How do Boy-scouts, Brexit and Covid fit together? Some real news from the UK and how to treat possible bad news in your relationship
By: Dasha M. Webb-Benjamin
Tags: Brexit, How To Handle Emotions, Relationships, Covid 19, Black Swan

Over 10,000 trucks already stuck in the UK, waiting to go home for Christmas

I’m strangely calm now.

Four months ago I started preparing. We bought sleeping bags in case the heating should go out (they were predicting rolling blackouts). Bit by bit I have bought food that I don’t even need to cook but is durable (nuts, dried fruit, you get the idea). Some extra toilet paper, soap, toiletries. Brexit is supposed to happen on last of December. And “winter is coming…”

I can be calm because I’m prepared.

I laugh now at the news and I do, believe me, I’m laughing my ass off. Not because I think the tragedy is funny but because people are so freaking surprised at the events happening right now. This was so predictable! Granted, the new virus variant accelerated the circumstances for two weeks, but that’s all. And given that we are dealing with a pandemic, I always anticipated the Black Swan. Have you ever read the book? The man had a point. Being surprised at a crash of the market (which happens every 10 years at least) or that a hurricane passes through (even though it does that every year in the Caribbean), is simply moronic.

But even when there is no foreseeable bad event on the horizon, it is just common sense to expect the unexpected at least a little bit! It’s the nature of life. We all know that.

I know we all just want safety, it’s normal. But if you REALLY want to keep yourself and your family safe, then you need to expect the Black Swan just a bit and try to predict bad times and simply prepare. But we don’t do that, do we now? We keep hoping beyond hope that eeeeeeverything will be fine in the end and we keep believing the (oh so obvious) lies of those who were meant to protect us and lead us.

It’s the 23rd December, Londoners have been cut off from their families for Christmas, even though we recently had a total lockdown for a month, with the added promise that we are doing this so we can all have a Christmas. It’s one thing not to have a Christmas, fine. It’s another when your government promises Christmas and then takes it away.

Apparently people in East London are on the streets, literally in the face of the police, provoking them to strike. Over 60,000 people fled London on the night when Tier 4 was announced, causing the new virus variant of Covid to spread even faster and wider throughout the country.

So why am I calm if over 10,000 trucks are stuck at the boarder to Europe and we are facing huge delays in food delivery in January anyway because of Brexit because no customs have been put in place to prepare for this scenario?

I’m calm because I called this situation three years ago and I was sure of it two years ago when the UK was already supposed to have left the EU and had absolutely nothing in place, no customs, no personnel for it, nothing. But then we got an extension.

We don’t know what this particular government is thinking or what their plan is, but by now we can all agree, it can’t be a good one nor a plan that would benefit its people.

Food panic buying has started already, my prediction is, we will be without food within a week, despite stores having stocked up a bit. We are in deep winter, it’s not like I can grow potatoes in my garden right now either or some salad.

Yesterday I was just sitting on a bench with a friend of mine for five minutes. We are chatting about the current events and only when I mention that London will be without food within days probably, she suddenly hit my arm, grabbed it in a sudden realisation. “OMG, I’ve only just put two and two together. The trucks, the world cutting off the UK. Oh dear, there will be no food! I have to stock up a bit!” And this, after I’ve already been talking for a while and not for the first time, that we have been stocking up on food long ago, how she should as well and she just kept nodding. What was happening in her brain? Clear denial. I think most people are struck with it. We just don’t want certain things to become a reality. As if we could delay things from happening if we kept thinking “it will be just fine”.

Why are my husband and I still in the UK if we have predicted all this? Because he has four children and we wanted to be here when “the shit hits the fan”. Simple. And at the end of the day, there is nowhere we can go anyway. Where were we supposed to go? We saw that the right wing politics is taking over Europe, Nazis literally infiltrating the German police which now consists of 5% of actual Nazis. We might as well pick a stand and fight. We have chosen the centre of the worst of the worst — the UK. Why not? At least we will see history in the making and will know the actual truth of the horrendous circumstances this country has been plunged into. A poverty you wouldn’t believe! Even UNICEF offered to help feed our children. And still no one in the EU believes me when I tell them.

We are not hearing any news out of the USA right now. Which tells us that something is very wrong over at your end. Silence from the US is worse than bad news, we’ve figured that one out already.

So Europe was out of the question, I doubt New Zealand or Canada would have taken us on. South America? Seems like the best option at the moment, at least there is no talk of forced vaccination over there yet with a vaccine which has been rushed and not tested properly.

