I was really hoping that when the weather shifted to warm and green- minus the swarms of black flies, what the fuck- that much of the morose mood would lift and some familiar feelings would be restored. Instead, what I am learning is that when the seasons shift to one in which we have loaded many of our community and cultural celebrations, that the sting of our isolation and removal from the flesh and bone of each other’s lives is even more acute and close to untenable.
We, like so many of you I am sure, receive email after email from school and sports teams and orchestra and summer camp letting us know what won’t happen, what is pushed back, what is canceled, how we will make do, and what we can hope to expect. It is loss after loss after loss. And while our own daughter, who has only been in school for a year is not too sad about missing eight grade graduation, she is feeling some very big empathy for her classmates for whom the ritual and the rite are embedded in the story of their educational journey. As a homeschooler turned school kid living in a new state she has yet to make big friendships in our new home. But she has mourned the loss of swim team as though it were her closest pal and the prospect of that not happening for many more months, I know is filled with its own kind of heartache for her. She is a chin-up kind of a kid though and has poured herself into her academics and staying as physically fit as she can with the absence of her preferred pursuit. I do think that we will most likely pick up a buoy that she can use over the summer for some distance swims in the lake, and that will be amazing and inspiring and I will still miss screaming “Go Moo Moo” from a hot as hell pool deck.
Eider on the far opposite hand, we have long had to keep over busy in order to steer him clear of the sneaky edges of depression. He has often played multiple sports in a season, has been in both classical and folk ensembles, and spends a full day each week of the year in an outdoor ed program. This summer we had applied to send him to summer camp in Southern Vermont for 3 whole weeks in addition to some local sports camps and we, and especially he, were looking forward to all of it. Without these pursuits, Eider sinks into- like many eleven-year-old boys I imagine- the endless abyss of video game obsession and it takes every ounce of attentiveness on my part to not devolve into vilifying him for his interests. I am a work in progress with this to be sure as I attempt to unwind my own judgment and bias and just let the kid do something that he has some passion for a stretch of time each day. Stop stop stop over-thinking it for crying out loud Meg. (On a side note, I was just learning about some recent studies that indicate that screen time is not so linked to anxiety and depression as we had once thought and that it is rather the time on social media that is the real culprit- especially in middle school-aged girls…)
Anyhow, the struggle is feeling extra fucking real and I am over the sideways Corona reality and then some. I want to see you in person. I want to get to know my neighbors. I want my mom to come visit and hold her grandkids. I want to leave my house to pick up garden starts this week and not feel gripped with nerves days in advance. It’s a lot people. And I for one am going to let it be a lot and here is me saying to you that you can let it be a lot too and you don’t need to get used to anything but you do need to wear a mask and as messed up as that is, it is more messed up not to right now. K?
And to all of the high school seniors out there missing your graduations and all of the glorious not quite adult frivolity of that last summer before things change forever, nothing anyone can possibly say is going to lessen the loss of this time for you. I am so incredibly sorry for all of it and then some. Your virtual graduations are poignant and completely suck and it is ok to have all of the different feelings about all of it. Perhaps the only solace for anyone in the midst of everything is that we are not alone in our grief as so often feels the case. Right now, the suffering and the pain and the loss are widespread and linked and while not exactly comforting, there is perhaps something in that for us to rest in.
