Okay, it’s going to be a long time before this ends, but it WILL end. What are the things, large and small, that you want to do first when it’s safe to live something resembling “normal life” again? This prompt presupposes you will have a job again when we have to rebuild the country.
I want to hug my parents and our Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Stu. I want to meet all the babies. I want to take a plane to New York. I want to go to the movies. I want to see “Company”.
I just found out I’m pregnant (due in November!), and I want to give birth in a hospital that feels safe, where I know my husband will be able to be in the delivery room with me. I want to get a huge bowl of ramen from my favorite place. I want to find a new blush at Sephora.
I am going to drive the nine hours to where the person I love is currently living and I am going to kiss him. We have been in love for ages and have admitted as much to each other and have been dancing around it like fools and all I want to do is go find him and kiss him.
I got engaged a week ago and I want to go to celebratory happy hour and drink something sparkly with my friends and show them my ring and get a manicure just so I have a reason to show off the ring some more.
I want to go to the coffee shop a couple blocks away, get a perfect mocha, sit at bar or on the patio, and read until my brother shows up to sit next to me and talk about what movie we're going to watch later at my place. And I want to go get Lao food and go to a movie and go see my favorite paintings at the Hirshhorn and American Art museum. I want to hug my friends and family.
I didn’t know how much I miss until I started to cry thinking of my list. I want to take my kids to their favorite playground, I want to drop my son off at preschool and pick him up and wait for him to tell me if he got to play with the pink car first at recess, I want to take my daughter to dance class, I want to drop my kids off with their grandparents and have a date with my husband at our favorite board game store, I want to go to the spa by myself and finally I want to get acupuncture and see my therapists in person again. And I want to start planning vacations again.
I will hug my parents fiercely and cry. And hug them some more.
I've lived a good thousand miles away from them my whole adult life until almost two years ago when they moved here. I've gone long spells without hugging them before. But I've gotten used to it in the past two years and I miss it so much. Living half a mile away and being terrified to touch them is so much different than a thousand miles away and not being able to.
I want to hug my immunosuppressed mother. I want to sit on the porch out back of my favorite dive bar and drink a beer in the sun and watch the trains go by. I want to reschedule my indefinitely postponed wedding.
Oddly I miss public transportation - it's my "rev up" and "wind down" time. I live in Arlington just over the river from Washington, DC and I metro/bus/walk everywhere since I got rid of my car in 2012 so I even have favorite metro cars. I spend so much time in the DC area museums and I desperately miss them and I just want to hop on the metro and head down to the mall. I had a members preview time slot to see the new Kusama exhibit at the Hirshhorn on Friday which of course had long since been cancelled so I want to do that. I want to see the Degas exhibit at National Gallery. It's too late for the cherry blossoms but there are still the dogwoods, wisteria, azaleas, peonies, and roses to come that I want to see on a sunny afternoon after a nice picnic. I want to meet my friend for happy hour and spend hours chatting and finally do the Girl Scout cookie handoff of the boxes I bought from her daughter.
I want to wake up, walk along the 606 in Chicago to meet my girlfriends for coffee and a bagel at Ipsento where it’s ALWAYS crowded on the weekend. I want to sit on the rocks outside and catch up with them in person for hours before waking to Wicker Park and shopping for something I do not need. I want to go to the farmer’s market and see all of the neighborhood dogs. I want to hang out with my family. I want to split a bottle of wine with my sisters, give my niece a piggy back ride. I want to go back to trying to get pregnant or ordering things online or going to target without feeling like I need a one on one consult with Chidi on the morality of it all.
Small - drink a cup of coffee and/or eat a meal prepared by someone who doesn't live in my house.
Big - see/hug the kiddos I nanny. They drive me absolutely up a wall 85% of the time, I did not know I could miss them this much.
Impossible - fly to Chicago and defend my master's thesis in person. (It is scheduled for April 22, so this will not happen. I will do it by skype and get to tell people for years that I got a master's degree in my pajamas. But it will be so weird and anticlimactic.)
I want to give my mum a hug. I ant to give all my family a big hug. I want to dive into the sea and feel the salt on my skin and just float. I want to have champagne with my best friend and to just be in his presence.
