Perspective

 

 

While I have not been writing over the last 2,5 years surely a lot has happened.  There was sufficient food for thought and there were very happy moments.  Just they got most of the time snowed under by events that just clouded my judgement and even conscience.   As mentioned before I just couldn't manage to give those less fun facts and events the space they deserved within my mind.  Looking back I have wasted quite some time by lingering and putting on my Dart Vader mask and taking very deep breaths but refusing to let go.  Just being honest here that all the good stuff just happened to be a little blip within the universe of evil and neverending chaos. 

  Do I clearly remember when that started? Yeah, I do and the memories I have of that one particular moment are enough to give you some insight on what was going on with me.  It was a bit of a surreal day..the day that our government had decided to go in lockdown.  P even had been called in to attend the local crisis team of our town.  The adrenaline was having a ball and I will never forget when he walked in and told me that Belgium was going to go into lockdown status.   The first moment I felt relief but the next one I can only describe by using the word fear.

 Lockdown made me freeze within and all I could think was that we were going to just live from day to day and not having to think too much ahead of ourselves.  All my positive vibes and thoughts got deleted that evening and I just could not envision the future.  So that P managed to talk me out of the house that evening for a short walk was already a big push forward mentally.  I was going to live by those memorable words that our minister of heath at the time had used to make clear what she expected us to do:'Blijf in uw kot!'/'Stay put in your shed'.   But a walk at night while most people surely would rather be indoors surely would do no harm. 

I don't remember exactly what made me talked about it but suddenly I mentioned that one huge project we were embarking on and just couldn't envision us doing it.  All I could think of was graphics, danger, numbers, sickness, full hospitals, online learning and teaching, groceries that needed be done, masks, (at that time there was still doubt if we even had to wear mask due to the shortage that health care workers might be facing soon if we all started to hoard boxes), toilet paper, my family and friends and death...That last word made my brain freeze when it came down to thinking positive or keeping the moral high.  

'I just can't think of planning or starting to envision what it will look like!', I told him.  Him being the most rational and pragmatic of the two of us I expected him to totally agree with me.  'Hey, I want you to do exactly to do that.  You need to think ahead and forward. One day that house will be started to being build and I want you to think about it.', was his reply.  Those words took my by total surprise and up till today it are perhaps the ones that I recall the most vivid from COVID-times.   That he of all people did manage to already look ahead and not to stand still when it came down to certain projects made me feel a bit more hopeful but the anxiety I was experiencing I wasn't able to shake of.  On the contrary! 

To me all I could see at that point was a plot of land on which there were standing a number of trees that first had to take down.  And we still had not obtained the permit to take them down.  Believe me when I say that where we leave that taking down a tree is almost mission impossible.  So in my frozen mind all I was seeing was a piece of land with trees.  As result of C-business I did not end up screaming of the roofs that we were going to build a house.  Even telling it my mother and close family it felt rather as something surreal.  

So when the finally restrictions started to loosen up and the adminastrator who seemed to have taken all the time of the world to check up on the trees and type up a document we were already almost a year further or that is at least what it felt like.  The cold and very rainy morning that P instructed me to meet up with the architect was therefor also one of the few times that I got to express outloud what I felt.  I remember standing there on our plot of muddy land in the drizzling rain and said:'I don't see it.' The nice man who also was wearing wellies and had brought along a small notebook and was clicking away with his phone, looked at me and said:'Neither do I...yet.'   I drove home thinking that he must have been thinking that I must have been one of the weirdest clients he ever got to meet up with. 

Hey, please bear with me here.  In the middle of a pandemic I just did not feel the urge to start smashing my Pintrest boards full with ideas for my kitchen, bedroom or bathroom.  Yes, I bought one glossy interior magazine and when P saw it he frowned and that told me that we were not on the same page when it came down to style and such.   The one Pintrest board that I have been updating frequently was for one of the most practical rooms of the whole house and that is the laundry room.   There are moments that I do wonder what has become of me.  I long for a good space to put up our laundry machine and dryer and not first having to move half of the content of our garage befor being able to put in the dirty load.  Yes, I know I am weird but this forty one closer to fifty is just loning for practical things instead of stylish gadgets?  

And a few weeks ago the windows were put in and instead of mud, grass and trees there is now a construction standing that we are planning to fill up with us.  I can still not totally understand what this means because part of me has imagined that it would never ever happen.  Yes, P has been the one who never gave up the idea that it would happen for real.    Like whith all the other things that I had not been able to do for a while due to COVID-19 I had to get back used to them.   That a total new important piece of our family life was written during a very painful and hard time has just taken a bit away the joy and fun that so many of you must have experienced.   

That I then this last month told my sibblings and mother that next Christmas will be celebrated in our new house and that I have been starting to fill up boxes with things that will not move with us to our new address is in a way a big step forward.   When I now stand in front of our new house I start to feel something that I have been pushing away for such a long time: perspective!   Bit by bit I am peeling away the harnass that I have been wearing over the last 2,5 years.   Yes, 2023 is going to be an extra special year! I can see that now clear in front of me!  

PS: I do have some favorite French music because the lyrics sometimes can tell in a very poetic manner what my specific sentiment at a certain time is or was.