Typically I aim to write about things that bring me joy, happiness, and excitement. Today, my thoughts and feelings don’t quite live up to that, but I still feel they are worth sharing.

Today, I want to talk about one of the “side effects” of coronavirus. It’s one of those things that has been mentioned, but I want to give it the attention I feel it deserves. This is one of those side effects that unfortunately, a lot of us have experienced and it can affect us in different ways. This post isn’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows (so if that’s what you are looking for I’m sorry), but I hope it serves as an honest account of how I feel.

I want to talk about cancelled plans.

At the beginning of the year our futures held so much. As winter turned to spring, we made plans and couldn’t wait to execute them. Whether we planned vacations, weddings, graduations, or anything in between, the present day now looks a little different.

This is a hard pill to swallow, and to the class of 2020 and to those engaged, I can’t even begin to imagine. My heart goes out to you and I cry for you. I have faith however, that this is only a small obstacle along your path to greatness and happiness, and that you will persevere.

While I am not planning a wedding or a graduation, I am experiencing the emotions attached to this phenomenon in my own way.

You see, for me, the canceled plans that affect me are those everyday plans and the trips that should have been. Without them, and without having something to look forward to, everyday seems to feel like Groundhog Day. Just like in the movie, I feel I wake up with that same stupid song playing from the radio. Time seems to be standing still and I feel the loss of variety.

I feel this especially hard today, because today should have been an exciting one. Instead of sitting on my couch in my PJs, I should be rummaging through fashion magazines, selecting candy I don’t need, and grabbing one of those obscenely large water bottles from one of those quick stores in the airport. I would have picked out my flying outfit days ago (this is a big thing in my family – sort of a tradition from when I was a kid) and I would be anxiously waiting for my boarding group to be called.

Instead, I sit on my couch, sip my coffee, and check my email. Instead of starting what would have been, and should have been, the trip of a lifetime, I hit the refresh button for the 10th time this morning, staring blankly at my computer screen. Today we were supposed to go to South Africa with our families, and if you know us, you know this was a big deal.

We had planned an incredible 10 day trip that would have begun in Cape Town, and finished with safari outside of Johannesburg. While we are fortunate enough to reschedule, it still seems hard to process. I am still here at home, and not there.

Like I said before, I know I am not alone in feeling this way, even though it is hard to explain. So many of us have experienced the cancellation of much anticipated events and while the promise of rescheduling is motivating and comforting, its doesn’t perfectly fix this feeling of the here and now.

It sounds like a lot of doom and gloom, but I try not to sit in this head-space for too long. Our world is ever changing and always surprising. What makes being human so incredible is the ability to adapt and evolve. You will always be thrown obstacles in the course of your life, so it’s best that we strengthen ourselves and prepare for the “zigs” and the “zags” that our paths will surly take.

If you have kept with me, and kept reading this far, thank you. I know its a lot of words, a lot of emotion, and no pictures – this is a post about things being cancelled after all, so there wouldn’t be any pictures would there?!

Just to give you a glimpse of what we are missing out on (and give you some pictures to look at- you deserve it), here are a few snaps of some of our favorite places from when we visited 5 years ago.