Hug my across the country family really, really tight. Let my sweet neighbor kids crawl all over me and hold their hands when we go on little explores around the neighborhoods. Throw a party at my house with sparklers and fizzy drinks. To hug and be hugged by all my nearby friends. Going on explores.
Swimming. In community pools. In the ocean. In rivers. In lakes.
I have no family where I live and I think the first thing I want to do is go visit my parents. I do not visit often. but a situation like this has made being alone in a city really difficult. On a less bummer note, eat the donuts from the local shop I love that are, naturally, closed.
I want to go to the gym. I'm balls at exercising on my own (and don't own weights, besides) and I didn't exercise at all while pregnant, and I just want to go and ride a stationary bike for two hours and then pretend to crush people's heads on the thigh machines.
I want my husband's dad to meet our baby girl. My parents were here for her birth, and my FIL was gonna drive up a few weeks after but... well. I'm glad we can at least text him pictures.
I want to hug my parents for an hour. I want to hug everyone in my tiny church & listen to the children making noise during the prayer of confession. I want to run into the grocery store for chips and root beer just because. I want to see a movie with friends and then by myself in a theatre full of strangers. I want to meet up with my best friend and hug her in front of a Disney castle. I want to high five a barista after we start talking about some nerdy interest we have in common.
I want to go to a group fitness class again so badly. I want to hold a face to face work meeting where I don't have to worry about if my wife is being overwhelmed by our two drunken monkey children. I want to eat at the bar shoulder to shoulder with strangers and watch "the game."
I want to find a replacement trip for my wife's 40 birthday trip that did officially get cancelled this week.
I want to give my friend the gift of a bit of quiet and take her kiddo to the museum.
I want to go to the adoption ceremony without worrying whether it should really be happening. (Last I heard it's still on. For April 7. Which is also kid's birthday and I SO want it for them. But also, WHY????)
I want to go camping and talk to people we run into on the trail.
I want to have friends come over and hang out in the kitchen while we cook together. (They can chop the veggies and help me rather than just watch on the screen.)
I want to stop using condoms.
I want to face-to-face introductions with the neighbors who responded to my "just in case you need help" notes.
I want to figure out how my next career can segue into climate crisis and help prevent us from future horror shows.
Go to my friend's baby shower. Meet her baby. Just meet a lot of babies, honestly, I have multiple pregnant friends atm. Go to the beach with my family. Have "waffle day" in the office with my labmates. Visit my friends in Florida and go to all our old favorite spots from when I lived there. Have the Women in Marine Science Symposium that my teammates and I were planning that was supposed to happen yesterday. HUG PEOPLE.
I too am starting a list, and at the top of it is: Get properly fitted for my bra size and buy the sexiest underwear set I can possibly find. I plan to try the Natori Feathers bra after hearing Jia Tolentino rave about it on Gee Thanks Just Bought It, but I also want some far sluttier options. Who has sexy underwear recommendations?
I want to hold my children’s teachers’ hands and thank them for their ingenuity and care during this time. I want to fly to Florida and sit next to my mom and do a jigsaw puzzle and drive to Dunkin Donuts with my dad to get a coffee and laugh at his corny jokes
I too want to take a plane to New York and see "Company!" I'm turning 30 on May 24 and had a birthday trip planned that included that and being in Colbert's audience (a dream for years). I want to see baseball games, which we were supposed to do in NY and also in Texas where my beloved bad team just built a new stadium. I want to get my roots dyed and go back to the slightly less natural but more red red I've been missing and not saying anything about. I'm going to be an aunt for the first time in October and I'm not ready to let my heart believe this could affect that but either way I want to see my baby brother being a parent, which is definitely not for me but he's going to be amazing, it fills my heart up to think about it.
I want to go to my home group and hold hands at the end of a meeting and say a prayer with everyone and remind myself and others “Keep coming back, it works if you work it.”
I want to take my kid to the playground to play with her friends. I want to take my newborn to visit my parents. I want to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday. I want to get a pedicure. I want to hire a babysitter and go out to eat oysters and drink one too many glasses of wine. I want to return the giant stack of overdue library books that’s sitting on our coffee table.
