It’s hard to know how to characterize this period of time we’re all living in. “These uncertain times”, “our new normal”, “this unprecedented time”, “the weirds.” That last one is my personal favorite (thanks, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon!), although it doesn’t fully get at the intense grief and loss we’re all experiencing on some level.

This Harvard Business Review article — That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief — has made the rounds in the last month and helped kickstart some of the conversations about grief I’ve been hearing and participating in lately. In it, David Kessler says that “we’re feeling a number of different griefs…. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.”

I see this collective grief in the masks hanging from the dashboard of nearly every parked car I pass on my walks. A clear sign of how our world has changed. And of course, I see it in the eyes of my masked neighbors as I move to the street to give the space, while still waving and saying a muffled “hi” through my face covering — my attempt to establish some sense of the human connection I’m missing so much. The loss of jobs and lives hangs heavy in the air. We’re inundated with news and updates and statistics and it’s all just too much. But it’s real, and we’re faced with the choice of acknowledging our griefs so that we can actually live in them and through them. 

I’ve experienced grief at a personal level in many ways during the time of coronavirus. Grief over the trip to Europe that was canceled, the lost time with family, the lack of in-person connection with friends, and now the loss of work as I knew it.

While I’m still with The Walt Disney Company, things look so different than they did a month ago. Change can be unsettling, and I’ve allowed myself to feel all the feels. Fear, uncertainty, worry, and hope all mixed together. These changes in how I’m working and how I (along with the rest of the world!) am staying safe at home have forced me to reexamine my rhythms of life and my priorities.

In some ways, I’m trying to reframe this time as a sabbatical. I took one in 2015 while at One Medical, and it was life-changing for many reasons — not the least of which was that I met James on the first day of that sabbatical, but that’s another story altogether. For four weeks, I traveled and wrote. That was my job. To connect, learn, reflect and write. During that time, my book Enough began to take shape, and it’s time to pick that back up. 

During these uncertain times, I am planning to allocate more time for rest and to appropriately grieve the loss of what 2020 was “supposed” to look like. I’m also giving structure to my days and setting my sights on life-giving activities that will buoy my spirits. This pandemic has allowed for some more free time which, I recognize, is a privilege based on my socioeconomic status and the fact that James and I are not parents at this point in our lives. I want to learn, read books, practice yoga on the roof and do some serious soul-searching. I want to continue connecting virtually with friends and family and feeding my creativity with cooking and being out in nature as much as possible. I want to truly let myself breathe and have the headspace think deeply.

Then, it will be time to put metaphorical pen to paper. To write. To dust off that book proposal and start sending it out. Because if there’s anything I know, it’s that now more than ever we need the message of “enough.” We need to know that we are not what we do, that we are loved, that we are cared for, and that we are enough.