It Matters: I Didn’t Miss What I Don’t Miss

I don’t have many fond memories of my prom. My high school graduation, grad night, and even my college graduation aren’t good memories either, to be perfectly honest with you. I didn’t enjoy a school commencement until I finished grad school over a year ago, and even then the ceremony itself was a little tedious (I was separated from my friend group thanks to an off-number of chairs and sat pretty much alone—who knew that still mattered in your mid-20s?). Still, walking across the stage, shaking the provost’s hand, high-fiving my beloved professors along the way—those moments are priceless in my memory. Also invaluable are the moments after—the pictures and hugs with my family, the group shots with my friends, meeting my friends’ parents for the first time, going out to dinner afterward, dancing in the restaurant bathroom with my sister to a George Harrison song—each of these moments I wouldn’t trade for anything. They are bright spots in my memory and whenever I come across some of the photos and videos from this day, I am transported back to that happiness all over again.

In less than a week the world has changed, and a day like my grad school commencement is now a pipedream for thousands of soon-to-be graduates the world over. But it’s more than that. It’s not just that people are suddenly facing a world where their own golden memories are postponed or all-together canceled, it’s that the opportunity itself has suddenly disappeared. While we remain hopeful that things will return to normal again soon, many of us have to admit that we can’t know that “normal” as we know it will actually return because the world is now changed, and will remain changed long after this moment has passed.

Coronavirus has been the word of the year, growing more and more relevant with each passing month. I remember a moment in mid-December while at a show at the Troubadour with a close friend: I thought, fleetingly, of China and the increasing reports of the “mysterious new virus,” how it was strange that while everything was in utter chaos a world away, in the here and now I was in a crowd of sweaty strangers singing along to my favorite songs, life uninterrupted and unscathed.

Now, in a disorienting crescendo, COVID-19 has completely taken over our lives and normal is something close to the plot of a dystopian novel. Already we’re seeing schools shutting their doors for the remainder of the semester, students being forced to leave dorms so swiftly they’re virtually homeless in the interim, of graduations and dances and sports banquets canceled, robbing graduates of final moments with their friends and family as they gear up for their changing lives.

Personally, my upcoming book tour has been largely canceled. While some dates in the late spring and summer may stay as planned, most have been postponed to a time in the vague future. California is now in a type of lockdown dubbed “Safer at Home” that, while for the best, translates to a time of isolation and fear no matter how hard we try to put a positive spin on it. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but I want to acknowledge that things are strange and scary and even if we now have the time to write the next King Lear or start a new hobby or connect with our friends and families in new ways, we’re also entering a time where we’ll feel lonely, a little stir-crazy, and very uncertain about the future.

Things seem to shift and escalate day-to-day, pushing us out of a new sense of normal each time we wake and check our phones for fresh news. And though there is so much to worry about—from our grandparents and parents to our friends and co-workers, schools and children and business closures, healthcare workers, world leaders and how they’re handling this crisis, the incessant rain and of course, ourselves—I can’t stop thinking about trivial things like proms and grad nights and all the students in their last year of school who’ve had these moments snatched from them.

I say trivial because prom? I probably should have skipped it. Grad night? I wish I’d saved my money. But I got to experience these things nonetheless. They get to be trivial because I had them, and though I didn’t necessarily enjoy them, they were experiences and rites of passage open and available to me no matter the outcome. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m grateful for the things I didn’t miss, even if I don’t miss them. I don’t have to wonder what these moments would have been like because I got to live them—because life was normal enough then where large gatherings and going out in public and being with people was allowed and encouraged and the right thing to do. Now, things are totally different, and I can’t begin to imagine how heartbreaking this season is for students on the cusp of what should be an exciting and hopeful next chapter of life.

I want to end this on a positive note, to tell people to not be afraid or to recommend a Bible verse or something else uplifting. I have plenty of verses in mind and positive affirmations too, but I think I’ll save them and just say, simply, that it’s okay to mourn what we’re missing. We should mourn what we’re missing. To not acknowledge the normal bits of life that are suddenly gone would be to ignore a part of our humanity.

To put it baldly: this sucks. But there may be beauty and blessing in it, too. Take time to feel both sides of your feelings: anger and gratitude, sorrow and hope, pain and blessing. Yes, our health, wellness, and safety far outweigh the joy of social gatherings, experiences, and the rites of passage that come and go when we’re very young, but it’s okay to hurt for them. We’re all experiencing loss in some way or another, and loss asks us to grieve.

Still, I’m reminded of one of my favorite exchanges in literature. It gave me some comfort this week, and I hope it does the same for you:

“‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring