LIAM SKILLEN, 22

Dear Reader,

I don’t know how to start this letter. I was not prepared for a worldwide pandemic, and I am no more prepared to write this letter. Many talk about lockdown or the virus as if it’s in the past tense, but for many others – myself included – it is still very much the present. I don’t think I will ever live my life completely in the sun again. It will always be overshadowed by coronavirus. It will always be shaded by a dark cloud, mockingly hanging over my wrinkled 2020 diary. “A worldwide pandemic, how exciting!” I thought, as we closed down the cinema I work at, and we all took goodie bags of food home (and ridiculously large bags of pick and mix). All the wonderful things I’d do! I had never had this much free time since the school summer holidays. I always wasted them watching TV reruns and playing on my Nintendo DS. Maybe I’d terrorise a frog in the garden pond for an afernoon before returning to my adolescent cave. But, unlike that simpler time, I planned to actually do something this time around. Te pottery and print-making class I signed up for may have been cancelled, but I could create at home. I could bake all the sweet treats I wanted (pre-four shortages of course). In truth, it was never likely I would achieve everything

on my to-do list. I have a habit of asking too much of myself. I’m not sure if it’s the goal-orientated Leo in me or my Catholic upbringing, but if I’m not being productive then I have failed. Output must be the priority. Friends and family always ask, “What have you been up to?” and if I have nothing to say I overfow with guilt. Almost as bad is only being able to repeat the same old routines. So, each week I would do something diferent. Learn to ice a cake (properly), macramé a plant hanger, weave a mini tapestry, complete an online course. Te list goes on. And whilst initially these were all things I wanted to do, I didn’t enjoy them. I was no longer doing these things for my own enjoyment, but simply for the gratifcation that comes with productivity. Even outside of work I orbited a false calling, the need for yield and production. I found some comfort in my new role helping a couple of households with shopping and errands and such. I had a use. Well, on Wednesdays at least… I walked around the supermarket with purpose, foraging for those hard-to-get items. My friends and I shared locations with certain supplies still available. “Te corner shop on Chesterfeld Road still has self-raising four.”

“Te Polish aisle in Tesco has something that translates to cake four.”

You could generate status just from your knowledge of certain groceries. Again, I found myself in the role of provider, attempting to care for my friends who lived close by. We couldn’t see each other, obviously. I would bake for them almost every week, a small gesture but it was the most I could do. If cake and cookies don’t bring a crumb of happiness, then I don’t know what does. And to those unfortunate souls who chose to abandon my small town for universities in the big city, I attempted to send regular postcards and letters; small envelopes flled with stickers and other relatively fat objects. No one would be lef behind. Tis was my new life purpose. Rising tensions at home made for a less than ideal situation to nurture my delicate mind. Normally I avoided this by going to work an hour early to sit in the staf room, getting the train to Nottingham and drinking a chai latte in the Waterstones café, or simply wandering the supermarket, pretending to take interest in a jar of ‘the best’ olives. But I was stuck. Nowhere was open. Te pressure was killing me. I would drive around aimlessly. Once, I attempted primal scream therapy. I’m sure the friend that recommended it was joking, but I needed something for relief. Anything. I’d never felt so lonely. I’d never felt so hopeless.

As we are now returning to society, I am even more terrifed. I wonder if this is just another nail in the cofn for a jobless generation. Educated but unemployable. Well, maybe not unemployable, just unemployed. Not by choice, of course. Te only thing I want right now is a salaried job with a half-decent pension. But despite all my worries – throughout it all, as usual – my friends have been my pillars of joy and hope. For now, all I can do is hope for a better future. I hope I can read this in the future, full of freedom and joy. And I hope you can too.

All the best,

Liam