Lockdown Has Changed My Life

Lockdown has changed all our lives temporarily, but for us as a family it has changed a lot on how we want to live our lives from now on – as individuals and as a family unit.

With most people wishing that their lives could get back to normal, for us we just don’t want that. We want to make some changes.

If I have realised just one thing during lockdown, it’s that I don’t live enough for the moment. I’m very much a planner and I have always saved for the future, so much so that moments often pass me by, and I haven’t enjoyed them as much as I should have.

Being in lockdown has made me realise that almost everything can be taken away at the drop of a hat and that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Work

I have always wanted to be a stay-at-home parent and I’m lucky that I got to be with Joshua, but being the parent at home with our first child has only made me aware of how much I don’t want to work outside the home with Oliver – even if it’s only evening work. I want to be home all the time with my family, it’s just something I want to be doing until my kids are older. Even then, I don’t want to work when they’re home from school.

I’m in a situation where I don’t have to return to work later this year. If you read my blog or follow me on social media, you will know that I gave up being a freelance writer and blogger (temporarily) in order to secure our mortgage (I needed one more year of accounts and we weren’t willing to wait, so I got a job and they were happy with just 3 months of payslips from there) and I have been spending the last few months getting back into freelance and blogging life. I’m now finally in a position where I could leave my job and focus on my freelancing, if I choose to.

Having all four of us at home has made me want what I had as a child even more. When I was growing up, I had both my parents at home. My Dad was a Labour councillor, so while he often had to work outside the home, he was there most of the time and my Mum was a stay-at-home Mum for most of my life. Me and Jamie would both love to get into a position where we can be at home together with the kids, more often than not. Whether that means Jamie will work in the office two days a week and the rest at home, or always work at home… who knows! We just now know that is our absolute dream – to all be at home, together.

Environment and Getting Fit

With the rules of not being allowed to drive anywhere, unless necessary, it has forced us to walk more. We haven’t gone for walks daily but we have far more than what we used to. Prior to lockdown, Joshua hated walking and would constantly complain if we had to walk anywhere further than 30 seconds down the road because “it’s boring” – it’s tough keeping him happy walking anywhere as he needs constant entertainment. But after not driving anywhere for around nine weeks now, we love walking! We want to start using the car much less – only for the weekly food shop and other times when public transport would be difficult.

Both me and Jamie have struggled with our weight over the past 5 years and hopefully walking more will help get us more into an active lifestyle. We used to go to the gym, eat healthy and be very active but over the past few years it’s slowed down an awful lot – I think our busy life with work and the kids has somehow been the reason why. It’s just easy to drive somewhere, isn’t it? And it’s a lot easy to order a takeaway at the end of a hard day rather than spend the evening cooking and washing up.

In general, lockdown has been a reality check for us and made us realise that we need to make some little changes to our life to get the most out of it and to create the life that we want to give our children.

Has lockdown made any difference to your life, no matter how small?