Hiding at Home. Still?
Going out is a strange and understandably push-pull affair for many of us, even second time round
Tired of domesticity but apprehensive about going out? Worried that you've lost your social nerve? Distinctly uncomfortable in proper work or socialising clothes?
If the answer is yes to any or all of the above, you've probably become home-stitutionalised after being cooped up for the last few eon-months.
Twice now we’ve had to re-enter the fray. Twice we’ve had to shrug off the slight dread of in-person connectivity and face-up to face-time meetings.
Nervousness is understandable after so much sameness in our lives, apathetically eating the same food, watching much the same telly, seeing the same faces (if we’ve been lucky). Even arguments became a bit of a trial.
If you live on your own, pecking rather than eating may have become your preferred eating style with quick visits to the doorstep to collect foodstuffs and drop-offs from a masked delivery person pretty much your only real-life contact.
Best Foot Forward…
We were all together in this unasked-for self-sufficiency. But surprisingly, re-engagement with the outside world has turned out to be something of an ambivalent affair. I’m just not tumbling out the door for a coffee the way I thought I would be, even now I can. Again. I thought it would be different this time round, but it’s not.
Outside is a bit disappointing. Especially urban outside. I knew it would be, of course, things have changed, closed or coyly reopened in what feels like soulless warehouse style. No one’s fault; it is what it is, but welcoming it’s not.
Over the past year or so my quite aged parents have, with a bit of distanced family help, managed. Apart from their off-grid wild white hair and shabby gardening clothes, they are probably more fit and able than most people of their age and many younger.
They are used to not going out now. People visit them and sit at a distance in their little back garden. I’m much the same way myself. Kind of want to break out there but don’t at the same time.
Hiding at Home, Still
So home is OK. Home is safe. People pass by and chat while I’m cutting the grass. I see people I know during my walks and have become friendlier with the kids next door, probably because of my cake making and sharing.
I’ve taken to long relaxed telephone conversations in the old land-line style, and occasional Zoomy chats with friends and family. I’ve worked from home on my own for years so nothing much has changed there. Exercise is a cinch: I toss down my yoga mat and pop up my laptop and Pilates-Am-I.
Home is nice and clean too. The garden is tidy and prettier than I’ve ever had time to make it before. New skills learned include how to fit a toilet seat, sorting out the strimmer string, taking shrub cuttings that grow, testing a variety of homemade window cleaning solutions, podcasting (in its infancy – RadioWellbeing here I come).
Not least of my achievements and perhaps most challenging has been shouldering the role of neighbourhood Brown Bin Coordinator. People now look to me for when to put out the garden rubbish.
I check the council website, reference the last umpteen sets of circulated dates, take an educated stab at it and wheelie it out to grateful nods and thumbs up from neighbours who follow suit. Respect, apparently.
So, I’ve emerged from the latest lockdown to a mindset of settled and grateful and more capable at home. It’s not that I reject outside, it’s just that I like home better. I’m used to things this way now although I’d argue this is not so much comfort zone stagnation as adaptation and acceptance and contentment.
Of course I’ll have to pry myself outside eventually but I’m in no hurry. Not until my tooth starts playing up again anyway. Yanking out my own molar is one DIY skill too far for me.
Jane Anderson PhD is an writer, researcher and practitioner in Sociospacial Reciprocity and Place Therapy from home. She’s been helping people create supportive, productive and sustainable environments at home and in the workplace for over 30 years.
www.jcaconsult.co.uk
www.linkedin.com/in/drjaneanderson/