I’ve never been the best at keeping in touch with people. That’s true. It’s not due to a lack of caring about people; I think about so many people so often, but am reticent about “interrupting” their lives again. Maybe I’m just overly shy.

I’m the sort of person who comes into your life, stays a while, then fades away and just brushes past you from time to time. And that’s true not only of people from my past but people from the here and now too.

I’ve realised this enforced isolation and separation from normal life is taking its toll, and it’s showing that by the fact that I’m avoiding making contact with people who I would, under normal circumstances, be communicating with or seeing regularly.This last Saturday would have been the day of one of our monthly Group Meetings, and one of our younger members volunteered to do a live set in our Facebook group from their home. They sang songs and played on the guitar for an hour, and I specifically made the effort to be online and to support them, as much as I detest Facebook. But, as soon as it was over I disappeared back into my burrow; back into the safety of isolation.

Normally I would be gagging at the opportunity to meet up for a coffee or an afternoon out with friends from the group, emailing or texting backwards and forwards to people to offer support or a listening ear, even just to share jokes, but it seems like the isolation is building an extra wall around my ability to communicate “in real time”. Even these blog posts are drafted a day in advance now and then “Scheduled” for publishing, something I’ve never done in the past.

I know I’m not going to be alone in finding it difficult to readjust once the restrictions are lifted. There will be many, many of us who find themselves with psychological issues once the sun starts shining on life again, and that’s going to be a further strain on the NHS and the care workers who try so hard to keep us all in good health.

This pandemic is going to leave a long and very deep scar on the human race, and not simply from the lives lost.

I hope that when that sun does break through the clouds of uncertainty again we don’t forget that many of us will need to be wearing hats and some heavy duty sun cream in order to adjust.

Remember others, and stay safe.