Life in Lockdown: What I Gained, and What I Learned About Myself

As more countries return to lockdown, there may be unseen benefits for you

Sherryl Clark - writer, editor, poet.
The Startup
Published in
5 min readJan 20, 2021

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Photo by Manuel Peris Tirado on Unsplash

Melbourne was in lockdown due to Covid-19 twice in 2020. The first time was a bit of a shock but we all went into full social distancing mode, with hand sanitizing and following all the guidelines.

Then we had a second wave. And lockdown came back in full force. Some people who made a huge fuss and got media attention called us a dictator state, refused to wear masks (and were fined) and ran protests that made them look stupid. And risky. And the rest of us got mad at them for endangering us all.

By the rest of us, I mean the more than 70% of people (some surveys say 80+%) who agreed with the lockdown rules and gritted their teeth to get through it. None of us wanted to catch it — more importantly, since the majority of our deaths were in aged care facilities — none of us wanted to infect our elderly family and relatives.

All the same, the fuss about the lockdown rules (curfew, 5km limit on travel, nobody allowed to visit you etc) went on and on. People in other states in Australia closed their borders to us and were rude and abusive online. Like we were all going to run across the border and infect them on purpose. Commentators in other…

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Sherryl Clark - writer, editor, poet.
The Startup

Writer, editor, book lover — I've published many children's books and three crime novels for adults so far. I edit other people's fiction and poetry.