Simona Prilogan (45 years old), radiographer and nurse currently living in London, UK, talks about the life during pandemic into one of the most affected countries in the world. From everyday life to our lessons – in beautiful, emotional words that describe what we should learn these days, how this period changes us in a very good direction, if we give ourselves this chance.

Simona works as radiographer in two clinics, in Nottingham and Bristol, and one of the most illustrative images of the lockdown is that one of the train she is travelling with to her work – extremely full before, empty today. She is working for an independent dental radiology company, doing 3D scans for dentists and hospitals – and because dentists have interrupted their activity they don’t work either, she and her colleagues are in a kind of technical unemployment – are paid 80% of their salary, but no more than 2.500£. “If lockdown continues, I will do volunteering in a medical center as a nurse after Easter”, Simona says.

Her husband works for a bank and is doing home-office, her son, who is a PhD student, is also working online this period.

Life during lockdown

It’s well known that UK authorities haven’t decided lockdown from the beginning, but today isolation measures are applied all over the country. Schools and kindergartens are closed, few are opened only for the children of those working in the “first line”, people get out of their houses only for urgent needs – buy necessary things from supermarket or pharmacy, go to the bank or post-office, for instance, or to go to work – those who can’t work from home. Neighborhood parks have also been closed. “People follow the isolation rules, the area where we are living in was very crowded before, now people in the streets are rare”, Simona says.

In shops, distances are marked, so that people can keep 2 meters between them, and now you can find in supermarkets everything you need. “Even toilet paper” Simona says, laughing and remembering the “shopping fury” and empty shelves in supermarkets from the beginning of lockdown.

The lessons

But pandemic doesn’t have only bad parts – it only depends on each of us the perspectives we choose to see things from. „The beautiful part of this story called pandemic is that we have time and we are not in a hurry anymore” Simona says, describing with gratitude the good, quality time spent with her family and with herself these days.

„We have time to rediscover ourselves, who we are, spiritually speaking. We’ve been sold the illusion of immortality but it’s not like that, from the moment we are born the probability of having a disease is there, depends on each of us how lucky he is, on the DNA of each one. The death exists also, we just don’t like to see it, we pretend that it’s not there. This pandemic reminded us that it is there, that we depend on a divinity and that we are very vulnerable, but also that we have the chance of this day – more time to rediscover ourselves, to meditate, to see what we are gifted for, to discover people around us, to give love. We have the possibility of doing a lot of beautiful things, these days. I’m sure that this period has given many people the possibility to rediscover themselves”, Simona says.

She is convinced that things will change after everything goes away, and this change will be in a good direction. “First of all, I think we will be way more careful to the nature, to the way we use natural resources, we are already seeing how Earth is really healing, I think we will appreciate much more present and what we have.

And I also think that we will learn to be content with the essentials. We need so little to be happy, and many things are given by nature, we already have them”, Simona says.

Simona is also an extremely talented writer – you can discover her on her website, HERE, and on her Facebook Page, HERE

#coronastories are opened for people of all ages, from different professions and different countries. If you want to talk about the way you feel and understand these times, please contact me. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also write to me at specialstories00@gmail.com. We can also talk on Whatsapp – +47 455 17 634 or on Skype – Ramona Sarac.