7 Lessons I Learned in Lockdown
“Why did you let it get like this? Why do you have to make a drama of everything?!”
Picture it, the 31st of December 2020. I look hot. My ex has just replied to a text I sent two hours ago.
Now I am crying at the bus stop by Cabot Circus.
“Why do you make a drama of everything?” my mum berates on the other end of the phone.
“Because it is a drama! It’s all over,” I sniffle, shivering with smudged lipstick in the glow of a premier inn. “How can I not? When this is the end of such an obvious chapter?”
It’s true. If 2020 had gone right, I’d have been at a party tonight, looking sexy with my ex.
But the loneliness of 2020 is enough to make you properly lose it. Like, buying sexy underwear that matches the halloween costume you wear as you weep on the bus lose it.
Like, paint your face like the easter rabbit for a zoom meeting and don’t explain lose it.
Like, spend seven hours on a painting of you and young Leonardo DiCaprio only to ruin it by painting easter rabbit faces over both faces lose it.
I was not at a party, not shouting ‘happy new year’ gleefully with a pretty boy and all my friends. In a flash of invigoration and despair, I texted my ex.
Yo. I dare you to come and meet me tonight. Bored of playing cool and pretending I don’t want to kiss you and sex you. It’s a new year, why effing not? I look hot 2night, don’t waste it
Invigoration and despair. Needless to say, he sweetly declined, or I wouldn’t have ended up crying, phoning my mother at a bus stop.
2021 dawns and at the stroke of midnight, I feel I will turn back into a pumpkin. No, not the coach, I am not Cinderella.
I have turned into a pumpkin.
“It is dramatic!” I exclaim. “Because loads happened and it’s over now. And I learned so much!”
“Ok,” says my mum. “What did you learn?”
Well, what have we learned?
LESSON 1: Your rash lockdown haircut will mean an entirely new self-image
I know, don’t scream it- image isn’t identity. As a queer person, I’m used to experimenting with fashion and portrayals of self all the time. What’s on the surface does not define the beautiful, complicated sack of cells and lumps and bones and thoughts wrapped up beneath glitter and fabulous shoes.
However...
Good God. That mullet you made a slapdash job of back in June transforms your life. Pumpkin no more! People will buy you socially-distanced drinks every time you leave the house. You won’t even be in a pub - people will buy you drinks at work, drinks at the duckpond, drinks at the bottom of the slide, drinks in the ball-pool. Seven nice boys will ask for your number in one day! Admittedly, one of them was a coat full of mice who couldn’t escape in Castle Park, but attention is attention, hunny.
LESSON 2: Listening to S Club 7 and The Vengaboys is sex itself
Yeah, I’m saying what everyone born in 1999/2000 is afraid to. Important to remember though- especially with post-quarantine pressure and frustration- it is not about reaching for the stars. Whoever you are, there are so many ways to enjoy a boom boom boom boom with someone (or no-one) in your room. You can climb every mountain, reach for the moon. Just follow your heart’s desire. What I’m obviously saying is
It’s not about cumming ok guys? Thinking it is, is heteronormative and very Christian.
LESSON 3: Love and happiness are never too far away... but neither is a guy called Keith who won’t stop touching his tongue for no reason and asking “you wanna try astral projecting?”
Let’s face it, lockdown was not only lonely, it was also a time for maximum jealousy. You saw your friends on twitter seeing their friends, who just saw their friend who just got a career-defining new writing job on the show you’ve wanted to work on since age 16. And you were losing big.
But then- oh!- what’s this? Lockdown finished and along came... Opportunities? Fulfilling dreams? Perfect sunny days swimming in the sea with your friends?!
Then one night you’ll be sitting in a flat in London with a couple of cherished friends, clutching a mug of warm rooibos. Candle and a vase of sunflowers sit in front of a misted window. Rain hammers outside. One of your friends looks at you and says, “Isn’t this nice? We’re so warm and safe.”
Your chest hurts. Your heart might actually pop. Might seriously explode and be so gross and red and gooey on your friends’ sofa they just got from gumtree. That feeling’s not just fleeting joy, but happiness. You could laugh out loud. So now you’re… winning big?!
Not so fast there sugar-bum!
Less than 42 hours later, you’re back in Bristol- wavey-garms and reusable coffee cups in abundance. You plod down Harbourside. You’re contemplating how enviable your new life really is. You are so shiny now, you’re sure everyone can see it. Keith can see it. Oh wait. Oh, ok, here comes Keith.
We all know Keith, the guy who likes to do fire dancing outside M-shed. Keith might be a nice man, but Keith also might’ve killed Keith’s wife. Keith says all structures in Bristol are made of play-dough and that’s why it’s ok to take a bite. Keith won’t stop touching his tongue every time he asks you “do you wanna Astral project?”, even though you’ve turned down this offer every day. You see Keith every day. Keith used to show up on dates with your ex and walk you both home and kiss you both goodnight. Keith is a landmark in your life. Keith loves you and is here to remind you that you are still losing big.
