When the World Turns Upside Down

17.3.2020

Last night Boris blustered onto the screen doing his best impression of a grown up serious person delivering bad bad news.

And now here we all are. Scared and a bit confused with no idea what’s going to happen over the next few months, thousands of households having the same conversation under thousands of roofs, life suddenly reduced to the square feet you inhabit.

I can practically hear the question marks floating up into the ether, joining my own.

How will I manage to isolate with three tiny children?

 What if we catch It and are all sick?

What about my grandparents?

My brother is self employed, what’s he going to do?

Will my other brother be able to hold a funeral for his little daughter who died last week?

Will we be able to go on our much needed holiday to France in June?

My nephew is due to arrive next week, can we go and meet him?

The list goes on and on and on.

The thing I keep returning to in my head is Claras birthday party. She turns four on Easter Sunday and has been talking about/planning the party since Christmas. I want to weep at the thought of cancelling it. So trivial compared to what some are facing but its not trivial to her.

I feel like this is the point at which my whole parenting philosophy is going to come back and bite me in the bum. In four years we have left the house to do something everyday without fail. We see friends and socialise everyday also without fail. I am a raging extrovert and to not socialise with others is unthinkable for me and consequently for the children.

Pretty much the first thing Clara says to me every morning is ‘where are we going today?’ closely followed with ‘who’s coming to our house today’ her entire life has been one long series of activities and visitors!

At this point I begin to envy my introvert friends who are most likely far better equipped to self-isolate and have taught their children the value of alone time.

So this is going to be a big experiment for us and an exercise in slowing down.

I’m starting to think its not a coincidence that its lent, also that I’ve just started reading John Mark Comers excellent book ‘The ruthless Elimination of Hurry’. This is basically an anti hurry bootcamp. I’ve decided to chronicle this strange time as best I can.