The positive side to Covid-19

When was the last time you took a breath and looked around at the people in your life? Stopped rushing from one place to another and just stood still? I used to run here, there and everywhere looking after everyone else, never truly looking at my life and appreciating what I had or who I was. I would snap at my children to “hurry up we are going to be late” at least ten times a day. We would rush through meals because we were always going somewhere, and I would feel like I had achieved nothing if I wasn’t exhausted by the end of the day.

Then Covid-19 hit.

We were forced to stop, forced to stay in doors and get to know one another in our families. My children are 4 and almost 7, I have been a working mother for almost a year and before that I was in school five days a week, so to say I was scared to become a stay at home mother again is an understatement. I sat in my sitting room listening to Leo Varadkar announce we would have to quarantine for two weeks and thought I was going to have a panic attack, then thought I was an idiot because many people in the world had such bigger things to feel suffocated by and yet I couldn’t help but feel as though I couldn’t breathe, feel as though I was a bad mam for not wanting to stay at home with the loves of my life. What I didn’t realise was I was scared to stop, scared to have to get to know myself and my kids as a unit again. Scared to fall back into depression because I was at home. Quarantine saved my life, gave me time to enjoy spending lazy days with my children, helped me to finally see them as the little people they were becoming instead of still seeing them as babies. I pushed the fear that post- natal depression had left with me for years to the side and I moved into my present. I brought them on long walks around our town, I organised home schooling and turned learning into a fun game, I gave up on home schooling when the good weather came in and instead I turned every new thing we did into a learning opportunity. I forgave myself for having unproductive days in front of the TV and I tried not to put to much pressure on myself to be perfect. I started to really enjoy being a mother again. The fear that covid-19 instilled in me meant that I cherished every laugh, every joke, every little loving moment and mucky handprint that I could take. I found a version of myself that I really liked.

Now that Quarantine is coming to an end, I am sad, I am mourning the loss of time. Soon we will go back to running everywhere. Life will take over again and we will become consumed with the outside world, schools, work . . life.

So take a minute and remember what you have, look at your kids, your families, cherish them because if Covid-19 taught us anything it is that life is so very short and filled with heartache and struggle but there is also love, light and laughter, things we often take for granted. Congratulate yourselves for surviving in a time of so much uncertainty and fear. Corona is not gone; we still have a long road ahead of us but hopefully the worst is over and we have learned what is truly important in our lives.

To those that lost family members during this very difficult time, I am so sorry for your loss. I understand your pain and I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to lose a loved one without the chance to say goodbye. You are in my heart always.

Stay safe,

T.