The News

Alongside the tedious tapestry of Life in Lockdown with my mother, weaving in and around the various crumbling and increasingly decrepit nature of both of us has been, indeed still is, The News.  In the beginning, The News appeared to be not only 24 hour a day coverage of Corona Virus, to the near exclusion of any other national or international news but also bafflingly bereft of any clear information.  The country waited anxiously for announcements of positive tests, deaths, graphs, restrictions and reactions.  Mum followed these bulletins with a religious fervour matched only by her complete inability to grasp either the content or the implications.  In fairness, I believe most people on the planet were having similar failures of cognition, myself included.

In an effort to make sure that we both remained safe from the "whatever it is that means we can't go outdoors" - nearly a year on and I have not heard my mum say anything remotely like "Corona Virus", Covid 19, New Strain Covid or anything else other than "whatever they keep on about on the news...."  I drew up the Bungalow Drawbridge and sprayed all the letters with Dettox and washed our hands face and space with all the diligence that I could muster.  I was, however, managing a bike ride, sometimes with a friend, sometimes on my own, nearly every day.  I would huff and puff my way back to my house in the small village several miles away, where my partner and son, who was returned from University, were in their own lockdown bubble.  We would have a half hour chat in the garden, socially distanced, apart from the cat and the dog before I would heave my unfit but getting fitter carcass back onto my bike and power my way back to mum.  This small act of exercise and connection made me able to carry on with the increasingly difficult situation that I had taken on, caring for my mum.  

The situation changed horribly however, as my partner told me one day that he had fallen in love with a woman in the village that he had been meeting while walking our dog.  The pain that this caused me was almost as indescribable as it was unexpected.  After 20 odd years I had imagined that we were going to grow old together and although we had our differences I honestly thought that we were solid in our partnership.  

It is now several months later.  I cannot with all honesty say that I am completely over it all.  I still fall apart regularly and have to attempt to sleep with an audio book on all night long in an effort to stop the unwanted thoughts and images that force their way into my shattered brain and emotions. The feeling of utter isolation though is almost constant.  Sometimes I try and imagine what my life will be like when I am no longer morally and physically tied to The Bungalow and my mother, it is not possible for me to get very far with these projections however as, for one thing, the idea that I am somehow wishing for my mother to die so that I can try and carve out a new life for myself seems distasteful and selfish in the extreme.  

So, we carry on.  Things have not changed that much in real terms, but oh! the difference to me!

I find especially difficult the new and startling feelings of anger and frustration that can suddenly overwhelm me when I am helping mum with her everyday needs, things that did not particularly bother me before can sometimes reduce me to almost blind rage and heart pumping loathing.  I can usually redirect the red  mist in a couple of seconds but it is fatiguing and upsetting.  Nevermind, things could be a lot worse and obviously are for a great many people.  This pandemic has left few people untouched in some way.