on grief
Life is loss: jobs, relationships, time, bone density, muscle mass, faith, inhibitions, regrets, safety nets.
The collective dread is palpable, and the more time I spend on the internet the more it feels like a silly & reckless place. Earlier this year, I watched Idiocracy with my ex. We couldn’t finish it. Rampant anti-Blackness aside (the early 2000s were an era, oh boy), it was too depressing. We put it on after the Super Bowl with Kendrick's performance, which felt like a hollow triumph when days earlier, the "end racism" stenciling in the endzone was scrubbed off the field. I guess the Chiefs lost and that was cool. But Idiocracy reminded me that U.S. schools are in a shittier place than they were twenty years ago. The babies can't read. AI is cannibalizing our lives and draining our intellectual curiosity (if you have the means, I encourage everyone to counter this by supporting local literacy organizations - like Chicago Poetry Center).
That's the big G grief in a year that's had multiple. I also put my cat to sleep at the end of September. We grew a lot together, both becoming less anxious during the very anxiety-inducing time that was the thick of the pandemic. It wasn't always an easy relationship; Dusty's abandonment trauma showed up in the form of a compulsive overgrooming habit. In our first summer together, I collected endless tufts of her fur from my hardwood floors. Her bottomless neediness set me on edge and made me want to throw her out a window. Generic Prozac and time would mellow her out. By the end, Dusty's overgrooming was occasional and she greeted visitors at the door, rather than hiding under the bed. Caretaking teaches us a lot about ourselves and animals are forgiving, lucky for us. I still miss her very much.
Lives are terribly fragile, and thinking about that excessively is panic attack-inducing. I write this at the end of a year of my city, like other cities, being under siege by the federal government's kidnappers. Most of us are a stone's throw from devastating grief, homelessness, or our systems collapsing on us. Or all three? I think the second half of the 2020s will continue to take us for a ride. Next year is the 250th anniversary of the "America" experiment. How's it going? I guess you could say badly…though, at this point you wonder if it was ever going well. The real answer lies between yes and no, but mostly no, because what fruits can we expect a tree watered on blood and bodies to yield?
Grief is a price we pay for loving. I know that 2026 will have more of it because I have no intentions to stop loving the people, places and things that give life meaning. Alas. See you folks on the other side.