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Life lessons learnt in lockdown

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purple flowers and large trees in a sunny park

So it is possible to be organised enough with your meal planning and food shopping to avoid going to the supermarket twice a day, everyday. Who knew?

My husband has done truly wonderful and thoughtful things for our family during lockdown. But I’m sorry to inform you that removing his empty coffee cups, plates and chocolate wrappers from our office at the end of the working day is not one of them.

When I thought perhaps my daughter would enjoy doing an online workout with me I was wrong. She lies down the moment it starts and doesn’t get up until it’s over, and I respect that decision.

Buying a set of houseplants is a bit like having a load more babies to look after. Except these ones come with INSTRUCTIONS.

Though spending so much time at home with a toddler is far from easy, there is no human being on earth who could make me laugh so frequently as she does – and laughing helps.

The best way to check how stressed I’m feeling is to fall asleep and see what my dreams look like. Oh hello ALL OF MY FEARS ACTED OUT IN TECHNICOLOUR. Perhaps I am a little closer to the edge than I realised.

I can write with my daughter bouncing up and down on the sofa next to me, leaning on me, attempting to push me off my chair, saying “Can I help you, mummy” and punching my keyboard… you name it. It’s not my preferred way of working, but I now know I can do it. She is simultaneously the cutest and most destructive co-worker I have ever had.

Related: I have also learnt the importance of the ‘save’ function.

mum and daughter sat on the floor decorating chocolate

My phone is both crucial to keeping me connected to the outside world, and the item most capable of making me feel disconnected from myself when I forget to use it wisely.

There’s a reason everybody is baking so much during lockdown – it helps. You can look at it and say “Well, if I achieve nothing else today, at least I made that.”

…There’s also a direct link between my husband saying he’s going to exercise, and me wanting to bake something unhealthy. My commitment to balance in this marriage knows no bounds.

There is no greater high than coming up with an activity to do with your toddler and seeing them actually engage with it for more than three seconds.

Related: melting chocolate and using it to make chocolate buttons was a great thing to do with our daughter because a) she seemed to genuinely enjoy it (particularly the part where she poured the whole bowl of hundreds and thousands we were using as decorations on the kitchen floor) and b) I got to eat everything we made.

It’s astounding how much simply tidying up a shelf or sorting out the cutlery drawer can do for morale when you’re spending this much time at home. Of course we have little time do such things, but when we do find a window – wow, what a boost!

Finishing the day with a walk by myself with my headphones in and a podcast on – the sillier the better – does more for my sanity than I ever could have imagined.

…And when I feel I don’t have the energy to go on that walk, that’s when I need it most.

Limitations on the amount of time you can spend outside make you appreciate the insane beauty of flowers, trees, birds, the sky… all of it. I won’t be taking those things for granted any more.

orange tulips in a sunny park

If your two-year-old insists on listening to their audiobook of The Gruffalo enough times, you will become able to recite it on demand. I’m not sure this will prove a useful skill beyond my lounge, but I’ll chuck it on my CV anyway.

I can ask my mum to hold the phone a bit further away from her face so that I can see more than just her chin during a video call as many times as I like. It’s clearly never going to work.

Just because you found being a parent difficult today, it doesn’t mean you will tomorrow. Hang in there.

The bar for what classes as a life update worth sharing with other people has never been lower. I’ve got some new address stickers for our wheelie bins! I’ve started adding mascarpone to meals and it’s great, isn’t it! I thought there was a spider on the kitchen floor but it was actually a ball of my hair! I don’t care if you care, I have to talk to someone.

There’s a time and a place to let your husband know how much it irritates you that he doesn’t tidy up as he goes whilst cooking, and the second he places the meal he’s kindly made in front of you is not it.

There’s nothing like spending every hour of every day with a toddler by your side, copying your every move, to make you realise how much of your life you spend with your hands on your hips (the entire time, apparently).

My capacity for guilt as a parent is so huge that I even feel guilty that my child is having to cope with living through a pandemic, despite the fact that I PLAYED NO PART IN BRINGING IT ABOUT, OBVIOUSLY.

I don’t need to spend anywhere near as much time explaining myself as I thought. Don’t want to have a video call tonight? Don’t. Need a night off your phone? Have it. Only free to work at set times because you have a child? It’s all OK. This period has taught me how much better I feel – and how much more helpful a person I am to know – when I own my circumstances and stop apologising.

