What Will You Give Up After Lockdown?
Lockdown. What a strange time. Trips that used to be pretty straight forward — going to the supermarket, for a walk, to the park or beach — now take careful planning and are restricted by social-distancing measures. It used to be one-in, one-out for popular restaurants, bars and night-clubs; now it’s one-in, one-out to buy bread! Services that we used to rely on over the course of daily living — hospitality, the gym, nail bar, hairdressers, public toilets — have had to temporarily suspend business.
Lockdown has proved a time of reflection and contemplation for many of us — an interlude in which to step back from the madness of everyday life to pause, regroup and perhaps consider the motives behind why we do the things we usually do. Without the variety of exercise machines and the services of beauticians, away from society’s judgemental eyes, we have been forced to strip back and draw closer to our natural states, complete with scratty nails, grey roots and slightly expanded belly-tyres. Whilst it can’t be said that the human race is at its most attractive right now, we are at our most real. And maybe there’s something healthy and wholesome in staring our true selves down in the mirror, as we hopefully feel empowered to embrace who we really are, separating real beauty from society’s fake version and expectations.
Lockdown Resolutions
This article was inspired by my mother. In the same way that we make New Year’s resolutions, my mum is making post-lockdown resolutions. On our weekly social-distance walk, she informed me that she is going to give up both makeup and dying her hair. I think she’s been contemplating doing this for some time, but lockdown has given her the confidence to finally see it through. She can’t currently go to the hairdressers to have her hair re-dyed, and as lockdown forbids any close social contact, she hasn’t seen much point in putting on her face each day, so she has grown accustomed to seeing herself in her more natural state. Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as she feared.
Mid-60s, she was always concerned that she wasn’t grey enough to take the plunge with having her hair au natural. True, the ‘salt and pepper’ look, whilst often sexy on a man can, unfairly, make a woman look unkempt. Personally, I think it boils down to grey-to-original-colour ratio — the more grey you are, the more likely you’ll look great going grey gracefully; the more of your original colour still stubbornly hanging on, the more likely you are not to get the look you might want without hair dye’s helping hand. In terms of not wearing makeup, the idea of going out in public without even so much as a lick of mascara is unthinkable to me. But, I admire Mum’s self-confidence and self-acceptance, supporting her decision wholeheartedly. Apparently, my sister’s first question was: “What does Dad think?” But it’s not really his decision, is it? It’s not his face or hair, neither of which he makes much effort with, so why shouldn’t his wife do likewise? Men have got away with rocking up to places, unstyled, unkempt and often unshaven, for too long. Surely, it’s our turn now? Hopefully, confidence and acceptance gained in lockdown will give us females the freedom to reveal more of our real selves, rather than striving to be stylised, idealistic versions — leave that to the celebrities, the only ones with the funds to keep it up!
5 Things I will Give Up Even After Lockdown
1. Going to the Hairdresser’s Every 5 Weeks
So, at just the right side of 40, my grey-to-original-hair-colour ratio is different to my mum’s. Much as I advocate revealing more of our real selves, please understand that the emphasis here is on the ‘more’. We must all decide how comfortable we are, what we are willing to accept and how much we want to reveal — that has to be a personal choice. I’ve dyed my hair since the age of 15, not because I had greys then, but because I hated my mousy-brown hair colour. I’m blessed with mid-tones, so can carry pretty much any hair colour, bar black. I’ve been blonde, red and brown, even venturing into blue and purple at university. For the last 18 months, my hairdresser has been dying me dark brown to give my red chance to grow out, pulling honey streaks through the dark to lift it. In lockdown, deprived of my 5-weekly appointments, my hair lightened to caramel, a shade that really suits me, which I may never have seen had lockdown not happened. Inevitably, my invasive grey roots ruined it and I had to purchase some home-dye kit, but having also purchased some root-spray, I see that I don’t need to dye it so often and will not be darkening my hairdresser’s door every 5 weeks post-lockdown. Instead, I’ll go every 3 months for a cut and colour, dying it myself in between times. Not only will this save time, it’ll also save money.
