August 23, 2020
There's is so little that’s mundane right now, it seems like. COVID has made everything super-sized, hyper-intense: the rage, the crowds, the clamor online, the shock, the dread. Of course the fear.
The weight of our collective grief, after losing so many people so fast, more than we can even conceive of, is almost too heavy to carry. It feels smothering. The numbers don't rise every day, not all of them. But they never really fall either. We don't recognize our own grief, unless we've lost someone. At least I don't think we do. There's an ache that won’t go away but we're not calling it grief. Most of the time we just try to ignore it, to get through the day.
We can’t understand what’s happening. We’ve never lived through something like this. We can’t wrap our minds around the numbers. We can’t relax, but lately we aren’t scared anymore either, not like we were this spring. Whatever neural/hormonal fight-or-flight sequence fires in our brains when there's danger has stopped firing. We feel numb, exhausted, unable to think.
At least that’s how I feel.
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