I had a big fat cry today. The cracks are starting to show in our kids, who miss their school life, friends, and routines, and despite them being used to me saying, “I don’t know” about all kinds of things, they kind of know this time that I *really* don’t know. Don’t know when we get to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. Don’t know when the museums will open again. Don’t know when school will resume. I just don’t know.
We’ve never really been in control of this life, but there’s a special kind of something going on right now with this uncertainty. Crying is good. Loving each other and not doing school is good. Soaking up the sun is good. Leaving secret notes for our friends in the hollows of trees is good. There is a lot of good. AND. This sucks, and it’s scary, and we don’t know what’s coming next. And that’s worth crying about.
“We do not need to create a foot race to the silver lining. We don’t need to be in a hurry to turn these quarantine lemons (or cancer lemons, or any kind of lemon!) into a side hustle or a novel or a newfound fluency in three new languages.”
Sarah – so true, all of it. I read a post yesterday from another End of Life Doula who said what we’re experiencing now has all the hallmarks of “traumatic grief.” No preparation, came on suddenly, loss of control, no ” normal” anymore, no coping tools and no sense of when this will stop. No answers about any of what life always was and when it will return, or how. It made sense to me. We are un-moored, but those on your boat are so lucky they have you and Andrew.