Quarantine is hard, like, really really hard. I wasn’t prepared for what I was not able to do and how it would make me feel. But the first step, was trying to Beyond Meat meatball Subway which was INCREDIBLE.
After our whole was trip cancelled I was pretty down about life, and because of this I found myself with displaced anger and upset, but that wasn’t shown right away. The first few days I took at ease. I found activities to fill my time and was enjoying the first few days of being able to relax and do what I want. I downloaded the app Bunz which is one of my favourite apps. I use it to find secondhand products that people no longer want or use.
My first search was to find a kindle after mine got stolen in Colombia. I found one for $60 which was kindly delivered to my doorstep, I re uploaded all the books that I had and since arriving in Canada I have been reading all the Harry Potter books. My next mission was to find clothes. I was in no way prepared for the Canadian weather so I put up a message on Bunz asking for clothes donations. I got a message from a lovely lady who dropped me off two huge bags of clothes, leading to me know having a whole new wardrobe.
Here is a short summary of the activities I filled my time with:
- I managed to recreate my entire sleep schedule, I now go to bed around 2am and wake up around 11am. So that is something.
- I started cooking a lot and also getting cooked for, everyone got really creative with cooking so we got to eat some great food.
- I exercise about once a week, a terrible effort, I know.
- Continuing to learn Spanish, my trip may be over but I will not lose the Spanish too!
- Started learning BSL.
- Reading
- We watched a movie pretty much every night.
- I downloaded and triggered my younger self’s addiction to Sims.
- Edited my March Monthly Video.
- Playing with the animals
- I also used Bunz to get a bunch of cross stitch designs dropped; I managed to finish two in time time whilst simultaneously watching the second season of You.
- I started drinking coffee and taught myself how to make GF & vegan brownies.
- And I also took an obscene amount of mirror selfies, which I promise, is weird for me. Clearly I have been feeling myself during these times.
Towards the end of our quarantine I started to feel just really down about everything; as mentioned above, I started to feel that misplaced anger and upset. I blamed Canada and not wanting to be here, wanting to be in England. But now as I right this weeks later, I was just so frustrated at the situation. It felt really well, isolating. And I was even with my husband and mother in law, so luckier than most. But not being able to go out get things you actually NEED is hard, and I am used to going out just because I want to, most of us are, so it was a lot harder than I thought at first.
Right now, I feel a lot more adjusted. Quarantine is over, however, I am still self isolating with a trip to grocery store every two weeks. I’m happy to be doing what I do in the meantime; writing, reading, cross stitching, learning languages and eating. These are the little things that brighten my day and I am actually really enjoying my time in isolation. I am happy to be here, surrounded by my family, pets and a good community. I’ve used this time to learn about things I never would have before; I’ve managed to build on myself in many different ways. And that makes me happy.
Thank you so much for reading this post! My quarantine was definitely a mental challenge but after dealing with it as best I could I do feel a lot stronger and have managed to learn to live in our new normal. Feel free to check out my other posts where I talk about how we got back to Canada and our final days in Colombia in the town, Popayan.
