Another Groundhog Day in Lockdown

I know I'm better off than many others, enduring this endless Delta lockdown in Auckland.

I have a job which I can do from home.

I have a home, internet access, a car.

My children are teenagers so my work doesn't get interrupted too often.

But also: I have a job, a home, and teenagers, on my own.

I know I am half-arsing two-out-of-three of my responsibilities - because, let's be honest: I can't do it all.

I'm on top of my job, still producing quality work. But my home and my kids are not getting my best.

There's something about lockdown that saps my energy. I feel nagging guilt about all the tasks I leave undone and even more guilt about the way I am parenting in all this: barely.

We are survivors clinging to a raft afloat on a very lonely sea waiting for a glimpse of the longed-for shore - Level 2.

As I type this, Aunty Jacinda is about to reveal any changes to Alert Levels. We are not holding our breath.

We started Lockdown 3.0 with the best of intentions. I wrote up a daily timetable, chore allocations. I woke the schoolboy with offers of breakfast. I spent the weekends trying to keep on top of the laundry pile.

It's meant to be Spring, but the weather has been iffy. Laundry piled up and took over the bathroom. Yesterday I relented and took the whole mountain to a laundromat. Now it awaits folding but at least the house doesn't smell like feet.

After nearly 8 weeks without a visit from my garden guy, the grass grew ridiculously tall. Then my garden guy quit (another business bites the dust).

Like my garden and my mother-guilt, my 13-year-old is growing like a weed. Learning online? He is not.

He'd been doing so well at school just weeks ago, but now cannot be roused from his beds before noon, no matter what threats and punishments and bribes are imposed. This giant endlessly-growing lad sleeps like a champion, wakes, eats and sleeps some more. He likes to sleep all day and stay awake all night; he takes walks down the empty streets after midnight and says the lights are beautiful. He's enjoying this.

I have a pit in my stomach as I think of all the learning he has missed.

But how on earth do you successfully juggle it all?

How is anyone doing this? How many parents are overwhelmed and mentally exhausted with the endlessness of it? How many are like me - worried as we juggle lockdown life that we are dropping balls all over the place? 

I know I'm not the only one who is heartily sick of Lockdown, and the toll it is taking on learning, livelihoods and our loved ones' mental health.

All the things that vulnerable young people need when they are struggling - time with friends, social connection, sports teams, counseling, doctors - only so much can be done online.

Every day feels like the one before.

We are desperate to be out of lockdown, all of us, for so many reasons. And I can tell by the number of cars on the road, and people out walking without masks that Auckland is getting to the end of our endurance.

We have found one simple thing that helps when the days merge together: every now and then one of the kids comes and says, I've gotta get outa here - can we go for a drive?

So we pack our masks, hit the road, turn up the music and take the backstreets to find a nice waterfront view to drive along: city lights at night, Mission Bay, Westhaven... we roll through a drive-thru, munch on junk food, talk, reminisce. It's the only thing keeping us sane.

xx

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