Each day as it comes....

Thursday 09 Apr 2020

“My whole life has been chasing tomorrow. What’s next? How do I get there? For the first time in my life it’s about today…and it’s not so bad. Stay safe. Keep well” - Ian Callum, award winning automotive designer and all round lovely man. 

I have read so many quotes, mantras, suggestions of how we should be passing our time during this lockdown and none resonated as much as this. Maybe it was even more special as it was written by friend, but for me, the sentiment was perfect. 

I had read something from someone who was purporting to help people  which I felt was the exact opposite; no positivity, just shaming. To paraphrase this person,  ‘if you thought you were too busy to improve yourself before and still aren’t now, you weren’t busy - just lazy’.  The man who wrote it was wonderfully washed away in a tsunami of reality tweets from busy parents, front line workers and generally normal people.

The point is that everyone, every single one of us, is finding their own way through the lockdown. It doesn’t matter where you are from, what you do for a living, whether you have children, if you are furloughed or continuing to work - there is no precise way to get through the uncertainty.

At the start of the lockdown I was full speed ahead with everything from planting to sorting, creating to learning and exercising! That has scaled back now as I realised I was just trying to keep busy.

I have enjoyed going back to my writing, which is how I started my career as a journalist. I was writing for newspapers from the age of 15. I have written for magazines and national newspapers but I let it slip when I got too busy with my TV work. I always write my own scripts for the programmes but that is a different style. I have always written for fun, diaries at night, stories which might or might not one day get published. It doesn’t really matter whether they do or not as it is an escape for me and quite simply, I enjoy it.

I have actually really liked being in one place. Something which I haven’t done since, well to be honest I don’t know, 2001 would be my best guess. Maybe it is because I know when this is all over I will be back on the road again albeit much less than I used to.

You know how it feels between Christmas and New Year when you aren’t too sure what day it is? Well this feels a little similar, although it will be weeks and weeks or months long.  I have split my week by putting in a few things on specific days, different exercise on different days and other fun things and certainly not profound at all. A programme I love comes out on a Tuesday so I watch that. We open champagne on Sunday evening and I video call my friends.   

I am not medically trained and I am certainly not going to tell any one how to live their life during or after this. My point is that no one should feel pressured by what you see others doing.

It doesn’t matter if you want to reinvent yourself by the end of this or quite simply enjoying being. Just do what you need to do - within the government rules of course.

Happy Easter. Stay safe. 

Lee

 

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Each day as it comes....