Back at home

By Elisabeth Cowell, Partner

If you’d have told me two months ago that I would soon be living for an infinite amount of time under the same roof as my parents, 17 years after I flew the nest, I’d have thought you were joking.

But, as one of the many single professionals who made the pilgrimage from their small urban flats to their parents’ homes (and importantly, gardens) early on in the outbreak, I’ve just completed my fifth week in my childhood home.

Of course, everyone’s domestic lives have been turned upside down – be it spending day in and day out with small children that are normally at school, living completely in isolation or spending an inordinate amount of time with a housemate that you met on Spare Room. But for me – as a 30-something year old professional who prides myself on my independence – there have been moments where my sense of identity built up over the years has taken a hit. To retire to my childhood bedroom after a long day of work advising clients has felt like a rather strange blast from the past, and I’ve had to overcome the sense that I’ve reverted to something less than I was just weeks ago somehow.

I swapped the countryside for the big smoke an ambitious and headstrong teenager in search of something new nearly two decades ago. I’ve returned a fully fledged adult – a nearly home owner and a partner at a PR firm who has looked after myself for the last 20 years and my parents have grown and changed too. 

Of course, I’ve always carved time out of my busy London schedule to call home or to return to the village I grew up in and spend weekends with my family, so we’ve gone on the journey together to some extent. But it struck me, as I was retracing the same dog walking route I used to take as a child 25 years ago, that this has given my parents and I the opportunity we never thought we’d have, and that I never really thought about needing to have, to really rediscover each other and for me, a moment in time to reconnect with where I grew up. 

In comparison to the family dinners we had when I was younger, we talk about things completely differently now – we’re on a level. Instead of being a cashless student, I can and want to contribute to the cost of the household shop and can make some decent dinners (rather than my previous repertoire of beans on toast and omelettes) to share the load. And in return, I’ve had an opportunity to understand them more and to get to know them in a different way. Nights normally spent with friends have transitioned into to a glass of wine laughing with my parents in the garden. Most importantly, I have time to rediscover the comfort their company brings and to appreciate their selflessness in making sure that I’m happy.

So, while distance has been the buzzword of the covid-19 outbreak, the idea of reconnection seems a more optimistic theme to explore as we settle into this life we call lockdown. As someone who spends their life helping people connect with others, I guess I would say that! But this hiatus - this forced separation - has given us an amazing opportunity to really reimagine and rediscover the relationships we already have. We’ve met our colleagues’ children, discussed our feelings with clients as we talk through the challenges presented to each and every business during this period, and clapped on behalf of our friends that are key workers and on the front line of the quest to beat the virus. 

As we move out of this lockdown, I suspect we will all emerge with stronger, more authentic relationships, facilitated by a shared burden and of course, some amazing new technology. This is the perfect time to rediscover and reconnect with the people we know already – be they people in our professional networks or personal – so that when we go back into the real world, we do so equipped with a network we can rely on even more than we ever imagined.