Yesterday was tough.  After three days of ‘lockdown’ in the city of Brussels it was announced the terror threat level would stay at four for another week, with the metro remaining closed on Tuesday and re-opening gradually from Wednesday. I doubt I speak only for myself when I say this was scant comfort. The world has been watching us for days now and we, in response, have moved from stoicism to humour to frustration. I hadn’t even registered how obsessively I had been checking the news and social media for updates until R pointed it out to me, along with the obvious fact such behaviour is neither productive nor healthy.

I was in London when the 7/7 bombs went off, and that day is etched upon my memory. I have friends who lost friends that day, and what I will always remember is the eerie quietness of the streets as tens of thousands of people trudged in silence out of central London. I have always considered myself to be stoic in the face of terrorism, staunch in my refusal to change how I live because to do so would be to let ‘them’ win. But I can’t deny the recent Paris bombings and tense situation here in Brussels have shaken me to the core.

I’m ashamed to admit I have felt fear, pure and unadulterated, at the thought of resuming my daily commute on the metro. I’m also ashamed to admit I have had dark moments when I have felt quite hopeless about the future of humanity. I realise now the constant flow of information – and, in many cases, sensationalist misinformation – has not been helping me at all, and so today – another day of working from home – I’m going to step away from the news. R said to me yesterday: “Look outside, at all the people in the bars and restaurants. That’s what’s real. Not all of the crap you see reported in the news.”

And he’s right. We have to carry on as normally as we can. We cannot be cowed into living life in the shadows. That’s what they want us to do. It is unsettling to be in this situation but we have to hope it will end soon, and believe there is more good in the world than evil. Because there is. There really is.