What do you miss the most?

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:37 pm

I keep hearing a steady drumbeat about relative normalcy by summer - maybe August? Maybe by then the combination of the virus starting to lack hosts, and other measures ramping up, will be enough. It's enough to make me wonder, what will I be happiest to have back in life when that occurs? Obviously the number one is seeing close family and friends, and being able to hug my parents and have my kids spend time with them. The desire to do this again after such a long difficulty is so great that it will probably divert us from many other things that could be happening in the post-covid time. Like, I want to have people over, but I'll be too busy hanging out with my parents and the kids.

I miss my kids being able to go to school - I love having them here and being around them more, but they need their friends and they need their activities. And I enjoy going and visiting and seeing those things.

I like the convenience of ordering supplies, and probably won't give it up when it comes to dry goods and heavy, boring things. But I miss shopping for fresh food. I long to examine the various fruits and vegetables, and look over the meat tray to see what looks appealing today. I want to be able to pick up a rotisserie chicken on my way home from work.

The people in my household desperately miss eating in restaurants. I don't miss this very much, but certain restaurants simply do not lend themselves to take out and those will be nice to visit.

I don't really miss seeing movies in a theater, but that's more or less because I'm old and there aren't too many movies I care about seeing in the theater anymore. It's not really a covid thing.

I miss going to the gym because I seem to have some psychological flaw that requires me to be guilted/goaded into working out daily by other people. I still think I could do it myself at home - last summer I was working out a lot, but things are just so difficult right now, I feel lucky to get through the day and have anything done that I need to get done.

I am very much not a salon type of person, but it has been well over a year since I had anything done to my hair, and it shows! Almost but not quite desperate enough to have someone in this household trim my hair. I don't think it's a very risky activity so as soon as my parents are vaccinated, I'm thinking about getting a haircut. It has never been this long in my entire life and it's awful. I am very tempted to just take the scissors to it at about chin length, but I know that can only end in tears and misery. It's so long now that I have to put it in a bun in order to function - even the ponytail is so long that it gets caught in things and creates problems. The other thing is that the more hair there is, the more independently intelligent and functioning it grows. It doesn't communicate with me so I'm not even sure what it wants, but it clearly doesn't want what I want, and I'm not sure how to persuade it. I only want nice things for you, hair. I just want you to be beautiful and shine. I don't want to hold you back. Why are you trying to develop independent powers anyway? For what purpose?

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:25 pm

I miss fitting into my normal jeans properly. I used to think that leggings were not pants because, obviously, they're not pants. I wondered why we would show the world the outline of our butt if we did not have to. I did not like the sensation of tightness in pants, or tights, or pantyhose, and it seemed like leggings would duplicate this all over the legs. It turns out that I was so wrong. Leggings just feel like very soft and super comfortable tights. At this level of comfort and no one gives a crap who sees what; some levels of pure comfort are worth showing your butt outline in public for. But we cannot wear leggings all the time. Sometimes we must wear pants or jeans. This causes us to be unhappy. We miss being able to put on pants and jeans without being unhappy.

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:26 pm

At the risk of sounding old, and or misogynistic, I was totally against leggings as pants for a long time, but I confess I miss going to the kinds of places where I was convinced of the narrowness of my view.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:35 pm

Sitting here wearing leggings as pants right now but I don't recall you having visited my kitchen, so, no idea what you could POSSIBLY mean.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Feb 27, 2021 9:39 pm

I miss going to the gym and I never thought I would say something like this - this is absolute madness - but I miss having shorter hair. The last time I had hair this long I was 4 years old so I don't think it was actually this long in non-relative terms, and I also didn't care if it got messy and dirty and had things living or hiding in it. I am prompted to consider this because earlier today I lost a bobby pin in my hair and simply could not find the damn thing again until I was in the shower. I remember the increasing painfulness of the brushing from age 4 and that's it. Now I've got to do something with it every night so I don't lay on it by accident, washing/drying it is a huge pain in the ass because it has its own very different ideas about how much space it would like to occupy in the world, and there is a simultaneous need to get it off the face while preventing breakage and protecting edges. It naturally forms dreadlocks and so constantly has to be fought against in that regard. Then my middle child is in her black period (jr hi), much as I am in my blue period like Picasso, and when I actually Tried to "do" my post-shower hair she went on and on about how it looks so much worse now that it's gray and I should just dye it black! these moments of honesty are the worst because she doesn't lie to spare my feelings, she's just honest. It probably would look better black than whatever the heck this is, but I don't want to dye it black. Ughhhh so much hair. Oh I forgot the most serious one of all - much like the right boob, it gets tangled in the car's seatbelt. You have to put your hair up in a hat just to drive.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Sun Feb 28, 2021 5:05 pm

I miss family gatherings. With so many elderly theres just too much risk involved.

