Covid-19, A Rural Diary - Lockdown 2 - November Blues

Ever since my father fell gravely ill on Remembrance Sunday and never recovered, November has not been a good month for me. My mother always hated November (even more so now) for its dankness and darkness and lack of hope. For me, it always used to be the month when my thoughts would turn to mountains and snow, to log fires and the festive season. I’d finally be prepared to start my Christmas shopping, buy some cards (though God forbid start writing them until December!) and look forward to festive outings, Christmas fairs, carol services and all that good stuff. Suffice to say that never actually happened, but we can all dream, can’t we?

Yet since the horror of having to juggle the daily needs of my young family with those of my parents and brother, four hours away down south, over that awful month in 2014, a precedent seems to have been set. Every subsequent November has thrown up an unexpected drama of some sorts, all related to the health and wellbeing of my nearest and dearest. Suddenly I find that November has been completely wiped out (and usually me with it!) and instead of enjoying the run up to the festive season, I lurch into it out of control and exhausted. 

This November was no exception. The usual unexpected things happened and a lot of nurturing was required, taking up time and energy on a daily basis. But it is what you do as a mother. It comes with the job. So I did it willingly and gladly, if not with a lot of anxiety attached. Three daughters all struggling in their own different ways with the oft-forgotten fallout of the Covid pandemic. Three young lives (and so very many more out there) de-railed. Whole rites of passage revelled in and remembered by those who have gone before have been, for their generation, relegated to the ever-deepening pile of dashed hopes and broken dreams: jobs offered and instantly rescinded as my eldest struggled to find her way in life after a cancelled year out and a messed up final year of university; healthy Lockdown 1 exercise habits taking a dark turn in Lockdown 2 for my middle one in her second university year; and my youngest trying to process not just dashed hopes and dreams but also a broken heart, low self-esteem, and loneliness as she battled through a miserable first term at university, far away from home for the first time in her life. 

Life is not easy for any of us right now. Young, old and everyone in-between. We all have our own different issues and struggles to deal with. I thank the Lord I am not trying to home-school right now. Just a year or so ago, how different my Covid experience would have been. I count myself lucky. And I count my blessings daily. For every dark November day, there will always be another filled with light. For every battle lost there is a battle won. We learn and grow from our struggles. That is what is called ‘being human’.