Grief in the time of Covid 19

A friend shared a blog post about grief in this time of Covid-19, and it got me thinking. I’ve been feeling like I’m the queen of procrastination lately. I’ve felt pretty blah, and haven’t been doing much work on my projects.

Then I saw that blog, and I felt like it gave me a word for what I was feeling. Maybe I have some kind of mild survivor’s guilt, I don’t really know what to call this. I don’t know anyone who’s been seriously impacted from a health perspective. Naturally I know tons of people who have lost their jobs and are seriously financially impacted by all this. 

It feels dangerous to say this, because things can change any time, but life in my home is pretty much the same as it was before. My husband is going to work, I’m working from home. My dogs guilt me and manipulate me at the same intervals as before. Going to the store is a whole different thing now, and we can’t just go out for dinner and a movie. Life isn’t completely normal.

So, if life isn’t much different for me, where is this grief coming from? I’m hoping that this virus leads to a bit of a reset of priorities. Maybe we’ll learn to be more respectful towards Mama Earth. Maybe we can learn to consume differently, in more sustainable ways. Those should be cause for hope, I would think.

Yet this idea of grief still resonates. I’m always really interested in the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways they impact the lives we lead. Seeing people feeling deeply anxious makes me wonder what stories they’re telling themselves. Maybe the lack of a reference point is where this grief is coming from.

This is new territory, the closest thing we’ve ever had was the polio virus. Most of us aren’t old enough to remember that I’m not. I never would’ve believed that the world would grind to a halt like this. This may sound like a silly way to see it, but it’s gotta be serious if Disney shuts down. 

So maybe the grief is from all the unknowns. We don’t know what stories to tell ourselves. We don’t have any idea what the other side of this will look like. Some people don’t know where they’ll be living. Lots of businesses don’t know if they’ll be around. 

Technically, we can say that we’ll survive this. Not every individual, but society in general will. It’ll probably be different, but humanity won’t cease to exist. Yet our anxiety, our grief, isn’t concerned about whether humans will survive. We’re worried about our own loved ones, our favorite businesses, and our own wellbeing.

As part of our own self-care, maybe we can all be a little more patient with ourselves. Give ourselves room to feel a range of emotions. Accept that not all our feelings and thoughts make sense. We can all benefit from a little contact with other humans, even if it’s from a safe distance. Maybe we can all make time for a video call with a friend we haven’t talked to in a while. Let’s use this unpredictible time to reconnect.

Stay well my friends.

*typos and other errors provided for your entertainment.