It has been long time since I wrote my last Post, but during the beginning of this year I’ve been through lots of things, which for sure was the same for you.
So in this post I will talk about everything that happened since the beginning of this weird and unexpected year. I know it might be boring but is a story I’d like to share in order to confront you readers in this moment of quarantine. I might sound bit negative at the beginning, but no worries, I will be more optimistic at the end.
During January I’ve been busy organizing myself moving into a new flat with my girlfriend Abigail (or Abi). I have to say that I’ve been lucky to move, not only because my previous flat was messy and small, but also because I avoided all the trouble from our unfortunate 2020.
My plans for the new year were many: better career, more social life and improve myself on developing new skills; but with Brexit started and Australian forests in fire I understood that this year would be totally different from the one I was expecting. (Yes, I talk about Brexit, I don’t mind what is your point of view, I want to express mine too as person).
So with the Brexit alive, I had been very worried about myself as immigrant Italian living in London and as foreigner willing to make a career into the film industry. Of course, I organised myself with the EU Settlement and make sure to settle all my documents once I move flat, so I knew that there was nothing to be feared of. At the end, the idea of myself leaving the country was just a childish though, and honestly I was prepare for this, but I wasn’t prepare about what was coming next.
Ending of February everything was going fine, I tested my cohabitation with Abi, and find out she is one of the best flatmate I ever had in last 6 years I’ve been living in London. Step by step I bought and build all the furnishings needed, so the flat was complete and the nightmare of living in a small and messy house has gone, same was for my anxiety, apparently.
But some bad news was spreading as same as our new year’s issue, the sickness that force us to rethink our plans, the Coronavirus or Covid-19. Hearing the news was making me anxious about the outside, be more worried for myself, my girlfriend, my family and my job.
Being the kind person who nowadays watch news mostly on social media, everything I was reading confused me. Whatever is the news, everyone was giving a contorted idea about the virus: for someone is just a regular flue, for many other it is deadlier than we were thinking and for other is only dangerous to middle age and vulnerable people.
Hearing the phrase “Middle age and Vulnerable people” was what triggered my mind: having a girlfriend with previous health problem and my parents in their mid-60, my anxiety was growing. For a while I was unable to sleep and every day I was calling my parents in order to calm myself, despite be the one who was at less risk.
This helped me for a while, but in my honour I was feeling bad; a 27 years old who was suppose to grew up and find a job instead of worrying for everything and upsetting the others.
So in March beginning we chose to self-isolate earlier compare to the others, and try to don’t get out from our flat neither for shopping. Beside my money issues, be unemployed and find a way to spend time in a 60m2 flat for an undetermined number of months, my worried was also focusing into our food supplies due the fact that delivery services were busy and supermarkets were empty.
It’s been difficult for a while find suppliers, but me and Abi managed to find, by the time, our plans and way to get our food delivered. Abi also got the chance to receive support from the government due the fact that because her vulnerability, we were shielding into our house, so supplies and deliveries were not anymore a problem.
We found new things to do into our daily routine and some creative activities in order to enjoy our long spare time. Exercises during the mornings, try to learn new languages like Spanish and Japanese (my two favourite languages), reading books, play videogames and watch all the films we were planning to see, time was going fast and I was getting used to our new life.
Despite being unemployed was another of my problem, I was lucky to received money from my parents during the period where I was moving flat. I hate asking money to my parents, but in that circumstance, I didn’t have other choice because even before the pandemic, I was having a really quiet moment from work (my last shift as PA was November 2019), and even if I was working in other part time jobs, the situations was the same, so my honour was down but not dead.
Anyway I also found the way to receive money from the government thanks to the Universal Credit and a small part of furlough from my part-time job in Pinewood, which allowed me to get enough for pay my rent and bills. This made me realize that the UK system and even mankind wasn’t that bad as I was expecting into a pandemic crisis.
Thanks to Abi I’ve also been more involved in Greenpeace campaign with many Zoom meetings and documentaries to watch. I was improving my knowledge about climate change and local poltics. I improved my cooking skills and learnt new vegetarian dishes, still now I’m trying to keep on my vegetarian diet.
During that period, I had more often keep in touch with my parents, sharing and comparing our experience between Italy and UK.
Despite I haven’t made new friends, I’ve tried to be in contact with many people from the past asking how they were going and if, despite the situation, they were safe. Other friends have contacted me first , so I also want to thank them.
It was a good feeling keep in touch with someone you don’t hear from for a long time.
The pandemic is not over yet, but I want to stay positive about that (positive not to the virus, of course).
Yes I know, unfortunately many people died because of it and others are loosing their job too. We are still having trouble managing our self on finding a cure for the virus in order to reopen the companies and come back to our usual life.
We are also facing racial conflict and a situation into social media were people are blaming each other, competing each other and not finding the right balance in order to find solutions.
Yes I know, you are thinking, what I am doing to make the world a better place? Absolutely nothing, and I admitted that especially this years I cannot do much, especially helping myself.
But I want to stay positive because it could have been worst, despite all the bad news receiving during this moment, we are in some way improving if we follow our good role model: from the hard work medicals and nurses, the delivery drivers, the market employees, the volunteers, the peaceful protesters, the moral activists, the scientist and much more.
The best think I can do for now is thank them and supporting as much as I can.
I want to conclude saying that this post is mostly made to be my own diary, it wasn’t my intention to talk about humanity and lecturing people on what is better to do in order to find solutions. I am not the one who give good speech and changing the world, but one think for sure, I promise myself that once I come back to my regular life I will be more involved into volunteering and study more in order to give my help, even in small actions.
I hope you enjoyed my post, it might sound boring due the fact that I haven’t done much to help myself and the others, and nothing really interesting happened during these months.
I will leave at the end of this post a video from the film “The Great Dictator” from Charlie Chaplin. The speech at the end of the film is what kept me positive (with my feeling, not the virus), especially during my lockdown.
Grazie again for reading, and I hope the best for you.
