For most of us, lockdown has not required an act of bravery – but now comes our moment to show resolve

While we’re stuck indoors we can still cling on to the old world – a world of holidays and foreign travel, of crowded beaches and sharing breath with strangers in a pub – but soon we’ll have to look outside again, warns Jenny Eclair

Getting on a Tube train after lockdown restrictions are eased now seems unimaginable (Getty)

I’m OK in the lockdown bubble. The old man and I have a routine. Most days we go for a walk, either round the houses or through the park. Round the houses is the easier walk and runs less risk of encountering joggers, but the park has ducks. The choice is simple; its an either/or. We cant go further afield because Geof has a torn meniscus and can’t do hills. So park or houses it is.

Everything is limited in lockdown. I only shop once a week, so if I forget something then we have to do without. Going back to the supermarket is not an option; Tuesday is shopping day, and that’s that.

In some respects, life without a huge amount of choice is very easy. Everything has become very simple: we have one responsibility, and that’s to keep ourselves well and free from infection. Where it gets complicated is thinking beyond lockdown – how will it work and is it going to be safe?

Like most of us, I’m a peculiar mix of oddly gung ho and snivelling neurotic. In the past, though I loved to travel, I hated bumpy flights because I can cope with most things until I think someone might die. This is why even though I’m desperate to see the sea, to drive over Waterloo Bridge and to hold my mum’s hand, I’m also terrified of the moment the lockdown bubble bursts.

I’m not the only one. Reports last week suggest very strongly that, when it comes to lifting lockdown restrictions, the majority of us feel conflicted because, weirdly, we feel secure with the way things are.

Had anyone told us at the beginning of the year that one day very soon we would be too scared to leave our own postcodes, we’d have thought they were mad. But that’s the truth of it – and what’s even madder is how quickly we have adapted to the new normal. After all, the rules were simple and easy to follow: stay in, stay safe, don’t die. OK, got it.

But sometime in the near future we’re going to have to man up and step outside our comfort zones. We’ll have to get on buses, go into town and maybe even drink a coffee that hasn’t been made by our own fair hand. At the moment this all seems unimaginable. Going into the West End strikes me as being as dangerous as going into space, and I can’t envisage ever stepping on a crowded tube train again.

Part of the fear of being released from lockdown stems from not knowing quite what it is we’re going to be released back into. If someone could wave a magic wand and we could be transported into a future which was exactly like the past, only nicer and kinder, I reckon we’d all be raring to go. But it’s been a while now, more than six weeks – long enough for the West End stars to have forgotten their lines and the dancers to have eaten themselves out of their costumes. It’s hard to remember how we ever did the old “normal”, how we ever had the nerve to push through crowds and sit next to strangers.

I was talking to a neighbour the other day – I say talking, we were yelling at each other from a couple of metres after the regular Thursday night clapping session – and she said this: “You know when all this is over, I don’t want to go to art galleries or the theatre, I’m not fussed about going to restaurants, I just want to be able to see my family and a couple of old friends.” My heart sank, even though I sympathised with every word, because I think this is how millions of people feel. I worry that our new world might be very timid and small.

While we’re stuck indoors we don’t have to face this shrivelled new world. We can still cling on to the old one – a world of holidays and foreign travel, of crowded beaches and sharing breath with strangers in a pub.

Throughout this whole experience I’ve been suspicious of war analogies, but I can’t help feeling that coming out of lockdown will be a bit like emerging from a bunker after a raid. How bad is it going to be out there? Whilst we’re still not allowed out, we don’t have to look.

Millions of people have had to be very brave throughout this pandemic, but millions of us have simply had to stay and home and watch more telly, which isn’t very brave at all. For us, I have feeling that the really big challenge lies ahead.

Because it’s not just NHS staff and key workers who are going to have to be brave as we come out of lockdown – god knows they’ve done their bit – it’s the rest of us. It’s going to be our job to pick up the pieces, and no one has any idea how hard that’s going to be or how long it’s going to take.