MY ISOLATION STORY

  

Author: Lawal Morountodun

  Someone asked me how my Corona Holiday was and with my usual mantra, I replied "fine" but then, it actually got me thinking. I asked myself sincerely, "how is this holiday affecting me"?, How am I learning from this experience? In short, what is my isolation experience?

   

   I realized that to me, this unexpected holiday is a glitch to my lifetime. Infact, it never even existed because I wasn't doing anything to make it significant. I just knew I had to make it count. Then, I made my research. Funny enough I wanted to know how being isolated from people affected me physically, emotionally and even psychologically. 

  

    I mean, I knew how it affected my parents. As legal guardians to their children, they are worried, how are they going to provide for their kids in this lockdown. Infact my dad made a statement he said "very soon, people won't listen to this isolation regulation because there's the need for survival for every human and in a country where the government doesn't care if it's people die of hunger, the basic human will cater for himself". Which means that people are anxious to leave the house.              

   Infact, frustration and stress levels are increasing because of the lockdown. Then I also thought, how is it affecting different people with different circumstances?

    

    For example, for a child who sees school as an excuse to escape the fights at home, with every member locked in the same house with nothing to do, this lockdown will either bring the family closer or farther apart and thus, exposing the child to another broken home.

   

   I also thought about the Hustlers. The fact that their daily source of income is on the streets and if the streets are on lockdown, the common Hustler is also on lockdown.

    This lockdown made me realize that I do not know anything about anybody. I was So focused on myself and how "introverted" I am that I do not know how everyone else was affected by it. Most People literally only have books, television and social media to fill their thoughts, to distract them from their surroundings or their only means of  escape from their world and then I finally understood how an average Nigerian could be depressed.