Lockdown Life Lessons

  'COVID-19' that has proven to be so dreadful for the world has somehow come as a blessing in my life. Juggling through life and pacing up ourselves with the mad race of day-to-day life; we often miss onto giving time to ourselves and nurturing ourselves.

  Being a woman of 31 years of age and still in search of an appropriate life partner and settlement with life, I was going through a series of tremendous emotional outbursts and nervous breakdowns. Having finished my master's degree in physiotherapy, I started working and started looking for marriage in anticipation of being able to find a suitable life partner. Life was just going as planned but as they say, being a woman is never so easy;I was not able to get any right person for myself. Things were fine as long as I was willing to give my entire salary to them, look after their house, entertain their guests, and make no demands or wishes. But, an uglier side of life was projected in front of me as soon as I placed my wishes. Having led a beautiful and neat childhood from my parents' end,this type of atmosphere was new to me. Whenever I was getting hitched to anybody, I could not spend my money as per my wish even after earning. Planning for a child with any person was getting impossible based on his expenses and savings. A lot of demands and pressure was being put on me and my parents and not able to meet those demands were keeping me deprived of every basic need. Then, I got engaged. My fiancee was influenced by people and was very irresponsible towards me on the monetary front. Being blessed with a successful father meeting all our needs, wishes, and demands and having being raised in a competitive environment throughout life, I was coming into a depression on foreseeing my future life. I was not doing anything as per my wish but just for getting married. I was dying each day from within. I started suspecting that the same would be done to my kids too. Then, came a break from this life of over-thinking, cribbing, dejection, and harassment-'COVID-19'-a blessing in disguise! I got to understand the importance of my life for others. I was pressurized to go out for work even in the dreadful scenario when earlier; I was being asked to leave the job for entertaining guests. Sudden pressure of setting up a business was being put on my parents which lead to the breaking of my engagement. I got torn

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into pieces and came into self-doubt. It was then, this 'COVID-19' took me into the flashback of my childhood and I realized that having being sincere towards everything as a child, there is a lot that I can still do. It was long since I made any painting, wrote an article or poetry, cooked anything for my family, or read any good book. The first opportunity that this 'COVID-19' gave me was to set up a schedule for myself without getting threatened by anybody as neither could we leave the house nor could anybody enter our house premises. All these years, I had got a lot down with my health that had led to a lot of inefficiency in life. So, I started taking online yoga sessions for recovery. As I started feeling better with my health and getting able to do something, I took out my drawing board and resumed my hobby of painting that has always given me tremendous delight. Going back to the days of childhood that were filled with dishes cooked from mother's hand and occasional interference from my end with recipes, garnishing, and decorations, I started giving some time to kitchen to combat boredom and monotony. Having a creative and artistic bent of mind since childhood, let me hone my cooking skill. Getting better at health each day was letting me getting better at my drawing, painting, and cooking skill. I started participating in every competition that was coming my way to building up my shattered self-confidence.

 My mother always opines that the most important thing for a lady is to be self-confident and independent. On getting enough time to discover my ability as a good cook, I decided to take it up as a full-time career that gives me confidence in myself. I also learned how to create a 'YouTube Channel' from a set of courses in 'LinkedIn Learning' in order to promote my skill. In this manner, I became capable of getting married without putting any undue burden on my parents and also became capable of taking out time for myself, my family, and my kids after marriage. This lockdown has taken me back to a nice and dreamy world of childhood that carried a lot of dreams for the future. I am sure that I'm again giving reasons to my parents to feel proud of me during this lockdown and making me get stronger and stronger for the life to follow. I am hoping to get married after this lockdown and getting able of giving a decent life to my kids.