Today my energy and mood has been all over the place! First feeling quite tired, then feeling quite chilled out and relaxed. Then loads of anger, then total exhaustion and now a kind of uneasiness.
I have been recording more of my blog today, for the online radio station Deepness Dementia Radio. Days 50 to 56, which will get played next week on the radio. The first few days I was recording (Days 50-53) I was really angry with so many cars driving around and so many people disregarding social distancing and lock-down rules.
When I was out this afternoon for my daily exercise, the anger towards cars was back!
I found myself getting really annoyed with most cars just having one driver in them. I wonder if reading the blogs again, reminded me of that anger?
I was thinking – why aren’t people walking, cycling or getting the bus? What were they doing throughout lock-down? Why do they need to be driving their cars now? They can’t all be going to work, can they?
When the anger past in Day 54, I realised that the anger towards the cars was not so much to do with the cars – but more just anger, which I was directing towards the cars. If it wasn’t for the cars, it would be for something else.
This evening, I’ve been trying to work out what the anger is – is it really to do with the cars? I’m not sure. I think it is more that I am fed up with living in a city. I miss the peacefulness. The quietness. Life free of pollution. I don’t like living in the city anymore.
I am also aware that I don’t want lock-down to finish. I am loving the way life is at the moment. I don’t want to go back to the way life was before lock-down. But sadly, I have no control over that – lock-down will ease and finish. That is making me really uneasy within myself and I think angry.
Despite not getting to sleep until 2am last night, I was up at 8.30am ready for Chi Gong.
This morning Chris Evans was making some interesting points on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show. As I come to write this blog, I can’t remember what they were, so have listened again.
He was talking about how people are changing the way they perceive what is important in life. With lock-down easing people are buying new houses, learning to sail, going hill walking for the first time, creating a river at the end of a garden. It seems, that as people don’t know what is round the corner, they are no longer putting off the things they have always wanted to do and doing it now!
He went onto say, people are re-evaluating what is important in their lives. He said, people are realising that instead of spending a fortune on a once a year summer holiday, they are making other choices. He described summer holidays causing loads of stress getting to the airport on time, being treated like cattle. Then trying to pretend they are having a better time on their holiday, rather than what they would be normally doing at home.
Instead, people are thinking what would make them happy 24/7, 365 days a year. Improving their life day to day, rather than, making do with their life for most of the year and then looking forward to the escapism of their 2 week summer holiday.
Wow – that’s amazing! It kind of touches on what I was saying at the start of this blog.
I guess, I am going through the process of re-evaluating what is important to me in life.
Which is living in a quiet, peaceful place – where people connect with each other. Rather than the pollution filled anonymous way of living in the city. I have been saying for years that it is great that I live near Arthur’s Seat and how great Edinburgh is. But if feels like the balance has tipped and I want to live somewhere differently.
Interestingly, about 8 weeks ago, I had a dream that lock-down had finished and everyone was going on holiday. Everyone was walking up the roads, dragging their suitcases behind them, going on holiday, as they were now free to do what they wanted.
Where as according to Chris Evans, people are not doing this!
It also sounds like, what Chris Evans was saying, is that people are learning to live more in the present. Rather than living for their summer holidays. This is the way I always try to live. I mean, we don’t know when we are going to die. Why wait for 2 weeks a year for a holiday, when we have the other 50 weeks of life to live?!
After Chi Gong this morning, I decided as I did 9 hours of work yesterday, I deserved a morning on the sofa. It was great. Then I caught up on some work and started recording my blog. Despite it being a Monday, I felt laid back and chilled out. I wonder, whether it would be useful to work more often on a Sunday?
Then Honey and I went for a 5km run. Holyrood Park and Arthur’s seat was relatively busy for a Monday. The weather has been misty all day, but like yesterday quite warm.
Then back home for some dinner and started to feel tired. Before starting this blog and Bedtime Chi Gong.
Readers Corner
Helen
Helen left a comment on yesterday’s blog. She had completed the One Question Quiz! She wrote:
“If I’m allowed to answer my own question, then I would guess we were at Corinthian (after googling “bars with glass dome ceilings”), but any other details from that night out are very hazy. Judging by the state of my feet, Corinthian has a dance floor. Actually, there doesn’t even need to be a dance floor for me to dance the night away. The most I can say is that there was music!
Most of my clothes get at least 10 years of good use too!”.
Thanks for the answer Helen! The only time I went to The Corinthian in Glasgow was for a Speed Dating Night! I vaguely remember being told after the Speed Dating we could get to know “our dates” on the dance floor!
I have never had much success with Speed Dating. It was before Online Dating had taken off. But I think that was my first experience.
For those, who don’t know how it works. You have a few minutes to meet your date, talk and then a bell rings and the men or women all have to move to the next table. When you get home, you then log into a website and say whether each person you met is a “No“, “Would like to be friends” or “Would like to go on a date“.
If you got both marked “date” you would then get the person’s contact details as a “match”. If one marked “friend” and the other “date” you would still get their contact details, but both as a friend.
After that night I had one “match” for a date with a lady called Kate. She was a Police Officer and my notes about her was that she seemed great! So we chatted for a while and met up. But she wasn’t the lady I thought she was – there were two Kate’s at the event and I got mixed up!
I did Speed Dating two more times, without much success. The other two times, I didn’t get matches. I then found out that if you didn’t meet anyone on the night who you wanted to “date”, you would get a free place for another night. It seemed, people were using this just to get lots of Speed Dating nights out.
This was not so good for my self-esteem. So I gave up!
I have never been much of a fan speed dating or online dating!
It Made Me Smile
My friend Helen posted on a WhatsApp Group about Massaoke Drive-In Gigs. Massaoke is like mass karaoke.
They have come up with the idea for their gigs, where you can go to a ‘Car Park’ gig. Like drive-in cinemas. But a music gig to ensure social distancing.
This made me smile.
Is this the way forward for future concerts and gigs?
I guess you need a car, which I don’t.
As I come to the end of today’s blog, I am feeling tired. On our bedtime walk today, the graveyard felt very still and present. Was nice way to connect at the end of the day.
Non-essential shops opened in England today, with photos of queues of people waiting to get in. Why anyone wants to queue for hours to buy clothes, beats me! Why the rush to buy clothes, when you could buy online during lock-down and if you don’t like it send it back?
What Chris Evans was saying is interesting. I guess, I am re-evaluating what is important to me in life, which is why all this anger keeps coming up for me.
It will be interesting to read back over all these blogs and come up with some kind of psychological ‘Stages of Lock-Down’ one goes through. Like the ‘Stages of Grief‘ that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about. I am sure people in the future will do research on this.
There is also more and more conversations on what people are going to do when lock-down fully ends. This is making me feeling uncomfortable. I don’t want lock-down to end!
It seems that whatever happens in the future, the world as we have known it, is going to change massively!
Thanks for reading.
Enjoy Life!
Jim xxx
Mark NR
We are enjoying lockdown too but feel very sorry for those who aren’t at all. Our friends who are not are those that live alone in blocks of flats and for whom enjoying life is all about socially engaging with people outside their homes – often in cafes and pubs. I got the impression that the rush to shops yesterday was more about being in a gathering of people that consuming…