COVID-19: The New Normal, Grieving What Was & The Strange Beauty of These Times
Premature goodbyes, days without work, increases in domestic violence and crime, financial crises, loss of life. All of life is on pause right now and everyone in small and big ways is feeling the effects of this global pandemic, this global crisis. Friday, I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends I’ve made in my masters 2 months too early. And I feel so much for the seniors in college or those in graduate school ending during this time and feeling the incomplete end of a really beautiful chapter. Although I know so many people have it so much worse right now, I hope you give yourself time and permission to grieve whatever the coronavirus has taken from you. Grief occurs whenever the future we had in mind with an experience, person or a moment in time no longer exists. Allow yourself to feel into that space.
Personally, I am grieving the end of my masters and not getting to enjoy each day with my classmates that I’ve become so close to throughout this program, and not being able to celebrate our achievements together at the end of this program. I am grieving not being able to be taught my the amazing neuroscience professors at Tulane in person. I am grieving the end of my time in New Orleans and that time potentially ending on quarantine. I am grieving saying goodbye to a best friend, a life long friend, that I don’t know if I’ll her live in the same place as her again. I am grieving the jobs I applied for that have cancelled interviews and positions. I am grieving the economic climate I thought I was going into. I am grieving all the things I planned to do in New Orleans before I leave. I am grieving the safety of my family members that are more vulnerable to this virus.
And in the acceptance of this grief, I allow myself to see the strange and beautiful wonders this experience has to offer too - the beauty of this sacred pause. Each day I see more people outside on walks and the city of New Orleans blooming with plants and flowers and life. And I have the time to reflect and work on things I’ve put off for a while, the things I have been meaning to do. There is time to go on walks each night and spend time reflecting. I have time to write again, time to practice the guitar, time to exercise and do yoga, time to plan what projects I still want to accomplish in 2020- time for sacred stillness, rest and reflection. Shakespeare wrote one of this sonnets during a pandemic and Newton discovered the theory of gravity. This time could be magical in so many ways, even with all the pain and fear and uncertainty. We, as a society, as a global collective, are starting to connect to what is most important again.
In this time, I invite to feel all the fear and uncertainty in our world right now and in your own life. I invite to create a new normal and deeply practice your self care during this time. I invite you grieve. I invite to find acceptance in time. I invite to reach out to your community, virtually that is. And I invite to trust, to deeply trust that this experience has something to teach us all. May we never take the beauty of every day life for granted again. May we never take for granted hugging a friend or a relative without fear. May we never forget the issues the virus has illuminated for us collectively. May we never forget that how connected we all are, that this virus does not discriminate based on gender or race or where you are from. This virus affects us all in ways. We are all one and we have always been so. Now it is time to remember this.