Carpe Diem! My Reflection on Lock down and COVID-19

As I say goodbye to 2020, a year that impacted the lives of everybody globally, my reflection is on the changes that COVID-19 brought to my life; from constantly being on the move to being locked down.

Sadly, I lost dear ones in 2020 due to the corona virus, including my cousin. I also lost my beloved uncle, best friend and father figure, though under different circumstances. Indeed it has not been been easy, but truth be said, the impact the last year had on my life has been both negative and positive.

First and foremost, as a mother, I multi – tasked more; homeschooling was added to my to do list. However, I have truly enjoyed the experience of time spent with my children studying in addition to playing, cooking and even gardening.

COVID-19 reminded me of that I took so much for granted; like coming back home from a trip and hugging my children. Alas! As I write this, I am in self isolation in the house after travelling. True to habit, I have always been very careful about personal hygiene and always made sure that after coming home from my trips, I would freshen up and then proceed to embrace my mother,children and siblings. This time round, I greeted everyone from afar and retreated to a room prepared for me for self-isolation and went for testing again later on that evening. It was surreal. Indeed, we took for granted that we could randomly hug our loved ones and see them as often as we wished. Sometimes I have procrastinated to meet a friend, thinking there is always another time. COVID-19 reinforced my belief of Carpe Diem; seize the day, do it now – enjoy life now.

How often do we take God’s gifts for granted such as breathing? Now one of the biggest fears with the Corona-virus, is not being able to breathe!

Remember how we could sneeze and cough without getting paranoid and creating panic around us? On my last trip, a passenger on the same flight and seated behind me, sneezed a couple times, I felt like running away! But where to? I was so paranoid that I even held my breath for some seconds! Yoga has helped me learn to hold my breath for long periods at a time, but I had to eventually I gave up and just breathe!

How life can change in an instant, ah? A survivor like me should internalize what is happening with a certain ‘distance’ but this was surely unprecedented.

So what have I learned from the lockdowns and the pandemic?

My biggest lesson has been to enjoy every second of life and be grateful. Yes, grateful for life. I have chosen to spend more time with my loved ones without being distracted by haters, negative and jealous people. I will allow them to be, but will not pay any attention to them. But wait a minute, this does not mean that I will take nonsense and allow them to mess with me or my plans. God made me a fighter and life is too short to give a spoiler a chance. As I often say, I did survive Westgate “to take stool”.

Talking about Westgate, I recently realized that these days, terrorism or terror attacks do not cross my mind when I am in a shopping mall. Looking back, I could not help it, even after a lot of trauma healing of the thought of “what if they attack”? I would consciously do security checks before entering any premise; Mariam’s security checks of knowing exactly where to run in case of a possible attack. Even while at a restaurant, I would sit strategically in order so to see who was coming in or leaving.

Gladly, today my energies have been redirected. I ensure that my mask is correctly on, social distance and avoid elevators by taking the stairs. I recall one time while on an elevator with my mask on, found myself on the 5th floor of a building and started feeling dizzy especially when I realized I should have been on the 3rd floor!

Ironically, the fear of corona virus also gave me a break from terrorism related fears that I used to deal with occasionally. It helped me realize even more that all I needed to do was my best and accept that negative experiences can sometimes cross our paths as part of our destiny. I always knew that God is control, so why be a control freak? So I do what is humanly possible and leave the rest to Him.

Carpe diem; I choose to do what makes me happy, what I enjoy the most and surround myself with sincere and positive people. I recently reconnected with a dear friend from Torino and we currently communicate daily to share, seek advice and just laugh. We met at the University I attended and we just clicked from day one. My friend and I, always thought outside the box and never fitted in groups. We still enjoy the blessing of deep friendship as we share on important issues such as motherhood, personal and spiritual growth.

Carpe diem; reconnecting with nature has been extremely positive for my wellbeing. Previously, I was even too busy to enjoy my own garden, but now I try to spend most of my time there. My daughters and I started a small organic garden as a family project. As happy farmers, we are now harvesting our first produce of vegetables, herbs, and fruits. My aim is to make the garden bigger and better so that our platter only serves organic goodies harvested from our little farm.

Carpe diem; I still need to heal some more from the traumatic experiences of my life such as war, death killings of my dear ones, displacement, racism etc.

Carpe diem, I need to write more on my blog and share the above experiences.