I’m sure Covid has given thousands of people in all walks of life, in all job sectors time to think about what they really want in life, what is important to themselves and their families, time to pause, take stock and realise they perhaps aren’t living their ‘Best Life’. We have ALL had the most horrendous 18 months of our lives and been affected by this pandemic in one way or another or perhaps even several ways. We may have had our eyes opened to the job that has never satisfied, the partner you no longer connect to, the home you never liked, to the life you feel very dissatisfied with and while the pandemic rages around us we find in the quiet of lockdown that we can do something about it, right now while the world battles this horrible disease.
If you have read back into my blog you will know that i have been a carer for a very long time. That i have been the dutiful eldest daughter and looked after my mum from the time my dad died, through her diagnosis of Multiple Myaloma Cancer and ultimately her death. When my mum passed away quietly holding my hand i felt, grief yes but also relief. Relief that finally i was going to get my life back, relief that my husband and family would finally be a ‘normal’ family and the relief that finally i could be who i wanted to be, not who i had become.
Four months is all i got then Covid struck us all. Then i became a struggling artist just like so many others. Our ‘amazing’ government did step up to save our economy, they gave millions of pounds to the big corporations to ‘keep them going’, PPE contracts to their best buddies and family members, they helped businesses furlough staff and financed small businesses but they did nothing for artists! I fell through the cracks, literally, i don’t pay tax as i don’t earn enough so don’t qualify for any help as im not a real business. My husband is self employed but pays no tax as he is quite early in his career as a writer, so no help there. We have been living on Social Security benefits which is basically hand to mouth poverty.
Yes i have a car, its a disability car as i have Fibromyalgia, yes we own our own home with a small mortgage but we haven’t been able to pay our mortgage for months, all this on top of GRIEF, well damn something’s got to give………. Try creating Art when you have energy companies, credit card companies, mortgage companies etc literally knocking at the door, IT JUST DOESN’T WORK.
At first i tried going down the learn it all route and as a member of the Visual Artists Society i have learnt a lot but nothing is helping my creativity. I’ve tried creating with Polaroid film, got a few images out of it, ran out of film, have no money to buy more, that stopped. Tried to be enthusiastic about photographing my local landscapes, been there done that so many times, i’ve approached other photographers for mentoring, they wanted me to PAY! for something i would have done for free given the circumstances. And all the time at the back of my mind i’ve had this voice getting louder and louder yelling ‘I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE’ and a quieter one asking me what do i want and i’ve come to realise its just NOT this!……………………TBC
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