The Sneaky Thief That is Grief

It hit me yesterday.

I was talking to my friend Ken, because why text if you can actually call someone on the phone these days and hear a voice as opposed to intuit a tone through written words. (Yes, you could always pick up the phone but some people are phone phobic, phone averse, or just not into it. But most people are very responsive to a phone call right now.) He said he had a tough day the day before, and I said, it is a roller coaster. He said, “it comes in waves, doesn’t it?”

Something about that phrase—it comes in waves—made me think immediately of grief. Immediately. The way it gobsmacks you in the middle of the most mundane activities, such as washing dishes or driving your car or shopping for groceries. Although these days, there is nothing unannounced about being sad while grocery shopping, it’s become a highly regulated, fraught activity marked by loss, too—loss of inventory. Crying in the grocery store is definitely permissible, and you’ll find that people are generally receptive to such outbursts more than usual because everything is thisclose to the surface for most of us. (I know, because I am a champion public crier. I know it probably freaks other people out, but sometimes it happens and I have no shame when it comes to emotions. Generally.) Not because we’re legitimately out of food in this country, but because of hoarding. That’s another story and yet another level of grief. It is a failure of leadership that has brought us to this place. And that, too, is another story, but I’m not here to get overly political.

But no, we are grieving something else. A bigger loss. A loss of personal freedoms, yes. A loss of predictable routine, yanked from our lives seemingly overnight, because we really weren’t prepared for this. A loss of the innocent act of walking out the door, talking to a friend or neighbor in close proximity. Going out to dinner. Getting in your workout at the gym. Going to work. Yes, that’s a loss, too. Or in my case, my regular connection with humanity ever since I’ve been unemployed—the yoga studio. Having your work search stopped dead in its tracks as you are close to getting a new job. Having your friends in food, beverage, and hospitality suddenly, deftly, scrambling toward whatever scraps of sustainability they can muster, while they can. It’s the loss of stopping in on my friend who owns one of my favorite shops downtown, or grabbing some scones, produce or flowers at the Easton Public Market. It’s all of that, and every inchoate thing you cannot articulate, because if you’re doing your diligence, you’re home and only going out to the grocery store right now, or work if need be.

Beyond our own little microcosms, we’re grieving the loss of an innocent spring. We’re grieving the absence of security and knowledge—we don’t know really how to combat this virus because it’s so new. So we stay home. We are dealing with anxiety, and that in itself is a form of grief. It’s a sadness, a perceived loss about how the future will go, what we won’t have. We are grieving the real loss of humans who are falling to this virus. We are grieving what hasn’t been and what may not be, and we are grieving the canceled, the delayed, the postponed. We’re grieving the overworked hospital employees, the first responders of all types. We’re grieving for the workers at supermarkets and all other essential employees. We’re grieving for those who get sick and can’t afford to take time off or get checked out or those, worse yet, who fall ill and don’t have a home. If you are a feeling, breathing, living sentient being with any shred of compassion, you’re feeling this.

If going through the reiki attunement process—and practicing yoga for many years before and during that—has taught me anything, it’s the nuanced way you experience the world if you’re empathic. You are sensitive; you can take on other people’s feelings. This is ultimately a gift, because it allows you to intuit a situation, a person, or an outcome. Unwittingly. Reiki has helped me filter the empath switch, but it allows me just enough access to empathize, without it derailing me. When it comes in doses. When the input can be modulated somehow.

But now is not one of those times. Because, my dears, this is why we are so overwhelmed when we are on social media. Instead of just that one random story about the shelter animal who needs a home, or the neighbor who lost everything in a fire, or someone losing a loved one, it’s every.single.item in your news feed. Social media tends to magnify experiences—it is both a positive and negative aspect—and the algorithms give you more of the same of whatever you read. If you want to talk to someone, you can definitely connect in social media and it absolutely does play a role in recovery and community building. (Not necessarily in that order.) You want to be informed, sure. But at what cost? Just because the Internet exists, doesn’t mean you have to let it steamroller over you with all its information. (We used to always say something similar to my mother: just because the phone is ringing in the middle of dinner, doesn’t mean you’re obligated to answer it. It’s an intrusion that you allow or block. Or delay responding to: That’s why there are answering machines, Mom!)

