One of the things that help me with coping under lockdown is having a routine, a rough schedule for the day, as I mentioned on my last post and video, so life feels a bit normal and also to make it easier to adjust when back in ‘normal’ life however that might be.
Now, I’m not the biggest fan of routines and I don’t always stick to it, but it helps a lot when under lockdown, when there’s no clear structure and I can waste a whole day doing nothing if I let my overthinking brain take over. So here it goes, hope you enjoy it, and please share your thoughts and what you are doing to keep you going every day!
For those of you who know me or have been reading my blog for a while, you probably know I struggle with anxiety (severe at times) and bouts of depression, so when hell broke loose a few weeks ago, I was extremely stressed to the point I couldn’t think clearly.
Luckily over the years I’ve developed a bit of resilience and a set of coping mechanisms to help me manage my anxiety and quickly get back in control when my stress levels reach dangerous highs.
So, after the initial shock and panic my survival instincts kicked in and I thought I’d put together a video with what’s been helping me stay sane under lockdown (can’t believe it’s been three weeks already!).
These are the the 10 activities I do most frequently to help me and a few links of books, Ted talks, TV programs etc I mention in the video (more details on each in the video):
Exercise. I’ve been doing my daily yoga with my favourite gal (https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene/playlists), she posts a monthly playlist with videos for each day. I need more exercise though since I’ve been sitting a lot, so any recommendations please comment below!
Music. I somehow stopped listening as much, I don’t really know why, but now I listen and sing every day. Music, food, remedy for the soul, I keep reminding myself that. Thank God for music. In the video I hum a song by my favourite Cypriot musician Mr Costas Kakoyiannis (Αν κοντα σου μεγαλωσω- If I grow up with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2x3CqSIaJ8) and I try to play and sing I’ll be your mirror, the Velvet Underground cover, on my guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMeZCPbM6bA)
Going out. Of course we are not allowed and shouldn’t go out all the time but I try to go out once or twice a week, pop to the shop, just to feel I can be outside.
Reading. I love reading, in the winter with a blanket and a cuppa, in the summer, at the beach, on a plane, on a train. Since I started my first EFL teaching job I had very little free time to read but I’m so happy now I have time. I recommend a couple of books in the video (e.g. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis and the Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances White, check out her podcast too, she is brilliant).
Diet. It’s so difficult to stop snacking when living a sedentary life, but I stopped buying too many and/or too unhealthy snacks so I don’t end up binge-eating all day.
Catching up with friends. Keeping in touch with friends and family is vital, we are social animals after all, we need human interaction but I sometimes find it too overwhelming with all the messages I get, so I have regular breaks so I can cope, plus it helps reduce screen time.
Netflix. I’m a huge Netflix fan and there’s a great selection of TV series, films and documentaries to watch. I try not to watch too much, though tempting, as I spend too much time in front of a screen since I teach online, but thank God we have Netflix. I recently watched a documentary, my Beautiful Broken Brain, which was amazing). I’d love to start a new series though, so any suggestions, please do comment! PS I of course still watch friends every day.
Routine. Being at home all day, it’s easy for someone with a hyperactive brain like me to lose concentration, get lost into my own thoughts and waste time deciding when to do what, I find it too chaotic, so keeping up with a routine helps, a lot. I’ll make another video about this.
Expressing your emotions. This is HUGE. Society taught us one of the unhealthiest narratives of all time, that expressing our emotions is a weakness. It’s the opposite actually, being vulnerable and open about how we feel it’s the bravest thing one can do, especially in these difficult times we live under right now. I highly recommend Bene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability, definitely worth a watch: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?language=en
Playing an instrument. I’ve been playing the guitar on and off for years, but now I have time to learn how to read music properly and improve my playing. A great way to stay away from screens!
If you’ve been doing something that has been helping you, please share, it may help someone else, that’s the reason I’m doing it.
I’m also trying to put together a video with hopeful/funny/inspiring messages of friends, family and strangers to spread some joy and positivity, so if you like to be part of me, just email me a short 10-15 sec video with your message (elenizenonos@gmail.com). It can be in any language, just provide me with the transcript and I’ll translate and put subtitles in English 🙂
Day 16 of lockdown. Today it’s been a good day. I guess we’ll have some bad, terrible ones and some better, funnier, happier ones, and today it was the latter.
I got outside to pop to the school and print the new forms we all required to have if stopped by the police to justify why we are outside where I saw two familiar faces, Marco, the school director and Bryony, a fellow teacher and it felt AMAZING to actually talk to people I know and appreciate face to face.
