Writing prompt #57 — Bucket list
The Only Thing on My Bucket List
Peace
Peace brings with it so many positive emotions that it is worth aiming for in all circumstances.” — Estella Eliot
For the last three-plus years, I’ve been retired. I retired in 2020, during the pandemic, and well before vaccines were available. My retirement bucket list was formed by that small bit of time. The only thing on it back then was this: survive.
Thriving and following my dreams were replaced with grief as a man who was more brother to me than friend died from complications of COVID less than a month into my retirement. My self-preservation instincts kicked into high gear.
Traveling had become dangerous. Not just because you were speeding through the air in a metal tube, but because an invisible enemy stalked you wherever you went. Even going to the grocery store was too much of an adventure for me and I gladly paid the price to have someone else, someone younger, with a stronger immune system take that risk.
I watched on the sidelines as The Magical Creatures and their parents contracted and recovered from their first COVID infection. My daughter suffered with Long COVID and was finally making a recovery when she was reinfected and the cycle started all over again.
