The Pandemic, My kids and the Lost Identity

The Pandemic, My kids and the Lost Identity

It’s been more than a month and a half and it doesn’t look like the lockdown is going to go away anytime soon…

We hear of vaccinations, flattening of the curve, celebrities giving up their offices for quarantine bed, along with half their savings to fight this Pandemic, and we feel a ray of hope entering our, otherwise botched and ailing, heart.

My kids have online school now!

It goes on for eight hours, with apt breaks to keep them well feed, adequately hydrated and to keep their eyes from pooping out, from constantly looking at the screen.

It keeps them busy for 8 hours a day, while making them a little more literate in the process.

I was happy! And as I sat, sharing this joyful news with my husband, came the heart wrenching cry from my twelve-year-old daughter. “I don’t like this homeschool stuff… I want to go back to my normal school; meet my friends; wear my uniform; sit in the cafeteria and eat my lunch… I want a normal life!!”, she said.

Then a heart-breaking wail, “Please mama. When will be go to the mall and to Starbucks and play with my building friends in the evening?”

Her words reached a part of me, a part unknown, and started to eat its way out. Not a very pleasant feeling, and definitely not something I quite understood.

I barely relate to who I had become in the last 6 weeks…

My nails are not manicured, my hair is back to its origin colour (not very flattering), I only wear clothes that don’t need ironing and my so-called diva-level to-do list has been replaced by household chores. I no longer spend 20 minutes grooming myself before I go to bed, instead, I cuddle with the kid who is planning to sleep early, read a book with him/her and sleep. None of us have assigned bedrooms anymore. A true example of walls disappearing!

When things are so uncertain, even the most inconspicuous things seem humongous. The other day, I started thinking about my vegetable bhaiya and my cleaning lady, and how my next lot of mangoes would get delivered! The lack of Nutella in my kitchen felt like an empty bank account and the memory of my massage lady gave me a heart ache!

Every morning brings more updates on the virus and I sit in my balcony, fretting if my morning ‘Bread-anda bhaiya’ will be allowed to enter my building the next day!

I have a store full of food and enough tetra packs of milk to last a month and essential are still very easily available, but logic seems to allude me.

My family reeks of sanitizer and Dettol. Our hands have been washed so often that we have lost a layer of skin and masks and gloves are labelled and ready for use. But the anxiety grows every minute.

I like my quirky sense of humour and my ability to find something funny in every situation. I, after all, have made it my bread and butter.

Yet my life is immediately over-thrown when I hear a fellow resident, who enters the lift with no mask and no gloves, announcing her morning trip to the nearby grocer…

I did say ‘kids’ in the beginning, didn’t I?

Well my sixteen-year-old gorgeous son is who completes ‘my kids’ team.

As I sat down to write the contents of this article, he enters my room, announcing how he has so much unspent energy inside him that it’s making him restless and how his life is all destroyed by the virus. I turn to face him. He has raised eyebrows, uncombed hair, t-shirt worn inside out and I don’t even want to talk about the shorts. He is standing on his wave-board, twirling his hips to maintain the balance, while staring at me, demanding a solution.

The funny in me is not there anymore. On a normal day, I would have burst into laughter at that sight. Now tears roll down my eyes and instead of being a sympathetic ma, I ask him, “Do you want cookies?” (How unrelated)

I love social media. But now all I see is pictures of people doing these amazing things with the family, and I wonder, how do they find the time for all this, between cooking, cleaning and laundry, and how do they still manage look amazing?  I, personally, need serious grooming and so do my kids…

Then there are pictures and statues where they say –

We have all the time in the world.

OR

We are so bored.

OR

Sleeping for eighteen hours a day.

In my life, there are always vessels to clean, clothes to washed and before I am done with one meal, it’s time for another and my bath time has moved to somewhere in the evening, and even then, there is so much left to do.  I am amazed beyond reasoning, how everyone is finding all this time?

The cheerful rallying of the family to start a game of Monopoly, is now laced with fear of having to clean-up after.  My kids open a packet of chips on the bed, and instead of jumping in to get a few for myself, I stand with a hand vac. My white sofas are covered with multi-coloured bedsheets, so we all can eat and sleep anywhere. (No discipline I must say)

A deep fear engulfs me. Am I doing something wrong? Why am I not all pretty and glamourous and picture ready like all the posts I see? Why am I not cooking multi course meals every day? Why does Maggi find its way in my meal menu every once in a while? Why are my kids missing their old life and why are there no pictures of them cooking or holding a magic mop? Why is my husband working 12 hours a day still and unlike other husbands (as the social media tells me) not cooking or taking afternoon naps? Why don’t I have all this energy?

As my self debasement continues, I get a video call from my girl gang. Technology has made it possible for multiple people to chat together, thus, providing me the human connection I carve (outside of my family).

A revelation! I am not alone in how I feel. They feel pretty much the same.

We girl gang wonder – Are we doing something differently? Then we sensibly conclude. we might be doing things different, but we are doing things the way we know best how to, and that is enough for now. We might not be picture perfect instagram family, but we are all right!

I might not look like a million bucks now, but I do get to cuddle my kids in the middle of the afternoon. I might get a bit lazy about cooking and have instant noodles and a fruit replace a meal, but I do love that I get to share a big laugh about it on the dinning table. My work life is a mix of writing, editing and different chores, but I still manage to churn out a few articles every week.

We all (The World) will get through this.

The world after this all is over, will be a different world for sure. I just hope it’s a lot more real, lot more honest and lot happier than my old world and I sincerely pray that we are ready to accept this world. And as I pray, I don’t know for sure if I need to fear this thought or look forward it.

With this confused frame of mind and a dilemma over who I have become now, I get back to cooking my family dinner, which we might eat, sitting on a bed, in our crumpled clothes, and indulge in an extremely hilarious conversation, with our mouths full. And while doing all this, we might find an apple core that mysteriously got under the pillow, wrapped in tissue paper.

Lots of Love,

An everyday mother.