The Covid Era: My 2nd Year Anniversary

Today marks two years of self-isolation with my terminally ill mother

Prelude: Allegro

The last year of the pre-covid era was one of those rare periods in life when I actually felt successful. Things were going great; I ran a small photography and video production studio. After years of hard work, I got to the point when I could work for more prominent clients who commissioned larger and better-paying projects.

I could finally afford to buy the gear I always wanted and plan for the future. I published my small magazine, started a podcast, began a series of musical recordings called Avenir Sessions (giving opportunities to unpublished musicians to get a semi-professional recording and some exposure), a social media community — and that was just for publicity purposes. I even bought an old Fiat Panda 4x4 for documentary work in the wild. Life seemed to be great.

More importantly, I was aware of it. I had enough shitty periods of my professional and personal life behind me to understand and appreciate the good ones.

On a private level, it wasn’t all roses, but it was manageable. My mother suffers an advanced vascular dementia; she needs a lot of help, care, and attention, but we had nurses and maids coming to our house daily, so I could still pull off at least 8 hours of work per day and have a sliver of social life in the evening. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.

Then Covid happened.

It was Monday, 9th March, when my mother and I still enjoyed coffee on a terrace of a local pub. Someone was coughing over at the next table, and I became restless. But I didn’t panic. Not just yet.

Then it clicked to me that this was going exponentially, and we could be in a lockdown within a week.

On Wednesday, I was already in a mall with a mask, and everybody looked at me like I was some sort of alien. I was buying a month’s worth of supplies, and I called my dad to do the same. People were still oblivious.

Two days later, on Friday, they panicked too. I did some more shopping to fill the gaps from…