Nobody wants to grieve these days

A very common response to the new administration in the United States is one of apathy - not exactly that people don't care about the rise of facism or the disappearing of innocent people, but more that they don't have the energy to care. I've seen this take all over the internet since the election in November, and have heard it from many of my colleagues. Too many Americans are working long hours, commuting even longer to and from their homes, trying to fit everything into the schedule, stay on top of bills, keep food in the pantry, get enough exercise, and maybe, for the luckiest among us, uphold a social life. There just isn't any time left over to call our representatives, stay up to date on current news that could affect us, or really do anything with our findings.

So if there isn't enough time for those civic duties, how could anyone possibly make time to grieve what's been lost?

What I'm about to lay out here isn't a secret or a surprise to anyone living in this endless stream of sensationalized news - we're all aware of the fact that the push of "hustle culture" in the 2010s is now heaving back the other way - in other words, we're beginning to see the harsh consequences of working way over-time and building a life on the supposed bragging rights of doing so. We're now living in the most isolated generation as a result. Online dating is abysmal, working outside of business hours is a given, and most of our professions and social media platforms blur the lines between those working hours and sacred time off. We're always accessible to others, and contradictorily, we largely have only ourselves to rely on in most moments throughout the day.

Aside from the obvious pitfalls to becoming such an individualistic society, there are countless barriers that individualism and corporatism have put in place over time that hinder us from being able to process the tolls of our demanding lives. We live under a system that worships "business as usual," so as to make sure the proverbial machine of capitalism keeps running without error.

These barriers include whittling down bereavement leave to nearly nothing - so even when your closest loved ones pass away, you'd better be back in the office in three days' time. (I have an unfortunately cynical joke about this exact situation that arose when my best friend from college passed in 2023: "He killed himself on Friday, and I was back to work on Tuesday.")

In America, we also have no reliable medical leave - perhaps some companies or employers make it easy for their employees, but each individual worker would serve themselves well making sure they read the fine print and understand the specialized circumstances for their position or their pay scale. Others, of course, get nothing at all. My colleagues and I were recently discussing the very real necessity of teachers "timing" pregnancy for the late spring, so as to maximize any maternal leave. One bragged of her ability to come in for the work days in early fall, upon our return, to score a few extra days later in the year. Another chided me for thinking I might possibly get to take a full year off when I decide to start my family and still earn full retirement in thirty years. Silly me, I guess.

This is the ethos of "business as usual." No hostile government takeover, nor climate disaster, nor friend's death, nor medical emergency can hold back the stampede of business as usual, so long as people continue to run with it.

But it doesn't stop with work itself; it takes so many other forms, like the social conditioning of pretending that everything is fine, when it clearly isn't. On a smaller scale, it's pretending that we're fine, when we really aren't. It's what makes grief so difficult to discuss and therefore move through. Not only is it an uncomfortable feeling (to say the very least) - it makes our friends and family uncomfortable. We find it extremely difficult to provide comfort to our loved ones even in the midst of "appropriate" grieving periods. Many of us, myself included, feel the need to outsource this kind of relationship to a therapist, for fear of burdening those closest to us. When I was at my lowest, I couldn't bear the thought of my parents, partner, or dear friends worrying about my emotional wellbeing. So I simply didn't let them.

I fear that we're afraid of this part of ourselves, too. It's one thing to know it's there, to know something must be done with it. It's another to actually feel it, and another still to bring it to another person or group. It makes sense, though, when we consider how little modeling we've ever had for what grief can look like. In America and most other westernized countries and cultures, grief is strictly private aside from funerals - the one and only time we allow ourselves to gather with others in sadness - usually for no longer than a few hours. Otherwise, grief happens in the shower, or tucked under the covers, or on the way home from work. It may sneak in during a scrolling session, or perhaps a movie scene triggers it.

But grief was always meant to be communal - you knew I was going to say it - just like a funeral, only longer. More sustained. More accessible. Our lives and schedules once allowed for this. When humans lived more communally, particularly in more agrarian and less technological times, grief was generally ritualized within the community as a shared experience beyond a single scheduled day. The death of a person was not only a loss to an individual or family, but a disruption to the entire community who knew them. We still see this, of course, in close quarters like churches and schools, but it was much more common to have entire towns show up for those closest to the deceased.

The downside, surely, to thinking about grief processes from a distant past is the fact that it was so much more integrated into life. Death was more visible, because it was everywhere. With fewer hospitals or modes of access to them, more people died at home. More women had miscarriages and stillbirths. Mental disorders and physical disabilities went undiagnosed, and many were even punished. In multigenerational families and communities, especially, it was a regular occurrence to be directly involved in the process of grief in some way. Though I'm certainly not insinuating we'd be better off today seeing more of this in our everyday lives, it points to a trend of being more actively involved with one another, and that, in turn, supports the process.

Many would argue that grief isn't even meant to be "processed" in the ways we currently discuss it. Individualism promotes the idea that we must work through the pain in order to one day be rid of it, or at least minimize it to the point that we don't often think about it. But grief has always simply been a part of life. It cannot be removed completely.

Maybe it's time to stop treating it as such.

What exactly are we missing, then, if we continue to privatize grief? Because death will continue to happen around us. We will continue to lose people, places, and ideas that we love - and yes, the full experience of grief can certainly transcend into relationships involving the deaths of our dreams and perceived futures, rather than physical beings. This has been my personal brand of mourning, as of late. What we've been missing for the many generations that compartmentalize grief so severely is the growth in resilience and relationship when we do share this vulnerable part of our lives with others. If we can be shown even in the smallest of ways that it's okay to trust others with our grief and pain, the cycle of isolationism breaks.

Of course, it is imperative that we also gather for joy and celebration, but the integration of grief doesn't minimize the frequency with which communities focus on lighter, happier events. In fact, I'd argue that it would make both sides of the human experience more sacred.

If we could all truly mourn in the ways we physiologically need to, we would be less exhausted, less burnt out, and of course, less isolated. We would be more understanding, energized, motivated, accepting, and loving. I know it sounds like a too-good-to-be-true scenario given the current state of things, but in order to start fostering this environment in our local lives and communities, it really doesn't take much. I believe it starts with identifying who among our closest friends and family can withstand the tougher conversations around grief, pain, or distress - just one or two people who won't shy away from that flavor of conversation.

Likewise, we should be the kind of person our loved ones can share their grief with. It's worth examining our own compulsions around handling others' pain - do we reassure them often, letting them know they're safe to share, or do we feel awkward when they cry in our arms? The latter doesn't immediately mean we can't be trusted or that we aren't ready to do this work, but it does serve as good information for a path forward.

Lastly, modelling healthy and open mourning can be the shift that many of our "business as usual" peers may need. Grief, as we all know, is expressed in a myriad of ways. But being open and vocal about the losses we're experiencing, such as letting colleagues know you're taking the day off to support a friend in hospice, or sharing the story of burying the turtle you found run over on the highway, can be powerful gateways for those listening to explore their own mourning.

There really is so little time on this precious Earth. Rather than spending it shoving my losses even deeper into the crawlspace, I want to honor and remember them. I want to share them with others, and feel them when they call to be felt. Because another cliché about grief is that we'll eventually find that it's just love refusing to die. They are one in the same, and how beautiful it is to share a darker, more mythic form of love that carries so much weight. How sacred, to be beside other beings in this heavy blanket, sharing and embracing. To truly grieve the world today, to grieve our losses, is to love what we know is possible more fiercely than we ever have.