Some days lately I’ve felt seriously grumpy but hopefully I haven’t projected this grumpiness onto those around me. In fact I’m predicting that they haven’t even noticed that I’m grumpy — inside. So whilst I’ve been functioning ‘normally’ — doing the stuff I always do, things that need doing, there has been that nagging feeling that I was just going through the motions.
Yesterday was #DonutDay here in Victoria and we are repeating that again today. Zero new cases and yet the media has been telling us constantly that it couldn’t be done. So at long last we can begin to return to our ‘normal’ activities — those we took for granted before Covid-19 arrived on the scene. Our lives have all been seriously disrupted and for those who endured lockdown in Melbourne it must have been horrible. We’ve been isolated from loved ones, our movements restricted and our lives just generally turned upside down.
But despite all the negativity from the media and various politicians in high places, at the moment the virus is relatively under control. But the people emerging from lockdown, isolation and restrictions are vastly different to those who began all this a few months ago. Many of us have discovered that we actually like not being on the merry-go-round of our former lives. Not having to be rushing around to get things done has been awesome.
So what will the new ‘normal’ look like? Will we revert to our default mode of busy, busy, busy? Or will we take a bit more control of our lives, remembering the relief we felt when we could just relax. To simply sit and read a book or watch a movie and chill out. Personally I don’t want to go back to a world where clamouring to fit everything in is normal. I like the slower pace and I think that my grumpiness has something to do with the fear of returning to being busy doing lots but not achieving much.
Or perhaps my grumpiness relates to politicians who make objections to ideas simply on the basis that they’ve been put forward by the opposition party and not really because they are poor ones. Something they’ve failed to realise is that we’ve all been sitting back watching, and noticing what is actually happening. I get grumpy because they think we are stupid.
But I’ve decided that being grumpy is quite okay. I can allow myself to be a bit grumpy for a while because I don’t have to be blissfully happy all the time. Life goes in cycles and for me having a grumpy week every now and then is normal.
#DonutDay #CopingSuicide #blacklivesmatter