Prior to the onslaught of the pandemic I felt relatively secure within my place in the world. I had accepted my somewhat solitary existence and found pleasure in train journeys, exploration, travelling to other countries and experiencing how others live. I loved my small but tight knit group of friends and visited them often.
Then the pandemic hit.
Confined to home and the immediate area, I started a new routine, a solitary one. I started to read more, I watched a tremendous amount of TV, boringly, and created a new and more interesting garden project which could keep me fit and active.
And that was it.
I didn't have family members phoning to find out how I was, I didn't share Whats-app chats or Zoom calls, there was no-one to call really, save for the very few friends who I chatted with on the phone.
Strange when the world stops and you suddenly realise there are few who are even aware you exist.
Once, when I was younger and gamefully employed as a teacher, I was surrounded by people all doing their best to support the development of the children we had in our charge.
I developed programmes of study and taught staff members how to deliver them. I created examinations and trailed them. I was perpetually busy, I never had a moment to think outside the box labelled work.
I had a horse which drew me into a world of friends and companions. We laughed and cried together, went out riding, learning new and exciting skills and then played with our horses doing so many things together it was like being part of a great big family where the common denominator were our horses.
I had three cats and they lived with me ruling the roost as it were. To a very great extent they were the pivot around which daily life revolved; what they wanted or needed, I did my best to provide.
I had cars which I loved and worked on them as well as drove them. There were a group of people who held their cars and bike central to their lives; I had another group of people I interacted with.
My life was full, I had no time to worry about silence.
I left London chasing a job.
I lost my house and the cats, who had died by then, and all the familiarity which went with it. I had lived in the area for over thirty years, it was a hard wrench and my heart broke.
I lost my horse because I really didn't have the time to dedicate to him, so gave him to someone I knew would love him forever. Another wrench, a slow bereavement which took years to work through; the job filled every thought as I wrote, created, trialed and taught three subjects to those who most staff had rejected.
The car became a functional tool. I was far away from my security network and my partner and I were, how shall I say it, not surviving the distance too well.
Finally I lost my partner; circumstances meant he could no longer cope and wanted to try other things. That took nine years of bereavement.
All family dead, pets gone, partner gone and in an area a long way from 'home' post retiring, the pandemic hit and piece by piece it changed my outlook.
So used to being confined to the house, I find it harder to leave its security. Masks, social distancing and handwashing have suddenly been taken off the statute book and like many others, that feeling of vulnerability grows inside me.
Infections are rising and the young are not necessarily vaccinating in the numbers required.
My car takes on a different perspective.
I endlessly watch YouTube videos, look at different layouts and thoughts people have and come to the conclusion this is going to be my way forward. Maybe not as permanent as above but first find the car. It'll still be functional but a new function because now it will become a mobile living space; somewhere for me to travel locally and feel safe.
I am hoping the stealth camper will get me back to the wanderlust I had pre-pandemic.
I suspect I will be travelling down south for quite some time until I gain the confidence to go boomdocking but I suspect it will come and until then, days here and there, camp sites and similar are opening a new life.
Laughing to myself i think, yes the misfits, the loners and the opt-outers.
Oh well, a new world perspective awaits and my garden project continues.