Thank you all for your comments on my last post. I found them to be very enlightening. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels that it’s important to finish what we start, but also struggles to know when continuing is more harmful than good. Teaching kids body awareness and autonomy is also so important. Lots of good points that I will be pondering on as I move forward.
Today is my kids’ first day of school. I have had almost no feelings about them starting via distance learning. Truly I felt numb, which I guess is a feeling in and of itself. Mostly I just didn’t think about it much. I wasn’t especially nervous or upset or grateful… I wasn’t anything.
But then this morning we helped them get onto their zoom calls and seeing them there, sitting in front of a screen with their teacher’s face, just made me so sad. This wave of grief washed over me and I could hardly breathe.
Mel wrote not long ago about a seemingly small covid-related loss that hit her especially hard, and I responded in the comments that I think we are learning to manage so many tiny losses every day without grieving them, that every once in a while something hits us just so and punctures the bubble of grief, and we feel inordinately sad about what might seem like just another small thing. And maybe it is a small sadness, but enough small griefs eventually become a big hurt.
Today I cried hot tears all over my husband’s shoulder. I talked about how sad I was and he talked about how mad he is, and we both sat there, upset.
Then I wiped my nose and got to work, thankful to have released another bubble of grief. There will be a lot more small losses and lost more grief bubbles punctured, but for right now I’m okay.
I’ve had waves of grief watching my son do his distance learning. The other day during music he was singing by himself to the screen and I almost cried.