As Donegal heads into Level 3, Maria Rushe highlights the importance of us all cheering each other on.

Banana bread; I never actually did get around to baking one.

I did eat a slice that someone else baked, but that was the height of my lockdown success. 

Lockdown as we know it has passed, thankfully, and yet there is a new type of lockdown coming at us tonight. 

It seems to be a steam train that we can’t stop… maybe using trains as a metaphor is futile here in Donegal. A big bus? A huge tractor… whichever you use, it’s coming at us and the brakes aren’t working.

But as always, with every cloud, we can look for a silver lining. Can’t we? For me, that silver lining is school.

This time, hopefully, lockdown won’t include homeschooling, and with all the luck in the world, will not be as restrictive as the first one. At least with the kids still in school, those of us who work from home can ACTUALLY work, as opposed to trying to work between feeding the kids and you know, parenting?

And those of us with kids of school going age, might actually be able to GO to work as our children will be continuing with school. 

Hopefully.

But most importantly, our kids won’t have to go through as much upheaval as we will this time around. And that can only be a positive.

For me, trying to teach from home was the highest height of lows in my almost 20 year career. I hated every single sorry minute of it, and while I did my very best to teach from home for the months of April through to June, I am absolutely not afraid to admit that it almost broke me. Almost.

Despite what some will have you believe, teachers did our best. Damn it we did a good job, but my own children were pretty much ignored for chunks of the day and homeschooling of my OWN daughter did not happen as I tried to keep providing education for my other babbies. 

But hey. I’m not complaining. I’m really not. I just don’t ever want to go back to that again. I love being back in school, and as difficult as it is, (and by God it is difficult), being back in classrooms with young people is good for the soul. It’s what teachers AND students need. Teaching is never just about passing knowledge and hitting curriculums. It’s about so much more than that. Masks and all.

So even with the impending restrictions that we face again tonight, hopefully, we’ll be able to keep the constant of school going for everyone. 

There was a camaraderie about the last lockdown wasn’t there? All in this together and finding our way through the “New Normal” and all that zoomyjazz?

I wonder however, how much of that is lost. 

Because this time is different. We’re all fed up. 

We’re all scundered as we say here in Donegal. We’re all disappointed that it’s come to this. 

The novelty of Lockdown has well and truly worn off. 

And people’s patience is thin. 

The seeming contradictions of the plans and restrictions are not helping. If anything, they’re pitching people against each other. And that is the main difference this time. 

Why can he do that but I can’t do that? 

How is she allowed to do that , but I have to do this?

The list of questions like this is pretty endless right now. 

And yet, on we must go. Once more into the abyss I suppose. 

The next few weeks will determine the next few months. We all need to buckle down and try to keep the chins up. 

We might not have the lovely weather or same sense of newness that wound us together last time round. But we do still have each other and this time, thankfully, our kids will have some semblance of normality. 

And if we can all keep that going, and try to remember that we’re all facing this shitstorm together, who knows, we might actually get things back under some control. 

I probably still won’t bother baking a banana bread however… I don’t even like banana bread.

 But I’ll happily cheer you on as you bake yours. 

Because that is how we are going to get past this. 

By cheering each other on. 

And by letting each other do what we have to do, whether we agree with them or not. 

Chins up Chickies.

We’ve got this.

#holdfirm