How strange a time in which we all now live. Life was pretty normal a few weeks ago. I was out having brunch, exploring New York, going to work, living my life as I had come to know it.
But then came this huge curveball that none of us expected going into 2020. We have adapted and changed and for the vast majority of us, our lives are extremely different and have been severely impacted.
Situations such as this do show us that we are an adaptable group. A lot of us are able to work from home, work remotely or have to think of new ways to bring in money to keep afloat.
One thing this pandemic has shown me is that we can’t plan the future. We can do it to the best of our ability, but it will never be certain that the plans you make, go ahead.
Stop planning, start living
I was due to go to Vermont this weekend to celebrate my birthday in a secluded AirBnB in the snowy mountains. Given the last few weeks, it was the one thing I was looking forward to. But as of this morning, our AirBnB has cancelled our stay, which is probably the best decision.
It looks like I’ll be spending my birthday like every other day I’ve spent for the past three weeks, locked up, working and going from bed to living room, back to bed.
I had other things planned for the next few months – concerts, shows, more travel. None of that is going ahead anymore and since we don’t know when things will start changing, there’s not much to look forward to anymore.
I am a huge person for planning. I always like to have things in my calendar to look forward to, even if it’s just going to the cinema, going out for a meal, anything. I just always love to have plans.
Even from blog posts I’ve written. I’ve documented the places I hope to live in the future, what I hope to achieve in the next five years, things I’m looking forward to and just generally always planning ahead. But we can’t do that anymore. We never know what’s going to come and spoil those plans.
Stop holding back
Something else that I’ve realized from going through this isolation period is to live your life on your terms and just do things.
I’ve been saying that I want a tattoo for the past three or four years and I know what it is that I want to have tattooed – that hasn’t changed in the last four years. So why don’t I get it? Because I’m scared to have something added to my body permanently.
But you know what? Who knows what is permanent or how long permanent is going to be? I’m going to get that tattoo and it’s going to be a reminder of the time I lived in New York during a worldwide pandemic and came out the other side of it. (Sorry mum, sorry dad).
Another thing I’ve wanted to do is change my hair. I want to make it lighter again. Not the platinum blonde I once was, but some added highlights or just a warmer colour. I might even try an orange tone through it. Because guess what? Who actually cares?
I haven’t changed my hair from brown in a while because people said I suited it better than blonde. But I’m not dying my hair for other people, I’m doing it for myself. If I want to change my hair colour, I’m going to do just that.
I know that in years to come, I’ll look back on my life and think, I should have tried that, I should have been more reckless, I should have got that tattoo, dyed my hair, made mistakes and tried new things in my 20s when I could. I don’t want to regret anything so I’m going to live.
The Bucket List
I made a Bucket List when I was 13 years old. Mostly stupid things from Tumblr and We Heart It, but it’s an eleven-page document and I’ve ticked off a very small number of things.
Growing up, I would often look back at all of the items and think, I’ll tick those things off in the future. It’s coming up to ten years since I wrote that list and I’m still waiting to tick things off and thinking them into the future.
The future is here and the future is now. I’m going to remake my life-long Bucket List and start ticking things off. Who knows how much time we have left on this earth? As cheesy as it sounds, we have to start living each day as if we’re not guaranteed another one, because we really aren’t.
These are the types of things I’ve been talking about in my daily emails, including any advice that I can give to get us through this strange time in our lives. If you would like to sign up and receive a daily email to your inbox everyday from me, click here.
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