and Dr Hilary discussing GP appointments and how despite Covid happening we should still make sure to go to the doctors I took the initiative to book an appointment. I had a lump in my neck that had grown and I was uncertain as to what it was. After a GP appointment I was told I had swollen lymph nodes and needed blood tests. However, we had another local GP down the road as well that instructed me over Microsoft Teams to come in for an ultrasound the following week. The ultrasound showed a large nodule on top of my thyroid on the left side that needed investigation. After having countless phone call appointments with my GP (she has been a dream), I was then booked in for an FNA (Fine Needle Aspiration) to take some cells and drain some fluid from the nodule to test. I was told to wait 3-5 days to wait for the results, but had to wait a painful two weeks until I finally got the phone call with the results. I was officially diagnosed with Thyroid cancer, and I cannot explain how terrifying that is to hear over the phone. Since then I have found out it has possibly spread to at least one of my lymph nodes and that I will require a thyroidectomy and lymph node dissection. During the middle of a pandemic the idea of having to go into a hospital with cancer scares me, but I know I will have a strong team behind me. So far this is technically my announcement of my diagnosis as it has been very difficult to tell people. My friends who do know already and family have been so supportive and I am so grateful to have them in my life- especially now. I will write another post soon regarding my cancer treatment when I know more so that I can help educate more people in the future.
Overall, I think what I have taken away from this whole lockdown experience is the word: essential. As cringey as it sounds I have learnt how essential life is and also more importantly health. Without health we are nothing. I also learnt what is essential in terms of how you spend your time. In my opinion time spent on the phone/video calls with my friends and my grandparents was very essential to me, and still is now. On a broader level, the NHS is an essential that people in the UK are so fortunate to have. On a financial level, it became clear what we actually needed to get click-happy with on our online purchases, as opposed to wanted. All I can hope as more lockdown restrictions are lifted is that life can resume some normality from this pandemic, and that we can take forward all that we have learnt during this global crisis.
All my love,
Odette
xo
Links mentioned in the post:
Moon House Theatre:
Amare Education (for online classes): https://www.amare.org.uk/
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