#Microblog Monday 376: Seeing the Future
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There’s a line in Shari Lapena’s book, Not a Happy Family, where a character comments, “What a good thing that we can’t see the future” (p. 111). She is remembering happier times from years earlier, and her comment is more about how those older days would have been tainted to know what was coming in the future.
But I can’t help to think of things I would have done if I had known the pandemic was going to stretch into a third year. I would have pulled the kids out of school to travel more. Maybe that’s it. We traveled a lot, but I would have traveled more if I knew I wasn’t going to travel at all for years.
Do you wish you had known about the pandemic years earlier? Would you have done anything differently?
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9 comments
I would have traveled more, even little trips, sooner. No waiting, just go. I would have taken my kids to more of the museums on our list of places we want to visit. More restaurants. I know we can do that to some degree now but it doesn’t feel the same. Or safe. So we don’t. Even just the movies. I would have done more of these little everyday outings.
I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. I assume I will be able to do all the things in the future and if I’m disappointed…so be it. I will still travel to visit family. I will still see movies and listen to concerts. It might look different, but so do I.
Hmm. Interesting question. I don’t think I would’ve done anything differently, had I known what was coming, though.
I’m not sure. I do find myself wishing we’d travelled more, beyond our regular trips to see family. This is when I thought we would be doing that, now that we’re both retired and settled into our condo for a few years now, and have some time and extra money — but I feel like the chance to do that, while we’re both still relatively young and healthy, is slipping away. 🙁 (On the other hand, I am glad we weren’t travelling and stuck somewhere in a strange city/country when covid first came along and so many flights were grounded…!)
Hmmm, that is an interesting question. I would’ve traveled more for sure. I also would’ve followed my intuition to get one of my kids checked out for ASD. If we knew then what we know now, and he had been receiving the proper supports… my speculation is that it would have been somewhat less stressful than finding out a year into the pandemic what his behaviors meant.
I … don’t think so? We took a big (international, expensive) trip in 2019, which means that for us, 2020 was going to be a low-travel year. Which it was! In my DH’s preferred world, we go to a restaurant maybe twice a week, whereas in my preferred world we go to a restaurant maybe once a month? Maybe not that often. We have eaten indoors in a restaurant precisely once since the pandemic started, but we also have a good pizza place (no, really) near us that does good outdoor dining and probably ate there a dozen times in 2021. So …
I have very much missed seeing extended family, so might have done a bit more of that, but the thing is, it’s one of those things that I enjoy always, so having done more wouldn’t mean I’d want it less now, I don’t think. I am very grateful I got to have a nice visit with a geographically remote and (already) ailing elderly family member on the 2019 trip, before that person was one of the earlier victims of this awful pandemic.
I couldn’t have done much differently, as my last years pre-pandemic were spent caring for elderly relatives. I do wish though that perhaps I had developed other interests/groups for things to do in my retirement, as “travelling” which was my main early-retirement wish has indeed been off the table for two years, and who knows when it’ll be an option? I’m not as confident as UK friends who have been to South Africa twice during the pandemic. Sigh.
I’m not sure I would do anything differently. I already stockpile books and puzzles, and we get our toilet paper through the mail from Who Gives A Crap. Travel was tricky because of Bryce’s PhD. I want to know when it will be somewhat normal again.
I love these videos about visiting yourself at various points along the pandemic, watched them all again (plus new) tonight. Funny and also kind of a stark reminder of where we are, but also funny.
Travel figures so prominently in your post and the responses! I too would have traveled more–especially to see family in India, whom I haven’t seen in three years now. And I’m always grateful that I took a solo trip to Greece after a lifetime of waiting… in 2019. If I had waited one more year…