This week we welcome our first ever guest blogger in Alice Henchion who is our fabulous marketing champion at Twyfords. Alice reflects on her struggle with achieving ‘success’ in a Covid world. We hope you enjoy this blog as much as we did.
Inspired by Instagram, I recently started a 750 piece puzzle hoping that it would develop into a wholesome family project. Not discouraged when my older kids and husband didn’t want to take part, I got cracking on the first grown-up puzzle I’ve attempted in over 25 years. The thing is, I live in a small house with 3 kids and a husband, and there’s very little space for a permanent puzzle to live. In between snatches of time sorting and placing pieces, I stored the puzzle on a board high up on some shelves, resting on storage boxes. Of course, I neglected to tell my husband all this and when he decided to move storage boxes, the partially made puzzle all came crashing down… along with the opportunity for a cosy family instagram shot, proving that we are thriving in Covid-19 isolation.
The fact is we are not thriving in isolation… we are limping by.
I’d love to have mastered the baking of sourdough, built a chicken coop, planted a veggie patch or even just cleaned out my kitchen pantry during this ‘down’ time. But I haven’t. Because at my place there is no down time. I’m working, the kids are at home, and my husband is homeschooling. Life has never been more hectic. Our house has never been so messy. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of joy there too and I am so grateful for my beautiful family, but I can’t help feeling like I’m failing at isolation because I’m not getting ‘stuff’ done.
It took my mum to remind me, amidst a panicked phone call about an isolation birthday for my daughter, that I am allowed to take things off my plate. She pointed out that I don’t have to do everything, that delegating is an option and that the world won’t stop turning if I don’t do certain tasks today.
Since that chat I have tried to be more aware of escalating emotions and feeling overwhelmed.
I’ve tried to sit comfortably in our chaos and not worry about being uber productive. I have wrestled with guilt that our kids are having more screen time than I would like.
I have tried painfully hard to not interfere with the way my husband is home-schooling our three kids. He’s doing it his way, which is perfectly fine… it’s just not how I would do it.
And that’s okay.
So I guess my isolation project has been learning to be okay with not doing isolation projects.
It’s been about coaching myself through feelings of failure, relinquishing control and adjusting my own expectations. I don’t think this project has an end point like building a chicken coop does, but I’m pretty happy to be doing it anyway.