There’s something touching and heartbreaking about seeing your child step aside to let strangers pass in the park and say “We need to give people lots of space” even though they have absolutely no idea why.

a tray of pink cupcakes

No, I probably shouldn’t be letting my daughter chuck the tubs of water filled with food colouring she plays with in the garden all over the flowers we’re attempting to grow. But I’m just so happy that she wants to help, who cares if the sunflowers come up blue.

It’s incredibly difficult not to let the vast levels of anxiety involved with simply leaving the house during this crisis spill out into your parenting. When it inevitably happens, noticing, slowing down, and taking a moment to be kind to everyone – including yourself – helps.

It’s been said a billion times before but this is unchartered territory. If you feel like you’re not great at this, it’s because there’s no way you could be.

No matter how many weeks and months we spend at home, it will never be enough to get all the laundry clean, dry and put away, so I may as well stop trying.

Our marriage is at its best when we take the time to spot ways to make life easier for each other. And that can only happen if we keep talking about how we’re feeling.

There’s a difference between both being at home all the time, and actually spending quality time together as a couple. We still have to put the effort in and that currently takes the form of a takeaway and a chat on a Saturday night. I look forward to it all week.

A typical day as a mum for me right now looks like this – I’m knackered all day, unsure as to what we should do most of the time, delighted when there’s calm, ecstatic when there’s joy, gutted when there are tears, game for every cuddle I can get, and so very ready for a break when bedtime rolls around. And then the second she’s asleep, I miss her. Get comfortable with feeling 45 emotions at all times and you’ll be the greatest, most content parent there’s ever been.

It is entirely possible to be both grateful for everything that makes your life good and your problems manageable, and free to mention that you’re finding this situation somewhat trying. We are all a lot of things at the moment.

Whatever you’re waiting for – whether it’s the delivery of a new office chair, some much-needed flour, or for the time when you’ll get to hug your family and friends again, it will come. Hold on.

Life advice: Stop trying to do everything at once

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Be happyThis week I finally realised that it’s OK to admit that you’re not capable of doing absolutely everything at once.

This is not a radical discovery but, in a world where relentless multitasking is a way of life, acceptance of this fact does feel like one.

If you’re anything like me, the only way that you will come to accept that you’re not a failure because you can’t manage to be in 55 places, achieving 307 things at once, is if somebody else says it to you.

Sit with a friend or a family member and list all of the things you’re currently achieving, everything you’d still like to do, and then berate yourself for being lazy because you aren’t managing to do it all. Now take a look at their face. They will shake their head. They may even laugh at the absurdity of what you’re saying. And then they’ll look you in the eye and tell you to calm down. You’re doing plenty, they’ll say, have a bloody lie down.

You need to decide what your priorities are, and then to give yourself permission to do those things without feeling bad about it. It doesn’t mean you can’t do additional stuff too, just that the bulk of your time, energy, thought, money – whatever – goes in that direction and you don’t beat yourself up for it. You don’t waste brain space feeling inadequate.

My current number one and two are: freelance writing – doing the work I have, and finding more; and, as soon as we get our sh*t together, attempting to find somewhere new to live in London. I will be doing plenty of other stuff too – eating, sleeping, going to work, eating nectarines over the sink, setting aside time to make incomprehensible notes that might one day turn into a story, consuming passionfruit margaritas, talking to strangers who definitely didn’t ask to hear about my baby nephew… oh, and maintaining relationships with my husband/family/friends/Coronation Street – but these are the life goals that I need to be making most progress with right now.

One of the most useful things I’ve learnt since becoming an adult, working person, is that if you attempt to do too many things in one go, you’ll either end up getting nothing done, or you’ll do all of them badly. Focus is everybody’s best friend; I just wish she’d come round more often than her pals Distraction, Procrastination, and I Wonder What Everybody’s Up To On Facebook? We just have to be strict with ourselves. As I’ve written before, if I didn’t have my egg timer, I don’t know how I’d get anything done.

Even more powerful than not physically attempting to do it all, is giving yourself the mental freedom to stop the internal dialogue that tells you that you’re failing. That voice that says, well yes, maybe you are doing this piece of work, and meeting this deadline, and fitting in some quality time with your loved ones, but how can you enjoy yourself knowing that you haven’t also written a best-selling novel? How can you let yourself have a holiday when you could be auditioning Hollywood actors for the film adaptation of your memoir? OH YEAH YOU HAVEN’T WRITTEN ONE YET – UNPACK YOUR SUITCASE AND GET BACK TO YOUR DESK.

