NOTES ON ISOLATION
We had one week of freedom. One week with out lock down rules in place. One week of school before holidays and we had started to make our holiday bucket list. It would be a quiet one because local government areas surrounding us were still locked down, but we were thinking differently. Adventures at the dam, cooking damper at national park, going to bang bang creek.
On Sunday afternoon I receive an email from our school saying someone from that community had tested positive to Covid.
We had been so fortunate that this was our very first positive result, our town had survived 18 months covid free, but we also watched it creep out of Sydney to the surrounding central west, and knew it was a matter of time.
Also at that time I wasn’t too concerned, it is a large school and community members could be anyone from cleaners, to a parent, to a staff members family member! So on Sunday night we knew we would likely be locked down again.
During the two weeks following I kept a diary of our life and I thought I would share it today.
Monday 20th September:
5pm. Cowra went into lock down, which didn’t cause much panic in our home – we had just been in a month long lock down so we knew that Mac could still work (as an essential worker), the girls and I could still exercise and we wouldn’t run out of food.
7pm – We got the text from NSW health. We were expecting it because of the school had told us to expect it. Still not concerned until…
“your child has been exposed”…”is considered a close contact”…. “self-isolate for 14 days”….“get tested”….
OH. MY. FUCKING. GODDESS.
The first thing I did was jump on the online grocery shopping site and start my own version of panic buying. (Don’t judge me!) Who knows what I bought? Did I get milk? Bread? I am not sure if I have actually ordered food for a full meal we may just have random plates of food for dinner because I didn’t order things. Who knows? I guess we will on Thursday afternoon which is the first time slot open because I suspect all of Cowra is doing the same thing.
I re-read the text from NSW health – it says “your child” but which child is it? I have two kids at that exposure site. And what does CLOSE CONTACT mean. And isolation? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN.
I spend the next two hours on the phone trying to talk to the correct department in NSW health to find out which child…find out is our wee beastie. Decide not to tell her tonight because she is a ball of anxiety bursting into tears at the thought of someone from school being sick.
Text messages between friends and family goes on into the night. Facebook has no answers and people start getting nasty demanding to know who tested positive. Like it’s their fucking business. It’s not.
Tuesday 21st September:
We are ok. I am ok. This is going to be ok. It’s just like lockdown, except I can’t go out for a walk, or pop into the shops for milk, but my mum and dad live here so it will be ok. But what if my mum has COVID from coming to visit on Saturday?
Big breaths – I am ok.
Realise how privileged we are because we have a house, with a big yard and space to be alone if we need it. Mac is able to have two weeks off work, and we have food and are safe. I cry a little in gratitude.
I am also glad I kept my treadmill instead of selling it like Mac said I should. I am going to need it over the next two weeks, but I also need to move all the shit off it so I can use it. Will it even turn on? It’s been a very long time since it was used!
Wee Beastie randomly shouts “F.U. COVID” during the day at the top of her lungs. Pretty sure our neighbours hear her when she shouts it from the balcony! Realise I don’t care.
Wednesday 22nd September:
I fire up the treadmill – the dust makes me sneeze. Is it dust – could it be Covid? Is my throat sore? Where are our test results? The treadmill is so loud Mac comes down to find out what the noise is. It may need some WD40. And a dust!
A beautiful friend sends us a random gift + care package – a box of lollies. I immediately dive in while sobbing about the beauty and generosity of others!
Another text from NSW health – another exposure site for the terrible trio. Two more of my kids are close contacts. Wee Beastie is another close contact. Where are our fucking test results.
I put a sign on the door for the pizza delivery person – Just dump and ring the bell and run as fast as you can from this possible infectious place while burning everything that may have touched our house… it doesn’t say that but I feel like it should.
Should we paint a black ‘x’ on our door like in the plague times?
Thursday 23rd September:
Checking in with the family – on the F.I.N.E scale how are you. Two fucked ups, one emotional and one not on the scale. I check in with myself – I’m ok today too.
