Little Things I’m Never Going To Take For Granted Anymore

When all this is done and dusted and we emerge into the blinking light of the post COVID-19 vaccinated world, when the dead are mourned and the living are gathering themselves around to rally back from all they have lost, when the world has been brought to its knees by an organism invisible to the naked eye, and all humankind’s hubris has been nothing in the face of the wrath it has unleashed, I’m going to enjoy the little things. The little things I took so for granted barely a year ago, that I didn’t even think them important, things that were part and parcel of my every day, things that I shirked because I thought, in my misplaced belief that there would be another day, the next month, the next year. That there was world enough and time. And, that things would continue as they were.

But now, we are on hold, life is on hold. It is an interminable wait, our heart in our throat, constricting it with fears of the What Ifs. The fear of a loved one being struck down by the unspeakable. The fear of being struck down oneself, of not knowing what the next calendar year will bring and how changed we will all be at the end of it all.

Also Read: 18 Things That Will Lift You Up In A Coronavirus World

Now that we have reconciled ourselves to being in relative isolation for as long as it takes for order to restore itself in the world, for the pandemic to slowly die down, for lives to stop being cut abruptly, for people to slowly emerge into the hustle of the everyday, here’s what I miss the most and what I will never, ever take for granted anymore.

Going down for a walk. Or a run. Or to pick up groceries. Just stepping down and stepping out.

1> Going down for a walk. Or a run. Or to pick up groceries. Just stepping down and stepping out.

2> Meeting a friend for coffee or drinks.

3> Hugging people when I meet them. This has been the hardest thing to let go.

4> Going to a restaurant for a meal with the family.

5> Dropping in at a friend’s home just to catch up.

6> Mall trawling. Sale shopping.

7> Getting home delivery right till one’s doorstep.

Even infernal meetings with no productive outcome just too much coffee to create bladder control issues. I miss them. I never thought I would, given how I hated them. But I do.

8> Walking through a jostling, crowded market place, bargaining to my heart’s content.

9> Not needing to wash one’s hands constantly. Sanitising one’s hands only when one was out and about, before eating something or holding a baby.

Also Read: Lessons We Need To Learn For The Post Corona World

10> Travelling in a crowded elevator without thinking twice about it. Even if someone sneezed.

11> Taking a vacation.

12> Or just, taking a flight anywhere.

13> Book readings. Lit fests. Being with other writers and authors and talking books and writing.

14> Picking up flowers for the home from a flower stall.

15> Even infernal meetings with no productive outcome just too much coffee to create bladder control issues. I miss them. I never thought I would, given how I hated them. But I do.

Also Read: When Social Distancing Becomes Mainstream: An Introvert Weighs In

16> Going to the theatre to watch a movie.

I miss them all. When all this is done, I’m going to stop mourning the things I couldn’t do, and actually get out and do them to my heart’s content. What’s on your list?

Kiran Manral is the Ideas Editor at SheThePeople.TV. The views expressed are the author’s own.