I started my blog ‘The Midlife Muddlings of a Mother and Madwoman: Exploring the Extraordinariness of the Ordinary’ during the lockdown of 2021. We had already endured the lockdown of 2020, and as the country closed down again at the start of 2021 and we were plunged into the world of home schooling and social isolation once more, I started to write. It allowed me to process the strangeness that we were yet again experiencing, the enforced isolation, the emotional fall out of a unique and life changing cultural phenomenon. Writing enabled me to feel connected to other people during a time of solitude, and to make sense of all the weirdness that was now everyday life. The tagline for the blog was ‘welcome to the musings of a wannabe writer – sharing my outlook on everyday phenomena’. I felt vulnerable and exposed, sharing my thoughts and writing with the world, but it turned out to be a validating experience and I received positive feedback.
I continued to write the blog for several months but then the world opened up again, life became chaotic, and I didn’t find the time. I added to it a year later and then put it down again for a few years whilst I once again became busy with life. I have recently started to contribute to it again but I do struggle to find time. I must try prioritise it.
Hopefully it is interesting snapshot of a very bizarre period of time. We were all just trying to navigate lockdown as best we could, and it is a window into some of the more amusing and poignant elements of my life.