HERE we go again. I start to wonder if there is a word for this excitement mingled with fear that comes as lockdown eases and the rules of living change for the umpteenth time in a year. Because for me it’s not straightforward joy, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

There is some part of me that doesn’t want to let go of lockdown. Even the relief of my younger son going back to school, and my older one having a couple of half days a week there, comes tinged with conflicting feelings.

With the school return, the opportunity of lockdown has been lost. I could have used it to get closer to my kids, to impart some personal wisdom, to bake bread with them, chat in French over lunch, or at least teach them how to stack the dishwasher properly.

These words all seem like nonsense as I write them, but they are thoughts that itch.

Then, on the first week back at school, younger son gets a torn calf muscle playing football, and he’s bounced back home to his favoured recent position, lying on his bed with an iPad, and I find myself thinking, as I would never have thought before, that maybe a day or two off school doesn’t matter – they’ve missed so much, why worry about a bit more.

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I realise I’ve become a kind of lockdown Grinch. Much as I’m broadly positive, there are vaguely nihilistic thoughts. Maybe school isn’t as important as I thought it was – sorry teachers, I don’t really mean it, it’s just a “bad day” thought. Maybe I never really liked travel or parties or delicious meals in restaurants. Maybe what I really want is just to be on my own.

Lockdown, and its ending dials up whatever introvert there is in you. Or perhaps it’s just the mind’s way of adjusting.

When you know you can’t do something you make it matter less – then you find yourself struggling to remember why you loved it so much in the first place.

It’s not that I don’t greet any of the easings with enthusiasm. Football training for my sons, for instance. Yes, please. Their joy when they heard they were back on the pitch with their pals was mine too.

But my biggest fear is the return of that out-of-control busyness that was once a feature of our family life. It’s the diary I can’t quite handle.

Because, let’s face it, lockdown has taught me nothing about paring things down. I am now so digitally busy I’m not sure I can make time for my analogue world.

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So, I find myself thinking I don’t want lockdown to ease. I want, recluse that I am now, to keep things as they are. But then I go out onto the local Links late on a bright afternoon and there are people everywhere, smiling in the glow of the sun, playing guitar, working out, and I want it all back – every bit of pre-pandemic life that is warm, social and doesn’t involve polluting the planet.