The real shit.

I hate that we’re so emotionally constipated as a society when it comes to loss and grief.  As if as long as we don’t acknowledge loss, it will never visit us.  As if as long as we don’t look directly at grief, it doesn't exist.

Because there's no place for sadness in public life, it's a dead weight dropped into a conversation.  Something private, not to be discussed in polite company.  As honest as I try to be in this blog, I find myself feeling apologetic when I have to look someone new in the face and explain what happened to Mila.  Their faces fall, they stutter, they run away.  Sorry for making you feel awkward for a minute of your life.

I hate that I feel that way.  It's stupid.  Why is the burden on me and D to do this?  What is there to feel squeamish about?  I don’t think I have anything to be ashamed of.  I’m certainly not ashamed of my daughter.  I don't think she's taboo.  What do I have to apologize for?  What do I have to hide?

There’s a funny-sad Louis CK bit that I saw again recently, where he explains to Conan O'Brien why he won't let his kids have smartphones.  I've always loved it, but even more so now.  He says that smartphones are toxic because they allow us to distract ourselves from how sad life can be, from the Forever Empty that is there underneath everything - but that distraction ultimately prevents us from feeling anything at all.

Most of the time we can ignore that uneasiness, but sadness and grief in other people reminds us of it.  And as a society we’re so poorly equipped to deal with it, that the reminder is so profoundly uncomfortable that we stigmatize the people experiencing it.  Certainly I tried not to think about it too much, but when we lost Mila for no reason at all, the abyss that surfaced was too huge to be ignored.

I think we would be better humans if we could learn to acknowledge it; if we could look straight into the abyss, and just let ourselves feel the sadness; if we took it out from hiding, from others and from ourselves; if we treated the open expression of it as something normal and natural.  Because if we don't, we can't connect with other people about something real.  Because if we don't, we can't appreciate what we have.  Because if we don’t, “you never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product, and then you die.”  Because on the other side of the sadness is some kind of joy; because right now, we have each other, and we’re alive.

Here’s the bit.