Weird time of year for everyone so I’ll keep this one short.
Grief
Grief is the worst kind of love. A love lost with no way of getting it back. I don’t think it gets easier. I think we get busier and fill our time with distractions and the present. But easier? No. Ask anyone who has lost anyone when it stopped hurting and they’ll tell you never. That the frequency of the waves of grief hit them differently with time but not the ferocity. That they’re changed by their grief. They love differently. Maybe more intensely. Or more cautiously. It’s not easy to know how this love and loss will indelibly change you.
I’ve stopping counting the number of people I know who have died in 2020. Some have been victims of Covid and others, life. None have been any easier. Each reported death means the layers of grief have meshed into one rubber ball that just sits there, untangled and intangible.
I can’t tell people how to handle grief. I barely handle it myself. But I can tell you that grief shared helps. Keeping it to yourself hurts more. It’s lonely. Crying is also cathartic. Maybe not on work video calls but, hey, when it hits, it hits!
Gratitude
To think that when the year began we didn’t know what social distancing was. We weren’t aware that the governments would determine our chances of survival. That age, gender, economic background, structural and institutional racism could put you more at risk. None of us were prepared.
So what do we have to be grateful for? We’re still here. We’ve been blessed with more time and that means that we eventually will have to emerge from a sociological cloud and carry on. I’m not suggesting now but soon. Sometime. Maybe. If you can. Be creative, be fabulous and be true to your feelings. I’m meant to tell you to count your blessings but apart from health and happiness there’s not much else that counts right now. So hoping you have both.
Give yourself time and space to grieve. Give yourself permission to feel loss and sadness and emptiness and paralysis and shock and anger and nostalgia and all of the feelings you suppress when they bubble inside.
That’s all from me.
Wishing us all a better 2021!
© Chelsea Black® 2020 (Covid Era)