Times They Are A-Changing

In a very short time I will be going back to work, as will many others, but the landscape to which we are returning is vastly different to what we have been used to, and I feel like I will be returning as a vastly different person.

The Coronavirus crisis has decimated so much of what our society has taken for granted for so long and we are all having to change, though I can't help but notice that there are so many people out there who aren't willing to make any changes to their lives.  Seeing the devastation of beaches and the amount of fights breaking out across the nation -  despite the fact the country is supposed to still be on lockdown - is utterly abhorrent to me and it brings sharply into focus the total mismanagement of this whole situation by our monumentally moronic government.

I have always been a person with very low self-esteem, a lack of confidence and a very thin skin, which in my profession probably isn't the best, but it also makes me a very empathetic person who understands others and how to provide a good level of service.  Before lockdown, I had found my skin getting a little thicker, but now, at the precipice of jumping back into "regular" life, my confidence has waned to a point where it's so far in the negative, I don't know how I'll balance the scales towards the positive.  I have found my anxiety levels sky rocketing each day, constantly worrying about the state of the world and feeling utterly devastated by the amount of people who have been affected by this pandemic.  This anxiety has affected so many parts of me, including the resurgence of what I had hoped was long-forgotten adult acne, horrific IBS flare ups and, along with my plummeting self-esteem (which massively impacts how I dress and how I feel about my 'style'), a questioning of who I really am.  

On the plus side, in having so much time at home, I have found something of an inner spirituality I didn't really know I had.  I've been practicing yoga every day and taking long walks and finding myself connecting more with the earth.  I've even managed to grow some flowers on our balcony - something I never seemed to have the knack for.  But perhaps this is the earth telling us that we need to take better care of her?  As utterly hideous this crisis has been, by us not travelling and not polluting in the same way, the earth has started to heal itself, I just hope that she is given more of a chance to continue to do so, but I'm afraid with everyone itching to get back to "normality", so many of us will forget the importance of taking care of our home planet.

This is a really terrifying time for me, not only as a business owner, not knowing how the world situation and our mitigation measures will impact our business, but as a human being with stress-related mental health problems.  Feeling so unsure of who I was before this, I feel even more unsure as to who I am going into this "new normal" (jeez, I hate that phrase).  I can only hope that as this annus horribilis trundles towards a close we all learn to have more respect for our planet and each other.  If we've learned nothing else in the last 100+ days, surely we've learned that life is short and that we need to love so much more.  Times definitely are a-changing.