Gratitude & Grief
We’re not an especially patriotic family, but there’s something nice about waking up on a Thursday in July and experiencing that “holiday” feeling, when we’re both off of work and the coffee is on and you can just sit and enjoy it vs. thinking about the minutes before you have to begin your first work task or meeting.
I’m trying to quit social media, and it’s a slow, slow journey. I’ve been saying for months/years that I just need to step away from my accounts, stop relying on them as my creative outlet, but my brain’s been so trained on using the small box for text as my connection to the world, and the instant gratification that came from little red hearts and kind replies fueled that further. But I’m trying to be more intentional with my writing, and how I share it, and who gets to read it, not that I’m trying to make it that exclusive, but I don’t want my words to be motivation to stay addicted and addled on an app that often feels like it does more harm than good.
I can’t say I’ve quit “cold turkey,” in fact I’m amused (and slightly shocked) at the ways my brain will find to chase that dopamine hit in absence of the IG logo to tap on my home screen. I find myself checking the news sites with more regularity, impatiently waiting for there to be some live update or breaking news to give me some type of new information to latch on to. I’ve spent far more time on LinkedIn these past few days than I have in months, although that feels like the place dopamine goes to die, what with everyone trying to share their pithy life advice, formatted in that weird writing style that’s supposed to be inspiring:
I’m going to say something that seems objectionable off the bat. (“I fired my employee today”)
Then I’m going to explain to you why this thing was actually a really good/brave/kind thing. (“…from having to carry the emotional weight of the team.”)
Then I’m going to wrap it up in a way that’s supposed to be an effective motivator to enhance your career/the pursuit of capitalism.
I’ve also found myself reading more messages in groups that I long-ago subscribed to on Facebook and Reddit. I know that these are both forms of social media, but my desperate brain has rationalized that since this is more passive engagement (requiring more effort to read someone’s stories v. the endless, endless scrolling), that somehow this is a logical next step to wean myself off. (This is why I don’t say “social media addiction” in jest.)
One of the groups I’m in is for people who don’t believe in an afterlife grieving lost loved ones. While I don’t know if that completely explains my stance, I appreciate being able to find a corner of the internet where you can share your pain without someone telling you that your loved one is “in a better place,” or that the cruel and slow way they died was all “part of God’s plan.” You can have objective conversations where your pain and the reality of it can be addressed head on.
I read someone’s story today about dealing with grief after the loss of a spouse and a familiar feeling caught in my throat. Sitting here on our quiet porch, taking in the sounds and feelings of July, I feel lucky. One of our cats is snoozing on the chair by the table, and my husband is sitting upstairs finishing notes for work. We are not rich, but we have what we need. We have plans later with our family to sit by my brother’s pool and eat barbecue and bullshit. Things are good right now, and we are happy, and as good as that all feels and as grateful as I am, I also feel grief swelling up inside me because I know none of this is permanent.
That is one of the strange gifts that loss gives you once you’ve met it firsthand—the unshakeable reality of impermanence, which manages to deepen your gratitude and grief simultaneously. I am so thankful for the beautiful gifts I’ve been given in this life, and I will be so terribly heartbroken once they are gone.