I miss vacations and flying.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:16 pm

I miss being able to teach my students effectively.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:31 pm

DMDarcs wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:16 pm I miss being able to teach my students effectively.

Feeeeeeeeeeelings.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Thu Mar 18, 2021 4:46 pm

Eyebrow wax or plucking done by someone other than me. I look like an old man from the village.
I also miss being a normal size and weight. Went to the doctor today and that really sucked. I don't even know if it's possible for me to be fatter without just rolling down the street like a gigantic ball. One day I'll be out there tending the weeds and I'll just start rolling and never stop until I drop into the lake. The good news is, I'll float.

The stages of life:
15 yrs of being "the fat one" despite being skinny as a rail, the perils of having even taller and skinnier and, need I add, shallower relatives than oneself.
15-30: peak adult female form
30-45: up and down, up and down, pregnant and not, dying and not, pregnant and not, at the gym and not, stressed out, anxious, depressed, frantic, exhausted.
Post 45: fixing this nonsense. Go to gym. Increase powers beyond expectation. Break brick walls with a fist, carry small cars down the road, with one hand, without balancing it on the head.
Mostly vegetarian!
Fitting into our best pants! "Fat pants" thrown gleefully into the giveaway pile!
**PANDEMIC**
Lay in bed for 2 months. Wear only shorts and leggings for 6 months.
Decide to work out at home! Big efforts! Woohoo! Blah.
Decide walking dogs is a good exercise, a sufficient exercise.
Wear only elastic waist pants and leggings.
Occasionally ride exercise bike.
Sporadic efforts to move body.
Comfort eating.
Why even wear pants?
Running full-time restaurant, sampling the dishes.
Working our way through an entire classic cookbook. Sampling dishes.
Winter.
Pajama pants. Robes. Sweatpants.
Dog doesn't want to walk anyway, sorry. Romp in snow is sufficient, Mom.
Lay in front of fireplace.
Sit in front of computer all day for work.
Go to doctor. Get on scale. Faint.
Immediately return home and eat a piece of chocolate cake, because it's going to be the last time you ever see it again.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Mar 19, 2021 2:56 am

Normal sleep. Everyone else's sleep has been messed up and I seem to need a full hour more per day to function. Deprived of it, the body gets it by whatever means necessary, like falling asleep at my youngest's bedtime because he was jabbering away about something and his comforter had just been washed and smelled like lavender and was very warm... And now I have to finish the abandoned laundry at 3 before the oldest wakes at 4, and so on. I need a week alone in a cave.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:20 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 2:56 am I need a week alone in a cave.

I was thinking just the other day how the ideal vacation would be complete isolation.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:17 am

Kindred personality, see?

I miss normal teenager arguments and problems. Remember when if you had a teenager the problem would be something like they want to go out and party with their friends? Or I don't even know what the normal problems are but it's something like that, right? They're taking the car and coming back at 1:00 in the morning? They're lippy with you, they eat all the blueberries without asking. Normal s***.

Instead this is pandemic teenager life: arguments at the crack of dawn on no sleep about whether you need to wear an n95 mask instead of a s***** cloth mask.
Your child bursts into tears because they are freaked out about having to go into the school building with other kids (you would think this goes along with eagerness to wear the n95 mask but teenagers are not known for ace rationality).

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Thu Mar 25, 2021 8:25 pm

I miss being with my students in China.

Week solo camping is hugely therapeutic

Want the hours back that remote shopping costs

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Mar 28, 2021 8:18 pm

Is it just me or is it really difficult to keep the house clean when everybody is here and eating most of their meals here and spending all of their time here distracting you from doing anything about it here?
There's a direct correlation between kids being at the school and the house being cleaner and me having more time to clean it.
I'm not quite sure how to trace all this causation but that is the effect.
I miss having a cleaner house. it was nicer and less stressful and then people did not blame me when the house was not cleaner.

What do you miss the most?

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