“Sañjaya said: Arjuna, having thus spoken on the battlefield, cast aside his bow and arrows and sat down on the chariot, his mind overwhelmed with grief.” - Baghvad Gita
I am reopening the blog, though perhaps not for the reason that I wish I was. This will be a difficult time, and I, for myself, need to feel connected to others. It’s too much to handle what’s about to come alone, and one of my goals has been - and will be even more so now - to build community around me. This blog is part of that; posting here makes me feel connection to others, even though I may never know who reads these words. But the thought that perhaps someday, some of these words might help others makes me feel just a little bit better.
Every religious text in the world talks to its disciples about grief. There’s going to be a lot of time to talk about different aspects of what just happened, and what’s about to happen, but before moving on to any of that there has to be some time for grief. I find it important not to wallow too long in grief - there’s a lot to do - but skipping too fast over grief never works. There’s kind of an “optimal amount” of grief, like bread rising in an oven. Too little and the bread will be flat; too much and it may cook alive. Knowing when to indulge and when to stop is one of those things they never teach you in school.
But whatever the right amount of time is, clearly I, personally, haven’t hit it yet. Grief is an odd emotion. It’s a feeling of loss, a desire for something that never existed, that can’t exist, that won’t exist. It’s a feeling about a future that isn’t going to happen, and so it’s hard to reason with. You can’t talk to the thing that doesn’t exist. You can’t wish it well. Sometimes we get to say goodbye, sometimes we don’t, but either way, I will never - or at least not for a long time - know what it’s like to have a president I trust, to have a country I love, to see what could have happened if we chose love, if we chose engagement, if we chose to move forward.
So, for the moment, there are no words. You can’t reason with guilt anymore than you can reason with yeast. They need time to eat up all the sugars and spit out their bubbles. The gas of the emotion has to travel, slowly, painfully through the dough, pushing it, spreading it. There is no shortcut, at least not one worth taking it. It is, at times, one of the least interesting parts of the process. Later, there will be lessons to learn, actions to take, words to write, speeches to give, but for now there is only a pit that swallows all light.
But one advantage of being well, older than I used to be is that I know this feeling is temporary. If I give it time, it will slow to a dull throb, and I’ll be able to think again. For now, it’s time to curl up into a little ball.