Róisín Ingle: ‘I’ll miss you,’ I lied as the family piled into the car

The urge to be left alone without my children and partner has been strong in me at various points over the past nearly 200 years. I mean, the past nearly two years. Sorry, but the space-time continuum is still not what it used to be.

I yearned to do a Greta Garbo. I am aware of what a privilege that is. To have so much noise and company around all the time that you crave being left alone. I have several friends who live by themselves, who were forced over the pandemic into a materially comfortable sort of solitary confinement.

This meant you could have elaborate meal kits delivered to your house and stream endless hours of high- or low-quality television but were forbidden from being with your closest people. You had nobody to touch. To hug, to connect with, to mourn and laugh and grieve beside. It was aloneness at the worst time to be alone. You were raging and howling into the wind.

'I'll miss you,' I lied as the three of them piled into the car. 'I might miss you,' I thought as I went back inside, which was more honest. 'I might at some stage'

I am not a doctor, but I believe being alone for prolonged periods in the middle of a global catastrophe is unhealthy. Unlike with long Covid, nobody really knows the long-term side effects. It’s one of many invisible health issues caused by the pandemic restrictions.

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But the cliches are true too. The grass is always greener. You want what you can’t have. And I’d never ached to be alone more than during the past couple of weeks. Work was piling up. There were far too many deadlines looming. Far too much Zooming. I could not focus on anything.

I made lists of things I had to do, but the things all seemed to be in the wrong order. My priorities were askew. The children, not yet back at school, were doing that thing children sometimes do. Saying “I’m bored, what can I do?” 50 times a day and mistaking their female parent for Mary Poppins.

When my partner said he was going to take them up north to Portadown for a few days, it was like winning the lottery. “I’ll miss you,” I lied as the three of them piled into the car. “I might miss you,” I thought as I went back inside, which was more honest. “I might at some stage.”

I worked hard. Early in the morning until late at night. I took short breaks every so often, the way they tell you to, walked around the kitchen, closed my eyes and felt at peace.

Oh, don’t worry. Of course there were times when I was consumed by the mandatory guilt of the bad mother, which led to a frenzied bout of batch cooking. Very out of character. I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. Ditto.

The young couple beside me on the train said they'd ordered a wide range of snacks, from chocolates to crisps to crackers. If they kept eating, they told me, they could keep their face masks off most of the way

I fed the fish and worried I’d fed him too much and he might die. Another day I forgot to feed the fish and worried the same thing. Some days I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop, relishing the silence, contemplating a sort of Sliding Doors existence where I’d never had children or a partner. I couldn’t work out how this made me feel. I watched too much Real Housewives of Beverley Hills.

After a few days I got a train to the North. I was reuniting for a couple of hours with my family in Bangor, Co Down, where the next day I was to do a literary event with Marian Keyes, in front of real-life human people, part of the Open House Festival.

On the train I panicked. I’d forgotten, on account of not getting out much lately, that I had to wear a face mask for the whole journey. The thought of it made my breath jagged. I confided this in the young couple beside me on the train, and they told me they’d ordered a wide range of snacks, from chocolates to crisps to crackers, for exactly this reason. If they kept eating, they told me, they could keep their face masks off most of the way.

“Face-mask fatigue is real,” I said, admiring their stash spread across the table. “Aye,” agreed the young woman.

All the way to Belfast, I ate my train-station sandwich and sipped my coffee as it turned from unbearably hot to disgustingly cold.

I am not a doctor, but, alone or in a crowd, I feel now might be a good time to try to start living again. To start pleasing ourselves and each other again

At Belfast I crossed over the platform and just about managed to catch the train to Bangor. I rang my family from the train. Did I mind if they couldn’t actually meet me, they asked. Their day trip to Bangor was over, it was raining and they thought they would just take the train back to Belfast and on to Portadown. Did I mind?

“I don’t mind,” I lied. When I arrived at Bangor and was preparing to leave, my family piled noisily on to the same train carriage for their journey homeward. Exclamations of surprise and delight. Quick hugs. I stood on the platform telling them stuff and listening to them tell me stuff until the sliding doors closed and I was alone again.

There was a swan fashioned from a towel on the bed in the Salty Dog Hotel. Or it could have been a snake. I lay beside it for a while and watched boats float across the bay. The next day, waiting in the wings of a tent at the walled garden of Bangor Castle to talk to Keyes, we heard champagne corks pop in the crowd, followed by a “woo”. Pop. Woo. We went onstage and looked out at hundreds of happy, expectant faces. A portrait of joy.

Camille O’Sullivan had serenaded them here the night before, and Lisa Hannigan another day. Earlier in the week Kodaline, the Wolfe Tones and others had sung to thousands in Belfast. When I got home I saw pictures of joyful unmasked crowds on the streets enjoying the aftermath of a GAA match and watched musicians on Twitter begging to please be allowed to play for crowds and was confused.

Face-mask fatigue. Priorities askew. An unequal distribution of joy. I am not a doctor, but, alone or in a crowd, I feel now might be a good time to try to start living again. To start pleasing ourselves and each other again. Pop. Woo.

roisin@irishtimes.com