If, a year ago, I'd thought I would still, now, be diligently sanitising doorknobs and light switches, or scrubbing the skin off my hands, or leaving bags and parcels for hours before unpacking, or, or, or, I think I would've succumbed to depression or terminal anxt.
If I'd realised how dithery and incompetent our government would be I'd have emigrated with unseemly speed to New Zealand.
My hindsight is, as usual, faultless.
The last truly enjoyable public evening out was to see Matthew Bourne's gloriously camp The Red Shoes on the 4th of March, 2020. A fabulous last hurrah. But I feel, since then, unfed.
I need the stimulation of live performances and live audiences. Even more, I need the daily contact with friends and family. Skype and Zoom are great, but no substitute for the real thing. Virtual sucks, but it's definitely better than nothing. I just wish I didn't have to see myself, even as small as a postage stamp, at the top right hand side of the screen. There's something so distancing about that.
But meanwhile the would has gone through several really important upheavals: Black Lives Matter, continued pressure about Climate Change, the American election and it's aftermath, Hong Kong, disturbances in this country protesting about police powers over public assembly and disorder etc etc.
I watch it all from the sideline, otherwise known as TV, because I am supposed to be protecting the National Health Service, society at large, the aforementioned friends and family from myself spreading and/or catching C-19. Even after vaccination I'm told I must not change my behaviour. My rights as an individual take second place to my responsibility to society.
Okay. I get that. But somehow, even while acquiring some of the famous Covid kilos, I grow skinny in spirit.
And the irredeemably shallow side of me really needs its hair cut.