A year ago I was on the phone to my Mam whilst getting ready for work, I thought it was weird that I could hear she was driving considering it was the middle of the day and she would usually be working at that time. I commented on this asking where she was, and that's when my Dad chimed in on speakerphone that they were both in the car on their way to rescue my sister and I from London!?
I told her them I couldn't come back because I had shifts at work that I couldn't just not turn up to? Confused and disgruntled, off I went to my shift.

Through the week leading up to this phone call I'd obviously heard all the news reports about this new disease and with rumours that the UK was going to go into lockdown. I was entirely skeptical about it all, although I filled my car up with petrol...just in case.

I walk into my shift at my retail job, the shopping centre is quiet (as it has been for weeks at this point). Half an hour after clocking in I'm told to lock the door, we're closed and the country is going into lockdown.

A year ago I packed two weeks worth of clothes and raced up the M1, expecting a temporary break from uni, work and London life.

Yet here we are, one year later.
If you asked me in March 2020 where I thought I'd be in 2021. I'd probably tell you that I'd be living with my boyfriend and my best friends in London, hopefully I'd be working towards my stage debut and putting my degree to good use. I'd have been to Bali for my big graduation holiday and would be scraping pennies to go back again.
But instead I'm back in the North East, I live with my parents, I currently work in retail and I haven't been to Bali just yet.

This isn't me hoping for a pity parade. This also isn't a case of good and bad. This is simply different. My life over the last year has been different.

So things haven't gone to my initial plan. So what?
I've been through three lockdowns. I've been very fortunate to have kept my job, been promoted and then also secure a part time job on weekends . I am (virtually) surrounded by family and friends and am happy and healthy with a roof over my head.

It is so easy to focus on the negatives over this last year, but take a moment and think about the positive things that have happened, maybe they're not things you planned on happening, but maybe they're not bad, they're just different.


It's been a long year, but the light is there at the end of the tunnel, we've just gotta keep on moving towards it.

Love Lou x