{"id":196,"date":"2020-05-15T15:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/?p=196"},"modified":"2020-05-18T17:18:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T16:18:58","slug":"me-myself-and-i-a-journey-through-life-in-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/2020\/05\/15\/me-myself-and-i-a-journey-through-life-in-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Me, myself and I: a journey through life in lockdown."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Nuala Petticrew<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
BA (S) Student in History<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
12\/5\/2020<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n

 \u201cOn days that you feel like the world is against you, you just have to push back harder\u2026 Life has a funny way of working things out\u2026\u201d<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone\nspecial had penned me these words in a card shortly after Christmastime, when I\nreally did <\/em>think the world was against\nme. Little did I know what life would bring in the months that followed. In\nfact, looking back on that time, those problems seem a million miles away from\nthe world we are currently living in today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\noften seems selfish to be thinking of ourselves in times like these. I look at\nmy own life; I live in the beautiful countryside, with a healthy, happy family,\nand am lucky to still be working and seeing faces each day. Yet still, despite\nall these privileges that we are so lucky to have, it can sometimes still feel\nlike the world is <\/em>against us- and\nthat\u2019s ok, that\u2019s human. We all deal with things differently, no matter how big\nor small our problems, and that is perfectly normal; especially <\/em>when we are in a pandemic, when life has been completely\nflipped upside down, when we barely even know what day of the week it is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe sun glares through the curtains of my little room in the mornings, I often\nwake up bursting with energy, with the feeling that I want to achieve\nsomething, to better myself, to make the most of this time I have with myself. And\nthese days are great; they are filled with new opportunities to make me feel\nfantastic and to make lockdown seem not completely awful. Yet other mornings, I\nwaken, feeling like the only solution is to lie in bed with a book and a cup of\ntea all day, tossing with the idea of maybe\n<\/em>going for a walk, but eventually convincing myself that staying in bed is a\nbetter option (which in hindsight is never the case). And it always seems\neasier to be hard on yourself rather than forgiving yourself for having these\n\u2018off\u2019 days. Yet, over the last number of weeks, I have accepted that it is in\nfact perfectly normal to have chops and changes in my moods and attitudes\nduring lockdown- and it is a perspective that I hope to keep with me even after\nlockdown. These \u2018off\u2019 days are normal, they are ok, and they don\u2019t last\nforever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nI know <\/em>that they don\u2019t last forever,\nbecause I look at the last eight weeks, and the bad days I\u2019ve had, that are\ncompletely outnumbered by the good days, the great days! Like the evenings I\nhave spent laughing with my sister over absolutely nothing, or the days I have\nspent bonding with my dad as we chopped logs for the winter, and treated\nourselves to a cheap can of beer after, or even the sheer appreciation of\nhearing my granny\u2019s voice over the phone, picturing our first cup of tea\ntogether once the lockdown is lifted. It really is the small things that keep\nus going during these crazy times. I understand that not everybody is on the same\nboat, but as that special card I mentioned stated, no matter what storm you are\nfacing, you have to push back harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nfeel like I have really learned a lot about myself during lockdown. I like\npoetry, I am a good runner, I like oat milk in my coffee; a compilation of tiny\nelements about myself that I had never discovered before. It has been this time\nI\u2019ve had with myself that has really got me thinking about things- about what\n\u2018normal\u2019 will be like in the future, about what my own future will look like. But\nI suppose, what I have learned the most, is that it really is ok to be a little\nselfish during these uncertain times. We are living in a world that is millions\nof miles away from our usual comforts, and it is perfectly normal to be feeling\nuneasy or worried about things, even if they do seem small. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost\nfive months after that card was sent, I feel like the words within it resonate\nwith me now more than ever. These are uncertain times we live in, but it is\nimportant to look after one another and look after ourselves, mentally and <\/em>physically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not\neverything is a part of your plan, but that doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t part of the <\/em>plan. Stay in, stay safe, and save\nlives.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nuala Petticrew BA (S) Student in History 12\/5\/2020  \u201cOn days that you feel like the world is against you, you just have to push back harder\u2026 Life has a funny way of working things out\u2026\u201d  Someone special had penned me these words in a card shortly after Christmastime, when I really did think the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":782,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifeinlockdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}