grief + gratitude
Yesterday, March 14, 2021, marks one year since I moved home to Kansas. I booked the ticket from Seattle thinking I would only be home to wait out the pandemic for a month or two, then go back to the Northwest before moving to Scotland in August 2020. HA! Jokes on me right?
The weeks leading up to the stay-at-home orders are seared into my brain. Through January and the better part of February, I had been hearing lots of buzz about this new, novel coronavirus but wasn’t too worried about what it could mean for me or the world. I had cleverly changed the letterboard outside of my classroom to “Love is in the air, but so is the flu. Wash your hands.” Turns out the flu was about to be the least of our worries.
I drove to church after work on Ash Wednesday and found a seat next to Erika, the mom of our house. We caught up on our day in hushed voices waiting for the service to start. She then said to me, “Teressa, this coronavirus looks like it’s getting pretty serious and quarantine is highly likely in the next couple of weeks. We will be making a big Costco run on Friday —let us know if there was anything you want us to be sure to have in the house.” *gulp*
I didn’t want to believe her. I mean surely modern medicine is more advanced than it was during the Spanish flu, so this is all going to blow over soon, right?! Right??!? Ugh.
I’ll be the first to admit that I did not take any of this super seriously at the beginning outside of washing my hands more often, keeping a safer distance from strangers, and wiping down surfaces excessively. I kept a hair appointment and bought last-minute tickets to concerts of two of my favorite bands in the first week of March. Those shows that typically would have been packed full, were not. Those last few opportunities to be elbow-to-elbow with a bunch of strangers were so special and I don’t think I could’ve picked better bands to spend those last moments in public with.
Colony House sang “Looking for Some Light” to a few hundred people at Neumos, none of us realizing just how much light we would be searching for in the next year.
The last official outing was with my boss, Steph. We went to see the PNW-native sister trio, JOSEPH, at the Elks’ Temple in Tacoma. She had introduced me to this band when I moved to Seattle and we’ve been to just about every one of their Seattle-area shows together since then. Each one of their songs hit home for each of us in many ways, but the songs “Honest” and “Half Truths” would really come into play later in quarantine and through this entire pandemic. I’m grateful we got that time together before I left.
The plan for the coming weeks was that I would housesit and dogsit for a family that I babysat for frequently. As talks of stay-at-home orders in Washington became more frequent, I was having a hard time imagining spending that time with people other than my family. After all, COVID hadn’t yet reached Kansas in the way that it was wreaking havoc on the population in Seattle. I was torn over what to do.
The preschool closed on March 12. I spent that afternoon deep cleaning my classroom, already grieving the fact that I may not be back in there with students again. After work, I ran to Michael’s to stock up on art supplies to keep me busy. Late that evening I had a total breakdown about where I wanted to spend quarantine. I knew that my days in the States were numbered, so having ample time to say goodbye to Washington was ideal, even if there were restrictions. Ultimately, though, I decided it was best to come home.
The first week of quarantine was a much-needed break. March is usually a long month at the preschool since our spring break isn’t until April. I ended that first week celebrating my twenty-second birthday, a first quarantine birthday. We ordered takeout from our favorite Japanese steakhouse, took it to Coronado Heights, and ended the night at our dining room table with cheesecake and champagne. This was not how I had pictured spending my birthday just a month prior, but perfect for this moment.
It did not take long for reality to set in. I was missing my routine in Seattle. I was nervous about the future—I was supposed to be moving to Scotland in August, and deciding to cut my Seattle goodbye short was heartbreaking. My anxiety was through the roof. I’ve struggled with anxiety before, but this was different. Much of my anxiety in recent years had been sparked by academic endeavors and my own battle with procrastination and time management. This time, though, everything was out of my control. I wasn’t in control of what would happen with my YAV year. Having held so much hope and promise for that opportunity, it felt scary that it might not be happening.
For the preschool, my main focus was getting the students that had grown to love through the end of the school year, but now virtually. Hours upon hours were spent recording videos with the limited art supplies I had at home. The school year ended, and I began working for my mom at the same hotel I worked in high school, serving breakfast and cleaning rooms.
A whole other layer to my stress, grief, and heartache was paying witness to the chronic epidemic of racism and seeing Black siblings continue to be killed at the hands of law enforcement. I spent evenings watching live streams of the Seattle Police Department engage Capitol Hill's protesters, escalating tensions into unnecessary violence. Like everyone sitting in this collective timeout, I was motivated to do my part of unlearning, acknowledging my own privilege, and letting my actions reflect my words.
In mid-June, I learned that my move to Scotland was delayed until January, so I agreed to work virtually for the preschool until then. I headed back to Seattle to do some deep cleaning/organizing at work and packed up my belongings to move out of the Ashenbrenner’s home. Dad flew out and we loaded my car to drive back across the country. A very bittersweet moment for all of us. I miss them dearly.
In August, I received the hard news that in-person service for YAV wouldn’t be happening this year. At the end of the month, I went back to Washington to get ready for the school year and batch-record several weeks-worth of lessons. I then took a much-needed solo retreat to the Washington Coast. I camped right on the shores of Rialto Beach, in the woods of Crescent Bay, and walked the fragrant lavender fields in Sequim. It was nothing short of magical, and Lord knows I needed it for the fall I would have.
Fall started out pretty well. I was beginning virtual work with YAV, teaching a new preschoolers class, and work was beginning to slow down at the Inn. By November, burnout had settled in, and my seasonal depression was making itself quite cozy too. COVID cases in our area were rising exponentially, at numbers we had been lucky not to see thus far. I missed my sister being at home with us. It still felt strange moving back in with my parents at twenty-two after being out of the nest for five years.
Like everyone, I was heavily affected by the political tension surrounding the election, and that didn’t ease at all until January. I isolated myself from people that I had stayed connected to virtually up until this point. In classic Enneagram 2 fashion, I would send out an initial check-in to my people, but I wouldn’t follow up. Many suggestions to get together for wine over Zoom went unplanned, and my schedule became filled with lots of stress-induced naps. It was all really heavy and full of more low-grade grief.
The arrival of 2021 provided some semblance of a reset. However, we couldn’t let down our guard— this pandemic was still ever-present, and armed insurrectionists altered this sense of hope with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. None of this was getting any easier.
In the past few weeks, as pandemic anniversaries have come and gone, I’ve been reminded of many of the fruits that have come out of this time too. Yes, my mental health has taken the biggest impact, and while that has been hard, I’m glad that this has been the biggest problem. It’s taken a while for me to make the jump, but I have finally started back to therapy. Emotions are high because, as we all know, it has to get worse before it gets better. Still, I know that taking care of myself is important and necessary. I’ve readjusted priorities and unrealistic expectations that I placed upon myself. I’m teaching myself to be a little more patient and learning why I operate the way I do.
I will tell you that it has been tough to sit down and write this blog post—it has brought up many tears, but I needed to do this for myself. I want to end with a practice that has helped me look for small doses of joy in the midst of so much grief and collective loss: writing down the things that I’m grateful for. This practice started with the Five Minute Journal, a journal that has taken a lot of the stress out of journaling and allows for some guided reflection and documentation of this season.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the moments I’ve been grateful for in the last year, but it helps to remind me that there are wildflowers blooming among the weeds of this season.
Friends, I hope you’re extending yourself a lot of grace in this pandemic season. It. is. hard. Lean into your people and trust that the decisions you’re making for yourself right now, are good enough. Take care. Talk soon.
xx,
t