Our groceries are delivered! HAZZAH! There is an abundance of wine – I think my delivery guy is judging me.
Test results from Monday are finally in! A huge ball of stress is lifted we are all negative. Huge ball of stress returns because I realise we have to be retested next week. Not out of the woods yet.
Friday 24th September:
when we are bored we….
If I am asked one more time by my kids “what can I do” I am going to loose my shit.
Mac is currently holed up in his man cave/ office gaming, all the kids want to do is go on their devices. All I want is to be left in peace.
Today is the day I choose to die on the cross of ‘you cannot go on your devices all day – find something else to do’.
It was the wrong fucking choice.
Mac and I start watching the end of season 10 of the Walking Dead. The irony of watching a show about the apocalypse during a global pandemic is not lost on me.
Realise we would be shit in the apocalypse. Definitely a F- for the McCullochs.
Saturday 25th September:
I realise that our 14 days have been back dated to exposure on the previous Thursday – this means we are only in ‘iso’ for 11 days. Feel like we have been given a lucky door prize.
Get a random text from a friend to check our front door – jelly beans! So nice – start crying again about the thoughtfulness of our friends.
But realise we can do this – six more sleeps!
Sunday 26th September:
What day is it? Are we still in September? Don’t get out of bed for a long time because there is no point. Desperate need for a cup of tea and my children ignoring my shouts of ‘please someone make me a cup of tea’ from my bed go unanswered, means I reluctantly drag myself out of bed.
The police pop by to make sure we are isolating! WTF? So there we are standing on our front lawn shouting out all our birthdays. They want to see the Wee Beastie – Mac holds her up on the verandah. She’s 8 – where exactly would she be? Down the shops?
She finds out one of her besties has covid. Her friend is ok, in good spirits and they spend a long time face-timing and playing with different filters. She says later that she just wants to call her friend covid girl but realises this is not appropriate. Sometimes wee beastie is 8 going on 90.
But I am slightly worried that several of wee beastie friends are sick.
Monday 27th September:
Freedom day is in sight – Thursday night is the goal. Four more sleeps – it’s like the Christmas count down I used to do as a kid.
Receive a new text from NSW Health – “your child is a close contact to another case on the Friday – you have one more day added to your iso” Fuck you Kirst for thinking you had this handled!
Wee beastie is again that kid. Fuck. This is exposure number five for her.
She is worried that she now has covid and is quite anxious. So am I.
Tuesday 28th September:
Have our second tests today – the family that tests together stays together. 
It feels weird to be out in the car. It feels weird to be driving around. The town is eerily quiet for a Tuesday lunch time. It wasn’t even this quiet during lock down!
Every one but Mac is anxious about being tested again. Quite simply the test sucks.
People who say it gets better are freaking liars.
The doctor agrees with me when I grumble about it. He confirms that it does not get better. And then he tells me in the last week he has been tested four times.
Realise I am totally shit and shut up.
Wednesday 29th September.
I come up from my treadmill walk and see that there is a care package delivered from some beautiful community members who wanted to do something for the kids and families in isolation who were missing their school holidays.
There is arts and crafts and other activities for the kids, a home made shepherds pie, other little trinkets for the kids. So beautifully thoughtful.
Predictably I am crying over how lovely that was and then shouting at the kids because they are how fighting over which craft project they are going to do!
I sit at my studio art desk for an hour trying to paint something.
I don’t.
Feeling blah now – the opposite of what I was an hour ago. Why can’t I paint anything? What’s happened to my inspiration? Nothing seems to spark my creativity today. The emotional rollercoaster is a real good ride today.
Decide to crawl into bed instead and have a nana nap and wrap myself up burrito style up in my big doona. Congratulate myself on not sitting at my desk for two hours forcing creativity and being proactive about the fact that I rarely sleep well so naps are self care for me. Sleep for two hours – feel like I slept for days. Don’t really feel better.
Today is just a blah day.
