Lockdown Lushes

‘Hands up who’s drinking more than normal?’

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

The emojis come flooding into our what’s app group; various images of hands held high, some proudly, others more shamefaced, but universal in their arms in the air.

‘Define normal’ I demand before reluctantly posting two hands.  One simply doesn’t seem sufficient.  

One of us confesses that the previous evening, she was so bored, so demotivated, that she couldn’t even be bothered to have a drink.

The messages of concern, assurances that things will get better, and reminders of the importance of staying positive and retaining hope, come quick and fast. God love her. I’m struggling, but at least I’m not that bad.

We cheer ourselves up by telling each other that this is a great opportunity to grow out hair colour, and that if Helen Mirren can look sexy with grey hair then so can we; that our skin will be glowing after weeks with no make-up; that our hair will be in great condition, after the absence of products. We carefully avoid any reference to the dreaded day when we have to get back into clothes with non-stretchy waistbands and buttons and zips. 

We debate going braless or not. There’s the “it’s so liberating” camp pitted against the “but I love the comfort it gives me” gang.  The two groups are pretty neatly defined by their cup size.

We share our tips for delaying the inevitable pop of the cork until a vaguely civilised hour. The glass of wine at six has morphed into a gin and tonic at five, which evolved into a whiskey sour at four. We comfort ourselves with the thought that this now extended lockdown will fly in; sure, half of us are in a drunken stupor for most of it!  

Our efforts to be productive vary in effort and enthusiasm.  We share books to read and Netflix Scandi noir to watch; some of us paint walls or dig flower beds; we unearth new recipes and get creative with knitting and crochet; we obsess over unimaginably complex jigsaws and avoid C-related news items. But we universally laugh in derision at the likelihood of doing anything actually useful, like learning a new language, writing that book that’s been loitering in the back of our minds, or completing that research paper that’s been on the long finger for two years.  Even cleaning out the hot press feels like too much of a challenge these days.

We circulate articles about the cycles of behaviours in enforced isolation, and highlight the sections that inform us that apathy and disinterest are normal reactions; we placate ourselves with the knowledge that our lack of drive is beyond our control, and anyway, we are all meant to be KIND to ourselves aren’t we? We ease our guilt by phoning elderly relatives to check in on them, by putting lit candles in our windows, and by clapping really loudly when we acknowledge the frontline workers.

We avoid thinking too much about how we will struggle to return to a grinding daily routine, to early morning starts and late evenings; to days book-ended by traffic jams, and to our time no longer being our own.  That life feels so far away now and I’m ashamed to say, I don’t miss it at all.

Is it four o’clock yet?