
Deep down I knew that the Coronavirus lockdown would last for months rather than weeks. But that doesn’t mean to say that I was emotionally prepared for it. Back in those early days at the end of March we were busy with home projects. During much of April we had good weather so eating lunch in the garden or on our balcony was a regular thing. We are used to spending lots of time together, so there was nothing new. Anyway, I was planning to be out a bit working. Then last week it was cold and wet, our projects were stuck and the work opportunity vanished. For a few days I felt without purpose and just plain miserable. I know Master feels it too. But I and we are fighting back. Below are my thoughts on the past 7 weeks detailing different parts of our love and life.
Getting things done
Over the winter we finally started to sort the house out. When I moved in nearly two years ago there was a lot of clutter which meant insufficient room for many of my things. I have my office which was completed last summer and so have my books there. But much of my treasured possessions remain in the garage and a lot of clothes are in boxes under the bed. So, where to start?
Master’s books were stacked everywhere in the living and dining room. So much so that I’ve never eaten at the dining table in this house. So I suggested the place to start was in those rooms. Progress was rapid and before Christmas we had specialist shelving installed on one side of both rooms. Then in March (after we’d finished decorating) the shelving was complete. I ordered new blinds for the windows and imagined we’d soon be straight.
But we have 7 or 8 empty bookshelves waiting to move and nowhere to put them. The household recycling centre closed in March and so we were stuck. Then the factory making my blinds closed and we had already thrown out the rails and curtains. I did manage to paint the hallway and want to continue into the kitchen, but we have nowhere to put the kitchen contents.
There is light at the end of the tunnel now because the recycling centres start reopening next week. I’m feeling hopeful that the blinds might be made soon too. I need to feel that we can get things done and make our enforced time at home worthwhile. Right now I feel more hopeful about that than I’ve done to date.
Lethargy
On the whole we have retained much of the structure of our life. Neither of us is working (we’ve both taken early retirement) so we don’t need to be up early, but I am a bit of an early bird. Master on the other hand is something of a night owl. I have learned over the past couple of years not to leap out of bed too early and having me around has encouraged him up sooner. We also have a more structured bed time than he previously had.
Our life is usually quite busy though. We go out to lots of cultural events – concerts, galleries, exhibitions and festivals. So, when there is nothing in the diary you need more than an occasional food shopping trip to make it feel worth getting up and going for.
At times we have both been filled with energy and enthusiasm to do things and at others not. Funnily enough not at the same time. I think this might be a good thing, because being lethargic together means we both struggle to do anything at all. We’ve tried to encourage each other on, but at times the frustration shows. We don’t argue often but when we do it isn’t pleasant. This week we’ve had late night arguments twice, something I’d like to avoid going forward.
Work
Having announced to the world I was going back to nursing, I embarked on induction and training in my own time. Then just as I thought I was about to be let loose on the world they decided they didn’t really need me. Well they haven’t said that but that’s the implication. I have uniforms in my wardrobe and PPE in my car. Both will be returned if nothing happens, but it has made me feel really fed up.
Thankfully a new opportunity has arisen, which is to help with the contact tracing that will be needed to loosen lockdown. This work will definitely happen and I have a paid training shift in my diary and have some work shifts booked too. It is also a bit more money than the original work. This job will mean working from home, so no need for uniform or PPE. Plus, I think this is going to be a really worthwhile job that will need to continue for some time.
Master on the other hand has no intention of going back to work. Instead he is managing our financial affairs which took a bashing in March. Thankfully they are recovering with a few changes. Secondly he is rewriting a wikipedia page for a Spanish author and poet and that’s keeping him busy. Now the books are organised on shelves he has a veritable library to consult. His other project is to map Covid across a number of countries as he prefers his own charts and graphs. These things will help us both going forward I think because we have no idea when we can do the things we want out of the house or travel.
Love and sex
It would be safe to say that neither of us have much in the way of an active libido right now. We’ve had good sex, but not frequently and we haven’t played at all. It’s strange but at a time when we are unable to touch others we aren’t really touching each other much either. I’m not sure why that is. Both of us are making a conscious effort to instigate touch, often when we sit together in the evening. At night Master will put a hand on me, especially if I’ve been snoring. There have been a few hugs, but I feel we need to make an effort to do more.
I’ve written some sexy posts and read some sexy and erotic books and blog posts. But it has been hard to transfer those feelings to our own life. I’m hoping that we can find a way to prioritise those things. Longer days and warmer weather will help as will being active independently of each other during the day times.
Moving forward
I know we are lucky. We are together, haven’t taken a drop in income (other than our long term savings, but they will recover) nor do we need to homeschool any children. But that doesn’t mean that we find the current situation easy. We have mourned the loss of the life we had and don’t know when or if we will get all of it back. I’ve been sad to see former colleagues losing their colleagues, team or organisation members. I’ve also hated the decisiveness of the recent arguments in the sex blogging community. All of this takes its toll.
So, going forward I hope we can soon restart our work in the house. I also have some plans for the garden, since I’ll be here and so can actually grow some stuff. Flowers and also one or two vegetables. Fingers crossed the planned work comes to fruition this time and that we can regain a little of the structure we had lost. I hope that we’ll be able to go out places and walk more as we get to summer. At present a lot of woodlands etc. are open but you can’t park.
As for sex, well I plan to try to make more of an effort because I think my libido is more suppressed than Masters, partly because of my medication. But I would love him to do so too. I don’t feel terribly submissive a lot of the time and know we need to work on this too. But I do feel we can, I do feel hopeful and just a bit positive right now.
I’m sorry to hear the work didn’t turn out like you hoped it would, but glad that there’s something else on the horizon. It’s strange how this strange times impacts different people on different levels.
Take care xox
The very important thing is that you are struggling everything together) take care!
Yeah, that’s how quarantine affects mankind in so many different ways around the world. I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s some kind of world war… imho
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I can relate to a lot of what you have explained here. We are mourning our normal life, too. But, it’s a small price to pay, I suppose, to keep everyone healthy. That’s easy to say for me, as neither of us have lost our jobs, and all of the people in our life are healthy.
We’ve definitely felt the lethargy and lack of libido. It’s seems so strange that we’ve been given all of this time, and yet we have absolutely no impetus to do any home projects or have sex. We’ve been stressed and snippy with each other. Maybe it’s that we spend TOO much time together.
It’s good that you have had some time to create more room for yourself in the house. I can’t imagine moving into someone else’s space and having to make do, as I have always been the decorator. As such, being stuck at home hasn’t been too bad, because it’s cozy and all of my things are around me…my pets, may family.
But the mental strain is still there. And I get that. Especially if someone is jerking you around about a job.