Grief! Grief! Where's the Grief!

Feeling a bit like your pandemic grief isn't be recognized? You're not alone.

First off, I’m going to lead by stating the obvious: America is bad at grief. To be even remotely “good at” grief, one must first be able to acknowledge that it exists at all. But we (or I should say “I” since a select number of you reside in other countries) live in a country that has made denial of reality a centuries-long commitment. Got a problem in America that’s largely systemic? There’s a political mechanism out there to tell you that it’s your fault, your responsibility and you should shut the f**k up about it.

Case in point: the re-emergence. While some have delighted the chance to hug friends again (and done so with understandable relish), many I know have expressed a kind of unease, a low-humming anxiety about getting back out there. It’s not that there isn’t excitement to be out of our homes and no longer 100% terrified of viral death; it’s just that, well, there hasn’t been a communal ritual around all that we lost in these past 15 months. It just seems a lot more like politicians want us to get back to work and forget this entire year happened.

Previous to our current administration, we lived under the cloud of a fascist man-child fueled by Diet Coke and Big Macs. Denying that COVID even existed was to be expected, but even if we intellectually understand the mechanisms of our abuse, it still hurts, it still does damage. For almost 8 months until the election, Trump and Republicans effectively spun a devastating virus into a political mechanism to maintain power by denying our current reality altogether. It was masterful propaganda, and also deeply damaging to the psyche. While the news reported horrific deaths, devastating long-term symptoms, and society tore apart at the seams of its (admittedly flimsy) foundation, our former POTUS and his minions of faux-bible thumpers told us that everything was fine, it was “just a flu” and that as soon as possible, we should get back to work and be fucking grateful to have a roof over our heads.

But we saw it all. We saw our dashed dreams, deferred life paths, lost loved ones, broken relationships and diminished resilience and we persevered because we had to, because the government felt it only needed to provide $3200 for an entire year of the economy being torched and we just wanted to make it through the day. Some of us changed life paths, found renewed vigor and direction; others unraveled under the pressures of isolation, the perpetual fear of contracting one’s death through the proximity to a stranger’s mouth on the street.

No matter how you reacted, your way was not wrong. I think the machine-like commodification of the social media we all consume to feel connected to the outer world has an osmosis effect on the mind. It’s easy to think that we just need to be more productive, more motivated, more industrious, more organized in order to transcend the absolute mindfuck that was—and continues to be—this liminal space between pre-pandemic and whatever the hell this all is in front of us. After all, we’ve been mainlining the lives of friends and strangers as if they were canned goods at the store for almost a decade now. It’s damn hard to simply not know what the world is and even harder, how to make plans within it.

It’s been hard on my mind lately, to say the least. In 2020, I had moved all my things into storage and planned to move to NYC only two days before what-would-be the national lockdown. I’ve lived in relative limbo ever since, by the grace and generosity of friends and family, and now find myself in an isolated trailer in rural Wyoming. The nature is, understandably, nourishing, but the lack of human contact, coupled with exposure to a vehement anti-mask, anti-COVID crowd that believes this past year was a “Chinese communist hoax” does a number on the mind. Like living within the fissures of America’s culture wars.

I’ve cried so many times this year. Ugly cried. Wept to playlists of my favorite teenage emo ballads, watching childhood movies, the sunset, a fucking single bee in a flower. I’ve cried from being absolutely gobsmacked that I’ve made it this far, and from being absolutely grateful that I made it this far. I don’t feel “ready” to return to the world as it is right now. I’d like for things to pause a little while longer (sans the virus). The pace before our world changed/ended was ruthless, and I fear some days that not only have we avoided learning the lessons of community and sustainability that we need to make it out alive through future generations—but we are going to go even faster.

I often describe grief to others as being the lead character in John Carpenter’s They Live! You can see the aliens, and it’s alarming you, but no one else can at the moment. So you feel trapped in your own perception, trying to communicate it to others, while being meet with responses that can best be summarized as “Huh?!”

I know many of you out there are grieving some form of loss from this year. Perhaps it’s a lost personal narrative, a sense of momentum, or a nostalgia for the aspirations and desires you had before this virus landed on our shores. The options for grief are numerous. And if I can be even one human who tells you that the emotions you are feeling are valid and normal and—most importantly—they are real. They are fucking justified. They deserve time, gentleness, grace. They deserve a goddamned hug.

Grief is best soothed by the presence of loved ones, by the arms of your community. It is also soothed by being let out, shared and given space in the sun so that it does not transform into shame. So I’m sharing mine here, as a means to normalize the process. It’s messy and uncomfortable. It is also innately human.

As a parting note, I suppose I’ll tell you what I often say to myself when my mind spins into ruminations of the future: take your time. Be gentle with yourself, and take your time. We have but this one precious life.

Cheers,

Phil

P.S. I’ve got but one song for you this week, about the late Vincent Van Gogh—a man who saw beauty within immense personal tragedy. A man who transformed his grief into expression that consoles us all now, so many years later.