allowing grief & joy to co-exist
When my dad passed away in 2019, I didn’t understand what was happening to my body, my brain. I’d been expecting grief, but not as it actually showed up.
I’d been waiting for it to happen as a 6-step program of sorts… the way we’ve all been told how grief happens. You know… denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and finally finding meaning with it.
But what I’d learned is that all the movies I’d watched and books I’d read had been woefully wrong. And even with my background in psychology, and experiencing grief on a different level before… I was STILL unprepared for what I was actually feeling, and experiencing on a molecular, physical level.
Moving through grief isn’t like ascending a staircase in order of stages. It’s more like a game of chutes & ladders… climbing a tiny bit out of the darkness only to slide back down into it. Or riding a tilt-a-whirl… a whiplash, swirling, round and round from stage to stage. Or even more unexpected… like playing a game of Twister, with one hand on red (feeling intense rage), the other on blue (immense sadness), one foot on green (envy of people who still go about their daily lives unencumbered), and the other foot on yellow (sparks of pure JOY)… where all these feelings somehow seemingly co-exist all at once. (And it’s no wonder grief is so exhausting.)
And amidst the pressing grief, it’s the JOY that caught me off-guard the most. The random bubbles of happiness that burst forth from my lips in a laugh… to be quickly followed by shame, because how DARE I laugh amidst all this horribleness. Right? Wrong.
Because all the books & movies, and whispered “I’m sorry for your losses” don’t actually HELP us understand our grief, or navigate through it.
And in Western society, it’s only recently that we’ve started discussing these things out in the open (thanks Gen X), to remove the taboo and “shame” of some of these more complex and “icky” feelings.
But allowing the grief move through your body along with joy is tooootally normal… and can even be necessary in order to get through the grief.
And we NEED to be talking more about this. Especially NOW.
Because as our country continues to divide, and the constructs of our society crumblE… we are all collectively grieving, together.
So let’s name it for what it is. Because it’s complex, and part of that complexity IS the grief that we’re all feeling.
The grief of:
not having to constantly think about what our government is doing at any given moment.
being able to sleep through the night without worry of what horribleness we might wake up to next.
missing when the Constitution was followed (for the most part), and we were making actual progress on things like women’s rights and trans’ rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, and Black people’s rights, etc. … instead of being set back by decades.
smiling at and saying HELLO to neighbors/community members, without wondering if they’re nazis who might turn in our fellow neighbors/community members for not being white.
missing the time when science and intellect ruled, instead of outright lies & incompetence. (Dammit… Idiocracy was not intended to be a documentary!)
being able to plan our lives more than a few months into the future. (No 5 or 10-year-goals happening anytime soon.)
not having to say “but that’s illegal!” about our own “president” & administration every damn day.
missing the IDEA of the country that we were sold as a child… that we are ALL equal, all FREE, and we could be ANYTHING we wanted when we grew up if we just worked hard enough for it.
So yes, let’s call it what it is.
This is grief.
Because we’re actively mourning the lives we thought we might have; the futures we’d thought we were building together.
And if you’re neurodivergent (like me), or a minority of any kind, you’re most likely feeling it even harder right now.
BUT… (yes, there’s a “but”):
There’s also room for JOY.
And a NEED for joy.
Not just that it’s okay to feel some kind of joy during all of this… but that joy is a necessity.
Because the constant waves of grief will drag you down & make you feel like you’re drowning.
And right now, the waves are coming fast. We’re angry, and sad, and then angry again.
It’s absolutely exhausting to be awake to it all right now… and might seem easier to just let the waves crash over your head, push you under, and close your eyes till you’re nothing but numb.
BUT (there’s that “but” again)…
You can’t LET it.
As you probably already know, these things are coming at us hard & fast in order to tire us out. To wear us down. Overwhelm our senses. Make us compliant & complicit. It’s how fascism works.
So, how DO we stay afloat in this big seemingly endless sea of WTF-ness? Even amidst our grief?
By connecting to our JOY.
This means actively seeking out joyful moments, little “glimmers” in our lives that make us smile, slow our heart from racing, allow us to breathe deeply, and just BE HUMAN for a little while.
Joy isn’t a frivolous thing. It’s a necessity.
It helps keep us connected to ourselves, and each other.
And it’s needed in order to help us BUILD the society that comes after all the fighting.
Okay, so our capitalistic society is crumbling. So what do we want to CREATE after its demise?
What will come after? Let’s work towards that… letting our joy buoy us & become our giant unicorn floatie in these choppy waters.
Let our joy remind us of exactly what we’re fighting for, and for whom. (Psssst… it’s us. ALL of us, together, in that once-upon-a-dream America that we’d been told was real. We, the People, can make it REALLY happen. Maybe not all at once, and maybe not even in our lifetimes. But we can make ripples, and watch them spread outward.)
So when you’re feeling heavy from the grief, or sad, or numb, or full of rage… give yourself permission to access and feel the JOY, as well. And to actively seek it out, allowing it to “fill your cup” so you can keep going.
Because we are complex human beings, and are able to hold a multitude of complex emotions in our bodies at the same time.
Grief and joy can co-exist. Allow them to.
So feel the sadness, and the anger, and anything else swirling around in your body. And let them move through you.
But when the joy bubbles up, feel that, too. Give yourself permission to feel the joy.
Allow that lighter feeling to fill you up, heal you, and let you breathe deeply once more.
Sunbathe in that little bit of joy, letting it tingle & warm your bones, till it can’t be contained and comes bubbling up & out of you.
Let the JOY refuel you.
And then USE that feeling to motivate you into motion.
Because the world needs your joy. Your art, your gifts, your creations.
So that we CAN build the world we’ve always dreamed of, together.
