A Post-Corona Bucket List

I first went on a plane when I was less than six months old.

I think the altitude must have affected me somehow. I thinkit must have somehow snuck the wanderlust gene into my blood. My tiny littlebaby body must have somehow learnt from a young age the freedom of a flight.

I long for the day when we can sit on a plane and explorethe world once more.

Although travel seems like a long way off, there are so manyother things we can look forward to.

The rules might seem confusing and plans might seem impossible to make but there is something hopeful about a bucket list. Something tangible and something that puts us in control. Something that makes us love Tuesdays once more.

When we plan, we can allow ourselves to become excited, we can have things to look forward to. It can also help us become even more grateful when the thing we planned comes true. Writing it down also helps us document our life.

How to write your post-Corona Bucket List

Have you thought about some of the things you’d like to do?

Of course you have! But have you thought about writingthem down in a post-Corona bucket list? Here’s how:

Grab a large blank piece of paper and start by brainstormingall of the things you’d love to do, the people you’d like to see and the placesyou would love to go.

Next, start to group them into categories.

Initial adventures. These things will feel incredible. They might be the smaller things, like popping out for a walk in a National Park or nipping to your favourite café.  Start working through your list with these smaller things first. The things that are most likely to happen sooner.

Then put together the bigger trips, days out, UK adventures.

And then the huge mega exciting things, the bits we took forgranted before, like our cheap(ish) Ryanair flights and last-minute holidays,festivals and concerts. Carnivals and parties.

If you can, start to detail why you are lookingforward to these things. When we can start to really understand why we wantsomething, why we long for it. We can start to align it with our values and understandmore about who we are and what we want. And then we will appreciate it evenmore when it happens.

If you are struggling, try using these prompts:

• The people I want to see first are
• The local restaurant/ café I want to go to
• The park/ outdoor space I’m longing to visit is
• My dream post-Corona weekend would look likethis
• The first place I’d like to travel to in the UKwould be
• The first overseas trip I would love to takewould be to
• Other holidays I’m planning

This isn’t meant to be a sad or negative task, although wecan’t do these things now, we can look forward to them, because one day theywill happen. One day we will be able to do the things we’re dreamingabout now, and if we can write them down and reflect on them, we will be evenmore grateful when they come true. 

My List

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I mean I’ve hadthe time.

There are so many things I want to do.  The things I’d been planning for a long whilebefore all of this happened. The new things I want to do and the order I’d dothem. But one of the things I’ve learnt from this time is how grateful I am forwhat I’ve already got.

I’ve always dreamed of just being content, and not demandinga life lived at one hundred miles an hour. This experience has taught me I canbe so much more than content with what I’ve already got.

The things I want most, the only thing really, is to see my family again. To sit in the garden and laugh, have a BBQ, drink champagne and watch the sun drop as the heat of the day turns to the cool of a summer evening. Sitting and talking and then not really saying much at all, but being together and knowing that’s all that matters. That’s all that’s ever mattered. And this is where my heart breaks for the people who have had that ripped away from them. I’m so sorry they won’t get to be with some of their family, one last time.

I’m looking forward to hugging people! I’m a hugger and as a nation we are starved of touch. I can’t wait for the day when we reach out for friends and hug to say hello. Hugging like we mean it, hugging until all of the oxytocin and happiness is released. That will be a great day.

Also, on my list is a day trip to the beach. I want to feelsmall again. I want to look out into the immensity of the sea and know how bigthe world is. How small I am in comparison and I want to know how there is stilloceans and miles and countries that exist beyond the four walls of my house andmy four-mile walk.

I want to dip my toes into the sea and feel the cold-waterdance across my feet as the breeze hits my cheeks. I want to listen to the roarof the waves as they crash on the sand. I want the sea to hold onto some of my sadnessand I want to laugh at its unchanging state. As the world has changed the tidehas just kept rolling.

Picnics and house parties are high on my list too. I’m readyfor endless prosecco and drinks till midnight. Not sipped through a screen, clinkingglasses via zoom. I want popping corks and sizzling BBQ’s. I want laugher andspilt drinks and drunken dancing until the night turns to light again.

I want day trips. Trips to new towns in the UK. Trips to old fashioned book shops and high streets and I want to wander down new streets and sit in cafes on pavements.

Pubs. My usual spot in my favourite café. Parks. SUP’s.

Eventually, I want tapas in Spain too. I want blisters from walking all day in the late autumn heat. I want “dos cervezas por favor” and staying for just one beer.

And then, I want to stop wanting. And remember to bethankful and grateful and happy and content. And enjoy all of the wonderfulthings I’ve already got.

What about you friend? What’s on your list? I’d love to read it.

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