A blog from Army&You’s autumn edition by Nathaniel
My dad is in the army, and for the past four years I have been a boarder at my school while we have lived overseas.
Over the last year I’ve felt unsure if I will get home or, if someone at school gets coronavirus, where I would go. Mum and dad are overseas, my guardians are my grandparents and my parents don’t have any siblings that I could go to for isolation. I did get to spend time with a very close friend of mine when I had to isolate, as it was his half term, so I saw a lot more of him, which I really enjoyed.
I have felt angry that the goalposts kept on moving as, for example, when we tried to arrange to go to Turkey to see dad, it was put on the red list, so we had to change our plans.
I was also sad that over 16 months I have only spent five at home (three in Kuwait and two in Turkey).
I felt quite detached from dad as I hadn’t seen him for six months, and I didn’t get to speak to him as often as I would have liked due to us being in different time zones, and one of us being busy when the other was free to chat.
I did get to spend a lot of time with mum though as I had to quarantine for six weeks with her and my brother.
What I think has got to me the most has been the constant changing of the rules. My day-to-day life has changed a lot and, if I’m being honest, I liked the way things were before COVID-19 and I didn’t want it to change. However, it’s nice to be able to get back to our lives with some certainty this time even if it is slower than I’d like.