“How are you doing?” Perhaps the most asked question right now as we check up on each other. Before the coronavirus this was a question that was casually thrown out and the stock answer was “Good, and you?”. It seems the question has become more genuine and the inquiry is about both our physical health and mental health. How ARE you doing?

I don’t know about you but my days are still a roller coaster of emotion. I’m busy working, busy checking in on friends & family, busy cooking or busy exercising. And of course, I take some time to tune into the news. I limit how much I am exposed to and I choose my sources wisely. I watch WCAX in short spurts but rely on VT Digger & some NPR podcasts (Up First, Morning Edition & Short Wave are staples). I regularly visit the VT Department of Health’s COVID-19 webpage and the CDC’s Coronavirus page. By the time my to-do list is done, I’m tired. Very often I’m mentally exhausted. So I sit down to watch a comedy on television. But darn, it, that scrolling news alert keeps distracting me and doesn’t let me escape this pandemic. I turn off the TV and go work on a puzzle but that sense of doom seems to permeate my very being, weighing me down like an anchor. That sense of accomplishment that accompanies a day well spent is swept away and I can feel myself about to cry. My first instinct is to fight this but slowly I’m learning to accept this feeling of loss.

And loss is indeed what this feeling is. It is a type of grief that we are all experiencing. Grief for the Easter or Passover traditions we can’t share, grief for lives lost and friends suffering. Grief at lost milestones like graduations, proms, and move-up days. Grief for lost jobs, cancelled concerts, businesses that are closing. Grief for the temporary loss of our freedom of movement and known routines. Grief, because we know our lives will never return to exactly what they were before.

This was very eloquently described in an essay featured on the most recent episode of the Brave Little State podcast titled How’s Everybody Doing?. The essay, titled Living in Holland, was written & read by Ethan Dezotelle and referenced a short piece by Emily Perl Kingsley . It’s worth listening to the whole podcast but in a nutshell, he compared what we are feeling now with how we would feel if we planned a trip to Italy but ended up in Holland instead. We would probably enjoy Holland but we would be sad we didn’t get to Italy. We aren’t in a terrible place but it is not where we expected to be and nor where we wanted to be. While we will make the best of our situation and will find some enjoyable moments, we also need to make room for grieving the loss of what we expected to happen this Spring.

This description helped me greatly. It brought me back to how I learned to accept waves of grief after Scott passed away. I learned not to fight them so much as sit with them and then let those feelings pass. Over time the feelings happened less frequently and with less intensity. I’m now happy about where I am in life and am blessed with a wonderful partner but those feelings of grief can still sneak up on me. I’ve learned that if I simply sit with the grief, acknowledge the fact of it, pray about it, it gently passes. It’s okay to speak about it and not brush it under the rug. It’s a real thing.

That is how I feel about this sense of loss that descends at the end of most days now. I’m okay with where I’m at. I am blessed to have a warm house, a healthy family, food in my fridge, and work to do. I’m also sad that I won’t be at church tomorrow morning singing my favorite Easter hymns among a crowd of joyous voices while the smell of flowers fill the air. I’m disappointed that my family won’t be gathering at my house for Easter dinner. But that’s okay. I’m just going to sit with it for a while, pray about it and know it will pass.