I then popped to the supermarket for my weekly shopping, an experience I always find stressful under the circumstances, queueing outside, people in close proximity, the only place I might actually catch the virus (you can see footage on today’s vlog below).
Finally some incredible news. The cases of Coronavirus in the local area are now going down, so maybe, just maybe this is the beginning of the end of this horrible situation.
A huge admiration and a thank you to every single person who is out there, from shop assistants to delivery drivers to medical staff, risking their lives every day to keep everyone else safe, healthy and fed.
And to those who think are invincible and don’t care if they catch the virus. I don’t care if I catch it either (though of course scared), but I’m doing this to protect others. So don’t be a ****head and stay home.
Week 2 under lockdown started well. I tried to keep with a routine, so life feels as ‘normal’ as possible under the circumstances, I filmed a whole day to show everyone things that help me maintain balance, I filmed going to the supermarket (stressful!), about online teaching and I was gonna start putting together my vlog from Barcelona.
It’s been a busy week workwise as well, lesson planning, reading about online teaching, filming a couple of videos for young learners.
Come Friday morning I finally had some time to finish the vlog I filmed on Monday but disaster struck. My unbelievably bad luck once again hit me in the face.
My memory card with all my vlog material and worst of all, the gorgeous snaps I took over the last year, memories of great moments are now all gone.
I explain in detail on today’s vlog. I’m still sad and I know there’s worse to worry about but I’m gutted. How’s your week been?
Wow. Just wow. I will always remember the last couple of weeks in every single detail.
Within 10 days, all schools in Italy closed until the 15th of March and after just 4 days that was extended to the 3rd of April, oh and the whole country was to go under lockdown.
What did that mean? A lot of things. How am I dealing with the situation? So far I’ve just been stressed and worried and baffled (how on earth on my first year after quitting my job to travel the world ended up trapped inside four walls?) but I decided to make the most out of it.
My friends and family, even strangers have been asking me how things are here, so I’ve put together a vlog, the first one of a series, documenting living and teaching under lockdown conditions so here it is:
I will soon post more on teaching online from home, coping mechanisms (healthy and unhealthy) and how my mental health has been affected by it. I hope you find it useful!
Oh and somehow I ended up speaking on the radio about it twice, once to BBC World Service before the lockdown and once after with my friend Pat at BBC Radio Solent!
It has been challenging so far but my personal advice is please stay at home, avoid travelling internationally, avoid confined spaces, restaurants, churches, cafes, work from home and help to put a stop on the virus spreading. It will continue to spread if people continue to move about. It’s tough but necessary.
And please follow the WHO guidelines, wash your hands thoroughly and avoid handshakes (that’s how the virus is mainly transmitted, by touching others or contaminated surfaces), cover your mouth when sneezing and coughing, do not wear a mask unless you have symptoms or you have an underlying condition that it requires you to do so, AND STOP PANIC BUYING TOILET ROLL!!
Thursday, the penultimate day of what felt like the longest January in the history of time.
I woke up in tears. I couldn’t stop thinking of the day my little sister called me to break the devastating news that my grandpa, pappou Costas had died and the day afterwards, the day of the funeral I did not attend, as I was stuck in Cambridge doing my CELTA course.
I remember it vividly, in details, colours and feelings, like it was yesterday. Little moments that I’d normally forget if it was any other day I can recall in excruciatingly painful detail, my little sister and mum messaging me first to say that ‘grandpa was ill’ (he had died but they didn’t know how to tell me), the dreaded phone call afterwards, wandering by the stairs on a quiet corner of the corridor, Shalala asking me if I was OK some time later when I could barely speak at our TP feedback session, crying my eyes out that evening whilst planning a lesson for the following day, the following morning Jonny asking me if I was OK and and his reaction when I burst into tears, sitting outside in the sunshine just before I were about to teach about Mongolian horse racing (the same time as the funeral was taking place in Cyprus) looking up in the sky wishing my grandpa farewell, then remembering that ‘teachers are really actors’ and thankfully making it through my lesson.
Naturally, I started thinking of uncle Spyro’s tragic death just two months later. Again I remember every single detail, visiting him at the hospital a week before he died, in excruciating pain not able to say more than a few words at a time but still in good spirits, getting ready to go see him again a week later but receiving the dreaded phone call to inform us that he had passed away, the eulogy I wrote and ended up reading because my sister couldn’t manage through the tears (not that I did much better), the funeral, the burial, the memorial service for both of them a week later.
