Taking Stock

 
Well – a lot has changed since I last posted 20 days ago (also, 20 days ago… where has the time gone?!) I wish I could say I’ve been busy, and maybe I was for the first week, but for the past two weeks I’d like to hope we’ve all been doing the same thing… staying at home.

Since my last post, I’ve…

Turned 25! That’s a big age. I was speaking to a 16 year old who labelled it quite rightly – it’s not old, but it certainly is in “big woman territory”. Whilst I don’t feel it – I am very much adulting now in every sense of the word. I’ve not been living with my parents for almost 7 years, I’ve been working in a high pressure, fast paced job for near 4, I’ve been with Levi for over 5 years, and this summer I would have had ownership in a property for near 2. Life comes at you… real quick!

It felt good to get my birthday celebrations “over the line” before all things virus related blew up. I only celebrate “big” birthdays – my 18th and 21st I had joint parties but this time I had my own celebration that I planned for months and I’ve gotta say it was actually the best birthday I’ve ever had.

Given the pace at which the virus was spreading abroad, and how even though numbers were relatively small at the time of my birthday, at this point I could very much see the direction we were headed so I sent around a house keeping message ahead of my birthday first all off stressing all things “wash your hands” and the lot, but also pretty much pointing out that I foresee this will for many of us be the last time we celebrate in a while, so best we enjoy it. After my event, I put myself in a voluntary lockdown, a week or so later, the Government closed down everything and followed with a formal one. I was eerily correct.

So, now we’re here. 29th March and I’m writing this sat in Levi’s room whilst he’s having a nap. When I heard we might be going into a formal lockdown (just under a week before we actually did), I packed up my stuff and took it over to Levi’s. My flatmate went back home to see her family. And Levi’s flatmate + fiance are also here so there’s essentially 4 of us in this house, working from home, and doing this lockdown thing together. This consists of lots of poker nights, “family” dinners and we just got a monopoly board delivered yesterday too. Lockdown is definitely better in a mini group. I didn’t want to go back home as, given I live near central London and spend a lot of my time (or used to) out and about, in gyms and all that sort of stuff; whilst my parents live right at the edge of London, I didn’t want to spread my central London germs anywhere near them.

Working from home has been pretty smooth, especially because I have a pretty nice set up if I do say so myself (thanks Dad), Levi also hasn’t been the worst colleague. Work itself has been really busy – busier than you’d expect given the economy has essentially been turned to “off” for God knows how long. That said, things have been pretty different, we run on a working formula day-to-day and we can’t really use this same formula right now because nothing is running as it usually would – from the whole team working from different locations all the way to the tatters that has been “the market” (which really is important in my job). Right now we’re all trying to adapt to and figure out a new way to screw and bolt the mechanics of our job in this current climate in a way that adds the most value to our clients during what can only be described as a desperate time.

But – that’s where we’re at. That is a complete snapshot of where I’m at right now.

I think it’s fair to say – this new year (and new decade) hasn’t really started as planned. Ya’ll I was trying to do big things this year, in so many different ways; but it seems the only thing that has gone as planned was my birthday, otherwise, 2020 said “nah” to my plans (at least for now). I’m very much hoping I can make it to 1 Jan 21 00:00 being able to say myself and my loved ones have come out unscathed from the movie that was 2020 – that would be an amazing feeling.

Whilst there is a lot of doom and gloom – the one silver lining is that a situation like this always puts things into perspective. With all this downtime and a loss of freedom, there really is no better time to reflect (and appreciate). Also, if you were planning to make “big” moves in 2020, you can still use this downtime as productively as possible. For example, say you wanted to start a business this year – who’s to say all this time at home isn’t perfect for planning out your timeline of things to do, how and when? Or say you wanted to get a new job, you have so much time now to prepare for interviews and case studies so that you’re up and running when the wheels of the economy start moving again and interviews come your way. This time off doesn’t have to be time wasted (well, not totally…)

Otherwise – hope you’re all holding in well! Just wanted to use this post to summarise these past few weeks given I’ve been so quiet over here (and given so much has changed since my IWD post..!) Remember – this too shall pass but ALSO – that the turn up, gym sesh and productivity is going to be A1 after this all dies down!

Have a fab Sunday and week ahead.