Lockdown stories

Last year we had a lockdown during weekends, no one could go out from Friday to Monday. I thought I will get an panic attack from being locked in apartmant. Or a nervous break down in worst case. I was alone with my kid. Friday night I was doing all sort of things just to keep me occupied so hour by hour time passed and I won, nothing bad happened in my mind.

At the start of the pandemic, my father had his second stroke. None of the family members were allowed to visit and even our calls to request his status were often unanswered. After some digging around, we discovered that the rehab the hospital was proposing was actually just a nursing home. The rehabilitation therapists would not actually be allowed to see him. In the end we decided that he should come home. He died with his family around him last year.

Half the people we know didn't believe in the virus, the other half didn't think it was that big a deal. As one of the people who already had the infection at the beginning of the pandemic, precisely because of others' selfish behavior and the need to visit even when they felt sick, I wasn't eager to meet anyone in fear of contracting the virus again. It is part of our culture to go around and visit everyone you know, have drinks, hang out regularly even if you feel under the weather because people believe that the flu is 'just' the flu and they don't care if they transmit it to other people. Same went for the new virus. If you are afraid of it, you are pathetic, if you tell them to stop visiting, they are insulted because how can they possibly be contagious when they are your family/friends? That attitude caused me and my close family so much stress. There was no way to convince them that not seeing them was safer for both sides and was not insulting. So, when the lockdown came, we were so relieved we didn't have to come up with more excuses as to why we can't go to a birthday party or dinner with 20 other people amidst the pandemic. As if we needed an excuse for that, but this is Serbia. We could finally rest at home, alone, with so much less stress. And before someone thinks we should have told people to stop coming - we did. They kept ignoring our wishes. Those who didn't got very angry and stopped talking with us altogether. And I am talking about close family, not some distant relatives, they were parents, brothers, sisters. I can't wait for another lockdown because everyone is behaving as if there is no pandemic and are genuinely surprised when I say I don't want to go to a wedding or a dinner party.

I'm glad it's over although I am still confused about the masks... Every time I enter some of the shops or pubs I look at other people to check how many of them have it on their faces... or not :). One thing is sure - it will take me some time to get rid off now old habit to check if I took my mask with me before I leave the house hahahaha...