The fun life of a single working parent during COVID-19

It's snowing. 

It was raining just minutes ago, a gloomy start to yet another long, lonely work day from home here in Zurich in the midst of the pandemic. Every day has become just like yesterday and will be just like tomorrow, an endless conveyor belt of light and dark with not much happening in between.

Don't get me wrong – the work is still exciting, the projects, the writing, the people. But when you do it day in and day out from your attic and there isn’t a canteen to go to to get a cup of coffee even if you don't need one but you want a distraction… there isn’t a watercooler where you can exchange a few random words with a colleague… there is no possibility to go over to someone else’s desk to borrow a stapler. Heck, I don’t even need to put on noise-cancelling headphones because guess what, there is no noise. What used to be a distraction or seemed like non-essential small talk with people I barely knew seems so precious now. And so very far away and surreal that when I watch a movie and see people interacting in a workplace it seems… weird. Like if I were watching some sci-fi about Mars.

But now it’s snowing. 

Snowflakes as large as a cherry are rushing down from the sky and in minutes turn my garden white. I can’t help but think that it’s covered in cotton pads – an unconscious reflection of my 4 year old having an eye infection for the past few days and me having to put warm wet compresses with cotton pads every few hours to help him heal. Yeah, another part of working from home that has become so familiar to so many of us: you do your conference calls just to be interrupted by a teenager storming into the room because ‘mom, you forgot to buy strawberry jam – again!’ 

Just yesterday, a call with a colleague ended up being a very interesting discussion about science, blog writing and – guess what – a misplaced blender that his daughter just couldn’t find anywhere. I remember a bit more than year ago, pre-COVID, I had to do an interview with a scientist in another time zone – it was late in London where I was and my then 3 year old kept coming into the room asking to help him with cartoons I was trying to distract him with during the call. The person on the call got super annoyed and said something like: ‘Urgh, that’s the first that I have to talk when you’re not actually constantly there!’ Well, I wonder what that person feels like now. 

It’s all been a lot. It’s been too much, and it’s not about to end. Yesterday, the Swiss government announced way harsher lockdown measures than they’ve been until now. All non-essential shops will close from Monday. I guess soon, schools will switch to online learning too – meaning we’ll join the US, the UK and many other nations in homeschooling fun. For a single parent like me, it will be… I don’t even want to think what it will be like, to be honest. I just don’t want to think about it at all. 

But now it’s snowing. 

And it’s pretty outside. And no, I don’t feel happy, I haven’t been feeling very happy for a long time. But with vaccines now available, I do hope that at some point, the world will again start matching what we see in movies. Travel, conferences, vacation, watercooler chatter, choosing a cool outfit for the office, shopping, enjoying a nice meal at a restaurant, meeting new people.

Ah, meeting new people. About that. It’s awesome if you are living where you’ve been living for a while and having a support bubble of friends and family. My kids and I moved to Zurich in the summer and haven’t been able to meet many people at all. It’s a lonely life, during a lockdown. It’s a crazy lonely life when you’re in a new country and your kids can’t have play dates, can’t go to the movies, when you can’t easily make new friends and invite them for dinner. It’s been just us for many many months now, me trying to support my kids and telling them that one day this will all get better and that one day we will fully enjoy our new home land and discover all the cool things Zurich is known for. For now, we occasionally go sledging and the kids complain why it’s always just us. Maybe even sledging will soon stop with the new restrictions. Then all we’ll be able to do is making a snowman in the garden. 

But hey, at least it’s snowing now and not raining. Somehow, it’s offering me hope. It’s not making me smile just yet but at least it’s not making me want to cry. We’ll get through this – right?