I’m always calm when the storm finally hits. I might be tense before it, when I see where things are going, but once it’s here… I relax. I’m good in a crisis. I’ve proven it many times in my life, it’s how I survived some horrible things. I guess I should be grateful for this ability?

Do you want me to relate this to relationships? It’s the same in relationships.

We go into relationships in full denial-mode. “Oh, it will be fine. He didn’t mean that. She would not lie to me surely.” Oh, and my personal favourite: “I’m sure if I try just a bit harder he/she will change!”

Really? Really?! But hey, I’ve been there myself. Until one day it became too absurd, the way I was thinking. It wasn’t the extreme pain of losing a baby or losing a guy, it was the absurdity of the situation that made me change my thinking. Because at the end of the day, it was MY freaking fault that I didn’t have a system in place to vet people before I let into my life. It was my fault that I didn’t pull them up on their lies. It was my fault that I was unable to walk away.

So I learned. From scratch. At 40.

And I wrote a book which hopefully will give others a chance to re-think themselves and relationships because what we’ve been doing so far is bullshit. Pardon the language but it is.

Even when you’re in a long and successful relationship, how can you NOT think of something going wrong? After decades, you both will change. Will you still like each other? You might have a moment of weakness and you sleep with someone else. After 20 years together, is that really a reason to throw a good relationship away (provided you still want to stay together)? And if nothing else… One of you will die at some point before the other does. “Oh no, she didn’t! She didn’t just mention death!” Yes, I have, what’s the big deal? Do you think you will live forever? No, you will not. ;)

I’ve met a lady who was over 70, who told me about her great love, they were a perfect couple for 40 years. Then he got ill and died after a few years. And still, she was so devastated that she couldn’t pick herself up for five years after his death. Five years… That’s a long time. Not that I couldn’t understand, but still, she could have mentally prepared for it but she didn’t. She focused only on him while he was there, not thinking about who she will be without him, on her own.

Call me macabre but I do that almost every week — trying to imagine a life without my husband. And it’s not hard to do. My life doesn’t revolve around him. Sure, we work together towards a future which would benefit literally everyone on this planet. But I’m my own person, I have my own projects, a life, a purpose outside of him, of our marriage. I would be fine. Sad, yes, but fine.

People will come and go as they need in your life. It’s a Buddhist view which I’ve embraced entirely. It helps you being relaxed in your relationships (instead of an absolute controlfreak) and let people be as they need them to be. As long as they are nice and fair to me, they can stay if they want to stay. If they’re not, well…then they get kicked out very quickly. That kind of “Love” does not excuse bad behaviour, it just doesn’t. That’s not love then.

Love is work, first and foremost.

Everything else are emotions which are fickle at its best. Emotions shouldn’t rule us, we should rule our emotions. Most of them we can control very well with just a bit of practice. I’m not talking about denial or pushing pain away. Pain is one thing. But emotions… Emotions are connected with our thoughts most of the time, hence it is important what you think about — which is the same as leading your thoughts as well as leading your emotions. Just watch Dr. Dispenza, he explains it really well and it has given me a fighting chance to finally have a productive and happy life.

One example and then it should be enough for today. I could think about my husband’s ex all day long. The things she said about me or the fact that she threatened me with deportation, even though I’m from the EU (yeah, tell me about it…). If I wanted drama I could keep myself all day long in being upset about her and her BS. I would get done absolutely nothing.

At times my thoughts still get away from me. I’m walking towards my garden and find myself in stupid thoughts about some possible drama. Then I shake myself and force myself to think of something new, not something old. We can always dwell on the past, right? But what does that change? Absolutely nothing. You just get stuck, that’s all. So… New thoughts. Then I try to think of new ways I can promote my book for example. Ideas start popping up. Suddenly I’m in creative mode and articles come flying out of me, I make videos, contact new people for a podcast. That’s so much fun.

And guess what? As soon as I thought those thoughts, I put them on paper and most of them get done sooner or later. I’m building something new and feel useful, my emotional landscape is a happy or at least a calm one. My life is moving forward. (No more drama.)

Whatever you do in life, be it a pandemic or your relationship — always expect the unexpected, at least a little bit, in the back of your mind. You don’t have to panic about it all the time, you just need to be prepared.

Just as the Boyscouts say — “Be prepared!” right? :) It’s actually a good motto.