A friend confessed that immediately after getting her first shot she panicked about life getting back to normal, which for her meant endless business travel, over-committing herself, and missing bedtimes. What about your old, “normal” life do you want to leave in the past? How do you imagine building your post-pandemic life?
I will never again wake up at 4:40 for a 5:15 Orange Theory class. The day is long enough that I can find time at a normal hour to work out post-COVID.
All of the extra time with my wife. Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to be a husband, probably more than anything else. I was lucky enough to find the perfect person to share everything with, and the perfect person to support and advocate for in a world that needs more women empowered to do important things. In the past, that's meant sharing her with meetings and classes and lunches so that she can be that fully formed person, giving her gifts to the world and sharing them a little less with me. I hate everything in life that keeps me away from her, and her away from me. But I know they are all necessary for us both to be our most fulfilled selves. Bittersweet. But as Jason Lee says to Tom Cruise with his many beautiful women circling around in Vanilla Sky, "You can do whatever you want with your life, but one day you'll know what love truly is. It's the sour and the sweet. And I know sour, which allows me to appreciate the sweet." That movie gets worse with time, but that line is both honest and cheesy, and that's OK. I would always want to be Jason Lee. I would never want to be Tom Cruise. When this is over, I will return to more sour, but the sweets will be sweeter. The colors on our dinner dates will be more vibrant. Across that little table, her eyes will be brighter. I can already see them now and I feel better. About everything everywhere all the time. The rush of our travels will be grander. But the distance of shared ambition will come again, and then I will fondly recall sharing more dinners at our dining room table in one year than all the years combined. Nights spent talking for hours with screens turned off because we're tired of our lives running through them. Being with her, with a celebratory drink at ready, for more of the moments when papers were accepted, grants bestowed, triumphs achieved, a race for the next president called. Finding more common ground and bridges built in those rare moments where our emotional translation tools for each other can fail. It was a terrible year and it should never happen again. But I will keep this silver lining with me forever.
I hope to never return to the insane amount of money that I used to spend on lunch. Post-pandemic I hope I spend my money on actually doing things that provide me joy (or on paying down my student loans).
+1 to Sonia: the bar for me to attend a "networking event" is going to be exponentially higher than it was pre-March 2020. Possibly high enough that no event can leap it. Long live actual intentional conversations instead.
Mindlessly going out to eat and drink is over. Post-pandemic we'll keep up our mad new cooking skills and keep saving money and savoring the connection of making meals at home, and be deliberate about when and where and how much we go out. (Good lord though I do miss sidling up to a bar where I know the bartender, saving seats for my hubs and friends, and getting us set up with some delicious food and drink to banter over.)
I'm now a person who successfully grows things (other than a human)! From my sourdough starter to a thriving kitchen window garden to so many spider plant transplants that they're sort of taking over, it's been so satisfying to be keeping things alive, including things that help keep my people happy and well-fed. My post-pandemic life will be built to include growing things.
Also OMG hugs. I mean, I was a hugger before. Post-pandemic... watch out people. I miss squeezing my people SO. MUCH. Which looks creepy typed out like that, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can live with that.
I had gone into semi-retirement from paid work a year before Covid to care for my newly bedridden wife and our adult daughter with Down Syndrome. Over the last year the “semi” has been worn down pretty thin as the daughter’s day program suspended operations. Now I’m 69 and the old plan to keep working until at least 70 seems to be fading away and I don’t miss it very often. There just aren’t many “things” I’m willing to put effort into buying and fate said I wouldn’t have any “young retired” healthy years to travel, so my motivation to keep working is minimal. I know this is a temporary situation though and I fear having a painfully empty place once our daughter returns to dayhab and my wife is no longer in need of my help. Will I need “work” to fill my time or will I be even less motivated?
Endless happy hours for professional development are done. My god, the dollars and liver cells I killed in the name of "networking."
I will never again wake up at 4:40 for a 5:15 Orange Theory class. The day is long enough that I can find time at a normal hour to work out post-COVID.
All of the extra time with my wife. Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to be a husband, probably more than anything else. I was lucky enough to find the perfect person to share everything with, and the perfect person to support and advocate for in a world that needs more women empowered to do important things. In the past, that's meant sharing her with meetings and classes and lunches so that she can be that fully formed person, giving her gifts to the world and sharing them a little less with me. I hate everything in life that keeps me away from her, and her away from me. But I know they are all necessary for us both to be our most fulfilled selves. Bittersweet. But as Jason Lee says to Tom Cruise with his many beautiful women circling around in Vanilla Sky, "You can do whatever you want with your life, but one day you'll know what love truly is. It's the sour and the sweet. And I know sour, which allows me to appreciate the sweet." That movie gets worse with time, but that line is both honest and cheesy, and that's OK. I would always want to be Jason Lee. I would never want to be Tom Cruise. When this is over, I will return to more sour, but the sweets will be sweeter. The colors on our dinner dates will be more vibrant. Across that little table, her eyes will be brighter. I can already see them now and I feel better. About everything everywhere all the time. The rush of our travels will be grander. But the distance of shared ambition will come again, and then I will fondly recall sharing more dinners at our dining room table in one year than all the years combined. Nights spent talking for hours with screens turned off because we're tired of our lives running through them. Being with her, with a celebratory drink at ready, for more of the moments when papers were accepted, grants bestowed, triumphs achieved, a race for the next president called. Finding more common ground and bridges built in those rare moments where our emotional translation tools for each other can fail. It was a terrible year and it should never happen again. But I will keep this silver lining with me forever.
Morning walks with friends > Happy hour with friends
Picnics w/ yard games at Zilker > Day drinking on Rainey
Swimming at my grandparents with the greater family clan on weekday nights > Watching News/Netflix on weekday nights
Genuinely checking in with friends > Keeping up with them via social media interaction
I hope to never return to the insane amount of money that I used to spend on lunch. Post-pandemic I hope I spend my money on actually doing things that provide me joy (or on paying down my student loans).
I’ll let you know Kaiser emailed me, I get my first shot today!!!
+1 to Sonia: the bar for me to attend a "networking event" is going to be exponentially higher than it was pre-March 2020. Possibly high enough that no event can leap it. Long live actual intentional conversations instead.
Mindlessly going out to eat and drink is over. Post-pandemic we'll keep up our mad new cooking skills and keep saving money and savoring the connection of making meals at home, and be deliberate about when and where and how much we go out. (Good lord though I do miss sidling up to a bar where I know the bartender, saving seats for my hubs and friends, and getting us set up with some delicious food and drink to banter over.)
I'm now a person who successfully grows things (other than a human)! From my sourdough starter to a thriving kitchen window garden to so many spider plant transplants that they're sort of taking over, it's been so satisfying to be keeping things alive, including things that help keep my people happy and well-fed. My post-pandemic life will be built to include growing things.
Also OMG hugs. I mean, I was a hugger before. Post-pandemic... watch out people. I miss squeezing my people SO. MUCH. Which looks creepy typed out like that, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can live with that.
I had gone into semi-retirement from paid work a year before Covid to care for my newly bedridden wife and our adult daughter with Down Syndrome. Over the last year the “semi” has been worn down pretty thin as the daughter’s day program suspended operations. Now I’m 69 and the old plan to keep working until at least 70 seems to be fading away and I don’t miss it very often. There just aren’t many “things” I’m willing to put effort into buying and fate said I wouldn’t have any “young retired” healthy years to travel, so my motivation to keep working is minimal. I know this is a temporary situation though and I fear having a painfully empty place once our daughter returns to dayhab and my wife is no longer in need of my help. Will I need “work” to fill my time or will I be even less motivated?