More than a year and a half into the pandemic, we’ve been settled into our new normal for a while now. There was some hope earlier this year as vaccines were released and positive cases trended downward for months. But then Delta hit and the optimism we might have felt earlier this year has waned. We are all going to live with covid for a long time, and while we can control how we react to it, we can’t control how others do. That’s why we’re still home 24/7. We don’t socialize at all because Delta just arrived to our island, the vast majority are unvaccinated, and 99% of people still go maskless and socialize.

The kids do online homeschool for 4 hours Monday-Saturday and spend the rest of the day coding or reading. Thank goodness they have each other. Mr. Bee is building an app that teaches kids how to read. And I have my animal rescue, children’s library, and cooking endlessly. Life hasn’t changed too much for us since the start of the pandemic, other than the fact that we’ve accepted that this will be our normal for a long time coming.

20210819_180732-01

This is what I miss most about my pre-pandemic life:

1) Family. I visit my family in the US every year. Charlie and Olive are the only grandkids in my family, and both sides of our families are very small, so it’s important that they know the few relatives that they have! It’s been almost two years since we last saw my family — luckily we visited just before lockdown — the longest I’ve ever gone in my 42.9 years of life. Olive has grown 7 inches and Charlie has grown 9 inches. I think my parents will be shocked at how much they’ve grown, not just physically, but maturity-wise as well. They’re not the little kids who played with toys when they were 7 and 9 the last time my parents saw them.

2) Friends. We never socialized that much since we’re both introverts, but we enjoyed hanging out with close friends a couple times a month. Now we catch up over instant messenger, but it isn’t the same as enjoying a drink and laugh in person. At the same time, the pandemic has given us time to reevaluate our friendships and invest in the ones we value most. Some friends have remained close despite the distance, and some have fallen by the wayside without regular opportunities to run into them, and the effort it requires to stay in touch. When the pandemic “ends” for us, I suspect we will have a smaller circle of friends.

ADVERTISEMENT

3) Eating Out. I would cook during the week, but we were usually out and about on weekends running errands, attending birthday parties, or spending time in nature. I didn’t want to spend our precious quality time cooking, so we usually ate out on weekends. There are very few restaurants open here so I cook every meal now. I’m the type of person who immediately freezes leftovers to eat another day because I don’t like eating the same thing twice. I miss the variety and convenience of eating out.

4) Coffee Shops. There aren’t many things to do in our town, so we used to love going to coffee shops whether it was to have a change of scenery from home, enjoy a nice cup of coffee, meet a friend, or get some work done, coffee shops were always a big part of our lives.

5) Big celebrations. My brother had to postpone his wedding twice due to the pandemic because we thought the pandemic would be over sooner, and then the vaccine roll-out where his wife’s parents live in Korea and we live in the Philippines was much slower than it was in the US. Plus both Korea and the Philippines have strict quarantine protocols. They already got married on paper, but we’re waiting until spring 2022 to have an in-person ceremony.

6) Small celebrations. Typically we’d have birthday parties for the kids, but this will be the second year in a row where it’s just our family. We planned on going to the island capital for Olive’s birthday, but Delta has arrived so we canceled. We’ve had very simple celebrations at home, but I always get a memorable cake made for them.

7) Live events. I love concerts, comedy clubs and live entertainment of most kinds. Even though I don’t like large crowds, I love the energy you feel from seeing a live performance. It’s also why I prefer watching big movies in theaters with a large screen and surround sound speakers rather than at home.

8) Travel. The requirements needed for us to leave the Philippines and re-enter make international travel a daunting prospect. Testing requirements, 10-day mandatory hotel quarantines, and a whole lot of paperwork have kept us home. I suspect after we return from visiting my family in the US, the next time we leave the Philippines will be to move to the US.

9) Personal care and pampering. We are all in desperate need of haircuts. But the only decent hairdresser in town never wears masks, so I’ve been cutting the kids’ hair myself. I hope we can get haircuts at the airport before we leave for the US so we don’t show up looking like ragamuffins! I also miss massages because it was one of the few things I did to pamper myself since they’re only $8/hour here.

10) Taekwondo. The kids loved their taekwondo classes and it had so many positive effects on them. I miss taekwondo more than I miss school!

.  .  .  .  .

On the flipside, I don’t miss our tourism-based business or the tourism industry. I’m glad that the kids are in online homeschool rather than the in-person school they were attending because they are learning so much more. And I don’t miss being as busy as we were.

What do you miss most about your pre-pandemic life? And what don’t you miss?