Dear diary,

I do not know about you but I am all over the place with my days and months at the moment! Is today Wednesday or Saturday? March or April? Sounds a bit dramatic but my god its true feelings.

In the beginning, when I heard that schools were sending the children home for the foreseeable I had my concerns which I voiced in a recent post but I was also slightly grateful. I needed a break! Most importantly, I was more than happy that, I too, could keep myself safe from Covid-19. I turned my alarms off, slept in longer than usual, caught up on the TV programmes I recorded and kicked back and relaxed. I work 6 days a week and having some me time is something I wasn’t used to but days into self isolation, I was close to tears. I felt restricted. I wanted to see my friends or to pop to my Nans. I had watched all of the tv programmes I had recorded Netflix was fresh out of new films. I was waking up everyday to get out of bed, to stroll to the bathroom to get ready for a day in the living room and frantically look through the TV guide. Let me tell you, at this point I am so over my daily routine of waking up for a living room chill. I started to think of other ways I could utilise my time – Cleaning! In a normal week, I’ll do the usual daily bits in the house and Saturday was always my day to deep clean. I loved getting the marigolds on, reach for the bleach and giving everything a real good scrub down. All the rooms in the house had been given a revamp by the end of week one and I felt great! I wasn’t in front of the television becoming brain dead, I was using my time constructively. End of the week, I was bored again. I had nothing to do. I mean, how many times in a week does your house need deep cleaning? Here I went again, twiddling my thumbs, so I pulled out my phone and began to stare ridiculously at the screen. Social media became my new TV fix. I was on it for so long that my phone would alert me that my screen time had increased by a rather high percentage. I have always been that girl who always has her phone in her hand but as of recent, it might as well be superglued to my palm. As soon as my eyes open and before I attempt to rise out of my bed, I’m looking at what I’ve missed from the last 8 hours of social media life, constantly refreshing the page to scroll up and down. 

By the second week of isolation, not much had changed and I could feel myself becoming more agitated. The days began merging into one and my mind wasn’t being stimulated anymore, I felt like a robot. Wake up, tv, eat, tv, eat, drink, sleep, repeat. The novelty of staying at home had abruptly worn off. I thought about exercise. Everyone knows exercise gives us endorphins and endorphins makes us happy! I would gear myself up to go for a long walk or a ‘jog’ (I use that term extremely lightly as we both know I will not be jogging for more than 45 seconds due to my chest feeling like its about to cave in!😒😂) but the more I thought about it, leaving the house just seemed like….a lot of effort, so I didn’t go. Oh, I’d still moan that I was bored but I wouldn’t leave. Every day around 4.15 I’ll get a text asking if I’m home and to come to the window. It was my high school best friend. I’ll be there waving away thinking “You go Nic! Get those steps in!” a part of me wishes I was walking with her. I actually think I have become so comfortable (or lazy) at home that leaving anytime soon will feel so alien to me. Weird isn’t it?!. The one thing I craved when working all the time was now the thing that was causing me much anxiety. 

Now it’s week 3 and I am becoming more creative. I have began to write more content and really make use of this time that we have. Don’t get me wrong, I am still watching Masterchef and catching up with Liar but I’m reducing that beloved TV time. I need to keep my mental healthy, so not being stuck to the tv or my phone will definitely help with that. I have deleted social media apps for a while and funnily enough, I do not miss the scrolling up and down! My thumb thanks me every day I am not on my phone 😂. My friends and I do a weekly quiz via video call to keep us entertained so that’s something to look forward to and I am also extremely grateful that I still get to tutor online 3 days a week. During this time, I have began to realise, I am not short of things to do. I have a creative mind and now is the time to get on with the things I haven’t given myself time to do. I don’t think I was ever bored, just unmotivated. This is a super tough time for all and keeping sane, as well as safe is imperative. I’ll be sure to fill you all in on the days and weeks to come and let you know if I do anything interesting or crazy – like going for that ‘jog’. 

Stay Safe ❤️