My column this week was supposed to be a funny take on how baby monitors are wireless umbilical cords keeping our babies attached for every second of their day. But, I didn’t write it.
It’s just one of the countless things I’ve sacrificed for the coronavirus this week.
I don’t have the virus (so far as I know). I’m not on the front lines dealing with it’s impact, and I’m fortunate to not yet have my household income impacted.
But, like so many others in nearly every country of the world, I’m socially distancing for the foreseeable future.
I’ve only left my neighborhood once in eight days (only to go grocery shopping) and don’t anticipate leaving again any time soon. I’m one of those people who have already turned the phrase “out of an abundance of caution” into a cliche.
Nevertheless, this week I gave myself permission to grieve the many things I’ve lost so far.
I’ve read that grief and sorrow shouldn’t be compared because they are personal experiences, not relational.
For example, you shouldn’t feel bad for being upset over a breakup when your friend is mourning a spouse. Or, the pain from breaking a finger isn’t negated just because someone else has a broken arm, or has finger cancer (if that’s a thing?).
This principle resonates with me profoundly.
It upsets me that my thirteen-month-old daughter didn’t get to take the swim lessons we signed her up for, and that my wife didn’t get that special extracurricular bonding experience at this truly special stage of my child’s development.
I’m bitter that the relationships I’ve spent the past eight months creating so that my daughter would have friends, librarians and playgroup facilitators she regularly interacts with have been put on an indefinite hold.
I’m concerned that this lack of socialization will have a lifelong impact and that we might miss a problem with her development since her non-emergency medical appointments are canceled.
I’m annoyed that a writer’s conference I’ve been looking forward to for years was rescheduled seven months further down the road.
And I resent the anxiety I now feel about opening doors in public and using gas station pumps. It pisses me off that though I don’t want my daughter to live a life of fear, I know I’ll someday teach her to keep Dunkin napkins in the center console of her car to make a disposable layer between her hand and the gas station pump. That’s just a new part of life for me now.
Clearly, these losses are nothing in the greater scheme. It can seem selfish to focus on them when so many people are filing for unemployment benefits, worried about meeting their bills, or dealing with a never-before-seen illness.
Though each loss seems individually small, when taken as a whole, it’s shocking how little of the spring I imagined for my family is left. Each sacrifice is a loss, and, as such, it’s okay to grieve them.
We’re not very good at this in our culture. Permission to grieve seems like the only step I’m not seeing reflected in this new virtual town square we’re stuck inside.
You can almost chart our emotional course from Facebook posts ranging from “what’s the big deal?” to “I don’t care, I’m tougher than the flu,” to “seriously, toilet paper!?” and finally, to “let’s value this time.”
It speaks to something about the human condition that once we accept we’re being challenged we start looking for ways to not only confront it, but grow from it.
This week revealed the full stakes of how the coronavirus has changed everyday life and gave a sense of how long our lives may actually be impacted.
It won’t all be bad.
What I already love about this moment is how so many people are talking about their values and priorities.
I’ve seen countless Facebook posts about treasuring time with family, devoting yourself to creative passions, taking time to rest, and to think, and feel. I am very thankful for whatever it is about this pandemic that switched that on in people.
More than that, I’m both grateful for how little this virus has changed my life so far and fearful for how much more it might still take.
I’m only a few years removed from a stage of life where this would’ve entirely wiped me out financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Depending how things go, it still might!
For tonight, there are a lot of people hurting and my heart goes out to them.
This global pandemic has already touched every single one of us in profound ways. However it’s impacting you, it’s okay to grieve – and hope, and change, and adapt as you see fit. We’re all in this together.
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