Lockdown of a Newly Married

We were married on November 22, 2019. It's been 6 completed months since we got married. I am currently a full time student of master's degree. My husband is a government engineer. He has posting in another district, 5 hour drive away from home and my nursing college is in Kathmandu, the capital city itself. We live in a small family with my father and mother in-laws.

Since we got married we were not able to stay together for long. My husband comes home in maybe 15 to 20 days. He hardly stays for 3 to 4 days and he is back to work already. I am also quite busy in my study, I go to college early in the morning and return home late. That all pertains we have very less time to spend together. And as newly-wed, we had not been able to share moments, watch movies, cook and eat together, spend time with family, and so on. In the beginning of announcement of LOCKDOWN, we were in his workplace. After about a week, we returned Kathmandu to spend the time safely with family.

For about 40 days we stayed together with parents. The beginning days were fun, we cooked together, ate together and he helped me in the kitchen works. We cracked jokes, took selfies, watched movies together, exercised together, played games with parents and planted more flowers and vegetables in the garden. In the evenings, we strolled to the nearby open ground following social distancing. We had fights, arguments and settled in couple of hours and then laughed at each other. There were very few cases of Corona virus in the country and no deaths and also the positive cases had very mild symptoms. We stayed home following all safety measures, washing hands more often, wearing surgical masks when out of house. The lockdown was very strict and all people stayed in their homes and were safe.

In those days, I got to learn many things, I learnt about the families of my in-laws. My husband and parents introduced me to all of them. I heard his childhood stories, his amazing skills, and awkward habits from his mother. I learnt his family rules, norms and stories about his family and village and shared mine too. Looking his childhood photos and family photos was too fun. I learnt cooking, which I was not used to with. I learnt household works and gardening. I realized how precious family is and how warm it is to spend 24 hours with family under safe roof. As a new daughter- in law, I got time to understand my in-laws better and form a bond with them. I started to feel more cozy and friendly with them.

After 40 days, my husband went to his work out of town as the government allowed the construction works to resume. I got busy with my online classes from the university and prepared for exams. We stayed at home, obeying the government lockdown rules, being safe and keeping others safe too. He returned after 2 weeks and again we returned to normal activities. Then the pandemic situation in the country started to rise, more people were infected, few lost lives, and mostly recovered. Though we couldn't travel, go to holidays and create beautiful memories what we had planned after marriage, we got to spend time with family, understand each other more. We have listed a lot of things in our bucket list after the pandemic is over. We are keeping ourselves mentally and physically strong to deal with the pandemic. So, for us these could be the positive aspect of corona virus amidst all chaos.