Even Mrs Brightside can feel the dark

AINE O’CONNOR

MY lockdown situation is easy. Me and two adult kids, health, food, space, Wi-Fi, separate screens. I have been trying to do my bit to look on the bright side. I manage my news intake, I avoid as much of the People Are Awful social media as I can and I dodge conversations with people whose default response to any attempt at optimism is, “Yeah, but...” Yet sometimes I still feel crap.

The Girlchild has been having panic attacks. She’s preparing for and taking first year college exams from her bedroom; bad enough, until her brother forgets and sings in the shower next door. I understand her stress and I feel guilty about my own; other people have it so much worse. Yet still sometimes I feel a vomit-inducing anxiety. Other times I am fine at home yet I feel like crying when I go grocery shopping. I thought that was nuts until I heard that despite the extraordinary service of supermarket staff everywhere, grocery shopping is making lots of people want to weep.

It seems even if you do have it easy, it is still hard. The kids are bored. We miss family and friends, we miss our paramours, we miss having a social life, we miss the sea. We miss some kind of predictability about the future. We miss hugs and pints and meals out. And, like everyone else, we worry about health, finances and what the hell comes after this. Maybe the determination to look on the bright side is contributing to the anxiety too, the unsaid is festering in the dark.

Other people unquestionably have it worse but that doesn’t mean it’s not perfectly OK to feel bad sometimes. And as a wise woman told me, you are bigger than your feelings.