Hi everyone,
How are you?
I'm officially on day 5 of self isolation/social distancing and I think I'm getting used to this new way of living so I wanted to discuss that...
On Friday I took part in a #HamiltonTwitterParty and it was so much fun! It basically involved listening to the Hamilton musical soundtrack and tweeting about lyrics or characters or whatever you wanted to really. Lin Manuel Miranda took part which was awesome!! I ended up being on twitter and texting at the same time because one of my friends said she would do it with me but didn't/doesn't have twitter so we did it via that and it was crazy and all of the good things. We ended up staying up until 1 am, it was totally worth it!
Saturday...I don't even know what the hell was up with that. Let's face it, we're all humans (unless your a bot...that just makes things awkward) so we can't be positive 100% of the time. I was overtired and overwhelmed by the situation so it was just...it sucked. It basically sucked. I did a live-stream for a couple of hours and by the end of it I felt beyond drained. Luckily, my mother noticed and coaxed me into the garden. It turns out that gardens are great places to read. Playing Frisbee is also a brilliant thing to do, the challenge is making sure it doesn't fly over the garden fence. It turns out walking is such a great thing to do so I try and head out to the garden whenever possible. It also turns out that music is amazing at letting you vent or boosting your mood, I sat and played songs on my purple acoustic guitar.
Sunday was a heck of a lot better. I spent a couple of hours making a Victoria sponge cake, it turns out that my baking skill ventures beyond "edible" into the realm of "delicious", not only that but cake is a great home-made Mother's day gift so it was a serious win/win. Afterwards I sat outside for more reading and continued my touch-typing course. The evening was spent watching "Noughts+Crosses" on BBC I player, would absolutely recommend reading the book series first. The show is good but not as accurate as I would have liked.
Monday. I finished my book and said to myself "I'm going to be super productive and get all of last Friday's uncompleted work finished" Big nope. I ended up finishing "diary of a somebody", starting "to kill a mockingbird", continuing typing lessons, watching "crash course" on Youtube, signing up to an online journalism course, basically doing literally everything except that. 1 pm rolled around and I did an online session with a maths tutor for the first time. I would usually rather pluck my eyes out than do maths but things change and he made maths tolerable. Not only that but it ended up putting me in the mindset to actually start my history work, which was a major success as I ended up being able to complete it! I rewarded myself by participating in Sarah Crossan's poetry live-stream and spent my evening chatting to people, writing parodies of poems/monologues and finishing "Noughts+Crosses".
I've been working on this post for a while and since then another major change happened. The UK government says that we are now only allowed to leave the house once a day for exercise (this doesn't include being in the garden as far as I know), this was/is a serious blow for everyone and I totally see the importance of putting it in place but that doesn't take away from the fact that this is difficult for everyone.
So at this point you are probably wondering why I'm just talking about my days? There are reasons, the first being this there is lots to do. This is a really great opportunity to learn a new skill, start a new project, get to know yourself, find good quality films, read, play board games, play any form of game, videochat, live-stream, try baking/cooking, get creative, work on mindfulness, study (I am aware that I sound like a teacher here...who cares? I would very much like to enter that career so best start early lol) etc....
Finally this: even through tough periods, time/life still goes on. We get up and face a world we aren't used to yet but we will get there. It's okay to take time out of social media or just take a break from our attempts to try and live normally because this is difficult. It's not something anyone has ever faced before, so we have been forcefully thrust into the position of pioneers. It's scary, however we will get through this. We will get through this by being kind to ourselves and patient with others, looking after our physical and mental health (I'm sure I've said this before but I'm going to repeat it) and above all else, giving ourselves permission to feel how we need to feel. We can't be positive all of the time so when you don't feel positive, don't try and force it. Feel it, express it in a healthy way: cry if you need to, hit a pillow if you need to and laugh if you need to. It's a shitty situation, we will find a way through it and I can't tell you when it will end but I can absolutely promise that THIS WILL NOT LAST FOREVER.
To you, the reader, I am going to recommend this, imagine what the world will be like when this is over. A truly horrific situation with the most amazing outcome. For me this is imagining the enormous street party that my village is planning on doing to celebrate the end of this strange period. It is imagining seeing my girlfriend face-to-face in person for the first time since February. It is seeing family members in the flesh, getting a Starbucks mocha frappucino and going into an actual bookshop to choose a book or two and it is finally being able to hug people.
Thank you all so much for reading, look after yourself, stay safe and I'll see you in the next post
-Amello
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