Dear reader,

another year turned around and if you are here, you are lucky. Many people are dying these days – more than normally. Death is part of life, but life as is happening now, is something most of us are not used to. Not in a good way.

I walk the streets of London and they change day by day. Massively. Less and less people, trains and Tube feeling like Phantoms, shops either empty or overly crowded while people aspire not to be too close to one another. Schools closing. Shops and restaurants closing. The Covid-19 has touched all of our lives and it feels like we are fighting an enemy we don’t know, don’t see and don’t notice when it’s present, but we are aware that it is there, among us every second we dare to live.

This is the time where it is very easy to collapse, fear and lose hope. I watch people and they are petrified. Closed down. Or pretending nothing’s happening.

This is also the time where care escalates. Where public and private sectors continue to work and make trials and errors to get us all through this. Our street has received community notices on the door to educate us how to protect ourselves and our loved ones. And in the shop today, as people were queueing to enter the store, they still found some kindness and consideration to let a mother with a buggy enter first. The neighbours still say hello to each other, even though from the distance. And families who have locked themselves in their houses, are spending quality time together. It seems as if winter is coming even though the nature is sprouting but undoubtedly, there will be scent of cinnamon and freshly baked biscuits breezing through the windows. There will be small acts of kindness everywhere, among increased crime and impatience. As much as we cannot know or predict how long this uncertain period will last or when its peak will be, we do have a choice to direct our focus: either on how our systems are collapsing, or on how our systems are coping. You will find evidence of both. And imagine what difference it might make to your wellbeing (and possibly health, definitely mental health), if you choose to focus on what (still) works.

I hope that in a year time I will write another blog for my birthday. But if I don’t that’s fine too. It has been some ride, this life journey and I am glad we are all still here. As a mental health professional, I am also minding that the general pandemics will cause people to experience mental health difficulties they haven’t experienced before. I do hope that if it happens to you, you will get in touch with someone who can be with you through those times and help you sustain your wellbeing. You can also write to me.

Wishing you all sharp focus of your choice and wash your hands in the way that is right for you and others around you,

Biba