Thursday 30th September:
Test results come back – NEGATIVE baby! So relieved. So happy. Can’t believe that wee beastie doesn’t have it, but so grateful that she doesn’t. Still have to isolate though!
Decide today to embrace October. I sort out my ideas and plans. For the first time in LilliBeans history I don’t have a solid Christmas plan nor have I set any plans for the next three months.
Brag to my friends that I have made it through iso with out absolutely loosing my shit that I thought I would have been a mess but I have mostly been able to manage my stress and anxiety through art, exercise and sleep.
Friday 1st October:
Loose my shit.
On the F.I.N.E scale I am F, I , N and E.
Nothing in my mental arsenal is working today. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t get out of my head which is spinning with thoughts of life after iso. It’s not just me – I think we are all feeling this way.
I sit on the balcony and cry. Don’t know what specifically has set me off, just know if feels good to get it out.
Mac asks if I need anything and I go off on a sobbing snotty rant about our Premier resigning and how dare she leave us right in the middle of a pandemic and then I segue way into long list of things that are pissing me off and causing me more anxiety including the facebook nastiness, possible homeschooling for another month, that I don’t want to leave the house.
He gives me a big hug and leaves me to it.
I crawl into bed and decide a nap will make it all better. Or at least let me forget for an hour or two.
Saturday 2nd October:
FREEDOM DAY.
I had planned to make a Spotify play list with freedom songs on it – Beyonce, George Michael, that catchy song by the Soup Dragons??
I don’t.
I wonder if I should go for a walk.
I don’t.
Mum wants to meet up for a picnic.
Nope – not today!
Our home is safe. In our home we don’t have covid nor are we exposed to it if we don’t go out. Thoughts of having to do this all again makes my heart race.
Realise we will have to leave our house sometime.
Decided today wasn’t that day.
Sunday 3rd October.
Reluctantly decide that I can’t stay in my home forever and drag equally reluctant children out of the house for a walk. Meet my mum up the back and take 1000 photos of the poppies growing wild up there.
Smoke cleanse the house. Feel like my children are laughing at me. Decide I don’t care it makes me feel better.
A friend messages me to go for a walk. Spend an hour talking about iso and how we are struggling to get out of it. She has been in iso too. So nice to talk to someone who understands the last 14 days.
Feel like myself for the first time in days. But I have this almost background low level buzz in my body – anxiety? Fear? We are out of self isolation but it could easily happen again.
It’s almost three weeks since our isolation, it feels like it happened a life time ago. I often wonder what my kids will remember in twenty years about this time, what I may take away from this time.
I think our family has bonded more over this shared experience. I think in years to come there will be conversations had beginning with “Hey remember that time in iso…” I think we are more in tune or more sensitive to each others moods after isolation. I still check in using the F.I.N.E scale. I have no doubt that this, as we become busier and NSW opens up more, it will not necessarily be true but I hope I remember to do it often.
And I have so much gratitude in my heart. Gratitude for our home and that we have the safe space we have, gratitude for my family and friends who dropped of little gifts, did our grocery runs and generally checked in. Gratitude for our community who realised that lots of families were isolating and needed help or put together care packages for the kids in iso during their holidays. Gratitude for Mac because he held me when I lost my shit, checked in with me and made sure I was F.I.N.E.
And I realised (although I kinda knew!) I am such a creature of rituals. My morning ritual of going for a 30 minute walk outside, the hour long art journalling practice I do, the ten minute morning practice I do to wake up, putting on music before I hop out of bed. All of these little things, my rituals help centre me for the day. And yeah sometimes it doesn’t work, (sometimes nothing works) but I think if I didn’t have these rituals (especially the exercise and art journalling) I would have been struggling a hell of a lot more.
And I think we should score ourselves a solid B+ for surviving a zombie apocalypse instead of the F- I originally scored us!
Thank you for taking the time to read this very long post. I very much appreciate it. My greatest hope is that you and your families are safe and well and continue to be so.
From my whimsy world to yours.
