Ever since I got COVID for the first time, I have noticed that all of my colds kind of play out the same way. I start getting lethargic, with a sore throat that I can kind of ignore. Then a fever, chills, and three days of searingly painful congestion set in. Every part of my body is sore like I really overdid it at the gym yesterday. I’m panting every time I do a chore, and any noise (TV, voices, birds chirping) sounds like I’m hearing it through water. When the congestion starts to let up, I lose my sense of smell and taste for a little while, could be a few hours to a day. And then I start losing fluids through my nose so fast that it’s hard to keep up with my water intake.  

I know, it sounds wildly fun. I guess the only reason I can catalogue these so vividly is because I tend to get sick more intensely and more frequently than most people. Having worked in people-facing professions most of my life has not helped me avoid these germs that seem to like me best. And even now when I work (a much lighter schedule) from home, and don’t have a toddler in daycare anymore, they still find me. 

I take vitamins, and work out, and wash my hands, and eat vegetables and all that. My tests are all normal. I’m a healthy person by most standards. Just lucky I guess. 

In mid-September, I poked my head out of my most recent bout of illness, and it left me feeling pretty unenthused. For months. 

I’ve had time to rest, and a partner who stepped up to take care of me and other household things, which was nice. 

But the thing about illness is it never waits until you have nothing going on to show up. 

Because of this most recent virus, I missed a major life event of someone close to me. Something we have been talking about and looking forward to for years. 

And now it is over, the pictures are taken, the food eaten, the drinks drunk. 

Everyone went and had a wonderfully splendid time without me. 

And I sat at home in my pajamas, eating soup, blowing my nose, taking a shot of Nyquil, and going to bed at 8:00. 

The term FOMO (fear of missing out), coined in 2004, is now old enough to drink. It’s little sister JOMO (joy of missing out) came along in 2012 and is just a young teen. I guess both of these are helpful terms in processing why we say no and yes to things, but I think I’m really just more concerned today with GOMO, or grief over missing out. 

Talking about grief on these pages for the past 12 months I’ve thought a lot about how it weighs on the mind and heart. Sometimes it feels easy to carry, almost airy, just a bubble full of invisible strands of memory that barely tickle my brain. But on the hardest days, it is a lead balloon blocking the signals of just about everything else. 

The grief of losing someone can be confusing. Sometimes, I find myself questioning if it really happened the way I remember it, or if it wasn’t quite so bad, and that’s why I somehow made it through the experience in one piece. 

Other days I feel guilty that I couldn’t have prevented it from happening. A ridiculous thought, of course. No one can prevent death, despite how hard we all try. But still, there it is. 

And some days I just feel the absence of the person I loved and relied on, and the world feels wrong. 

Missing out on this event feels more similar to grief, perhaps in a slightly different direction. I feel the absence of the memories I wasn’t able to make, I feel guilty for not being there to witness the event and not “trying harder” to get better on time, I feel really angry at an invisible enemy for making me too sick to participate. Whatever fear I have is partially of what I missed out on, but even more so that people missed out on me – that I couldn’t be there to laugh, clap, share joy, make other people’s nights easier by getting them a drink or helping them with their outfit in the bathroom. Normal stuff. 

I know over time it will be fine. 

I know there was nothing else I could have done. Showing up totally sick would not have been fun for me, or anyone who had to sit next to me. 

I know in the grand scheme of things, it is not the worst thing that could happen. It is certainly, obviously, not the most terrible thing happening in the world right now. It’s almost selfish to even waste brain space on this. 

But at this moment in time, here on Earth, when everyone seems so rattled, I think it’s worth naming our feelings, especially the uncomfortable ones. If our discomfort with ourselves and our fragile brains and hearts causes us to say and do some really terrible things to one another, then being honest about our feelings might be the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and for those we love the most.