Congratulations Lily Stafford for winning 1st place in the Young Carers - Life Under Lockdown creative competition (16-24) with your incredibly moving story, Life in Lockdown: Mending the Cracks...

Life in Lockdown: Mending the Cracks

- By Lily Stafford

There’s a Japanese art called ‘kintsugi’, or ‘mending withgold.’ Rather than throwing away broken pottery, or hiding the cracks, artistsrepair them using lacquer mixed with gold. After all, we can’t turn back time.Broken pottery can never ‘return to normal.’ But instead of treating the changeas shameful, they highlight the unique beauty of each crack. The disaster givesbirth to a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Kintsugi shows how objects - and people -grow more beautiful from having once broken.

Right now, we all need that message.

The lockdown has been tough, but I’m no stranger to suddenchange. I’ve seen how lives can shatter overnight, whether from loved onessuffering life-changing injuries or from coming out as trans and becoming asecond-class citizen. Through it all, I pride myself in my ability to grow andadapt. Becoming a young carer taught me compassion and resilience. Coming outas trans helped me become an activist, giving me the motivation and first-handexperience to change lives. And the lockdown, as horrible as it’s been, hasfelt the same. It’s given me time and space to heal - to mend all my cracks,both old and new.

The lockdown shattered my old life. I’m mending it withgold.

When the lockdown began, I was terrified of stagnating athome. I’d already spent three years living with my parents, watching myuniversity friends build new lives while I sunk deeper into caregiving. Myhouse felt like a prison cell, rancid with the stench of rotting dreams. I wasashamed. So I volunteered and applied for jobs, desperate to feel like I wasprogressing. Distracting myself from how stagnant life had become. Because if Icouldn’t make progress, I was afraid the shame would consume me. To me,lockdown wasn’t just months of isolation - it meant being forced back intostagnation. At first, I didn’t think I could handle it.

As weeks passed, the cracks began to show. I made lists ofambitious goals - sleep more, write more, exercise more - anything that feltlike progress. I clung to my old coping strategies, hoping that ‘seizing thisopportunity’ for self-improvement would quench my cabin fever and shame. But asmy family members grew more stressed, each missing normality in our own way,our arguments grew worse and worse. Caregiving became harder and harder. Icouldn’t save myself or my familyfrom this suffering, let alone both at once. As my compassion fatigue grew andmy new routines began falling apart, I felt myself slipping back intostagnation. The more I cracked, the worse my shame became.

Eventually, I shattered.

After one family argument too many, I realised I couldn’trepress my shame any more. So I opened the floodgates and let myself feel. All my stress, all my shame and athousand other traumas that I’d bottled away until now. I spent hours sobbingin the nearby woods. For three nights in a row, I woke up at 2am in a coldsweat. My worst nightmare was about leaving on a deep-space voyage, naivelyproud of my bravery, only to realise - as I crossed the point of no return -that I’d thrown away everything I’d ever known and loved. That’s how it felt tolower my guard. It seemed almost suicidal - throwing away my coping strategiesand diving into the abyss, knowing I could never un-feel the emotions I’d setloose.

That was my low point. After that, life got better.

At long last, I stopped hiding from my shame and focused onself-care. I let myself experience my thoughts and feelings withoutdistractions, knowing that I had all the time in the world to soothe myself. Isat outside and appreciated life - the birdsong, the rustling trees and the sunon my face. I l tilted back my head to watch the clouds, then realised that Ihadn’t looked up once sincegraduating. I’d been too busy looking ahead. As I finally let myself process myfeelings, I felt lighter and more cleansed than ever before

The next time a family argument erupted, I didn’t bury thepain. Instead, I went for a woodland walk with an open heart - and had the mostZen experience of my life. Each time a feeling bubbled up, I invited it to walkalongside me as a companion rather than overwhelm me. I wandered down afamiliar forest path, looking at each tree individually - some had fascinatingshapes I’d never noticed before. And as I watched each tree bending in thewind, I imagined how that breeze must have crossed the whole forest, touchingevery tree and every house in the area at once. I felt connected in a surreal way that I’d never experienced before. OnceI lowered my defences and let myself be vulnerable, I discovered somethingbeautiful.

That’s when I began mending with gold.

Since then, the lockdown hasn’t felt so bad. Rather thanlonging for life to be different - wishing that the pottery of my life wouldun-shatter - I’ve embraced everything that the lockdown has to offer. Myfriendships with my university friends are flourishing - when nobody can travelanyway, distance is no longer an obstacle. I spend sunny afternoons playingbadminton with my family - rather than struggling to carry their burdens, Ishare joy with them instead. And best of all, I have time to simply exist, unshackled from deadlines andself-imposed schedules. I’ve reframed isolation - my old prison cell has becomemy monastery.

And so, in the middle of a global pandemic, I’ve never feltmore at peace than I do now.

The lockdown shattered my unhealthy coping strategies. It’sbeen the perfect storm for personal growth - too much stress to hold inside,plus all the time in the world to heal. My lifestyle before the pandemic was never ideal, but since my distractionsand goal-chasing worked ‘well enough’ back then, I didn’t stop to consider abetter option. Once I accepted that my old approach simply could not work, I could start fresh and fix the underlying problemsthat caused me to shatter. I stopped running away from my shame and learned totrust myself - I could handle my emotions. And while the pandemic will endeventually, the resilience and inner peace I’ve developed will last a lifetime.

I’ve become more beautiful for having once broken.

This isn’t the first time my life has shattered, and it certainlywon’t be the last. Life is predictably unpredictable like that - disaster canstrike when you least expect it. But each time we shatter, we have anopportunity to start fresh. Disasters force us to confront problems we shouldhave faced long ago - and then we heal. We become stronger, kinder and morebeautiful than before. And we learn to adapt, which is such a valuable skill. We learn to trust ourselves to handlechange. So while the lockdown has been horrible, I’m grateful for thisopportunity. I’ve found purpose and meaning in this experience - not from thesuffering itself, but from the ways that I adapt.

That’s what kintsugi means to me.

For now, the lockdown is our new normal - that won’t changefor months. It’s painful and horrifying to accept, but we can’t turn back time.We can’t ‘return to normal.’ All we can do is adapt. But rather than beingashamed of the changes, or blaming ourselves for struggling, we all have anopportunity to create something beautiful. We can heal. Not by hiding the cracks in our lives - by starting fresh andcelebrating our unique ways of mending. Rather than longing for the past, let’smove forward and embrace something new.

The lockdown shattered our old lives. Let’s mend them withgold.