Suzanne Harrington: Every day is like a bank holiday these days

It’s Easter Monday — hooray! Day off! More chocolate! Except now every day is a bank holiday, like that nightmarish Wizzard song about wishing it could be Christmas every day. A surreal bank holiday, our neighbourhoods an archipelago of comfy open prisons with Netflix, as we remain shipwrecked on our individual domestic islands, Robinson Crusoe households linked by anxiety, camaraderie and carbs.

My dad is 81 on Tuesday, and the nearest I can get to him is this column — Happy birthday, Dad! — because he’s cocooning in Cork and I’m locked down in Brighton. He’s in better shape than Boris Johnson, that’s for sure.

So how are YOU doing? A New York Times article suggests that crying in your car counts as self-care. If you’re a parent, the ages of your kids will be the difference between you sitting in your parked vehicle cry-eating custard creams when the wheels on the bus, after going round and round too many times, finally came off, or business as usual if your kids are teenagers who spend most of their lives in their rooms brain damaging themselves in front of screens, in self-imposed digital lockdown.

Did you ever think you’d hear yourself say yay for Mortal Kombat? Me neither. Carry on, kids. I’ll slide some vitamin D under the door. We can deal with your PTSD later.

Not that you need to be covered in child to be slowly losing it at the moment — being in lockdown can induce psychological disintegration at any life stage.

All you need to do is listen to the news — all the news, the more hysteric and sensationalised the better — on a continuous loop, before engaging with social media friends you’d formally regarded as sane who are now posting about biowarfare, 5G masts, chemtrails, and lizard people. Maybe being a bit racist about China.

You daren’t go for a run, in case someone photographs you and slaps it online, furiously denouncing you as a “selfish spreader”, even though you were running through empty streets accompanied only by tumbleweed and an exhausted dog.

Ah yes, the Exercise Police of Lockdown wear no uniform other than their

flaming shields of righteousness. Or are you being

paranoid?

Because it’s the perfect time for paranoia, followed by a slow descent into madness. So many questions, all percolating through your head like madwoman coffee, sending you all the way to Crazy Town.

Are those neighbours you never liked watching every time you leave the house? Why is the house so clean? Did you really need to alphabetise the cutlery drawer? Why is the dog hiding under the table? Does this much body hair mean you have gorilla DNA? Will you ever date again? (And yes, ‘date’ is a euphemism. My 81-year-old father is reading this).

See? Madness. Spiralling. So to all those helpful cheery suggestions about learning a new language, taking up watercolours, writing poetry — can you all just shut up and make me a Prozac smoothie instead? Cheers.