I want to visit my sisters and know that they are safe. I want to purchase and eat fruit wildly. I want to bake without fear of mistakes and wasted ingredients. I want to drink with friends at a crowded house party and sing karaoke.
For a long time, on the first really warm day in spring, I have schlepped to Thomas Sweet’s for ice cream while listening to “Birdhouse In Your Soul.” It’s a habit I started in college (the music was accidental the first time) and it makes me feel connected to my young and hopeful self. I couldn’t do it on the first warm day this year, but I will do it as soon as we’re free.
I also really want to see a show and go to a baseball game and get a goofy bobblehead.
I want to hug my parents. I want to hang out with my friends. I want to sing with my choir again. I want to attend all the concerts that were canceled. I want to randomly go shopping.
Our nanny and her husband moved out today and we SOBBED from six feet away, we have been together for like 7 years, 3 of them living together.
I will never ever ever take seeing babies and old people for granted again as long as I live.
I just found out I’m pregnant (due in November!), and I want to give birth in a hospital that feels safe, where I know my husband will be able to be in the delivery room with me. I want to get a huge bowl of ramen from my favorite place. I want to find a new blush at Sephora.
I work on Broadway. I miss it. I keep thinking about what it will be like the first performance back and I get chills. I can’t wait.
I want to go to a baseball game and sit next to a stranger and talk to them about baseball, not coronavirus.
I am going to drive the nine hours to where the person I love is currently living and I am going to kiss him. We have been in love for ages and have admitted as much to each other and have been dancing around it like fools and all I want to do is go find him and kiss him.
I want to be part of the collective groan when a mariachi band enters my packed subway car.
I want to dump my two terrible (perfect, but terrible) children at daycare and skip back to my car.
I got engaged a week ago and I want to go to celebratory happy hour and drink something sparkly with my friends and show them my ring and get a manicure just so I have a reason to show off the ring some more.
I want to delete Zoom from my laptop.
Today is my birthday, so have the spa day I had to cancel. Hug my mom. Sit in a cafe with a drink and a friend. Have friends over. Go to the mall.
I want to rub makeup swatches on my hand in a crowded Sephora.
I just really wanna go to church and see all my church ladies who BETTER still all be there. I miss them.
I want my parents to come snuggle my new baby.
1) A movie at Alamo Drafthouse
2) An aimless wander down a Target aisle
I wanna fuck this dude that I’ve been talking to 🤷🏾♀️ Shout out to everyone’s beautiful answers but this is my biggest problem right now lmfao
I want to go to the coffee shop a couple blocks away, get a perfect mocha, sit at bar or on the patio, and read until my brother shows up to sit next to me and talk about what movie we're going to watch later at my place. And I want to go get Lao food and go to a movie and go see my favorite paintings at the Hirshhorn and American Art museum. I want to hug my friends and family.
I didn’t know how much I miss until I started to cry thinking of my list. I want to take my kids to their favorite playground, I want to drop my son off at preschool and pick him up and wait for him to tell me if he got to play with the pink car first at recess, I want to take my daughter to dance class, I want to drop my kids off with their grandparents and have a date with my husband at our favorite board game store, I want to go to the spa by myself and finally I want to get acupuncture and see my therapists in person again. And I want to start planning vacations again.
Today’s my birthday and I was supposed to see Hamilton tonight. I just want to hug my dad again when all this is over.
I want to watch my kids climb all over my parents.
I want to leave said kids with said parents and go out to eat Mexican with my husband.
I want to driving a huge margarita
I want to kick my brother’s ass for not taking this seriously
I want to take a beach trip with my best friend that just lost her mom.
I have an extra Thanksgiving Turkey from Popeyes (I buy two). And I think I'm going to throw summer thanksgiving and invite all the people.
I will hug my parents fiercely and cry. And hug them some more.
I've lived a good thousand miles away from them my whole adult life until almost two years ago when they moved here. I've gone long spells without hugging them before. But I've gotten used to it in the past two years and I miss it so much. Living half a mile away and being terrified to touch them is so much different than a thousand miles away and not being able to.
