Let's plan our next adventure
“Vamos pra avenida/Desfilar a vida, carnavalizar.” - Tribalistas (Image by Monica Volpin)
As the oldest of four children, there were two rare luxuries that I did not take for granted growing up: dining out and flying in planes.
Consequently, as an adult, I still tend to relish an opportunity for either of these experiences, even though they are often more quotidian than magical. But now that both restaurant meals and air travel have been eliminated from my life during the pandemic, I find myself dreaming of them just as I did as a child.
There are a few ways to approach that kind of loss. We can simply shift our focus to the things we do have, like home cooked meals and board games and nice socially-distanced walks. We can proceed through the so-called stages of grief: denial, anger, acceptance, and so on.
Or we could do what I did as an adolescent and young adult, longing to experience the world beyond my tiny town. We can daydream about all of the possibilities, hoping and believing that those dreams will become reality someday.
For much of the pandemic, daydreaming that way was too painful for me. “Someday” felt too much like “never,” just like when I was broke and lonely and teaching public school in my early twenties. But I eventually proved to myself that travel was possible for me, and I believe that it can be again. Hope is on the horizon, and maybe, just maybe, we can all work together to eradicate or at least control this pestilence that has taken such a toll on our lives and livelihoods.
Before the coronavirus, we had almost complete freedom to go wherever we want, whenever we want. It took me years to recognize that I had that freedom, and now it has disappeared once more. But I know now how to execute all the hours of planning that go into a successful trip: How to do preliminary research, how to save up the money, how to find bargains, how to plan the itinerary, and so on. I might as well do that now while I can’t actually do the traveling part. I can even study a foreign language so that I’m ready when the opportunity finally presents itself to go to a place where that language is spoken.
Daydreaming can be demoralizing when you believe that you can never have what you want. But our fantasy life can also lay the foundation for our real life. We can imagine things and then make them happen. Just like I can think about what I want for breakfast and make it a reality, I can visualize the next trip I want to take and eventually experience it.
True, that “eventually” is a bit more vague than I might like. But I’m ready to play in that space anyway. After losing so much this year, I’m impervious to a bit of uncertainty, and my expectations are so low that I can’t possibly be disappointed. I’m ready to do this.
I used to browse Google Flights every day even when I had no money and no time off. I could never have imagined that someday, the problem would be, effectively, no flights. But that doesn’t have to slow down my efforts any more than the lack of means once did. I know now that “someday” does eventually arrive. And it will again.
For me, it’s travel…for others, it may be dancing, theater, concerts, sports, singing, or any number of other things. What adventures are you dreaming of for your post-Covid future? What can you do now to lay the groundwork to be ready when time finally comes?
