Grief in the Body (on ICE)

I think it’s safe to say that most of us are experiencing an ache inside for change. We might not agree on what that change should be or what it looks like or how it needs to play out. But that ache is grief. We grieve that things aren’t different; that someone or some political structure has let us down or not bending to our will. And once that ache gets inside us, it asks for something.

Consider what’s happening inside your body during this ongoing ICE conflict in my home state of Minnesota, because I know what’s going on inside mine, and it’s not pretty.  

I cry randomly and often, and have stress-related intestinal issues; my hands shake sometimes; anxiety takes hold of my breathing and heart rate; I lash out at my significant other when he accidently locks himself out of the house while I’m busy doom scrolling and I have to get out of bed and let him in; I don’t sleep much.

My body wants to be numb, and so here’s what I’ve done recently to give it just that: isolated (and not just because it’s freaking cold outside, and there’s fourteen inches of snow on the ground); wined earlier than usual (no lectures, please); watched ridiculous rom-coms and Ted Lasso for the fiftieth time; played copious amounts of Sudoku; eaten more cereal for dinner than vegetables; and read fiction until my eyes bled (nonfiction being more real than I can do right now).

Have my choices been helpful?

Yes and no.

But does any of that sound familiar?

With all this grief stewing in my body, all the isolation I ache for, I reached out to a friend in Minnesota looking for confirmation that, yes, it’s okay to isolate and be invisible, and you know what she said?

“Stay connected. It helps.”

Ugh. Not what I wanted to hear.

But I knew she was right. 

So, to break with isolation, I’ve been connecting a bit more, creating a bit more, getting out of my cave (and my head) a bit more. And it’s awakened, even a little bit, the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins I’ve needed.

What does the ache ask from you? Does it want Doritos? That’s okay. Eat them. A smoke? A high? I’d advise “in moderation,” but who am I to talk with a glass of chardonnay in my hand at 3 p.m. most days. Do you exercise to exhaustion? Go to bed early or wake up later? Shop? Or are you spurred to action?

No matter what path you’re choosing, please remember to be good to yourself. Read hopeful and helpful things, like this:

In writer Sarah LaPolla’s latest Substack, she ended with a quote that helped me breathe, if only for a little while. It’s from Native American, Minnesota author, Louise Erdrich: “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

Most of all, stay well and stay safe, my friends.