I’m going to buy like 10 fountain sodas and drink them all at the same time and then I’m going to go try on every pair of shoes at Nordstrom Rack
I just want a goddamn Starbucks.
A pint, an actual pint that someone poured for me, in a pub. And seeing my boyfriend cuddle our cat again.
I want to hug my immunosuppressed mother. I want to sit on the porch out back of my favorite dive bar and drink a beer in the sun and watch the trains go by. I want to reschedule my indefinitely postponed wedding.
Oddly I miss public transportation - it's my "rev up" and "wind down" time. I live in Arlington just over the river from Washington, DC and I metro/bus/walk everywhere since I got rid of my car in 2012 so I even have favorite metro cars. I spend so much time in the DC area museums and I desperately miss them and I just want to hop on the metro and head down to the mall. I had a members preview time slot to see the new Kusama exhibit at the Hirshhorn on Friday which of course had long since been cancelled so I want to do that. I want to see the Degas exhibit at National Gallery. It's too late for the cherry blossoms but there are still the dogwoods, wisteria, azaleas, peonies, and roses to come that I want to see on a sunny afternoon after a nice picnic. I want to meet my friend for happy hour and spend hours chatting and finally do the Girl Scout cookie handoff of the boxes I bought from her daughter.
I want to wake up, walk along the 606 in Chicago to meet my girlfriends for coffee and a bagel at Ipsento where it’s ALWAYS crowded on the weekend. I want to sit on the rocks outside and catch up with them in person for hours before waking to Wicker Park and shopping for something I do not need. I want to go to the farmer’s market and see all of the neighborhood dogs. I want to hang out with my family. I want to split a bottle of wine with my sisters, give my niece a piggy back ride. I want to go back to trying to get pregnant or ordering things online or going to target without feeling like I need a one on one consult with Chidi on the morality of it all.
Small - drink a cup of coffee and/or eat a meal prepared by someone who doesn't live in my house.
Big - see/hug the kiddos I nanny. They drive me absolutely up a wall 85% of the time, I did not know I could miss them this much.
Impossible - fly to Chicago and defend my master's thesis in person. (It is scheduled for April 22, so this will not happen. I will do it by skype and get to tell people for years that I got a master's degree in my pajamas. But it will be so weird and anticlimactic.)
I want to give my mum a hug. I ant to give all my family a big hug. I want to dive into the sea and feel the salt on my skin and just float. I want to have champagne with my best friend and to just be in his presence.
I want to eat a cheese plate and glass of wine at the bar of a busy bistro.
Coffee and eggs at an old-school diner where the waitress calls me "hon."
See an event movie like In the Heights with a sold-out crowd cheering and clapping.
Take my twin baby girls to visit their grandma and give her a big hug. Hoping we get to do these things soon and we never take them for granted again.
Hug my across the country family really, really tight. Let my sweet neighbor kids crawl all over me and hold their hands when we go on little explores around the neighborhoods. Throw a party at my house with sparklers and fizzy drinks. To hug and be hugged by all my nearby friends. Going on explores.
Swimming. In community pools. In the ocean. In rivers. In lakes.
I want to tell her I love her in person
I have no family where I live and I think the first thing I want to do is go visit my parents. I do not visit often. but a situation like this has made being alone in a city really difficult. On a less bummer note, eat the donuts from the local shop I love that are, naturally, closed.
I want to go to the gym. I'm balls at exercising on my own (and don't own weights, besides) and I didn't exercise at all while pregnant, and I just want to go and ride a stationary bike for two hours and then pretend to crush people's heads on the thigh machines.
I want my husband's dad to meet our baby girl. My parents were here for her birth, and my FIL was gonna drive up a few weeks after but... well. I'm glad we can at least text him pictures.
I want a full spa day: haircut (!!!), wax, massage, facial extractions, mani pedi, etc etc. I want clean, strong hands all over my body. (Hmmm)
I want to hug my parents for an hour. I want to hug everyone in my tiny church & listen to the children making noise during the prayer of confession. I want to run into the grocery store for chips and root beer just because. I want to see a movie with friends and then by myself in a theatre full of strangers. I want to meet up with my best friend and hug her in front of a Disney castle. I want to high five a barista after we start talking about some nerdy interest we have in common.
