We Are Grieving Because We Don’t Know How to Be Alone
When the concept of social distancing entered into the zeitgeist of our 2020 vocabulary it felt as trivial as Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s commitment to conscious uncoupling. Cue the barrage of clever memes, tweets, and posts with all the earnestness of any hot current event that should have gone from headline news to tomorrow’s trash.
Now deep into the second week of what for many of us has become a state mandated quarantine, we are all grappling with the heavy reality that this made up phrase was the introduction to a new normal.
While we Americans candidly talk about the struggle with supply and demand (e.g. toilet paper), mind numbing conference calls, Tiger King, and the at home workouts that are keeping us from the quarantine fifteen of COVID-19. What we aren’t talking about is the collective feeling behind it. It’s a feeling I am all too familiar with. A feeling that left me in bed, alone, angry, sad, lost, and confused. A feeling that took over my thoughts so completely that I was unable to focus on anything but 10 seasons of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. It’s the feeling of grief.
I don’t think I would have ever been able to articulate this comparison a year ago. I would have thought I was minimizing my own experience with tragedy and death. But, grief is defined as the response to loss and in this new normal it has become glaringly clear that the collective is at a loss.
Each of us is mourning our expectations. We are all having to say goodbye to our timeline, our hopes and dreams for last week, this week, and what we all set out to do in the month of April and beyond. Some of us are struggling with job loss, financial ruin, loneliness, and the overwhelming impact of an unforeseen future.
We get up everyday with the expectation placed on us by others or even ourselves to adjust our jobs, our relationships, our dwindling bank accounts, and our mental state to survival mode. This behavior is what I have come to know as denial or the first stage of grief. We simply can’t wrap our head around the truth that none of us will walk away from the pandemic the same.
Some of our relationships won’t survive. Some of our companies, jobs, and occupations will become obsolete. Some of us will get sick or know someone who does. And some us may not even survive ourselves.
So what do we do with all of this grief?
Grief as I have learned through the beautiful writing of Kathy Parker, is just love with no place to go. So the solace we seek can be found in finding a place to send all this newly unrequited love.
You see, we actively put love into the world without realizing it every single day. Love goes into the big things like the work we do daily and into the little things like the morning chat with our favorite barista. We radiate love when we stroke the ears of the neighbor’s dog each morning and wish him and his owner a great day. Love lingers when we greet a friend with a hug outside the movie theatre or feel the touch from the date who holds our hand for the first time. Love is in the food we share at the dinner table and in the conversations we reserve for those who truly care. There’s even love in the simple choice to spend time with one another because saying by yes to you I am saying no to something or someone else.
The only way to manage the grief we are feeling is to give that love a place to go. So FaceTime that friend who you know is alone. Call your mom every night to ease her worry and remind her how much you love her. Work on the relationship with your sister. Call the person you were too afraid to admit you have feelings for and tell them everything just so they can receive it. Find a way to say your sorry. Work on something you are deeply passionate about. Donate and support the local businesses who used to be part of your daily routine. Check on your elderly neighbor and offer to pick up food for her and her dog. Love on yourself by moving your body, listening to music, mediation, and rest.
It’s in the sending of all this love that we stop ourselves from grief’s descent into pain, anger, and depression. Human connection can save us from ourselves. So let’s not allow the new normal to stop love from finding a place to go.