Lockdown, Calendar Dates, Not Set In Stones, by Morak Babajide-Alabi
Blog, Newspaper Column

Lockdowns, Calendar Dates, Not Set In Stones

by Morak Babajide-Alabi

It is the start of the second half of the year. It is unbelievable that six months had gone by, just like that, in 2021. Looking back now, you wonder where the days, weeks, and months have all gone. It was like yesterday when we sent text messages of Happy New Year to loved ones, colleagues and friends. 

The various lockdowns following the global pandemic have not helped matters in any way. Calendar dates have always been important in human lives. We use them to measure our ages, to celebrate or remember events in the future or the past. However, at no point in our lives are dates as essential to us as in the past year. Our lives revolve around dates.

We stay glued to our television sets to know the dates the government will ease the lockdown rules to resume our lives. We hang on to the dates, eagerly looking forward to when we will head back to the new office. Unlike other dates, the “freedom dates” are not set in stone. We think we are almost there only to wake up to further announcements from the government. But we understand that this is to save us and the society from further future isolation. The argument is, it is better to leave the lockdown in place than risk a further spread of the pandemic.

I came across a poem titled “Calendar” by Ayelle Garcia. The first verse reads: “Seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks have passed. How much more times I will glance and stash away? As I sulk here, see me flip the pages of this nicely collated calendar.”

Pardon my philosophical mood today. I woke this morning to behold the sunshine through my blinds.  I took this as a beckon to a beautiful day of exploits and successes. For an inexplicable reason, the sun triggered something in me. It brought a positive vibe I had not experienced in a while. I am sure you can relate to this feeling. So I picked up a pen to put my thoughts on paper, literally.

I read a piece of advice on social media some time ago that we should not let the lockdown or pandemic dictate our feelings. What an inspiring sentence. 

Sometimes we are carried away with events around us and get sucked up into the negativity. The lockdowns have been cruel to our emotions and sometimes our physical beings. It has been a time when neighbours barely saw each other. When colleagues stayed away from offices. We could not mix freely with friends, parents, and grandparents. 

It has affected every one of us. We are used to the saying – there are seasons to life. The past year has thrown more than the seasons of life.  However, in every situation, there is something to cheer us up. For every cold patch, there is a warmth somewhere. There is no day without a clear sky. No matter how bad the weather may be, there will be a small clear patch. This little hole (clear patch) is the hope of a better day, tomorrow, week, month, or year. 

Do you wonder why the sun is up on frosty days? I was not a good Geography student, but I concluded that the sun has to clear up the frost. It may still be cold, but the frost is “licked” up. If you liken this to life, you can take a lesson from it. No matter how dreary life is now, we need to find the spark. It is somewhere – inside of us or with support from people. It could be a time in the sun or the park. It could be a phone call to a loved one.

The lockdown will not last forever.

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ABOUT MORAK

I am an experienced Social Media practitioner with a strong passion for connecting with customers of brands. As part of a team, I presently work on the social media account of a leading European auto company. On this job, I have brought my vast experiences in journalism, marketing, search engine optimisation and branding to play.

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