During the lockdown there have been various things that I have missed for obvious reasons - seeing friends, family, and even colleagues; going to church, and for other outings. I'm not going to talk about those here, since they are indeed obvious. Instead, there are a few things that I have missed more than I thought, less than I thought, or in a surprising way, and it is those that I thought I'd discuss here...
My Commute: Not surprisingly, I don't miss the drive to the office and back. For the most part, it was just an annoying drain on time, a source of frustration, and something I'm quite glad to be without. But...
The commute did have one thing going for it, and that was that it gave me time. Specifically, time by myself to try to decompress after the day, before getting into the various activities of the evening. In lockdown, my 'commute' consists to leaving one room and going into another, and just doesn't provide that airlock. And what I'm really missing is:
Time to Myself. Prior to lockdown, there was a block of time on Friday afternoons when, almost every week, I had come home from work, LC was still at work, and Funsize was at nursery. And so I got a couple of hours in the house by myself with very little requiring my attention. In lockdown, that's gone.
To a certain extent, I've been able to carve out a little time by continuing to get up early, even on weekends (thanks, insomnia!). Though even that is far from certain, since Funsize is quite likely to wake up at the key time. It's not a particularly good block of time anyway.
Costa: This was an occasional treat that became a weekly treat (on my way back from Tesco), and it is something I miss. But, again, there's a caveat - once lockdown ends and Costa reopens, I think my intention is not to return to my previous pattern. The issue is that the cost really does add up, and it's been something of an eye-opener to see just how much money I've been saving by being forced to buy everything in a one-and-done Tesco shop. All those little "occasional treats" really should go.
Band Practice: I thought I'd miss this, but I find that I haven't really. I mean, band's fine and all, but... I just haven't missed it. I think part of the issue here is that we don't really learn any new tunes, and we don't really practice for anything, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to the point. But maybe that's just general malaise.
Being able to "just pop out". This one perhaps fall into the 'obvious' category, but I do miss being able to think of something I'd quite like to do and being able to just go and do it. Though, again, I'm not sure that's something that will revert to normal even when things do start back up again.
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