It's been a week. A month. A season. And I've lost track of days, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure of time any more. The days drag by, and then I look up and find it's been another strange month gone by. Time means little, and if not for work, who knows what time I'd sleep or wake, but my students and coworkers keep me anchored. I found out a few days ago, I can go back to my office next month, although with some fairly harsh restrictions on interactions. I'm mixed on feelings here. I long to see coworkers, but how will a school feel in isolation, without students? I'll lose those long breaks for working out, days spent dressed professionally only from the waist up, doing zoom classes while petting my cats. But in exchange for being back go my semi normal. And still, without students, so how will this trade off feel, without the kids who drive most of my days?
In twelve days' time, I transformed the summer program I had nurtured and grown for months into an online experience. And I mourned the crazy summer I had planned. Dance recitals and awards, music recitals and chess competitions, and belt ceremonies are now online. And I'm mourning those, too. How do I celebrate with students? One of the kiddos who is closest to my heart has earned a black belt in tae kwon do. Not an easy feat, whether you understand the effort or not, and he'll get it online. It should have been with fan fare and peer accolades, and those things will fall flat this year. My heart hurts for him. His mom and I have planned the best celebration we can.
My own daughter graduates this year, from the college that was her dream school, the one she worked her butt off to attend with a scholarship, and it'll be summarized with an hour on zoom, with some minor applause from those she knows best. No celebration for her last final, no hugs from friends, no high fives from her professors. Just a goodbye on the screen. And she's on to a life that includes deferred interviews and a movie that she filmed that may never come to light, and auditions that fall to the way side.
So, how do we mourn? Life goes on, and those I love are all actually OK. Though I know several of those touched by this horrid disease, none are permanently down, and few have family members who are. Many had some miserable, sick, days, including me, but life goes on. But we've lost so much. We lost connection.
Don't discount this. We are a world full of people in mourning for what should have been, for people we love and for everything we took for granted. We are in mourning for the moments when we could hug someone we cared about without concern. When we could go into a store without concern and touch things with abandon. We are mourning for a freedom to move about, to express opinions without judgement, to take our next breath for granted. We lost a kind of freedom that was dreamed about by my great grandparents. Something they fought for, and something they only imagined in the face of war, disease, poverty and persecution. I grew up in a golden age when none of those things were obstacles. And now, as my own children come of age, there is so much fear and unknown. I mourn for their futures and for the idea that they can never take safety and health for granted as I was able to do as a young adult.
We, as a society, deserve this chance to mourn something we have lost. Never again will life look the way it did three months ago. Never again will I go in public and feel comfortable with strangers in my personal "bubble." Never again will I take for granted my ability to acquire basic items I need to live comfortably without concern in my own home. Never again will I assume I can stand face to face with those I love and have a conversation. None of these things are given.
Not everyone has the same response. Some have responded with anger and hatred and violence. Some have chosen to not wear masks or acknowledge the fears of others. I try to walk in their shoes, to not be angry or understand their choices. They aren't my decisions to make, and I can only control my own actions and responses, despite my emotional responses. Please, though, respect my choices, made based on having children at home and an 89 year old parent who depends on me. If we respect one another, it'll be ok eventually. I think.
And I'm fucking mourning the easy life I've lived for 47 years. Yeah, I'll be OK. I'll survive and maybe thrive, because I rise up to adversity. But I get to mourn, and so do you. We get to be angry and hurt and cry and scream about the unfairness of the universe in this case. Do it with me. Join in on the universal cry of "fuck you." Like Maya Angelou, one off my favorite humans, we will rise. But it's ok to do so amidst the ashes of the past, and to resent those burning embers, with every fiber of your being.
So, fuck you disease and political dissidence, and confusion. Fuck you to death and destruction. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you that racism continues in the light of this craziness. Fuck you to anger and hatred that shouldn't flourish in the light of this insanity. But it does anyway. So fuck you, hatred. I choose love. And I choose laughter. And I choose my friends, and family, and thriving every single day. And I choose to mourn what I have lost, with every fiber of my being, before I can move forward. Every single, fucking, day sucks because of something I can't control. But I can control how I respond, and I choose this to be productive and positive and full of love. I choose to mourn, and mourn hard, and move forward, one day at a time.
