Daily Archives: May 3, 2020

The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Anon

This instalment of Letters from Cardiff in lockdown is from a person who’s very special to us, and has chosen to share their lockdown experience. If their story hits home with you, there are people that can help.

Lockdown liberation – a complete contradiction in terms, right? No. Apparently not. At least not for me.

Nine years ago I got married. The usual fairytale stuff – or so I thought. Like so many relationships, the outer perception was far brighter than the inner reality. What appeared happy, loving and ’successful’ was unhealthy, coercive, and lonely. Really lonely.

I lived life on pins for 18 months, lying to those closest to me. If the truth be told, I was lying to myself too. The delusional “it will all be fine if I work hard enough to help him change“. The crippling “why was I too stupid not to have seen this earlier?”. The poisonous “it’s probably my fault anyway”.

But one day something happened. I don’t really know what exactly. I just broke. I broke and I left it all behind. I had £20 to my name, packed a rucksack I still had from school, and went home to my Mam and Dad. And then I cried. I cried for my 20s; I cried for the home I thought I’d created here in Cardiff; and I cried for the family I’d hoped he and I would create and raise together.

Seven years on, in these strange lockdown times, I’m still on my own. Turns out that the bit of me that deals with anything beyond platonic relationships has proved to be stubbornly unfixable. The thought of a relationship is petrifying – what if I pick another bad egg? What if, despite repeated attempts by friends, family and therapy to convince me otherwise, it turns out that he was right, and I was the disaster after all?

It’s paralysed any attempts to move on in THAT domain for years. Any glimmer of interest striking the fear of God into me, followed swiftly by a “well I’m not going to do anything about that because imagine the utter shame of showing an interest in someone only to find them avoiding you like the plague once they work it out”.

But then lockdown arrived. And everyone is quite literally avoiding each other like the plague. And there’s time to talk to people, to let things grow. To avoid the crippling horror that overcomes you when you imagine bumping into someone the day after you may have suggested the most tentative of interests in getting to know them a little better; or worse still, imagining having to explain the sorry story of a pretty abusive relationship in person at some point.

And guess what? Lockdown has been liberating. It’s freed me to show the most tentative of interests. To strike up a conversation I’ve been too petrified to even contemplate in Real Life, on The Outside. And I’ve felt excited at the prospect of WhatsApp pinging, in a way that I thought had died long ago when the apparently unfixable bit got broken.

So yes, lockdown is almost entirely grim. It’s succeeding in exposing all the gaps I’d tried to fill with other people and other things, and has made life resemble a bit of a leaky colander for the time being.

But leaky colanders let mucky water escape, and while I feel a bit ridiculous admitting that it’s taken a global pandemic for it to happen, it’s probably about time for the mucky water to be flushed out.

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The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Lee Eynon

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This instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series is from Lee Eynon. Lee runs Fuud blog – an “occasionally entertaining blog about stuffing your face in Cardiff. We’re looking for your stories, so please contribute to Letters from Cardiff in lockdown!

A few weeks ago, when all this started, I had the same conversation with several people. It was never said out loud, always confined to the shadows of the DMs and WhatsApp groups of my most trusted friends.

“I know this is terrible” it would begin, “but I’m, sort of… quite enjoying lockdown.”

There’d be a bone-chilling guilty silence as the other party began typing, then the response would come: “Er, yeah me too, actually.”

Before the pitchforks and flaming torches come out, let me back up a little bit. I fully acknowledge that I went into lockdown in a ridiculously privileged position compared to many people. My job can be done fairly easily from home (frankly the fact that I have a job and a home right now is privilege enough), I don’t have kids to educate or keep entertained, and big ‘Rona is yet to pay me or my family a visit.

But I can’t deny that in many respects, the restriction on movement has been good for me.

I’m exercising more, I’m sleeping better, and I get to hang out with my wonderful other half and our idiot cat every day.

I’ve started to actively enjoy the structure that work brings, and I feel like I’m doing better at my job than I have in months. I’m even ringing my parents more often.

And then there’s the cooking.

All this time to practice plus the challenge of coming up with a weekly meal plan based on whatever we can get our hands on has forced me to experiment and learn so much more.

It doesn’t always work out well; last week’s leek and potato gratin ended up as more of a soup with a roof, and it turns out you don’t see parsnip mash very often because the texture is a bit like custard with bits of string floating in it.

But for every misstep, there’s been a little victory; my Korean Fried Tofu game has come on leaps and bounds, as have my fish tacos. My huevos rancheros are up there with the best I’ve had, and I don’t want to get into a banana bread measuring contest here, but mine is absolutely on point right now.

This is not to say I’ve not had bad days. There have been more than a few sleepless nights worrying about my parents. Mornings stressing about having to go shopping, and whether I’ll be able to pick up what we need without being coughed on.

Overall though, I have to admit, with no small measure of guilt, that I’ve been kind of ok with lockdown. Or at least that’s what I thought until yesterday.

Our friends Phil and Andy were passing, so they decided to drop off a pot plant they’d been meaning to give us for ages. I wasn’t prepared for how I’d feel when I opened the door and saw them standing there, two-socially-distant-metres away in the middle of the street.

Like most people I’ve been keeping in touch with friends on Zoom – chatting a few times a week, doing pub quizzes etc – but actually seeing a mate at the door in person blew my mind.

We spoke for less than five minutes, but the physical rush of seeing familiar faces – other humans that didn’t have to be considered an obstacle, or a threat in some way – was just incredible.

After they’d left I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. I really, really want to feel that again. I hope we all can soon.

Follow Lee on the FuudBlog website, Twitter @FuudBlog, and on Instagram @fuudblog.

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