The lockdown has opened my eyes to many things. As a writer, before the enforcement of lockdown nationwide in my country, I had a lot to write about, because I was always going out, seeing new things, witnessing so many interesting things, and enjoying myself. When the lockdown started, it was like a living hell for me, because in normal circumstances, I'm the type of person that will prefer to go a long way to see my friend and talk rather than just sit down at home and talk with my neighbors. Two weeks into the lockdown, I was already feeling homesick, all I did most times was to wake up, take my phone look for writing opportunities online, chat my friends up, sleep, and eat. It got to a time that even writing became a problem for me, I was just seeing the same thing every day, which was beginning to make me sick.
One month passed, and there was still total lockdown, I had no choice than to start mingling with my neighbors, starting to know them better. Fortunately for me, one of the children who were my mate was also a writer, and I always enjoyed talking to him, we could rub minds together. Soon enough, I began to see so many things I could write about, but the laziness that I had allowed to enter me hindered me, I kept on postponing my writing plans. This neighbor of mine noticed my not writing, and forcefully asked me to pick a date when we can write together so that I don't get the opportunity to postpone again. So, I picked a date, we met at his house, and then we chose what to write on, I was hoping to be the best writer in my area. I picked my pen to write, and then boom, I went blank, I thought of what to write, but it still was not coming, wow, I was stuck and shocked, because I felt I could just pick up writing just like I dropped it, but wow, it shocked me.
My neighbor and I then started to write more frequently, any little happening within the environment, no matter how minute it might be or look we would turn into a writing challenge. We began dusting our pens and books, writing articles, poems, stories; narrative, descriptive, any type, and form of writing. We went online, took courses that could help our writing ability, and help us improve it. Then we began calling our friends that we used to write together, to help them as well so that we won't all forget and relent on our writing skills, we began passing writing competitions to ourselves, at least if we could not reach the qualifying stages for some of those competitions, at least we tried our best and wrote what we felt was our best. Then came my mom's birthday, we all planned to bake a cake, the female among us helped us bake it, then somehow, some of my friends smuggled themselves to my house that day to celebrate my mom's birthday, it was really fun, and as usual, we converted into a very fine and interesting story.
After about two months of doing our writing exercise, the lockdown was eased in my country, we were able to move out on weekdays but refrain on weekends. We were really happy at this new development, we started planning big, we were moving from house to house together, writing with our friends, my neighbors' friends became my friends, and my friends too became his friends. At times, we would go to a friend's house on Friday, and come back on Monday. Of course, we were not only writing throughout, especially weekends, we would play games as well, football games on a laptop, combat games as well, we even contributed money to buy good games that we could all play together with, but at the same time, our burning for writing did not die down.
Then came the day for the senior sister of my neighbor to tie the knot, and get married. We were very excited because one, she was very understanding, and we always enjoyed her company, we were more like her very own best younger ones. Secondly, we were going to eat a lot, without anybody disturbing us, oh my goodness, and finally, another story to write on. We all loved her, so we helped her with the preparations for the party. We were all sad that she was leaving actually because that meant that we won't be having anybody to disturb again, but we were mostly guys, so just to form the big boy impression, we could not cry, we just kept on doing all we could do to help her smooth transitioning into her husband's house. The wedding day came, she allowed us to seat in front like we were all her ex-boyfriends. I was really happy, and made the best use of that day, because that was my first official outing to a party, in months, it was like I just broke out of prison, it was really fun that day, we all planned that we will write about our experiences before that day was over, but trust me, we all slept like logs of wood, we could not write anything until the next day, and we wrote a lot on the next day. I doubt if I will ever forget that party. My lockdown experience was more of a neighbor helping neighbor experience.