I want to go to a group fitness class again so badly. I want to hold a face to face work meeting where I don't have to worry about if my wife is being overwhelmed by our two drunken monkey children. I want to eat at the bar shoulder to shoulder with strangers and watch "the game."
I want to find a replacement trip for my wife's 40 birthday trip that did officially get cancelled this week.
(We did order a Peloton last night!)
I just want to go to the bookstore again and wander around my particular sections then go sit in the cafe and play on my phone for a bit.
I want to give my friend the gift of a bit of quiet and take her kiddo to the museum.
I want to go to the adoption ceremony without worrying whether it should really be happening. (Last I heard it's still on. For April 7. Which is also kid's birthday and I SO want it for them. But also, WHY????)
I want to go camping and talk to people we run into on the trail.
I want to have friends come over and hang out in the kitchen while we cook together. (They can chop the veggies and help me rather than just watch on the screen.)
I want to stop using condoms.
I want to face-to-face introductions with the neighbors who responded to my "just in case you need help" notes.
I want to figure out how my next career can segue into climate crisis and help prevent us from future horror shows.
Go to my friend's baby shower. Meet her baby. Just meet a lot of babies, honestly, I have multiple pregnant friends atm. Go to the beach with my family. Have "waffle day" in the office with my labmates. Visit my friends in Florida and go to all our old favorite spots from when I lived there. Have the Women in Marine Science Symposium that my teammates and I were planning that was supposed to happen yesterday. HUG PEOPLE.
I too am starting a list, and at the top of it is: Get properly fitted for my bra size and buy the sexiest underwear set I can possibly find. I plan to try the Natori Feathers bra after hearing Jia Tolentino rave about it on Gee Thanks Just Bought It, but I also want some far sluttier options. Who has sexy underwear recommendations?
I want to hold my children’s teachers’ hands and thank them for their ingenuity and care during this time. I want to fly to Florida and sit next to my mom and do a jigsaw puzzle and drive to Dunkin Donuts with my dad to get a coffee and laugh at his corny jokes
I too want to take a plane to New York and see "Company!" I'm turning 30 on May 24 and had a birthday trip planned that included that and being in Colbert's audience (a dream for years). I want to see baseball games, which we were supposed to do in NY and also in Texas where my beloved bad team just built a new stadium. I want to get my roots dyed and go back to the slightly less natural but more red red I've been missing and not saying anything about. I'm going to be an aunt for the first time in October and I'm not ready to let my heart believe this could affect that but either way I want to see my baby brother being a parent, which is definitely not for me but he's going to be amazing, it fills my heart up to think about it.
I want to go to my home group and hold hands at the end of a meeting and say a prayer with everyone and remind myself and others “Keep coming back, it works if you work it.”
I want to take my kid to the playground to play with her friends. I want to take my newborn to visit my parents. I want to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday. I want to get a pedicure. I want to hire a babysitter and go out to eat oysters and drink one too many glasses of wine. I want to return the giant stack of overdue library books that’s sitting on our coffee table.
I want to visit my sisters and know that they are safe. I want to purchase and eat fruit wildly. I want to bake without fear of mistakes and wasted ingredients. I want to drink with friends at a crowded house party and sing karaoke.
For a long time, on the first really warm day in spring, I have schlepped to Thomas Sweet’s for ice cream while listening to “Birdhouse In Your Soul.” It’s a habit I started in college (the music was accidental the first time) and it makes me feel connected to my young and hopeful self. I couldn’t do it on the first warm day this year, but I will do it as soon as we’re free.
I also really want to see a show and go to a baseball game and get a goofy bobblehead.
I want to hug my parents. I want to hang out with my friends. I want to sing with my choir again. I want to attend all the concerts that were canceled. I want to randomly go shopping.
I want to fly to NYC and hug my 27 year old daughter. And wear beautiful dresses. And see a Broadway show.