People have talked at length about how much the pandemic has taken from them. I haven’t been able to relate at all. Until now.
Most of the freedoms people have lost to the pandemic I lost long ago.
When the lockdowns and shielding started, I was already housebound, unemployed due to ill-health, isolated from regular contact form friends and family, unable to have regular visitors…
So the pandemic hadn’t really taken away any of my freedoms, as there were so few freedoms to take.
I might not have had much, but I’ve always had two important days a year regardless of my health. Those days are ‘Blue Sunday’ (the tea party for M.E.) and Boxing Day. My favourite days each year. Be it pyjama clad and shuffling to join in with as much or as little as I could, I always had the 26th December to be with my extended family. We’ve done the same thing for over thirty years; all got together at my parents’ house for another Christmas dinner, Secret Santa, games, and family time. We are a very close family – there’s only one month age difference between me and one of my cousins. We al grew up together, holidayed today, we’re each other’s bridesmaids.
But the pandemic took Boxing Day from me this year. And my goodness did I feel it.
Mr Tree Surgeon and I were always going to have Christmas Day to ourselves this year. Christmas time has become quite tricky and hectic for me since my family expanded through marriage. It’s always lovely, but I couldn’t wait to have a Christmas time more suited to my health and my pace of life this year. And it’s been so nice! So nice! But Boxing Day…I have never not seen my family on Boxing Day…
With me still shielding, my dad due to have surgery, my grandma being our most precious person ever, and it just not being responsible to get together regardless of restrictions, we cancelled our annual Boxing Day gathering a while ago.
Of course with this relapse, it’s hard to know if I’d have been able to spend the day with my family anyway. But I have had Christmases poorlier than this one, and even then I had Boxing Day.
It’s given me a little taste of what 2020 has been like for the people around me who live a life that’s very different from mine. It’s been impossible for me to understand how hard this year must have been for them, and I’ll never truly grasp it, so far-removed am I from mainstream society. But, yeah, it sucked to lose something that has the power to keep me going even on my hardest health days. I’ve missed all-sorts of things this year due to my M.E. Holidays, gatherings, video quizzes, meals out… But to lose my favourite day to this pandemic felt quite different.
M.E. myself and I 