Does anyone else feel like they have begun the new year in a fog? I didn’t know if it was the threat of the new and unknown variant of Covid, the chill of winter, or the ongoing longing for my writing to get out there into the world, but I have just felt a bit tired, a bit blah.. like the new year had started to run away before I had had a chance to think or process anything, or even to really be ready for it.
The longer it goes on, it feels that the weight of covid is getting heavier and heavier. It has broken so much: normality and friendships, the way we live. My goal for this year is to push my writing career even harder and further up the hill, and having done the WriteMentor programme last summer, I have a load of novels to rework, so I am already focusing on the writing to the exclusion of all else, (a social life, time with my husband, time to clean the house..) but how else to find the time? With the lingering threat of covid added on top, everything just feels a bit heavy.
I had covid in November and it didn’t seem severe at the time but now, 2 months later, my sense of smell has not returned, and instead, I have a strange distortion of smell, so most of the time it feels like I am breathing in diesel fumes. I googled this and it is one of the bizarre symptoms of long covid, and it makes everything seem a little distant. Add to this that our three-year-old seems to have had back-to-back illnesses since September, and nothing seems normal. If she isn’t at preschool, it means that I lose a day’s work and then have to stay up until midnight writing and redrafting blogs (my other paid gig). Life isn’t normal. Covid lingers at the edges of everything. And when you can’t perceive smell or taste like you once did then it makes you feel at sea, throw in the prospect of a lonely year of redrafting and kids clubs and it feels even more like you are at sea.
But this is it, isn’t it? If we really want the writing life, which I do, then it’s lonely and it’s really hard work. Hopefully, though with Annie doing longer days at preschool, I will be able to balance life a little more, blog in the day and sleep at night? Maybe a little more walking too. x
elisabeth pike 