There’s lots in the news here in Melbourne about Victoria going into our fifth lockdown during this pandemic we’re all living through.

I realised that for our family we’re actually in our sixth lockdown. Our first lockdown was in Argentina where we had planned to spend the whole of 2021 (not so much, as it turned out).

We got back home by the skin of our teeth (here’s how that happened).

It’s been brutal here in Australia for many of us. I know many people that have lost jobs, had businesses go under or significantly backwards, deal with financial pressure, relationship struggles, mental health challenges, and on and on.

However, compared to our friends back in Argentina, we’ve had it pretty good. Buenos Aires, where we were living, had the longest continuous lockdown of anywhere in the world … and it didn’t work. They’ve ranked near the top of list of countries for number of cases for almost the whole pandemic. And on top of that, there has been very limited financial support from a government that was already pretty much broke.

I was reflecting as we went into our sixth lockdown, that for me personally the actuality of it isn’t that bad. We live in a beautiful part of the world. I can work from home. Home learning for our girls isn’t ideal, but it’s not that bad either.

What makes it tough is the story. I was expecting something else. I thought that by now we’d all be vaccinated, and life would be back to normal. Again … not so much.

What’s helping me this time around is remembering how much worse it could be, and being grateful for what in fact is good in my life. And trying as quickly as I can to adjust from what was my expectation to the reality.