When I look in the mirror and see my hair getting more grey lately, I can’t say I find it charming anymore.

When I open the tap and there’s no water running, as the water pump has been turned off again, I can’t say it doesn’t matter anymore.

When I try to find some summer clothes in the wardrobe and I don’t seem to find the right pieces as they are all in one box on one shelf, I can’t say I don’t care anymore.

I do my best lately to not be a grumpy, ungrateful woman.

I have a good life, the sweetest man beside me, who is always supporting and positive, we are healthy and alive, yet I wake up each morning feeling sad. I do my best to make something of the day. “I’m fine,” I answer them when they ask me how I’ve been lately.

What do you say when you feel that flaming fire that used to keep you alert, excited and happy, slowly quenched? It’s all so so. I have always been that person who enjoys the small things in life: the butterflies in the garden, the cup of coffee in the morning, the bike ride through the small caminos, being together with the one I love. I don’t need much to feel happy and alive, and I always appreciated this within myself, but somehow I lost it and this stop-and-smell-the-roses sentiment the past couple of weeks.

There’s a heaviness hovering between me and the world. My heart goes out to the elderly locked in nursing homes, who haven’t seen their families for months and are more likely to die from a lonely, broken heart at their old age than from this whole damn virus. Also, I think of my own mum who lives alone and doesn’t have close friends around her with whom she can exchange thoughts.

I know I will be able to shake that heaviness off me, but not now. I decide to not fight it any longer and just let it be. Accepting these uncertain, some say pivotal, times just as they are and let my plans in my head stay there a little bit longer, so they have time to develop into a better shape. Accepting that I’m moody lately and rather dive into another novel to escape a bit and be grateful that I can. Accepting that I can’t see my mum and family in the Netherlands for a while.

But I won’t accept these ridiculous restricting rules any longer. If I want to hug somebody it’s a choice of two people, no government has any right to tell otherwise. And I hope children with parents in nursing homes will stop accepting that they are refrained from visiting their emotionally broken parents. Because that’s the effect of these incomprehensible rules of European governments: broken bodies and broken spirits, which deserve much better after a long life. I hope that we all use our common sense and start breathing again.

P.S. Writing this down a bit, already makes a difference. If you perhaps feel the same lately, start writing. Let’s write together! ♡

Con Amor desde Mallorca,

Eva

Photo by Thomas Griesbeck / Unsplash