Reasons I Don't Want To Write During Lockdown

 There have been a few reasons why I haven't wanted to write during the current UK lockdown and surprisingly one of them has actually been a lack of time. Juggling life (or dealing with the lack of one), work and assistance of other people as well as socialising with the family I live with and a few other things, it's somehow felt busy despite not actually knowing what I have been doing for the past year, but it's not even that which is currently making me not want to write. Currently, it's my completely scrambled vocabulary. 

I occasionally, in the non-COVID affected normality, make some great gaffs where I use a word and then either think it was the wrong one or completely forget the meaning of the word I just used. I thought it was mainly when I was speaking, but no, it happens regularly when I'm typing as well. Previously they were an odd but amusing occurrence and they were, probably at most, weekly. These days, it is not even weekly, but hourly that I completely lose the word I am trying to get to and can't recall it, or my mind is reaching to recall a word and it kind of does a Groot from the second movie; if it's in the vague vicinity, we'll give it a shot. No prizes for guessing what the last word in that sentence turned into, though I think that was just a bog standard typo.

An example of what I mean was the quiz I was a part of this evening. The answer was wrong anyway (it was actually Pulp Fiction) but I was trying to think of the name of the film Reservoir Dogs, but what my brain spat at me was Riverside Dogs. It's close. It is body of water-related, has similar letters and is a similar length, but no, the film is not called Riverside Dogs (especially not because we were talking about Pulp Fiction, but even if it was Reservoir Dogs...) 

With this happening a lot, I'm assuming it's because my brain is under stress. There's a global pandemic going on; stress feels like an appropriate response. I have a few 'life goal' things happening, and still, stress feels like the appropriate response. Writing, though often cathartic, is likely to lead to me putting more stress on my poor, fragile, broken little mind and I am worried about what that kind of stress is doing to my body, and to my mind. It's certainly not helping my anxiety levels, but I know stress contributes to other things as well, so when I feel like writing, I write and when I don't, I don't get too up my own butt about it, because there's a lot going on that I need to be stressed over, or I can't help but be stressed over, and I don't need to give myself anything extra. 

I have set myself a goal for this month of around 10,000 words and quite frankly, I'm not too worried if I don't make it. Whilst it would be nice to add to my NaNoWriMo lifetime total, I'm most concerned about keeping myself happy and healthy for the moment and everything else needs to come secondary to that. If it doesn't fit with the goal of being happy and healthy, it has to be less important, or it might have to go.

There Is Life Outside Your Apartment

(It's an Avenue Q reference)

When I left my flat, almost a year ago, I never imagined that a year later I would be sat in the study come junk room in my parents' house typing this blog. At the time, I was convinced that COVID 19 was going to go the same way as SARS and the other viruses that have happened over the last few years. It was going to be a whole lot of panic and then it would turn out to be nothing. Thankfully, I was quick to admit that I was wrong. 

Although there have been times in this year where I have wanted somewhere to escape to - the dog snores really loudly, we all get on each other's nerves at the best of times and it's been a year with everyone else on furlough for a stretch - except for the times I went back there to pack down, clean up and generally get ready to let go of the flat, I haven't really missed that specific place, and so it makes me feel as though the time was right to leave it, even if I feel the universe kind of forced me into it. Universe, to note, next time, smaller signals are fine, okay? 

There have been points in the pandemic where I have looked over Rightmove and seen a couple of flats in my brother's building up for sale and thought about the idea of buying one, but I also looked at some of the studios set out as a one-bedroom flat on Salford Quays and thought about how I could squash all of the things I actually needed into them. Particularly when you were allowed bubbles. The idea of being able to see my family but also get a bit of distance from them was a blissful thought, but it was a thought which ended up coming to nothing because the simple fact of the matter is I have too much stuff and I need too much space. 

On the night before I left 'Old Flat' in Surrey, I managed to hand off three large pieces of furniture which I no longer needed to someone whose son had just got his first place and was stuck for furniture. It meant that it was less to pack into the van, less to store, and no need for a trip to the tip or a bonfire - I wanted the bonfire - to get rid of the ugly as anything sofa which had become a focal point for my rage and dissatisfaction with the world. I cannot tell you how much better I felt when that sofa was out of my life. Even with all of that stuff out, there was a lot of stuff in the van and then subsequently in my storage unit, which will then have to go into another van before it finally finds a fixed abode back with me. Thinking about how to fit all of that stuff into a flat gives me nightmares and heart palpitations, so the plans for an apartment have needed to either be scaled up, or scrapped. Now that we're getting to the stage where things are reopening and life can restart, I'm having to look at options because I can't just be working from home at my parents' house forever, so some serious decisions need to be made, and I need to start being a fully-fledged adult again, and quite frankly, that is terrifying, but it is life, everyone does it and everyone finds the things that they struggle with, and there is only one way to do it, and that is to just do it and get through it.