In lockdown parentis

I’ve been living with my parents for the past month or so. It’s been... an adjustment. For us all. 

Before I left Dublin and took the slow train to Galway (I spent a couple of nights in one or two towns along the way. I call it: taking the work laptop on a lil holiday), I had a clear vision of being The Best Daughter. 

I’d have my chores around the house – probably the really heavy-duty ones, because, you know: youth and vigour. But I wouldn’t feel resentful or browbeaten or anything because, you know: youth, vigour and the knowledge that virtue is its own reward. I’d probably be some sort of pandemic celebrity. The young woman who left a vibrant life in Dublin to move back in with her pensioner parents. 

Pah. 

It’s either heartening or mortifying to realise that one’s seventy- and eightysomething parents don’t need you. That they’ve pretty much cracked the secret of running a home and their own lives. 

So, what have I learned about being a middle-aged woman who has boomeranged back to the original family home?

1. Me, I’m the one who’s awkward and unyielding

I like to think of myself as somebody who can roll with the punches and put up with A Lot of discomfort (I camped at Electric Picnic, for chrissake, albeit 12 years ago). But pour me a cup of tea that’s too strong, or that’s over-full... or fail to have located a carton of soya milk... and, well, there’s likely to be a fair bit of tssk’ing action going on. I’ve written a book, I’ve worked in the pressurised atmosphere of a newsroom... yet when I’m asked what I fancy for my tea, I’ll flail, wibbling something like, “I’ll have whatever you’re having...” instead of expressing a preference or, yaknow, making it myself. 

2. I’m very definitely not a morning person

For years I’ve believed that I trained myself, through sheer dint of willpower, to attack the day and wrestle it into submission. My sun salutations, my light breakfast, my need to hoover up the day’s headlines while my brain was still fresh... these were all celebrations of the promise of a new day. But the last few weeks have shown up how fragile my routine is, and how much I rely on the luxury of living solo to cosset my delicate self. Simply getting out of bed and contemplating interaction with a person who isn’t myself is utterly draining. Wish me luck with this. Or wish my parents luck, I suppose.

3. Having housework to do is a privilege

I’ve written before about how I actually quite like little chores like washing up, making a bed, cleaning a bathroom. I like that I’m applying myself to a task that needs doing, and that when I’m finished, I’ll have brought order, of a sort, to a situation. Me! With just 10 minutes on my hands and a little elbow grease, I’ve managed to clear the sink of the day’s dishes, dress my bed in fresh sheets and eiderdown, and leave the bathroom taps shining. They’re small feats but they make my life more comfortable and they make my little flat a home. Now that I’m in somebody else’s home, I miss running down through my list of chores, I miss sticking on a podcast and sorting out the hot press, I miss setting tidying a drawer. And I realise now how lucky I am to have a home of my own, with my own higgledy-piggledy collection of bits and pieces.

4. Living with other people wildly affects your thinking

I have days here when I wonder why Google bothered to invent shared calendars. “So, you’re going to the hairdresser on Thursday...?” I found myself saying as I turned to my mother one day last week. I barely know what I’ll be doing from day to day, yet now I’ve absorbed the highlights of her calendar? So much of the business of living with other people is – now get this – airing your plans so that they won’t be blindsided when you fail to appear at breakfast on the relevant Thursday. And people go from that kind of chatter to discussing, you know, decisions and their rationale for doing things. Thinking back to when I lived with flatmates, I remember this. I remember chewing things over with other people. Job changes, relationships, money. I remember my thought process and mindset at certain stages of myself. That all came to an end when I had to do the heavy thinking all by myself in the splendid isolation of my little flat. I still don’t know how I feel about this.

5. I’m pretty terrible company

I’ve always known that it takes me a while to warm up, to get comfortable in a social situation and relax to the point where I can think straight and perhaps give a credible impression of somebody who is socially accomplished. But this past month has driven home once more how exhausting it is to be in the company of other people, how much I depend on having a space away from other humans where I can decompress and not be ‘on’. Having to – sheesh – say good morning and be pleasant to people (my parents, let’s not forget) before I’ve had my morning zone-out over a cup of tea, well, it all but wears me out before I’ve even started the day. And I wonder why I’m single... 

So, how are you getting on? How do you feel as we enter this second round of lockdown? Are you ready to get back on that sourdough bandwagon? Is this when you’re going to write your novel? My aim is less ambitious: to stay well, and to see everybody I love, safe and well, on the other side. That goal of being crowned Best Daughter? I’ll just have to let that one go...