Remaking the Grief of 2020. I am grieving. I bet you are too.
The Grief of 2020 can be found within the disruptions created by the ‘Great Pause,’ the movement Black Lives Matter, and the loss of life from COVID, violence, and illness.
I am grieving them all. I bet you are too.
These days I am grateful (again) for the concept of the maverick and the knowledge available to understand the different forms of being a maverick. While I grieve I am reminded that I have a choice.
Our grief is what can connect us with our fellow humans, regardless of where they may be in the maverick forms. Our responses, both within our soul and through our actions, can be what set us apart.
I bet we can each easily make a list of losses, for me some are:
- My kids’ kindergarten graduation, moving up day, & first day of lower and upper elementary
- A summer at home in Germany with family, rather than a summer at home in Colorado with friends
- Time alone in my home while each family member has their own adventure
- Travel to speak for a number of groups of tech executives in person
- Smiles shared between acquaintances and strangers
- Loss of black life, black art, black joy, black stories, from a Elijah McClain at the hands of the police to the talented Chadwick Boseman at the will of cancer
- Loss of life and health through COVID infections
But can we all as easily make a list of how we are choosing to life through the Grief of 2020?
I bet not.
If this year has exploded my understanding of any universal truth, it is the truth that I cannot control more than how I show up. In my identity as a Socialised Maverick I can influence a lot, maybe even the majority of my life, but I must give up control more often than I can hold onto it.
COVID will shut down the world and travel will be cancelled. I can choose to fight it and sulk, lashing out at others. Or I can chose to grieve, rest, and then redesign how to connect with the people I am missing from not traveling.
Black lives will be ended and damaged within the racist systems our world is built around and upon. I can give up, give in, throw up my hands, and close my eyes & my heart to my whiteness. Or I can chose to grieve, rest, read more, learn more, listen more, and use my whiteness to lift up black art, joy, story-telling, excellence, images, candidates, and more.
I can get exhausted and angry because these people called my family are always around or I can learn to express when I need a Mommy Time Out and lock the bedroom door.
My response to the Grief of 2020 can lift me, deepen me, enhance me. I can make that choice. I can eat chocolate and jog. I can sulk and laugh. I can binge watch and walk every day. I can celebrate how my children are growing and get misty eyed at milestones.
I can step into a phase of being a Conformist maverick and Maverick Behaviourist and Socialised Maverick.
I can both hate this phase of loss and grief of 2020 and be deeply grateful for the opportunity to reset, slow down, focus, connect, and, yes, grieve. I can give in to what is out of my control and design my response based on my own needs and my own soul.
The power of the maverick concept is in the choice of how to leverage our natural tendencies as we navigate the fullness of the Grief of 2020.
Perhaps even shift away from labeling this time the ‘Grief of 2020’ or the ‘Great Pause’ and instead remake this time into the Great Soul Expansion or the Great Reconnection or the Great Reckoning for ourselves.
Remaking the grief of 2020. How are you choosing to live in the fullness of 2020? How will you remake your own label for this time?
