I just looked back at some earlier 2020 blogs. A couple from before the virus took over about politics, a couple from before Ann died, including the one I wrote about grief on the day we found out she had passed, but before I knew she was gone. And as I read them it seemed like a lifetime ago instead of a few months.
I feel like a different person wrote those.
And in a way that's true. I mean cellularly for sure. We have that turnover of cells that happens and even with it being slower in my 50s I'm still a completely new person than I was. But also just experiences. Everything we see, do, hear, learn, it all changes us. Or at least it should. Sometimes it's a gradual change, those slow changes that we don't really notice until we are confronted with something from our past. But then there are the changes like this year.
The tidal wave. The massive earthquake. The forest fire of changes. The ones that come and everything that was there before is now changed. Or gone.
2020
The tidal wave, earthquake, forest fire year.
And even literally with that last one. So much damage and destruction from the fires this year. The next time we drive down to Bend it will be completely different than it ever has been. I think the road is still closed right now on the route we normally take, the worry now is about landslides and falling trees. I'm not sure when we will see it again. What will be there when we do.
That's what this year feels like on a personal level as well.
Like the virus, the deaths, the political bullshit, it's all hollowing me out. Changing the shape of who I was. Quickly. Not a thoughtful slow change, but a sudden drastic, things will never be the same again shift.
But then again grief always feels that way doesn't it?
And it's all grief. All of the changes that have happened, that are happening, it all feels like grief and loss.
The loss of people, sure. We've had an abundance of that the past year or so. Personally just with friends and our mothers, and then the addition of over 200,000 dying from the same disease that Ann did, and that's just in the US, it's over a million world wide.
But the loss of our normal lives. Our routines. Our comforts. All of that is gone. And yes, again, we are so lucky because it's an easy shift for us. Brent can work from home with only a few changes to our used to be mostly mine now mostly his office. We were able to adjust our house to fit our needs and our wants. Media room, workout room, front porch bar. It's all worked out. But it's still a loss. An adjustment. A change. We normally travel, we aren't. We normally go to sporting events and concerts and comedy shows and we aren't. By this time I should have an abundance of Christmas shows planned. There aren't going to be any. And it's all really superficial things, and I know it's not a big deal, but it's still a loss to me.
The politics have been a lot of loss for the past four years. The facing people you thought you knew and seeing a side of them that shocks you. Losing that veil of ignorance. Now, in a big way, that's a good thing too. Knowing who you are really talking to and dealing with is good. But, man, it can be a big loss. And this year being a presidential election year it's just moving so much faster. It's all of the stuff from the 2016 election that never healed and adding on to it. At warp speed. At avalanche progression.
The racial injustice finally breaking through for a moment only to be pushed back when a large group of white people could clutch their pearls and say oh but what about... So there is loss there. Loss of a chance at redemption. Loss of a chance at change.
And the loss of respect I have for you that goes with all of that. The politics being more important than people. The denying that we need to change things in our systems. That it's not a fair country and that we need to work toward making it better. That for hundreds, HUNDREDS of years in our country we haven't done the right things and the cracks are now giant fissures and you want to deny that? Ignore it? Not see the pain? Tell people the right way to protest, even though you've ignored the people protesting the right way for years.
The denying Covid because you might have to stay home more, or wear a mask when you are out. When I see that, when I see people I know taking that stance I want to find them and look them in the eyes and let them see what grief looks like then ask them to imagine that among 200,000 more families. People are dying and it's too much to ask of you to wear a fucking mask?
So yeah, it's a loss, but probably not really.
I'm not sure what or who I will be when this all comes to a close. I know I'm different. I know I've changed. I'm not sure what will stick. I'm not sure what I will still mourn as a loss in 2021 and beyond. Will I be like the forest after a fire. Different. Changed. But growing new life. Welcoming fresh growth. Or like the coast after a tidal wave? Everything gone. Swept to sea. Unrecognizable from what it was. Earthquake? Landslide?
Or just a quieter, cat lady, eating fresh baked goods and sitting on her porch remembering the lost things.
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