It’s okay…to not be okay.

WARNING: This post contains explicit language.

I struggled mentally and physically for the past two weeks. The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (even typing that feels weird as I remind myself that real people are so much more than headlines and hash-tags)…their deaths weighed heavily on me and to feel — not just see but feel — the emotional reactions from friends, family and complete strangers put me in a mental space where I didn’t feel like I could be helpful. I self-isolated as I often do and even at the request of my brother and business partner, I couldn’t bring myself to write.

Grief is familiar to me in a way that shouldn’t be natural but it is. You give people space and time to process loss. If not, the internal conflict will turn outward which is why you often see grieving families or friends quarrel following the loss of loved ones. Today this is played out in the digital space where the comment sections of Facebook posts and Tweets, become war-zones for the lost and heartbroken.

Denial is first, followed by “anger” which too many people have learned to use as a mask for sadness or fear (probably because it’s proven to be more effective at getting attention but that’s an argument for another day). Finally, there’s bargaining and acceptance.

I know these stages well but I couldn’t seem to shake the cloud looming over me. I needed to do something; I needed to fix something, I needed to manifest solutions, which is just another way of saying I needed to feel in control when clearly I wasn’t. I knew very little would come from words which, as powerful as they are — tend to meet the listener or reader wherever they may be. In a dark space, even bright words can be angled to simply reflect darkness.

I ran through a gambit personally but the donations, social media posts, and even marching in the streets didn’t make things better. It all felt surreal in the sense that I didn’t feel like I was here. I wasn’t a part of the world anymore as much as I was someone who was observing the world from a far off distant planet. I didn’t feel okay and I needed to figure out a way to fix it; after all I have work to do — a 9–5 to tend to and a small business to run and family to take care of. I can’t be broken and distanced. I don’t have the luxury right?

Ironically as I was struggling to “fix myself”, I revisited an audio recording of a recent interview I had with an artist. In the recording, the artist quotes the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti who says,

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society.”

I simultaneously felt a weight lifted and a renewed sense of purpose when I heard it (again). Hearing it this time and within this context, it actually clicked. For me, the quote was the reminder that I desperately needed. I needed to be reminded, as bizarre as this sounds, that none of this is “right”.

This is for lack of any better phrase FUCKED UP. It’s fucked up that a daughter will never speak with her father again. It’s fucked up that a man will have to prepare for a trial simply for defending his home against the very people who intruded and murdered his love. It’s fucked up that in 2020, kids believe that the oaths taken to “protect and serve” will never really apply to them because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation; it’s fucked up that instead of buying a new home or celebrating a college degree or grand-kids, families across the nation and the globe are debating discriminatory law enforcement practices and what “victims SHOULD be doing to not be victimized.”

It’s all fucked UP and my message to every single person that feels this…that feels a sense of sadness…that feels like this sadness isn’t something we can “politic” or “clever speech” our way out of, for every person that feels that the bickering and debates are futile or that the violence and vitriole and the loss of life which we can never recover is fucked UP beyond simple solutions, to you I say YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

I say don’t allow people to make you believe YOU are responsible for making yourself or anyone else feel better right now. You don’t have to have the right answer (or any answer for that matter). YOU are allowed to grieve and you are allowed to have your space to do so as you see fit.

So scream if you need to scream, fight if you need to fight, and cry if you need to cry. I caution that it might not be helpful in the long run but even if you need to clapback on social media, have at it because the truth is…you have every right to not be okay.

As fucked up as things are, I’d be more disturbed if you weren’t disturbed. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society”. Our society — globally, is sick right now and to the people sensitive enough to feel it, I simply say, feel it. You have permission (not that you ever needed it but if this is a helpful reminder so be it). You have permission to feel what it is you’re feeling.

After DENIAL, and ANGER, BARGAINING and DEPRESSION, the only thing left is ACCEPTANCE. At that point you are done with grief…and for what we are experiencing right now, I’m not entirely sure that we should be done grieving.

James Randolph is an American Author, Editor, & Journalist / @Mr_Red_Eyes