When the days are dark & the nights are long

Someday, it will all come back to normal. But that ‘some’ day doesn’t seem to be very near. This pandemic is showing us new ways of changing our lifestyle, our work-style, rethink all the decisions we made for ourselves, relive all the long-forgotten memories and what not! However, one of the most important things it has taught us, in a rather harsh manner, is to be adaptable to change. 
Living in a fast-paced world, most of us were living a life where we had no time to pause & think. 

 

Hurt a friend?

“Time will heal everything”

Missed attending grandparents’ funeral?

“Didn’t they always teach us that work was more important?”

 

No time for kids?

“They’ll learn to live this way- they are smart & independent kids after all”

Been 15 days since you last spoke with your parents? 

“They understand that life is hectic these days”

 

We were so busy is running this race that there was a whole bunch of millennials who felt there was

no need of having a permanent house to live in. 

 

What was the need? We spend around 11 hours at work. Home was only meant for sleeping. 
Every other house work was either outsourced or permanently ditched - because time, nobody had the time!!

This lockdown did what nobody else could do, not even God! It taught us a lesson, a lesson so big that it’ll take generations to forget it. Covid -19 stopped everybody exactly where they were –  

like the game of “statue” and then changed our lives overnight!

 

We were stuck wherever we were and for a moment, we didn’t know whether to be happy about it or sad! It was as if we had always been on a superfast train, crossing different continents at different times and enjoying the ‘continuous movement’, but then somebody pulled the chain and we didn’t know what to do next!!

Work from home was something every employee always wanted, and every employer dreaded giving. 2nd day of lockdown - and our organisations transformed in such a seamless manner that ‘work from home’ became a new trend. It was all fun in the beginning - like a vacation. People posting pictures of their work from home days, dressing up in their best pyjamas and enjoying a cup of tea with a laptop on the table & surrounded by all family members. Some had a good time showing off their work, others indulged in cooking varieties that they always wanted to do.  

 

Kids became parents’ first priority and they spent ‘quality’ time like they had always dreamt of! 
Just the way all the good things come to an end very soon ,the ‘bad’ face of this lockdown setup started showing within a few days. People got tired of staying locked all day long, kids started getting all cranky because of zero outdoor activity, office work started piling on because ‘now that the employees are working from home’, there’s not start & end time of work, cooking & cleaning felt like herculean tasks & then came the sleepless nights, tossing & turning and the big, ugly, least talked-about subject - “depression”. 

Because one of the most common things, yet one of the most hushed topics is ‘mental illness and its existence’. Those who are strong enough to still carry themselves with a smile when depressed, they master the art of ‘avoiding’. And also as a generation, we were in a habit of avoiding things or issues, because again, ‘who has the time to deal with this?’ So in our busy lives, there were people who were hiding their sad eyes, broken hearts, lost but not forgotten memories, loss of a child that kills them from inside, domestic issues, work issues, issues that were so basic that they ‘built’ the thing called home and yet, since ignorance was the best way of keeping life going on , we got ourselves busy with life and ignoring all the things that annoyed us or rather, things that needed some ‘thinking’ & ‘talking’ with people. 

Then, this lockdown happened, and people got stuck. 

Stuck with the wrong Organization, stuck with the wrong family, stuck in an abusive marriage, stuck with roommates, stuck with their lonely thoughts, the thoughts we had very successfully ignored. Once everybody was done with binge-watching, relaxing, spending time doing everything they had missed doing in the last decade, entered the big, big sized snowball of all the emotions & thoughts we had always ignored.

Depression was here to stay. Then came the news of many suicides and when everybody in the family would be discussing what could have gone wrong in a next-to-perfect lifestyle they lived, there would be one silent person whowould remember all the things that killed him from inside & how suicide, for him, was understandable.

 

I won’t write much about it, because if our brains are made to function in such a way, if we can bring ourselves to think about ending our own life, what can be worse than that? And because when people voice their personal opinion about one’s death and how the person ‘could have’ lived, how he failed in life, they don’t realize that they are crushing someone’s inner voice- the one who would have gathered the courage to speak, if only, he would have got acceptance from others.  

This lockdown has also taught us that no matter how hard, harsh & rough we pretend to be, we are all fragile from inside. 

 

Our mind, the one organ that always pretends to be the smarter one, leaves us alone when the heart starts giving up and suddenly, when we least need it, the mind also plays the evil role by telling us that our problems are bigger than our life. It creates a lucrative image of how all our problems would end in just one go. At that particular moment, our mind, body & soul work together, pushing us to take that step. We are probably not even ourselves at that moment. One positive thought, one reason to live can save our life at that moment. The problem is, we have distanced ourselves all our friends so much that these days there are hardly any close friends who know the actual state of our mind. 

Today, more than anything else, what we need is to change our focus towards ‘enjoying’ every moment, stay connected with our loved ones, find time for the things we love doing and to be more human, than merely working-machines. We also need to be more accepting towards each other & more understanding when it’s about emotions. Because everything else is secondary. Love, and be loved. 

Love is actually a very strong feeling & those who are loved, are empowered. Love gives us the power to achieve things that we think we are not capable of!

Love makes us complete. 

This lockdown has taught me that no matter where you are in life, if there’s one thing of prime importance, it is happiness. Everything else will come & go, we should never ‘avoid’ things that really need attention.