The Grief of Social Distance
It’s amazing to think about how much things have changed in the course of two weeks. Two Fridays ago, I was planning a movie night for my kiddos and waiting for school to let out; I checked the news a few times during the day to see what the latest on this virus was, but it was not a major priority. I was more concerned with the Democratic primary and the thought of the choices that were in front of us. I ran out to Target to get a few things for my daughter’s upcoming Spirit Week at school. Last Friday, I was at Whole Foods stocking up on a few things because it was starting to look a little dire with regard to social distancing; while I was there, I got a text from the school: closed until March 27. Then I got an immediate text from my husband: “We are all working from home until further notice. What does that even look like?”.
Today is a whole new world; my kids are in the throes of homeschool, something I have sworn never to do. I don’t have the patience for this. I have not changed my mind this week, but Mother Nature and the Coronavirus had other plans. So, here we sit with a new schedule. My kids have handled it remarkably well; my teen son and I had it out on Monday, but as soon as I let him have a little say in his schedule, it has been pretty smooth. I am thankful for older kids that seems to grasp the gravity of all of this. I can’t imagine explaining this to a 3-year-old.
What I hope we remember in all of this is that human beings are social creatures; we don’t do well in isolation. Numerous studies have been done on social isolation and its impact on our psyche; spoiler: none of the results are promising. Even people who claim to “hate people” don’t really; we all have our people. The ones that hold us up. The ones that make us laugh. The ones that we couldn’t imagine life without. To be human is to be social.
That’s what makes all of this so hard; we are hard-wired to connect with others. Our default is to just do what we do: go out, eat with others, interact as much as we can. So, this is hard on us. There is a grief in all of this; it’s critical to understand that. We love to watch and read dystopian stories of people who are trying to survive after the catastrophic loss of society; each of these stories weaves a common thread: the main characters mourn for life as it once was. The reason this resonates so strongly with us is that we can absolutely relate. I work from home, so this shouldn’t have impacted me as much, but I long for the days of walking up to the coffee shop, tucking myself into the back corner with a maple latte, and grading papers for hours. This is no longer an option. I am here with three people that I love very much but three people that will likely drive me crazy as we navigate our new normal.
The moral in all of this is to cut each other some slack; my daughter and her friend FaceTimed each other last night, and they were lamenting how much they miss each other. There was a genuine feeling of anguish in their voices. We forget that our kids go to school everyday and interact with so many people. They miss those people desperately. My husband is doing conference calls with his people and his biggest annoyance is that he can’t just go into their offices and hop onto their computers to help them. He is frustrated and annoyed by the bureaucracy he’s dealing with while getting them set up to work remotely. It’s important to recognize these emotions for what they are: loss. We have lost a lot in the last week, but we are so overwhelmed with the triage response that we aren’t able to even process it yet.
It will come. The grief will hit us.
At some point, we will know someone who has the virus; this is why Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were such an eye-opener to so many; it’s not real until it is real. But we will know people in our “real” lives that have it as well. It will be painful and scary. It is likely that someone we know or someone one step away will die. It’s a thought that is almost too terrifying to think about. The reality is that this virus has nothing but time and one mission, and we will all be impacted by its singular focus. That’s why it’s okay to write the next great American novel or Oscar-winning screenplay while this is all happening, but it’s perfectly okay to NOT do that as well. No one needs that pressure right now. The kids need some structure and a sense of normalcy but not at the expense of their mental health. Most importantly, it’s okay to take a moment and grieve the loss of normalcy. It will hit each of us at different times and in different ways, but it WILL hit us. All we can do is try to take each day in stride; it’s okay to be tender with ourselves and with each other. We are all we’ve got.
