I will give amazing hugs. Not just little half-arsed air kisses, no, proper my-heart-to-your-heart squeezes where I feel the pulse of you. I’m going to be diving right in and staying there until I know you’re real, or until it gets embarrassing, whichever comes first.
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I will get fully dressed again, as opposed to only preparing for the day from the waist up, ‘cause… video calls. I might even bother with a bra again, but, we’ll see.
I will say ‘yes’ to taking that trip, ‘yes’ to that crazy thing, just to feel it, to feel you. All those things my social anxiety usually prevents me from doing, I’m in.
I will say ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’ 100 times more often.
I will appreciate the little things more; the tinkling sound of people laughing, the way the people I love smell good, walks in the park, bread in the shops, the First Day of Spring, seeing my kids on Mother’s Day, toilet roll, the moments of magic we conjure from everyday things.
I will remember the singing in Roman streets and the swans in Venice, the rounds of applause for health workers and the way you can really hear birdsong again. I will remember that my husband has now heard my ‘work’ voice, and be grateful that he still chooses to stay.
I will tell stories about the time an invisible enemy brought out both the most beautiful and the ugliest aspects of human beings. I will remember the brands and business that stood on the right side of history and make my consumer choices accordingly.
I will tell my grandchildren that, once upon a time, it was really weird because the most important people in the world were some of the most undervalued and underpaid. And that it took an enemy in the shape of a demented curled-up hedgehog to reset the course of Spaceship Earth.
I will go to a music festival and sit with the sun on my face, my arms around friends I have not seen for months, and I will cry with them, and laugh with them, and get muddy and tired and then we’ll dance like a bunch of rag dolls until all the fear and anxiety is wrung out forever.
And, now that I now exactly what I’ll look like when I’m 80, I’ll definitely take more care of my skin.
What will you do?
