I’m going to be honest and say that I don’t know what to write about this week. When I originally made a goal of writing for once a week, every week (almost two years ago now), my intent was to make myself write something, anything, to get better at writing and more disciplined. To that end, this blog has always focused on what I’ve been going through at that moment, or thoughts that I’ve had about things, maybe stories I’ve wanted to tell. Lately I don’t know where my experience fits in to this world.

There’s a lot of anger and fear. It’s rampant. I suppose the world collectively is feeling some kind of grief? I’m seeing examples of all the stages. Well, most of them anyway. (Traditionally, there were five, but they added a couple more, making it seven.) I’ve felt very down this week. Personally, I’ve found myself in situations that I’ve felt were unsafe, considering the climate. I’ve been confronted almost daily with people who “don’t believe that things are as bad as the media is making them out to be” and who think that wearing a mask is ridiculous. Meanwhile, things in the United States continue to get worse daily. (It really does feel like it’s a daily dive.) Everything is becoming more fraught and divisive. Things that shouldn’t be political issues (like wearing masks and adhering to sanitation guidelines) have become political issues. Social reform seems to have stalled. Unemployment is surging. Virus counts are surging.

I feel impotent and in despair. I feel as if I have nothing to add to give to help this omnipresent situation. I have one untouched and innocent thing in my life; two kittens. So I’ve been posting pictures of them. When I first got them, there was a deluge, of course. Now I try and do one a day. And I say ‘try’ because it’s actually something I make a point to do because I’ve had several people message me about the kittens. They tell me that they’re having a hard time and the kittens are the only happy thing in their feed. Or that they’re so worried and sad and seeing the kittens lifts them for a moment. So if I can do that for even just a couple of people, I will continue.

I’m going to work my way through the stages of grief that I’m seeing on our society now.

Shock or disbelief. I think most of us went through this early on when we went into shut-down, however, I think some people may be revisiting it with the realization that we didn’t manage to control the virus. I also believe that some of us are dealing with this stage in just becoming truly aware of the depth of systemic injustice inherent in our society, which the virus is hauling into forefront. This stage is usually reflected in numbness.
Denial. This one has been more apparent lately, at least to me. We’ve been ‘in it’ for so long now, that those who haven’t been directly affected believe that we can go back to yesterday. I advised a woman the other day to throw on a mask as she began to enter a small public restroom that I knew for a fact already had two people inside. She walked right in without doing so tossing me a flippant, “cigarettes and Jameson are my vaccine.” I stood there, gobsmacked trying to process this. Did she mean that alcohol and nicotine protected her from COVID? Or that she didn’t care because she was going to smoke and drink herself under anyway? Regardless, what about the health of the two people who were already in the restroom? She was definitely in denial about something, I’m just dammed if I know exactly what it was.
Bargaining. I’ve (personally) experienced less of this one, but it’s out there. I was out running an errand when I saw that seven people had pushed together two tables in an outdoor market and were all having lunch together, no masks to be seen, seated right next to each other as if it were 2019. They were obviously coworkers, not a family unit, all in the twenty-five to thirty age range. I told another woman about this and the disbelief that I felt upon seeing them and she said, “well they probably all knew each other, right?” Because… you can only get infected from people that you don’t know? Maybe they thought that because the market was open air, that they could disregard social distancing and masking. And yes, open air does help, but not if you’re sitting together for the length of a lunch hour with not so much as a smidgen of space between you, talking and eating.
Guilt. I know that I’ve felt this. I know a lot of my friends have felt this. Those of us who are reflecting on how our society has benefited us because of the color or our skin have undoubtedly felt some guilt upon realizing what we were ‘unaware’ of. John Mulaney gives an example in his 2015 Netflix show, The Comeback Kid where he discusses marijuana being legalized in certain states and the audience applauds. “All right, don’t ‘whoo’ if you’re white. It’s always been legal for us. Come on, sir.” Some of us may even be feeling some guilt around early COVID behaviors. For example, I had a small gathering in our new house on March 13 before the extent of how bad this was had really permeated. For the two weeks following that day, I ‘casually’ checked in with everyone who had been there until I was sure that no one had gotten ill at our house. (Everyone who had been present is still fine.) There’s a lot of guilt going around right now if you’re an empathetic person. Hell, I feel guilty right now for not personally being about to do something right now immediately to fix anything happening in our world. It’s like, yeah I’m composting, but how much does that really help global warming?
Anger. This is one that flows rampantly. There are a lot of historically disenfranchised members of our society feeling a lot of justified anger right now. A lot of people from all walks of life who did their best to safely quarantine and follow guidelines to prevent COVID-19’s spread are feeling angry at those who refused to do so (and basically threw away all of our earlier efforts.) The continual refusal of people to comply with reasonable safety requests is enough to infuriate anyone. Those of us who have been compelled to return to work in high-contact industries (and are mainly serving those who have the option to remain safely at home) feel a lot of anger (or fear that sometimes turns into anger) at how little those that we serve seem to care for our own safety. We don’t get sick time if we contract this. Many of us don’t have health coverage through the employers that are bringing us back. A lot of people in this position are feeling double anger because they are members of minority groups who are still fighting for equality. Then there’s the less justified, but equally present, anger of some folks who are just ‘tired of all this’ and ‘want everything to go back to normal.’ Which, I empathize with to some degree, but is still irritating for me to hear. (Causing more anger.)
Depression. I think just about all of us have cycled through this if we’re not entrenched in it clinically. (My warmest virtual hugs go out to those who are dealing with depression amid all of this mess.) Human beings are uncomfortable with anything that we don’t have the answers to. I believe that’s why so many people remain firmly rooted in denial. It’s more comfortable for them to believe that someone made this all up and that it’s not really happening than to face the fact that we don’t know how or when it’s going to end, how many people will end up dying or what the world will look like on the other side. For certain there are many individuals who are struggling and some entire industries that will never completely recover. I know I’m not alone in rethinking my career. And there’s very little we can do about this. It’s depressing.
Acceptance/Hope. I don’t know if there are a lot of people who have made it here. I know I’ve had flashes of this, but it never lasts very long. Maybe an hour or two at most. Acceptance that we’re going to be dealing with this for a while, sure. Acceptance that our societal structures are in severe need of reform, yes, but hope? I think the best I can do right now is hope for hope. If that even makes any sense.

So there’s my case for a world of people, reeling pell mell through the stages of grief in no particular order. Maybe someone out there with a psychiatry degree will make a fun test for us so we can all see which stage of grief we’re currently in with relation to the global situation. That would be fun, right?

Which stage of grief are you in? Select all that apply.