Grief in the New World

I haven’t written a garbage day since my friend passed away. It hurts my heart to even think about it. She used to read my posts and then reach out to me because they inspired her to want to open up about what she was going through. 

As we advance in years, if we’re lucky, we gain *some* wisdom, important life-long friendships, and a place in our community. She always made me feel that in our friendship, my little bit of wisdom helped create our community. 

I never wrote specifically for her, but I did know that she was reading, and we were in this (whatever this is) together. 

The shitty thing about life-long friendships is that we usually don’t get to check out at the same time, and the one who sticks around carries the memories and love thereafter. It’s a lot of weight to carry alone. 

So I’m trying to get my shit together because I know that there have been just as many births as deaths, and babies are fantastic, and friendships are forever, and love itself doesn’t die, it just changes shape, moves around a bit, and maybe feels different... but love stays. I’m trying to get my shit together to send some of this grief away. 

It’s been a year of tremendous loss for so many of us, and as the world opens up again, and we take our first steps into the nearly post-pandemic world, a lot of us will be moving on without some of the people we cared deeply about, and it’s a trembling and uncertain footing, especially for those of us who lost our jobs, our families, our friends, and our basic belief that we were safe. 

We are moving on. I’m moving on having lost too many friends, my job, my savings, and a lot of my trust in the universe. 

I’ve been venturing out, and I feel like I’m in one of those videos of color-blind people who see color for the first time, or babies who have their hearing restored and hear their mother’s voice. I want to be a part of the world again. 

It looks like the world I used to live in, but it doesn’t feel the same. It’s like a cheating husband, there, but not really in it anymore. 

I want to have a big party- and I will, later today, but first I need to have this funeral, for everything lost. Before I venture out maskless into the world I need to acknowledge the pain and loss of even just going through this election, losing friends, the storming of the Capitol, the loss of life, the loss of trust, the loss of security, the repeated murder of black people, the racist targeting of Asian people, friends who literally froze to death in Texas, fire season, the assholes who set their guinea pigs free to be eaten by coyotes, the sexual assaults by our local public officials, the bike riders killed- there’s a child’s ghost bike on highway 12 now... we lost our sisters, our brothers, our parents, our spouses (spice?), our 401ks, our cars, our homes, our businesses, and our ability to support our families. What we didn’t lose, we changed. 

This has been an incredibly painful year, and even if I add in all of the great things that happened, it’s not even close to balancing. So I’ll have this little funeral for the suffering, anxiety, pain, and loss of the past year, and then I’ll ease back in. 

I’ll take with me the memories and love, fifty extra lbs, the new babies and puppies, the new friends and new relationships with old friends, and more.  This isn’t really going back to the way things were, it’s different now. We’re all different now. 

I think we’re all going to need an adjustment period, and we’re going to need to treat everyone we encounter with a lot more understanding and grace. There is nobody untouched by this pandemic, there is nobody who didn’t lose someone or something they love. 

This may seem like a beautiful spring day, but it’s actually a funeral, a time of mourning, a period of adjustment, and some or all of the stages of grief. Yes, I’m going to celebrate, but first I need to feel this, sit with it, acknowledge it, and make room for it, because this pain is real, and I don’t want to just brush past it. 

We have to acknowledge the pain if we are going to get through this. It doesn’t have to cripple us. Today, even though garbage day was a few days ago, and the truck isn’t coming for a few more days, I’m sending away the excess, the grief that I cannot carry. 

If you’re anything like me, your excitement to get back to living is balanced pretty evenly with fear, grief, and uncertainty. We can do this. Be patient with each other, as we blink hard to filter the bright light as we emerge from the safety of our caves, we need time and lots of gratitude to wash away what we have experienced, what we are still experiencing. We are moving on, and it’s fantastic, but we first need to have a funeral.