Coronatimes - Moving on

I was so sure that I would be very active on my blog during the lockdown. Instead I found myself intensely busy in my role as The Only Adult (TOA) at home.

TOA had to clean, cook (until MIL started packing up food for us after the first few weeks), do the laundry, feed and bathe The Only Toddler (TOT) (!!). All this, while of course meeting Work From Home (WFH) commitments.

Luckily (somehow I always feel I get lucky in my role as a mother to an adorable-at-times-whimsical TOT), WFH commitments were manageable. In the first two weeks I had an intense schedule. I was staffed on a project that required me to turn-around multiple documents within a very short span of time. I was working weekends and late nights, negotiating with counter parties on Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, revising documents until the wee hours. This was before I had help from my family.

This was also the period when my brain was still coming to terms with the new unknown, the spectre of horror that statistics unfolding on television promised would be our fate, the pain of being severed from my parents and husband, the anxiety around whether I would see them again and whether we would hold on to our jobs. I told myself that nations, the world has lived through worse - wars, famines, natural disasters of epic proportions, holocaust, riots. The separation, mass displacements, economic woes have been real and much worse. Again for a moment - not dwelling on the extremely disturbing migrant labour crisis in our country that has shown the worst of the fault lines in our fractured society (I do feel foolish even reading the preceding few lines in light of the trauma unfolding on our doorsteps - but on the other hand, we all have our own lives and our own tales to tell - my own experience can hardly detract from our colossal failure as a country towards these vulnerable people).   

I am intensely grateful for the work load of these initial few days that helped me cope with the anxiety that came with the start of the lock-down. It did not leave me much time to dwell on things beyond my control.

Then things eased up at work. We got used to the cliché of the ‘new normal’. Time spent commuting was devoted to zoom calls with friends and new recipes over the weekend. Instead of twiddling my thumbs when there was no office work, I found time to devote to my plants, teaching TOT alphabets, exercising and self care. House work still took up a lot of time but I tried to stick to a schedule. I became the queen of multi-tasking. My team mates and boss got used to me joining morning zoom catch up calls while feeding ToT her breakfast. On many afternoons one could find me standing at the breakfast counter, helping TOT with lunch, wolfing my own food, while also glancing through documents on my laptop. I woke up early to finish heavy reading and mentally tasking jobs. I scheduled other drafting work to match TOT's siesta time.      

And now it is time to wrap up. We hobble back to life. Flight services will resume in the coming week and we are now assured that we will be re-united with family soon. E-commerce companies are back in business and I was thrilled to receive socks to replace my torn bits. It is a pleasure to sleep on ironed sheets again and to have my house flip flops restored after the cobbler on my street re-appeared.

They say the worst, the peak of the infection is yet to hit us. But I suppose as a nation we will have to simply deal with the inevitable.

My office will resume in the coming week. While attendance is on a voluntary basis, I am torn. The idea of being productive and be able to devote a certain number of hours to work without any distractions is delicious. But I will hate not being around TOT all day. Will my plants miss me? Will I find time to exercise and try my DIY hair care routine?

The pandemic has wrought havoc (the distressing migrant crisis, the job losses, the pay cuts, financial ruin of so many businesses). In my personal space including stories of the people around me, we have all felt the blow to some extent. 

But I do hope that many years down the line, I will look back on this phase and smile for the precious time I had with my TOT. I do hope the world will learn more sustainable habits. That as a society we will emerge as better people. As families and parents we will be able to find more time with each other.