My opinion is this: if you’ve already got so much on your plate, why would you add self-criticism to your to-do list too? This is all about being realistic, and chucking in a couple of hours a day to berate yourself because you’re not Wonder Woman is the precise opposite of that.

So let’s be a little bit kinder to ourselves, shall we?

Great. Well, that’s my allotted hour of creativity done for the day, now onto the next thing. But not before I’ve had a little rest. A girl can only do so much, you know.

On getting older and making CHOICES

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IMG_6378When I sit down to write this blog, I rarely know what I’m going to talk about until I start typing.

I tend to perch myself on the edge of the sofa, thus adding an element of drama to proceedings, turn over all the things I’ve been thinking and talking about in my mind, and then start writing about one of them. (I realise you didn’t necessarily ask about my writing process, but I’ve been enjoying the My Writing Day series in the Guardian so much that I just couldn’t help myself).

And today, that process made me realise that the subject of most relevance to me right now is the variety of CHOICES we make as we get older. So here’s some thoughts on that:

When Wednesday rolls around and I have special, dedicated time for doing my freelance writing thing, the whole day is about choice. Who will I pitch to? Which idea is worth pursuing? Will I let myself be distracted by the pile of hand-washing that suddenly looks so appealing now that I’m supposed to be doing work? Or will I chase the dollar and get to 6pm before realising I haven’t breathed an ounce of fresh air (or as fresh as London can offer) since yesterday? So many choices and so little time. I spend hours wondering if I’m making the right decisions, as I’m sure we all do.

On a related note, I’ve come to realise how helpful it is when editors choose to spend a few seconds sending a response to a pitch to let you know that it’s not quite right. Nobody likes to be rejected but it’s still so much more helpful than silence. I can tick them off on my list, move on, and try to do better next time. I know that people are busy – and that lots of editors receive so many emails each day that responding is just not feasible – but when you spend your day seemingly sending emails into the abyss, it’s good to feel acknowledged, and hopefully one step closer to getting it right.

Our time is precious and choosing who we spend it with is a serious decision. Sometimes we choose to fight for more time with a person, and sometimes we decide to step away because, for whatever reason, the relationship just isn’t giving us what we need. My new rule is: if it feels like someone is stealing your time rather than giving you the gift of theirs, it’s time to make a change.

This week I chose to take Facebook off my phone. It was making me feel anxious and stressed and constantly in demand and I didn’t like it. Even though the little red notifications were rarely aimed at me personally, I felt that if I didn’t click right now to see what was going on, I’d be missing out or being disorganised in some way. I haven’t ‘left’ Facebook – chill out – I’ve just left it on my laptop for looking at when I want to, rather than carrying it around in my hand all the time. And I feel a lot better for it.

I like writing on here about my life, the lessons I’ve learnt, the things I find interesting, and I like sharing tips and advice that I can only hope someone will find useful. Whether you write for a living or for fun, you have to make a choice about what you will and won’t share. Whenever I come to this blog, I think through the unwritten policies that decide what I write about. For example, I want you to feel like you know me but not so well that I may as well have hung my laundry around your lounge. I want you to know that I’m human without making myself too vulnerable. I want to talk about my marriage without sharing so much that I somehow bring it to an end. It’s nice to have a place where I make the rules – and where I can choose to break them any time I like.

For the last week or so I’ve been getting up just a little bit earlier than usual to start writing some fiction. I don’t really know how to do that (but does anyone before they try?) so I’ve just been sitting down with a pen and my idea and seeing where it takes me. I do about 20 minutes a day whilst still wearing my pyjamas and with my husband sound asleep upstairs and each session gets me about two or three pages of words. Not words I’d like anyone to read right now, mind – my goodness no – but it’s a start. I realised that if I wanted to try, I needed to choose to find more hours in the day. It turns out they are there if you’re willing to respond to a slightly earlier alarm.

It’s very much acknowledged now that we’re a bit older that we have to build time into our lives to do nothing. To choose to have days when we class ourselves as being busy, but what we mean is that we’ll be busy doing nothing. Looking after ourselves. Managing our mental health. Eating our way through our second bag of Wispa Bites. Whatever. This time is ours. Please don’t come round.

We’re about to go on holiday and I’m choosing – as much as possible – to have an internet free time. I want to look at Florence, not my phone. I want to scroll through lists of gelato flavours, not pictures of other people’s lattes. And I want to talk to my husband face-to-face, rather than typing away about idontevenknowwhat on a device that I’m becoming more and more sure is trying to kill me. I choose to have some time off, and I can’t bloody wait.