The lockdown has little impact when you are used to a quieter lifestyle

By Nina Steele 

Soon after the lockdown started in the UK, I came across a video of a young woman, maybe in her 30s, completely distraught at the prospect of spending months not being able to socialise. As far as she was concerned, life wasn’t worth living. I have come across many other posts like that. I cannot say that I am surprised, although I did not expect those reactions so early on.

But of course, there is always two sides to a story. There may be a great number of people who cannot countenance a life without socialising, but equally, there are also people like myself and my husband, for whom this feels almost normal. I say almost because, even though we no longer go out as much as we did years ago, we still enjoy our weekly walks to the countryside. As a keen cyclist, my husband has also had to accept that he may not be able to go on his solo trips for quite some time.

Staying in has never been an issue for us. In fact we love it this way. We’ve both never really been the partying type, which is one of the reasons why we get on as well as we do. Years ago, we used to eat out quite a lot. Now, eating out for us is mostly having lunch in a pub once in a while. I suspect that we may go back to eating out more in future, but right now, this is where we are.

I came across a post recently in which someone asked: “is there anyone enjoying the lockdown and would like to see it last forever?”, to which another person replied: “It’s my way of living anyway no matter what is going on around me, for peace has to be found within first”. I do not of course wish for the lockdown to continue indefinitely, but I share the view that peace is to be found from within.

If you make other people like friends the centre of your life, then this lockdown is going to be quite difficult for you. Thankfully, that has never been the case for either of us. I love peace and you cannot have peace if you are constantly reaching out to other people. I am not afraid of solitude, on the contrary. I like those quiet times. They allow me to reach into to the deepest part of me.

This lockdown is forcing all of us to look deep into our lives and face our fears head on. Like everyone else, I have had to make personal adjustments. For example, not being able to visit my hairdresser for the foreseeable future meant that I had to improvise. Thankfully, I was able to adapt rather quickly.

I suspect that when all this is over, many people will be changed. The fragility of life has been exposed. Some people will find that a quieter lifestyle is not so bad after all, while others will pray that we never have any more lockdowns in future.