DAY 15 CHRISTMAS GOOD NEWS: HOPE AMIDST ANXIETY

I am not an anxious person. I have my share of mental health issues, but anxiety is not one of them. Yet being in this pandemic made me begin to understand how it is to be plagued by constant thoughts of “what-ifs.” I pictured all kinds of worst-case scenarios, I fell into rabbit holes inside rabbit holes. My overthinking overload led to thought paralysis. While all of this was happening, I had to force myself to function for work and to take on even more tasks that were sometimes out of my comfort zone. 

And in the middle of all of this was survivor’s guilt. I thought— 

Why am I still eating three times (or more) a day when so many people are starving or making do with what little they have? 

Why am I so anxious when I’m not going out of the house anyway? 

Why can’t I sleep? 

What am I worrying about when I still have a job and thanks to my family, I’ll still survive even if I don’t have a job? 

And the most quiet but also most condemning question of all, “But did you die?” 

I did not lose anyone. I did not know anyone close to me who lost anyone. I did not lose my job. I did not lose anything. So why am I overwhelmed with this sense of grief that I had no right to feel? 121 

Why am I still alive when I’ve so often thought of  dying while people who wanted to live died? 

I don’t know the answers, to be honest. While we are seeing glimpses of hope with the creation of vaccines and the economy supposedly bouncing back, my heart is still in the process of understanding this personal grief and the collective grief we’ve all felt in this pandemic. 

Through this grief, there are some things that I’ve learned and relearning. 

First, I need to force myself to decompress and go offline. I had this irrational fear that if I don’t keep up with the news, something horrible might happen while I was not online. And so I kept on doom scrolling even though I sometimes wanted to throw my phone out of the window. Eventually, I realized that while it’s important to stay informed, it should not be at the expense of my sanity. Even though it’s hard because of my work as a social media officer, I now force myself to stay “unaware” for a few hours every day. The world will go on spinning and it will not end just because I stay away from social media. 

Second, I have to remind myself that I am not alone. It is very easy to feel isolated and think I’m alone in feeling this grief. But obviously, that is a lie from the Enemy who wants me to stay in my dark corner, to be eaten away by helplessness and hopelessness. After months of trying to hide what I was feeling and going through, I started talking to people (digitally, of course, because of the health restrictions). In opening myself up to other people again, I saw that each one is grieving in his or her own way. Some have actually lost loved ones. Others, like me, have not really lost anything but are feeling this overwhelming grief. 

We cannot say that people who have not lost anything have no right to grieve. But we should also be aware that there are those who are feeling deeper losses. We need to let them know that they should not carry that burden on their own. In understanding what other people are going through, we learn to also process and understand and empathize. We may not always be in this together and we’re not all in the same boat, but empathy goes a long way. 

Third, I have to acknowledge that hope exists and can co- exist with the darkness. One of my favorite writers, Shauna Niequist, posted this on social media. 

Grief and hope can co-exist 

Anxiety and hope can co-exist 

Exhaustion and hope can co-exist 

Feel it all. 

Be kind to yourself. 

Hold tightly to hope. 

These were simple words but they rocked me to my core. At the beginning of 2020, my word for the year was HOPE. But by April, I was anything but hopeful. I couldn’t think that far ahead to when I would finally see rays of hope. But reading Shauna’s words made me realize that we can still experience hope in the midst of the madness and the darkness. That is because “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure . . . ” (Hebrews 6:19, NIV). Despite everything that the world is facing, despite every anxious thought, despite every messy feeling, despite our questions and fears, despite our doubts, if we anchor ourselves to the Hope of Jesus Christ, then we know our hope will never be in vain. 

As a Latin phrase goes—post nubila, phoebus—after the clouds, the sun. I don’t think I’m in the sunny part yet. Every once in a while, I sink deep into the dark abyss. But I am learning to live with the darkness and the rain. The important thing for me right now is to kneel down, to grieve while looking up towards the sky, and to hold on to the hope of the Light, to the only Hope I have, all the while continuing to live my life, dark clouds and all.

This is an entry from Ida Torres from the book This Season of Grief: Stories, Poetry, Prayers, and Practical Help, available at OMF Lit Bookshops, shop.omflit.com, Shopee, and Lazada for P275.

In this season of grief, many have suffered different kinds of loss.

We’ve suffered the loss of the physical—loved ones, our health, income, possessions. We’ve suffered the loss of the intangibles— freedom, memories, justice, peace. We’ve also suffered the loss of the ambiguous; we know we have lost them even though we could not name them. We feel all these losses and cry out in a collective, pandemic grief.

This book comes alongside those grieving many kinds of loss — not as an authority hurriedly dismissing a grief but rather, as a gentle friend who says, “I understand…”

Through stories, poetry, prayers, and practical help, this book brings comfort and hope to those languishing in this season of grief.

With writings by:

Ang Tala
Albit Rodriguez
Annabel Manzanilla-Manalo
Carmelo “Mel” Caparros II
Dan Andrew S. Cura
Feliz Lucas
Francis Kristoffer L. Pasion
Ida Torres
J.M.
j. p. berame
Joanna Nicolas-Na
Joey L. Castillo, Jr.
Jophen Baui
Joyce Tongson-Manalang
Karen Huang
Larry Pabiona
Lourdes Batac
Maloi Malibiran-Salumbides
Maria Susan Gonzalez-Lim
Maria Teresa Banzagales-Abiva
Melba Padilla Maggay
Melvin Jansen Ang
Michellan Sarile-Alagao
nathania aritao
Nicodemo S. Estrada
Philip Manuelson D. Arandia
Rico Villanueva
Timothy Ervin T. Ngo
Yna S. Reyes