I urge you, though, to take it a step further. Get off social media and be intentional about who you talk to. Choose people with the right vibrations. Pick up your phone. Text a long lost friend. Do a group video. Set up a Hangout or Zoom meeting with your friends, with everyone in pajamas or whatever is going on in their little quarantined corner of the world. Find free stuff online—it’s everywhere, and I won’t pretend to know all the things.

This is a process of rebooting. It’s a reset. The fact that it’s happening for us in North America in spring is no accident. The planet is purging what it doesn’t need. It’s waking us up. We have so much to learn, but so little hubris as a human race to actually listen to it. I’m no better than anyone else, don’t mistake this. But I see what feels like the outlines of a bigger picture, and as my friend Paul said the other day, and I paraphrase, we will not be the same after this. (It’s transformative like 9-11 in that way, but worse because of the both immeasurable and measurable global scale.)

In some ways, this is really good. In other ways, in the ways that shake up stability and regularity and things like income and paychecks and homes, it’s more harrowing. However, I’ve been living in a prolonged state of unrest since the middle of 2017. I was just about to see the light at the end of the tunnel: new job, new place to live, etc. I’ve already been walking every day for I don’t know how long. I’ve got the good mindful habits of a divorced introvert: introspection, enjoying solitary time, yoga, reading, movies, meditation, cooking. I’ve been living my own little personal social distancing for a while, but I’ve been able to mindfully do so, with choice and intent. I pop out and become social when I want to and need to. This situation we find ourselves in is altogether different. It’s a forced isolation and many find it incredibly difficult for so many understandable reasons.

So here I am, on the precipice of that change when a temporary delay becomes put into effect. I know I am not alone this time, which is both better—the solution has to be bigger than just one person or a segment of the population, so I’m not going to drown alone nor will any of us drown, really. And it’s also, paradoxically, worse. And it’s the latter, because the feelings that come with the latter are heavy, dark, and too easy to succumb to.

However.

It’s time to go within. There is a peace that comes with knowing you are not alone. That you can take some steps to prevent illness—stay home if you can, wash your hands a lot, wash your clothes, get some fresh air as much as possible within reason, and without bumping into other humans. That you have to just at some point utterly surrender all of this to a higher power (or powers) of some sort, because you can’t control it. It’s alarming, disarming, all those sorts of pejorative words that strip us of our personal power and choice. But in that surrender, there is a flow, a grace, and some peace, if you can find it. I admit, it’s often a glimmer, and it often escapes before I can settle into it, but I’m working very hard to stay in that light.

Paradoxically, just as it’s time to go within, it’s also time to look outside ourselves. Strong communities already know how much we need each other. But it’s not too late to build it. We all need each other in various ways. Let’s not turn a blind eye to that fact. We are being broken down in order to be rebuilt, as individuals and as a society. What works. What doesn’t. What are the practices that enable that process? What are the ones that are less than salubrious? How might we learn from this? What are our defenses? What are useful ones? Which ones keep us from connecting and from real transformative change? Which ones can be easily overcome? Which ones, not so much? Which ones aren’t worth examining? So many questions unanswered, and that, too, is the beauty of the process. They won’t all need answers.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a whole lot of crying going on. In the past few days, I’ve randomly burst into tears more times than I can count, and then they quickly subside. I’ve had conversations with the boys about this, when it happens. They get it, somehow. However, they’re with their dad for the past day or so, and even though I’ve kept it mostly together for our collective sake, I kind of unraveled in the past 24 hours. (I know I will have a crying hangover tomorrow; I have a migraine hangover today). I cleared myself, centered myself, pulled some cards, and one of them said “Write.” I went to make lunch, and in the middle of making lunch, I replayed my conversation with Ken and the line about coming in waves and what I said about grief. And I just came upstairs, got back on my bed with my laptop, and this just happened.

When we are met with challenges, a crisis, or trauma, we often resort to our factory-setting habits as it pertains to how we cope. I’ll leave it to you to determine what your default coping mechanisms are. Some are more helpful than others; some divide us, some cause strife, some harm us, some are emotionally damaging. As I just ran this idea by a friend, for a gut check, she unwittingly provided me with the last line of this blog post—Now is the time to release those habits if they are not for our highest good.