Blocked, not blogged: reflections on the effect of lockdown life

Today, I finally opened up a tab and looked at my Blogger account. It’s been nearly three months since I last visited it; it’s still there, I was happy to find. The same goes for my Vivez Vegan website, and my business website has had only cursory attention over the last twelve weeks. Last year was a year full of writing. Indeed, when I reflected on 2019 at the end of that year I noted that I done a lot of writing: weekly blogs for Blogger and VV, monthly blogs for LBE and in the second half of the year a weekly blog for Twilight. The words came easy, as did the ideas, and my fingers danced over the keyboard. But since April – nada, zilch, rien. I have managed, just about, to keep the Twilight blog on its legs but even that was difficult at times. What went wrong?

The New Normal: queuing to go into Sainsburys

At least on a conscious level, being in lockdown does not really bother me. I’ve never been a party animal and social anxiety is always bubbling under to some extent, so staying home to stay safe was my preferred MO. If I could have had the supermarket shopping delivered as usual we would never have left the property but, unable to get a slot, we restricted our trips out to a once-a-week visit to Sainsburys, masks and sanitiser at the ready. I found this very stressful and never felt safe, but fortunately have been able to get click-and-collect orders the past few weeks. Since the lockdown has eased we have increased this to add a second excursion to a local farmshop to collect a fruit and veg box, with maybe a sneaky pop into the wine merchant next door for supplies; all distanced with masks and excellent procedures from the two companies. Other than that we’ve had one distanced social gathering with takeaway food (and survived), and admitted another family member into the household’s ‘social bubble’. No trips to the seaside, no holidays planned, and no idea when we will be able to go back to the house in France.

I know that we are so lucky to have five acres of land to wander around and work on, but still we’ve undergone a major life shift, with new responsibilities for looking after the old folk, cooking, cleaning, gardening, the list is endless. Perhaps this stress was a greater factor than I imagined. Like many of the posts I’ve read from introverts on social media I really thought the whole ‘virus thing’ wasn’t bothering me too much. Yes, it is worrying, frightening even, but we were better placed than many to stay home, stay safe and keep our exposure risk as low as possible. In fact, I was enjoying the peace, but where had the Muse disappeared to? Throughout the lockdown and beyond all I have felt able to do is crocheting (more of that in another post), gardening and yoga, lots of yoga.

This is not the first time that I’ve felt blocked. In fact, there’s a blog post about conquering writer’s block on my business website. Previously, I’ve ‘cured’ the problem by writing about why I can’t write, and I suppose that is what I’m doing here. I’ll aim for another blog post next week (I’ve got a title, that’s half the battle, finding inspiration). Then, I’ll take it, step-by-step from there. When I’m finished writing this blog I’m going to open up the control panels for both my websites; that will be the first step. (I’ll probably have to delete a load of spam messages, too.) Then, I’ll have a quick look at the Facebook pages for each, and maybe add one post. If I get that far the ‘prize’ is to order some more yarn 😊

Life has changed and it takes time to accept and learn to deal with what many call the New Normal. It’s likely to continue like this for some time to come, so I’ll carry on digging, weeding and planting and crocheting; all creative activities that ease stress. I’ll also try to check in with my blogs and stuff a little more often. The lessons learnt from this are that everyone has different ways of dealing with what I call ‘covid-stress’. As the media reports, many folk have become fitness fanatics, others have stayed in and watched Netflix; you’ve just got to do what’s right for you to get through.