The truth is somewhere between- you win some, you lose some, you consider Astral projection some. You’re not defined by your happiness and success, nor by your low moments and the days you, yourself, have bitten into Clifton Suspension Bridge assuming it was play-dough. Life between lockdowns is a constant see-saw of empathy failure. When you’re winning big again, be certain to think of Keith.
LESSON 4: Your wash-flannels keep disappearing
This is the sixth one you’ve bought. Why do your flannels keep disappearing? Where are they going?
LESSON 5: Life is life. Love is love. Taka-Taka is Taka-Taka and cowboy emojis are JUST cowboy emojis
This isn’t poetry. These are cold facts. You have to start trivialising things.
It is decidedly unhealthy to keep romanticising everything and inserting meaning where it is undue.
Those firemen putting out that bonfire? That was not a metaphor for people always dampening your blazing desire. Those people who are kissing on the bench where your ex first kissed you? Do not kick that bench.
You can still go to Taka-Taka. Just because he bought you halloumi fries there does not mean it’s cursed… and those delicious, squeaky halloumi fries are too good to boycott for boys.
And when your ex sends you a cowboy emoji at midnight and asks, “how are you?”, he is not really saying “I’ve changed my mind about everything and I need you back in my life”. Once upon a time, he might have used that cowboy emoji to queer-code his messages, to say “thanks for a lovely night” after nibbling your neck ‘til the cows came home.
But now it’s just a cowboy.
Let go. Other people aren’t connecting the dots you are. You’re the only one seeing the picture, and that’s lonely. Let go. It’s just a cowboy.
LESSON 6: Young Leonardo DiCaprio IS your boyfriend
Indisputably.
One day you came home from a long walk- a nice gloomy, autumnal walk- and there he was.
Sat on your bed with sandy gold strands hanging over sparkling sapphire eyes. His lips like rosebuds as he whispered, “How did I get here?”
Now it’s been 3 weeks, and he doesn’t seem to be leaving.
Somewhere in the world, Leonardo DiCaprio (actor, aged 46) lives life, marrying young models and attending environmentalist conferences.
This is not him.
It seems some apparition or alien life-force in the shape of everyone’s favourite long-time Oscar underdog- circa 1996?- has landed in your single room in Stokes Croft. And it’s excellent.
When you wake he is naked and nuzzling you. When you go out for walks, you kiss his head and he gently (so gently) kisses your neck and says, “can I come today?” and you reply, “no baby, I need some me time now”. He understands and he is so happy to see you when you arrive home that he wags his tail with more vigour than you could dream of.
It’s going well and there’s no disputing that this is simply a happy, real freak-happenstance and definitely not self-induced delusion. Your ex does not look a little bit like him, so definitely don’t worry about that. And don’t worry about the tail either.
LESSON 7: Stay vulnerable, kid
You might think I’m wrong, given that intro with the broken, nympho-wet faced mess in the bus stop. But hear me out.
First lockdown put you in touch with your vulnerabilities and desires. That much ‘me-time’ makes you hyper-aware of subtle changes of mood, every slight pang of hunger or hint of horniness. You felt no obligation to deny your insecurities, disappointments or your ever-transfiguring wants. You acknowledged every change of pace as it arose.
After lockdown you practice talking about these things. All that fragility is right on the surface, and you want connection. You’ll be spilling a lot. Dripping a lot. Like a little boy who grazes his knee on the playground. You play too hard, you get a graze, it weeps. It weeps in front of everybody.
Some people are disgusted by your weeping knee, some people tolerate your weeping knee. Some refuse to acknowledge your visibly weeping knee. Some see the knee and run. Some loved you before the knee was weeping and love you still, even though your weepy knee is gross.
You can try to put plasters over the knee, but what would be the point? That won’t heal it, it’ll only weep through eventually. Why not let it scab out in the open and… ok enough of the knee thing.
You’re vulnerable and honest, responses are going to hurt. But it’s worth it. You’ll exhaust yourself by pretending to be ‘together’. You are not together now, and that’s cool. It doesn’t feel cool, but it’s cool. It’s cooler than ‘playing cool’.
Talk about how much you love your friends and how it hurts to be far from them. Talk about the encrypted messages behind a cowboy emoji. Talk about hating your job, loving margaritas and roasted hot chocolate, wanting a dog, wanting less-smudgy lipstick, missing dancing, missing sex.
Talk about what you want, to the people you want it from. And then talk about crying at the bus-stop when they say “no”. Tell everyone. Talk about it in rooms of people, with a microphone. Write an article about it for a magazine you like. Talk about whatever you want, take your pain and pleasure into your own hands. And talk about Keith, for God’s sake, what is up with Keith?
That’s what I learned. And I’ll learn some more, in a new, less plaguey, less lonely year, as more new chapters open and close. And I can’t wait, bring on the drama.
“Fair enough,” says my mum.
Written by Lachlan Werner
Lachlan Werner is a ventriloquist, clown, writer and theatre-maker, hailing from the West Midlands. He has written and produced 3 solo shows and is a graduate of Ecole Philippe Gaulier, France. He's currently based in Bristol, UK and can be seen on stages all over the country, usually screaming at himself with a witch puppet. His favourite colour is yellow, except when it is blue, due to his bisexuality.