I wrecked my brain desperately trying to figure out why. Why do I suddenly feel so overwhelmingly sad about it, 4 months later, 6 months later? Perhaps because I wasn’t there when it happened and I never got closure when grandpa died? But I was there when uncle Spyros died…
Jon and Chris described grief like a circle, the circle is everything about the loved one you lost. At the beginning, you are in the centre of the circle, you cannot see past the sadness and the chaos. As time goes by, you get out of the circle and it gets smaller, you can see beyond it, but it’s always there. You just learn how to live with it.
And they were right..
They were right. It’s always there and at any given time you are back in the middle of the circle again. It’s always there, like an old scar that sometimes bleeds and hurts as much as the first time. And this one isn’t even that old of a scar.
So, grief never really goes away.
I did not suppress it. I cried throughout the day (exhaustion did not help) and choked every time I tried to hum a farewell song written by one of my favourite Cypriot composers, Costas Kakoyiannis, beautiful lyrics by his partner Pambos Kouzalis, who had just lost his brother to cancer, sang by an incredible 14 year old, Georgia Neokleous, who had sadly lost her mum to cancer too. Life is cruel like that sometimes.
That’s grief. It never goes away, if from time to time the pain comes back and you should never suppress it. There is no specific amount of time that you need or have to ‘overcome grief’. You just learn to manage it, but some days it hurts like hell and that’s OK.
Today is one of those days. I miss grandpa’s laughter and silly little jokes, his smile when all his grandchildren were visiting, running around the house, uncle Spyro’s wit, advice and little remedies he always suggested, his endless kindness and patience. It hurts but it’s OK.
I was lucky enough to have them in my life and that’s worth all the pain of losing them.
This is for you. Mr Kakoyiannis song (I translated the lyrics as they were too beautiful not to share and the composer included them in the description of the video).
You left and I didn’t get even get the chance to bid farewell,
say my last goodbyes.
How could I live without you for so long?
I throw water on your path, so a plane tree can grow.
To protect you from all evil, always keep it away, keep you safe.
A few days ago, I woke up in a sweat, tears streaming down my face, in the middle of the night. I saw my uncle Spyro in my dream, he looked so alive and healthy but he was sad. He knew he was going to die and I was painfully aware he was already dead. It took me a few seconds to realise where I was. I’m in Italy. How on earth all of this happened in just few months?
That’s when it hit me.
I have no idea what is going on. Not a clue. Now that the dust has settled and I’m getting into a routine, a routine I’m not familiar with and not quite sure how it should be, teaching English in a foreign country is brand new to me, I’m making time for myself to reflect, to make sense of what has happened in the last few months.
I don’t know where to start and how to end this post but here it goes.
I still sometimes feel I’m on a long, albeit random and bizarre holiday and I’ll be returning to the UK anytime now. I don’t miss my job, or the grey weather, OK I do miss British autumn, golden leaves across the park, hot chocolate at Mettricks, reading a book or watching silly TV on a Saturday afternoon with a blanket, a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits whilst pouring down with rain outside, but other than that I don’t miss the UK.
I miss things from the UK, the convenience of it all (Amazon Prime aaah), actual little daily things like decent tea, Hobnobs and Chocolate Digestives, but most of all I miss my friends, my dear friends. Not that I don’t love my new colleagues and friends I’ve made already, but I miss my people.
So far I’ve enjoyed working as an EFL teacher. But is this the career I’d like to follow?
I don’t know, I genuinely don’t. I don’t even know if I’m any good at it. I’ll soon get feedback from my managers after they observe me but for now I’m doing what I think best.
Of course if I decide that’s not what I’d like to do long-term I can change careers again, but to do what?
For now I’ll give it time and not think that far ahead, but it’s always at the back of my mind.
I’m strangely not stressed or too anxious, not as much as I expected I’d be. Being one of the oldest teachers and having lived life already comes with its perks I guess. I do sometimes feel I let the rest of them down when I’m too tired or too ill or too old (in a ‘been there, done that’ sense) to follow them in some of their excursions.
It’s still unclear in my head whether I pursued this so fast to not disappoint my tutors who gave me a Grade A or to avoid dealing with my grandpa and my uncle’s deaths, I feel I haven’t processed still what has happened.
I remember the last time I was at my grandpa’s house, where my auntie now lives alone, without pappou Costa or theio Spyro and I caught myself waiting for them to show up. A horrible, sad realisation they will not ever again.
I also feel terrible guilt. I feel guilty I didn’t give my home, Cyprus more time. I was so occupied worrying not to get stuck I left after just a month. I didn’t travel across the island, I didn’t see all my friends and family. I needed an escape and ended up changing my plans at the very last minute.
