Eeeek! I’ve shrunk…

One week in from starting WFH and I realise I am only a quarter of the person I once was.

I get up in the morning, shower and I do my make-up. I tease my hair as best I can. I get dressed and with the dog, my incomparable friend, head off for our one exercise of the day.  I don’t bother with a handbag. I only need phone, keys, bank card and poo bags.

When I get back to my place of house arrest, I put the kettle on for coffee (oh, how I miss my morning Starbucks!) I retrieve my filing tray with laptop and office stuff – I’m a great believer in the clear desk theory which I exercise even at home – otherwise one would be living for infinity surrounded by office clutter.

I fire up my technology and, inevitably, dial into my first of many Google Hangouts (a totally foreign territory just 10 days ago). I spend the rest of day having to look at my own double chin and those of everyone else on the calls.

What they and I can see is my head and shoulders. What they don’t see are my woolly socks keeping my bare toes warm. Or the tracky bottom. Or any part of the back of me. I am the equivalent of a TV newsreader – haven’t you ever wondered what they are wearing below the desk line?

The only thing anyone sees is my front top half. I’ve gone from a whole me to a quarter in just 7 days. Less ‘honey I shrunk the kids’ – more ‘mummy, I shrunk me’!

Will the real me ever emerge again? Will eyebrow threading (helpfully now hidden by a fringe threatening to completely cast me into darkness), waxing, shiny, purple nails, or hair colour that defines my interpretation of me, ever become as central in my life as it has been for decades? Will skirts, heels, jewellery, scent matter as much.  Indeed, will the slouchy me become the new me. Or at the end of this weird period when the clocks stopped see me emerge as butterfly once more in glorious and excess finery. I fear the jury will be out for a while.

Sara Pearson

CEO, Spider