The End.

The end of lockdown is in sight. I’m not sure if I’ve particularly learnt anything new. That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? You’re supposed to have things to say at the end of something like this. It’s funny because I’ve been far more productive this time round, but in a very different way. Last time, I was in the middle of my Master’s degree and so all of my useful hours were spent on the Oxford University Press digital library, or the UCL one (which is shit by the way), or writing essays that contributed quite heavily to the growing sense of existential fatigue I felt.

There are people that would call that productive. I was researching the neo-liberal impulse that appeared at the end of second world war, goddammit! But whilst everyone around me was taking up a new hobby, writing their first novel, or running marathons in their garden, I was busy doing what I’d always done — studying. And when I wasn’t studying, the last thing I wanted to be doing was writing poetry or learning to play the viola. I read a lot, I suppose. But I’ve always done that. Apart from that, I was watching tele and talking to my mum a lot. Nice, but hardly groundbreaking.

My point is that I wasn’t busy bettering myself, trying something new, or pushing myself beyond limits that I had previously established for myself. I didn’t even have the novelty of being truly lazy for the first time in my life — going to the shops in my pyjamas, watching Come Dine with Me for ten hours, and getting drunk on a Tuesday night — because I’ve always been an introvert. I spent the entirety of my summer between school and sixth-form inside watching Breaking Bad and talking to people on Twitter about our mutual desire to lick David Gilmour’s face (it was a phase). That was like my own mini lockdown, except fuelled by teenage angst rather than a global pandemic. I distinctly remember that that was the summer I went out every day to Tesco Express to get myself Kettle crisps (other vastly inferior crisps are available) and a diet ginger beer. That was the beginning and end of my daily social interactions. Little did I know that my reclusive habits would come in handy seven years later…

This lockdown has been very different. For starters, I haven’t been at home with my mum. I decided to stay in London this time, partially because of how infuriating it was in April to be paying £700+ a month on rent and bills for a flat that I was sixty-nine miles away from. I also decided to stay in London because I knew that with Christmas coming up I would be spending a great deal of time in Southampton anyway. This lockdown has been different because I haven’t had anybody forcing me to do anything, whether that be my dissertation supervisor or my (hypothetical, non-existent) employer. I have been my own master. I do flourish in these types of situations — I love a to-do list, I love a project, I love a bit of ‘me’ time, and I love earmarking some time to simply do as little as possible. Between my strict exercise regime, my blog posts, and mine and my flatmates' new-found addiction to Sims 4, I’ve been keeping myself busy and I have rarely felt bored. Throw in time spent watching The Sopranos for the first time, and this lockdown has been pretty damn good if I say so myself.

I made it a personal goal of mine that I was going to write a blog post every day. I can’t honestly say that I have done that, but that hasn’t been because of laziness. The days that I haven’t published anything has been because I haven’t had anything good enough that I wanted to put out there. I’ve written every single day though. And I’m really proud of that. I keep thinking about what Neil Gaiman said in a podcast I was listening to — and countless other writers say all the time. The successful writer will always be the one who sits down every day and spends time writing. It’s so simple when you think about it. In the first lockdown, I wrote a couple of opinion pieces but they happened pretty sporadically and lacked purpose. This time I have thrown myself into it, heart and soul.

I feel like I am doing something that really means something to me. Even if it is not successful, or even good. I’m filling the void in the best way I can. I’m not sure if the void refers to lockdown or life in general. In some ways, I think they are exactly the same thing. We just haven’t seen life from this perspective before. For some, nothingness brings only dread. But I am so good at filling up that nothingness.