I know deep in my heart I made the right decision leaving my job and leaving the UK. I’m not sure I made the right decision rushing into my first ELT job, but time will show.
For now I need to find myself again, I have felt the black cloud of depression getting closer over the last week and I desperately want to keep it away.
I need my remedies, my writing (which I’ve done a lot, this terrible cold I can’t shake off did me good in other ways), my Yoga- God I miss Adriene-, my guitar- God I miss my guitar-, and I need to feel like myself because at the moment… (I couldn’t have described it better than Wind and the Wave’s Lost)
‘I hope my uncle doesn’t die too, if that happens, I’m out. I’m definitely quitting this course. I won’t be able to handle it’.
I immediately changed subject. I couldn’t even imagine it might happen anytime soon. He had just been diagnosed with cancer and was recovering from his operation before starting chemo.
Less than two months later, my sister, my mum and I went to see my uncle Spyros at the hospital. His operation was successful and he had his first chemo, which caused him unbearably painful sores, he couldn’t speak or eat much, but his mind and spirit were still strong. He was even joking. I genuinely thought at that moment that he would definitely recover. He would never give up.
Exactly a week later, his health deteriorated (he unfortunately caught an infection when his immune system was at its lowest) and he was asleep or unconscious most of the time. He could hear though… so my sister and I were to visit.
We didn’t make it. Just before we were to leave for the hospital, I received that dreaded phone call. Uncle Spyros died. Ι burst into tears, devastated. He didn’t want to die, that bloody cancer and chemo killed him.
The kindest, sweetest, funniest, most generous man, always smiling. We all loved him to bits. How is he now gone??
My mind couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. How is that possible? How did we lose both my grandpa and my uncle in less than two ? How can my aunt, who used to live with both, deal with this?
How is it possible that less than a year ago, at Christmas time, we all had a laugh at grandpa’s house and now they are both gone??
Death and funerals are awkward, sad, surreal, especially in the Greek Orthodox religion.
I was asked to write the eulogy a couple of hours before the funeral. Nobody had the strength to do it and I couldn’t not do it. His son Christos, with tears in his eyes shared some beautiful sentences and I did the rest.
I wept and wept writing it so I asked my sister, Stella, to read it, as she rarely cries in front of others but I was going to be right next to her the whole time, in case she breaks.
After a short, half an hour service, it was time for the eulogy.
I needed to do it for my uncle. With tears streaming down my face and with breaking voice I took over and managed to read it until the end.
‘Until we meet again. Rest in peace our beloved Spyro’…
And then the priest said… ‘Δεύτε τελευταίον ασπασμόν’ (‘the last embrace/goodbye’) where for the last time we say goodbye. Probably the worst but also the most necessary part of the service. A final peek at the dead, to help the brain realise their spirit has left their body. (in theory anyway, he just looked he was peacefully asleep). Closure.
I’ve been grieving for my uncle for the last week but because I never said goodbye to my grandpa, I still feel he went somewhere else and he will soon be back. It’s crazy.
After the funeral, probably the most surreal part of a Greek Orthodox funeral took part, the burial. We followed the car carrying him to the cemetery. There the priest read a few prayers and then his sons, my aunt and other relatives said their very last goodbye. He was lowered into the grave and then bread and other random things including a plate the priest broke there and then were also put in the coffin, before we all threw a bit of soil and the graveyard people did the rest. Customs I don’t really know much about.
After the burial, my grandpa’s home where a week before we gathered for grandpa’s 40 day memorial, was bursting with people who came to pay their respects. Bittersweet moments, sharing stories of my uncle, grieving him whilst at the same time celebrating life. A cruel reminder life is too short and we should enjoy and appreciate every minute.
‘Why are all crying, uncle Spyros is just resting and we will all see him soon, when we die? My 7 year old nephew, Angelos, who uncle Spyros adored, asked me with his little eyes full of questions on what he just witnessed.
‘Because we’ll miss him, we don’t know when we’ll see him again.’ I said. It was hard to answer most of the questions he had, I didn’t know the answers either, this was the only one I had a genuine response for.
A lot more happened this week, I’ll tell you soon, but the biggest and saddest was uncle’s Spyros death.
I’ve been back to Cyprus for two weeks now and I’m still ‘adjusting’. It’s never been that bad before, maybe because I always had an end date in mind or I had somewhere and something to return to, regardless how gravely I disliked it, or maybe so much happened in the last month alone, my brain is still struggling to fully comprehend what is going on.
