How has COVID-19 effected me so far?

Every where you look is COVID-19 this and corona virus that and I know everyone is sick of it? I know I am. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and write a piece on it, on how it has effected my life and I know it could effect my life so much worse don’t get me wrong, I don’t work for the NHS so I haven’t got to deal with that and touch wood I am not suffering with it that way but in other ways I am suffering.

A bit of a background to me, I am one of seven, the eldest child and I still live at home, yes I am 24 years old and I still live with my parents. I pay board and no I am not one of those children who pay a measly £50 a month, I pay a decent amount each month, set by my parent but yes I still live with my parents aged 24. My family moved to Harrogate in August/September and at the time my sister was at university in Leeds, brother at university in Manchester and my other brother was leaving in September to go travel Australia for three years. Plans change, my brother came back early from Australia, not because of the corona virus, more because of poor management skill of his behalf. With the corona virus break out my siblings at uni wanted to come back home so we had to rearrange the bedrooms so I ended going from a decent size bedroom to the box room so my sisters could share my old bedroom. This is probably going to sound really selfish but I hate it, I actually really hate it because I used my bedroom as an office too, my room had my bed in which was a single, yes I am a 24 year old living at home in a single bed but I had all my business bits in my room and now my box bedroom looks like a store room. I know my parents feel bad and they don’t want this but what else can they do. Corona virus has caused this, you maybe thinking it looks messy and yes there is a bit f a mess on the floor but that is because I moved some books and laptop case off of some boxes so I could move them and I just need to put them back, the door doesn’t open fully because there are boxes but this is me, this is where I sleep, where I work now, I used to have more space, space where I could move around a little more. Corona virus has imprisoned me.

I am also worried because my mum works for the NHS, I am scared there will be some arsehole patient who will have coronavirus but beginning stages and not follow the rules and will not listen and spit or cough on my mum. I am also worried about my dad because he is high risk because of his diabetes and other things but he doesn’t seem bothered by that which worries me.

Some of you may or may not know that I have an online business called Maude & Noah, selling homemade vegan candles and wax tarts. Now since the announcement of corona virus people have been stock piling toilet paper and pasta, nobody NEEDS candles and wax tarts, I have had the odd sale but we have just had Mother’s Day and sales weren’t as good as they should have been so I am going to have to make big decision about Maude & Noah but I am holding off for as long as possible. May was supposed to be a big month for me and the business because it was going to be the month that Maude & Noah was going to be in small boutiques but I guess not now. This blog post goes out the day after I leave my job so I actually handed my notice in a little over a month ago which some people may think I was mad doing that in such a dark time within the world but I wasn’t happy where I was working. I used to love working there but everything changed in January/February time so made the decision to leave and with corona virus and know life is too short I think it is the perfect time, don’t get me wrong I haven’t just left, I have got a few different options so I am not without work but the past month I have been working from home, the whole office have been and have been communicating through emails, telephone calls and Microsoft Teams which is good but I was speaking through Teams to one of the women and saying I miss coming into work and just popping into get my morning coffee at the train station and saying ‘Hi’ to the barista, saying ‘morning’ to the bus driver, giving my usual smiling that is a kind of hello smile to the woman that gets on the same bus as me in the morning and gets off at the same stop as me. I am missing basic interaction with people because the little interaction I am getting with people beside my family are with people in shops and its just people looking at you in disgust as if you have a sign above your head scream with flashing lights saying ‘I HAVE IT!’

I was so looking forward to exploring my new home town of Harrogate, me and the family moved here in September and I could wait for the weather to get a bit better and my blog would have probably become a food and beauty salon reviewing site for Harrogate but now it hasn’t. I popped into the centre to go to the post office to post out an order and took a photo of how empty it was and it just looks like a scene from a horror movie, I have been here Monday to Sunday and no matter what day it is, it is busy, Harrogate is a tourist spot, don’t get me wrong it is no London but it is somewhere where people visit but now it’s just empty. I am really just struggling not being able to go out and pop to the shop, popping to the shop just to get some milk ends up being an hour task because you end up having to stand in a queue outside in the car park. I am on regular medication and will be for the rest of my life and I normally pick them up from the train station in Leeds at the Boots Pharmacy every month on my way into work but because we are working from home I can’t get them so I’ve changed my pharmacy to a local one and that has just been a bit of an ordeal and I have just been even more emotional, I feel like I am trapped in a bubble because all I seem to do is get up and work, I have no enjoyment anymore, you used to say ‘oh, I am going on holiday is such and such days’ but you can’t even look forward to that because nobody can travel. I was supposed to go back to Leicester at Easter to see childhood friends and my godchildren but can’t, I was hoping to go to Barcelona in May (definitely not going to happen) and going to either Oslo or Zürich for my birthday in November which I don’t know if that will happen. I have been down and I will be honest, I have cried a lot, I just think what is the point, I seem to end up in a vicious circle where I will get to a good stage and then something will push me back down and I end up in a tearful stage and I try and not cry or get down in front of my family because I know they have their own stresses. I just need to remember that I don’t have corona virus (yet) and I have a job and I have such a great friend who I just want to thank and that is Claire, I really want to thank her, she started working with us in September and because we are both known as the “Southerns” at work I think we have just clicked, she has either messaged or rung every day to see how I am, sends me funny memes and we both have the same views on work let’s just put it that way. Let me know how you are feeling during the social distancing, are you feeling lonely like I am? Are you feeling imprisoned in your own home?