Lockdown: Day 101

Flip, hey! We’re still in lockdown but it doesn’t feel like we are anything at the moment.

The malls are normal, the roads are busy, social activity in my complex has resumed, birthday dinners are being organised, cycle groups are pacing along William Nicol Drive again, and some people’s logic, I believe, have taken a vacation.

That being said, I feel as though I’m becoming aggressive and really sensitive around people lately. There’s been a couple of positive cases at my workplace and I’ve become hyper-paranoid about absolutely everyone.

This past week I’ve turned down more than one invitation to a gathering - some legal and some not. The rising number of Covid-19 cases is growing at such an alarming rate and because Gauteng is such a tiny province, I’ve decided to resort to my level 5 behavior for the next couple of weeks. I don’t want to endanger anyone’s life either.

I’ve downloaded the Checker’s Sixty60 app and am once again going to get my perishables exclusively from Jackson’s. I do believe where there’s a will, there will be a way and I am going to take every precaution not to get sick. There’s just one thing I’m going to keep and that’s the running. The exercise ban under level 5 drove me insane and expanded my waistline. I also got a tad depressed because my usual endorphins coursing through my veins was dismal.

For the past three days I have not interacted with anyone outside of my home, other than a running mate, who I happened to bump into yesterday. Seeing her face made me long to be near my friends. I’ve been really battling with the no contact rule and I ache to be embraced and hugged, tightly. To be honest I ache for a lot of things but I genuinely wish I had a hand to hold.

My cat Mexico, luckily, is very affectionate and so I’ve been cuddling her a lot lately and I feel like she’s taking advantage of this ‘new’ me. Every time my alarm goes off, she leaps onto the pillow opposite mine and stares into my face. I don’t even have to open my eyes anymore. I can smell her closeness because her mouth stinks permanently like fish, rivaling my morning breath. This revolting ritual is my reality and I am often rudely woken up, not by my terrible alarm tone, but by fish breath and the ticklish brush of soft whiskers. I wonder sometimes what habits Mexico will adopt when a man eventually rests in my bed. I imagine there will be a lot of sulking going on. But not from me.

Mexico, honestly though, is the highlight of my day, every day during this lockdown. She’s old and most days when she sits on my lap, she shivers. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the cold, or if she has underlying symptoms of Parkinson’s. I’m nervous to even find out. So I tell her on the daily to pull herself together.

Just this morning after a rather embarrassing vomit in my room, I asked her if she thought she was dying. She looked up at me quite pitifully, almost as if to say, ‘What do you think?’ I quickly scooped her up in my arms, held her close and whispered, ‘You’re not going anywhere. But if you do, please don’t shit on my bed.’

My cat in East London used to shit in my shoe box, regularly, right before she went to heaven.

Heaven this week gained an angel. An angel from my circle of friends. A mother died. She birthed my wonderful friend Kimberly Flannagan and I can’t even begin to describe the loss. Watching a friend grieve the passing of a parent is heartbreaking and I feel helpless. Death is not subtle, nor is it forgiving. Death is a thief that steals but I am thankful and grateful for my life because of it.

I have been thinking of death and eulogizing people while they’re living a lot this past week. I think it’s so important to love people and honor them with your words, daily, if they matter to you. It costs nothing to be kind, or complimentary, when someone does something brave or outstanding in your eyes. My brother also lost a friend. It was a sudden death almost two weeks ago. And it’s unbelievably sad to know that this person, who he loved, was here one day and was gone the next.

I can’t explain, or even begin to understand the cycle of life, but I do know that what you want to say must be said. Now. Not later. Now.

I told my brother last weekend that I want to be better. A better daughter, sister, sister-in-law, friend, colleague, business partner and one day maybe even wife and mother.

Death always sparks an urgency in my soul to recreate and reinvent the way I communicate, reflect, and project myself. I love people and I love to love deeply. It’s a trait of mine that I’ve always considered a weakness, but as I’ve gotten older, I realize it is a strength.

As I bang on my keyboard, in the silence of my own duplex, I recognize my privilege, my successes, and I’m open to correction - above it all I feel incredibly humbled tonight.

I’m humbled to just be breathing.