The fire went out safely, last weekend. Not so, the fog of Covid-19.
In the week that followed, as we approached Covid-normal, I lost my spark. With flu-like symptoms, I had a coronavirus test. The results were back in less than 24 hours. Negative. On one of the happily increasing Zero Cases days. Great.
It took a few more days to feel healthy again. Regaining energy, I turn my attention to Julian. He’s lost interest in going to his Monday program at the disability day centre. Dance and dog-walking used to animate him but now it takes coaxing to get him out the door. He’s sleeping in regularly. From rising to bed, all he wants to do is watch YouTube and I-view videos that he has lined up in multiple tabs in his Web browser. He is short tempered and dismissive of his friends and supporters.
Hay fever is a factor in his malaise. It also could be that he has become used to the absences in his life wrought by the Covid-19 lockdown. Many times he hankered for the regular Friday trips on public transport he used to take to the city with his best friend Dean, supported by Neil from Ability Assist. The Brunswick Tool Library - where he loved to volunteer with Andrew - has been closed for months He hasn’t been able to attend a YMCA or People Outdoors weekend away since last summer. Now he has seen notices and heard it from me that they are re-starting. He says flatly, “No (not) me” - or if I wheedle - “Soon” (in a tone of voice that says, “Never”). Having lost the habit of doing such things, how will he ever be willing to leave the comfort of his on-line world to socially reconnect? How will we smoke him out of his room?