But it can’t explain my annoying, pretty much constant (with very brief moments of happiness, laughter and relaxation) irritableness, and no, it’s not hormones.
I’mlike an upset, angry hedgehog, keeping my quills raised, prickling everyone in my way, blindly and indiscriminately.
Why do I feel like this? Why does every single thing upset me? Have I been away for too long? How long can I stick it out for? Should I just find a job in another country and leave ASAP?
Endless questions with no answers. Suddenly, out of nowhere Gaia Vince turned a shining light in this question mark shaped pitch black room.
“This idea that you gain a new personality with every language you speak, that you act differently when speaking different languages, is a profound one.” she writes in a brilliant article discussing the benefits of being bilingual. Ironically from the whole article I focused on one of the disadvantages of being fluent in two languages.
Am I really bilingual since I was born, raised and lived in Cyprus until I was 22 you might wonder. The answer is without a second thought yes. After 10 years of fully immersing in the British culture and way of life, I think and speak in English first.
Apparently bilinguals develop two different mindsets, they are a different person depending on the language they speak at the time (when you add the country they live in AND the language they speak at a given time in the mix that’s when it gets mind-baffling) and those mindsets are always in conflict as the brain is constantly trying to decide which language to use.
My two selves are always in conflict now that I’m back in Cyprus and not just the language parts. The noise, the attitudes, the people, the culture, everything I’d normally enjoy when I’m visiting Cyprus contradict my ‘British self’ who is dominating at the moment and can’t compromise and accept the fact now we are in Cyprus for (hopefully only) a few months it needs to let my other self out more or learn how to live here. My ‘Cypriot self’ is weak though and doesn’t even have an idea on what makes it Cypriot anymore, it hasn’t lived here for 10 years and since it last lived here it was a whole other person, an immature, 22 year old Cypriot who knew nothing about life or herself. That person doesn’t exist anymore but for most of my friends and family that’s the person they knew and sometimes treat me as if I’m that person, which doesn’t help with the eternal battle in my head.
So, I finally have the answer, but what’s the solution?
No idea. Though my ‘British self’ desperately desires to flee, I’m giving it time for now.
If you’ve been in a similar situation and/or wish to share some words of wisdom, please do. In the meantime, I’ll get back into my yoga and try to bring some calmness and tranquillity in this stormy, windy sea of my mind.
Wow. I do NOT know where to start from. If you could only see what is happening inside my head.
OK let’s start from right now.
I’ve been in Cyprus for two days and I spent the first one at the beach, at a gorgeous little bay in Protaras, Sirena Bay (with a cute, bohemian restaurant at the top of a hill overlooking the sea) which felt like manna from heaven, like rain after a hot, humid day, like a hot cup of tea and chocolate digestives on a freezing cold, winter afternoon.
As you know, I spent August in Cambridge doing my CELTA course. One of the most challenging, intense, stressful but also rewarding, extraordinary experiences of my life so far.
I haven’t slept more than a few hours a night for a month, I cried many a times, my anxiety completely paralysed me more than once, I didn’t get to see Cambridge much, visit Grantchester or the Wren library or go punting (I’m definitely returning in Cambridge just to do all this) but it was all worth it, not only for getting the qualification and marked as ‘above standard’ (Who? Me! I never taught in my life!) but mostly for the friends I made from all over the world. My classmates, my students, my flatmates. I’ll write about it very soon to share my experience with others who are considering doing the CELTA. For now, I’m still trying to recover from it. I still dream of lesson plans, teaching, my classmates, my tutors.
On my last day in the UK, I visited my brother Andi and had an awesome day in London. It didn’t feel real what was happening. I have actually left Southampton for good, I finished my course and I’m on my way to Cyprus, with no fixed plan. What the hell.
I’m in Cyprus since Sunday and I feel completely lost. Should I try and get an English language teaching job and get experience right away, since I absolutely loved teaching, but leave in a month, or should I do what I originally planned, and have a few months of holiday, write, make videos, read books, try different things and then go? Should I go in Vietnam first or Costa Rica? Asia or Latin America? Or Europe?
No bloody idea. For now, I’ll leave all of this behind and enjoy a couple of weeks of holiday, a few days in Protaras and then Rhodes (vlogs coming very soon), get back into my yoga, give my mind time to rest and reset and then who knows.
To all my friends, in Southampton, Cambridge, Russia, Bangladesh, Spain, Italy and wherever else you might be, I miss you dearly already.
I sometimes wish making a decision was easy, so many options but then again how boring life would be if I didn’t have any.
Lessons I learned after I turned 30 