2. The Gym
I used to kid myself that I loved the gym, getting up at 6:30am, inhaling a smoothie, squeezing into my sports bra and dashing out of the door to work-out before work. And yes, there was a certain feeling of achievement, arriving at the office knowing that chances were, I’d burned more calories than any of my colleagues so far that day. But what an effort just to feel smug! The truth is that, these days, the gym subscription is the office-workers’ must-have, not just because we have sedentary jobs, but because it’s become a staple accessory like the iPhone. We feel slightly lacking if we’re not spending at least 3 hours a week sweating like pigs in the work-out room, paying for the pleasure of it. I have just cancelled my gym subscription, saving £20 a month, plus the £5 car-parking a time I paid to park because I couldn’t face getting up even earlier to walk there. And yes, I’ll gain weight — I already have. I’m far closer to 11 stone now than when lockdown began, but you know what, who cares? It only seems to be me that can tell, or else everyone is being super-polite, but either way, I’ll take it. I am what I am and I’m no longer going to kill myself to try to be what I’m not.
3. Getting up Before 7am
Pre-full-time work, I never saw the light of day before 7am, unless we had an early flight to catch, and then it was totally worth the sleep sacrifice, plus I could sleep on the plane. I can’t sleep in the gym or the office. Pre-lockdown, I forced myself to go to bed often as early as 9pm, hoping that my body would be well-rested enough to embrace the unholy 6:30am starts. And whilst I adjusted to getting up in the hour of 6, it never felt natural. I’m more of a morning person than a night owl — a relative to the lark, but I must be a second-cousin once removed because true larks benefit from crazy-early starts. Turns out, my natural sleep rhythm is more of an 11pm — 7:30am thing and although, once lockdown lifts and I go back to the office, I’ll need to get up at 7am if I want to walk to work, I refuse to alter my sleep pattern any more than that. It’s just not worth it!
4. Hair styling??
Last weekend, whilst watching ‘Adrift’ starring Shailene Woodley, a film about a young woman who survives a month drifting alone at sea after a hurricane almost destroyed her boat, I remarked to Hubby about how naturally, my hair is wavy like hers (pre-hurricane, that is — post-hurricane, her hair looked like a bird’s nest!). After 8 years of marriage, you’d think Hubby would know what my hair is like naturally, but he didn’t. Over the course of my life, my hair has been compared to many things — rats’ tails, a bush and a lion’s mane spring readily to mind — and for that reason, I’ve spent many frustrating hours smoothing, styling and straightening it. 18 months ago, frazzled after a double-whammy of regular dying and daily straightening, my hairdresser advised me to cut down the straightening to just 3 times a week. I wasn’t sure how I’d survive in an office full of groomed, smooth, perfectly straight-haired colleagues without the aid of my straighteners, and simply clipped it up most days to avoid the humiliation. However, inspired by the free-to-be-me vibe of lockdown, alongside Woodley’s beach-babe tresses, I let my hair dry naturally. No hair-dryer, no straighteners, not even a bit of scrunching to aid its natural curl. I just sat in my garden, in the sunshine and let it dry without interference, for the first time in over a decade. The result — it’s wavy, somewhere between straight and curly, but with less frizz than I thought. Too hot to leave it down once dry, I scraped it into a tousled bun — very beach-babe and perfect for the heatwave, but the jury’s still out on whether I could wear it unstyled when the office reopens. If I could, it would shave somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes off my morning routine (not to mention axing the agonising self-loathing and frustration), meaning more time in bed. Let’s hope I can learn to live with it during lockdown, ready for re-entry to the world as a wavy-haired version of my former self.
5. Saying No to Making a House a Home
A cinema-style sofa, second-hand Southern Comfort mirror, ice bucket for white wine, silicon ice cube moulds, bird-feeder and a takoyake pan are all examples of purchases I’ve made in the last few months that I would’ve have frowned upon as frivolous pre-lockdown. Hubby used to suggest a household purchase and I would turn it down, saying: “we can’t afford it”, “we already have something similar” or “what a waste of money”. Now, with less to spend our money on, plus the time and creative bandwidth with which to consider what would look great in our house, bring pleasure or make life just that little bit more convenient, we’ve turned our attention to making our house a home, rather than just a minimalist space in which we sleep and watch TV. Globetrotters to the core, Hubby and I used to spend our extra cash on holidays rather than household stuff, but Hubby always said that if we could just give up trips for a year, we could make our house really nice. Turns out he was right, though it’s taken lockdown to prove it — I would never give up holidays by choice! However, I hope to keep household purchases as a priority post-lockdown, spending the money saved from my gym subscription and lack of hair appointments on these life-improving luxuries.
