When school shut on the 9th March 2020 my eldest immediately decided he was going to become the next wimpy kid.
He was going to document his home school time and publish the book.
It’s kind of fallen by the wayside a little but my favourite diary entry had to be “and then I hit the jacuzzi to kill some time”…..
However it got me thinking. We will look back at this time and want to know more. As I sit and I research out topics for home school it dawned on me that maybe one day someone will be sat and wanting to know more about what it was like to live through a global pandemic in 2020.
So here goes.
The first case
The first case in Qatar was reported on the 29th February 2020. Up until that point I hadn’t really considered much about COVID-19 other than amending our holiday plans from Singapore to the Maldives. First world problems I know.
From that initial case there were murmurs that the schools would shut. Ones that I didn’t believe.
However as the cases grew, little by little, the decision was taken to close all the schools on the 9th March. The following days saw a leap in COVID-19 in Qatar with 238 new cases being confirmed on the 11th March.
From then until now we’ve pretty much bunkered down within our closed compound.
Home school, play time, exercise, work, everything has happened without me moving more than 200m from my front door.
And it is hard
Cabin fever is real.
Isolation and loneliness is real.
Feral children climbing up the walls are real.
But so to is COVID-19 and the real risk of contracting it.
The anxiety
I’m anxious at the best of times. My third pregnancy was fraught with antenatal anxiety and I feel myself slipping into health anxiety this time around.
Realistically I know I am fit, I am healthy, and although I am hypertensive my blood pressure is pretty controlled. I (reluctantly) run up to three times a week and having the three boys means I am constantly on my feet.
Yet every cough, every time I breath in, has me questioning, wondering, anxious. And not only me. My husband is temperature checking. My children are santitising.
There is a low level sense of panic and urgency coupled with a feeling that we’re overreacting.
I never realised it was possible to feel as though you are both under and over reacting. But that was before COVID-19 came into my life.
It’s an uncertain time and all I know for certain is that I will keep doing everything to keep safe. And although it is hard, and my patience is definitely thinning, I will count my blessings in spending time with my family.
