A year ago today, on 13 March, my world shifted abruptly. I arrived home from work and after emotional phone calls with close ones it was clear that I should close my door on the outside world. For many weeks I spoke with people almost exclusively on a screen with occasional conversations with real people through a closed window as they shivered outside after dropping off essentials on my doorstep. Often without being asked.
Today marks a full year now of living in this limbo of self isolation. Even when the situation was much improved in the summer, I remained very cautious and during the year have only been twice inside a café and once inside a carefully spaced restaurant. Thank goodness for those warm, light days and friendly visitors who were not offended that they were not allowed over the threshold except for a hasty visit to the bathroom accompanied by disinfectant wipes.
Then on 23 February I received my blue envelope. My Blue Letter Day. My blue envelope contained that distinctive sign of promise and hope – my first COVID-19 Vaccine appointment. It is hard to describe the emotion when that envelope appears on the doormat, to the postie’s footsteps retreating down the path. An involuntary sob, ripping open the envelope and relief that the appointment is only a week away and at a centre within walking distance. Slight concern that there is a diary clash but not impossible to work around with the cooperation of others. And then it is in the diary. A week of low level anxiety at tales of cancelled appointments due to supply delays and then finally the day of the vaccine itself. Wednesday 3 March. A very smooth and personal process and in no time I am on the other side of a very significant point in the year’s milestones. I have had my first dose of vaccine and am leaving the building breathing already slightly easier, tears rolling down my face. And the promise of the second dose within 12 weeks. I step out into the world through the exit only for those who have been vaccinated, already changed from the person who entered the building.
This is the most significant step for me and many others in moving forward. And while I am incredibly thankful, I know that I am among the very fortunate and wish nothing less for everyone else across the world.
And my gratitude and privilege brings with it internal conflict. I question that sense of entitlement that I realise I have quietly developed over the decades. There is so much I have become used to, and feel some form of entitlement to. Travel, holidays and short breaks, the ability to meet up with friends a bus or train journey away, being able simply to sit in a café, drinking tea and taking in the surroundings. This has been a year of contemplation and acceptance of very changed expectations. And a sad frustration at how COVID-19 has further deepened gaping inequities.
We have indeed come far over the year, but we continue to live under considerable restriction. We have been under continued lockdown since the end of the year. And although the statistics of people newly diagnosed are vastly reduced from the dark winter wave of the virus, we still have far to go. It will be some time before many of the daily activities we once took for granted will again be possible. It will be some time before I can come cautiously out of self isolation and I realise that I will always be on guard and ready to close my door again.
A full year on, yet my door is still not open and I am still self isolating. However, that door is no longer bolted shut and the windows tightly closed. As we approach the vernal equinox and the day that the clocks move forward to summer time, my door is now slightly ajar. Gradually I will be to open it further and gently step back into the world and feel the breeze on my face. Not the same world, and not the same me. But through the door nonetheless.
Feisty Blue Gecko - a tail of the unexpected 