A year ago I was in Singapore visiting family and marvelling at how empty the streets were. How great it was that I didn’t have to queue for any tourist attractions, had enough space to lie spread-eagled on the floor to watch the Super Trees light show, and could easily get round Chinatown with the pushchair. The pandemic was still a novelty. Fast forward to today and I’m allowing myself to hope that we are on our way out of lockdown. School is re-opening on Monday, but rather than cracking open the champagne, I don’t know how I feel about it.
I have an amazing nanny who has done the vast majority of the home-schooling of my children over the last year. She has done an amazing job. So if I’m being honest, the emotions I’m experiencing don’t include relief that I will no longer need to educate them myself. The kids are emotionally ready to see their friends again on Monday. They want to go back. And I want them to go back. I’m happy for them. But I’m still not 100% happy about it.
Why? Why am I feeling like I’m not ready. Is this the same feeling I had when they first started school and I just need to get a grip, step back and let them grow? I am worried about the fact they are not vaccinated yet. They have had COVID recently so they are unlikely to get it again. Am I worried about other people? They are little vectors after all; infecting everyone in their path with their infinite various coronaviruses. Can you get reinfected with a different variant? I don’t know. It’s possible I guess. Very unlikely but if you’d asked me a year ago if it was likely we’d be in and out of lockdown for over a year I’d have laughed it off as paranoia…
Have I provided enough support for them to learn at home? Will they be behind when they return to school as a result? Did I spend too much time working this year instead of home school? Does that even matter because they will soon catch up? Am I wasting energy worrying so much about their learning instead of focusing on their mental health?
Maybe it’s more that this milestone marks the start of the end of this pandemic for us. The uncertainty of whether that statement is true. The idea of things going back to “normal” when “normal” involved lots of things that didn’t make me happy. Commuting everyday seems like such a strange thing to do now. But there’s also that constant, underlying, festering desire to reclaim the parts of normality that I do want to return to. Missing my family and friends that we have not been able to see in person all this time. But also just wanting to be alone for a while since I’ve been at home with my immediate family almost non-stop for the last 12 months. That train journey into London with only strangers for silent company sounds pretty appealing in that sense.
A little of all of the above methinks.
