Additional Needs

Hopes for 2021

Posted by Zowie Kaye on 15th December 2020 Additional Needs, Advice & Support, Disabilities

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I’m very fortunate, in my 37 years thus far on this planet ive been very lucky and am so very grateful.

I travelled a lot as a child, lived in a foreign country and learnt another language. 

I collected along my way some of the best friends over the years and my amazing husband…….. life had been pretty sweet for a while.

I had so many high hopes for 2020 after 2019 had not been at all kind to me and my family.

This year though raised the bar; it has been mentally excruciating, I know it has for many and I don’t say that lightly.

As we entered lockdown in March, i'll be the first to admit I was a little naïve and laughed at comments that this would be ongoing into winter. 

As I had started home-schooling, my husband was furloughed, and we were all in the house together all the time.

Those odd jobs that were built up around the house and never quite finished, were now being worked through and the glorious weather meant we could have evening in the garden. 

We spoke with our neighbours more and although there were difficult times – people were connecting and had a new appreciation for their home sand other people. 

We had our sons lockdown birthday and friends were dropping off lovely doorstep parcels and we became BBQ masters.

In May I found out after a long four years of trying for another child and a miscarriage the previous year that I was again pregnant, I laughed at the thought of announcing a “lockdown baby” but my joy again was short lived when I suffered an ectopic pregnancy that could have had potentially dire consequences.

Mentally this was even more difficult to go through being alone in the hospital during this time but I had a new found appreciation for our NHS staff and professionals.

I saw so many of my business owner friends and self-employed people struggle with the closures and having to stop working. 

My husband had been out of work himself for 10 weeks at one point and my son was in tears struggling with the subject matter in online work that he had not yet covered and could not get his head around. 

I was put at risk of redundancy for the second time in a 12 month period and the mood everywhere was generally just low.

Summer came and went, and we were fortunate that our summer staycation went ahead at the end of August although one of my best friend’s wedding was postponed, covid effects never really that far away from everything we did. 

I was frightful for my sons education and what his future now looked like from the after effects of this pandemic.

During work meetings we would start to say we were sick of having the same weary conversation and it was disheartening not having nice and positive news to share. 

Its now going on for nine months that I have not had any face to face interaction with my work colleagues and Secret Santa by post is just not the same! 

Not to mention my camera roll for 2020 was not pics of empty supermarket aisles and toilet roll shortage memes.

So I started to think about what I wish and hope for 2021 and to be honest, I feel like I can’t and actually don’t want to make any plans. 

My only true desire is to be ending 2021 with all the people I love and hold dear, then the same for the year after and year after that. 

Occasions may be cancelled, and holidays postponed. 

We may not be able to see people of often as we like in the surroundings that we want but the fact that we can look to be able too do these things, eventually - in the future should we all be alive and healthy to do so is the hope that will carry us all through.