As you’ll probably be hearing a fair amount the next few weeks, we’re coming up on a year since, to put it simply, things changed. It’s totally surreal to comprehend, given that this year has felt so long and heavy, and yet it feels like it passed in the blink of an eye.
Memory is a funny thing. It’s crucial to how we make sense and meaning of the world and helps us predict and survive the future. Even in the best of times, it’s unreliable. This isn’t a flaw or bug, but a feature of our brains.
If you’re finding your memory has been more glitchy this past year, you are not alone. Researchers have long studied the effect that stress and social isolation have on memory and, unsurprisingly, it’s not a positive one. Add to that chronic media multitasking (who hasn’t found themselves using their phone, computer, and possibly a television all at the same time more than usual in an effort to distract ourselves and possibly connect with the world?), and new research from Stanford University has indicated that looking at our own faces as much as we have been is draining. We’re tired, and our brains don’t function at their best when we’re exhausted.
We’ve all experienced some kind of loss this past year. If you’re having difficulty remembering your losses, remembering the full lives of loved ones, remembering what you used to love and why, or even who you were pre-pandemic, it is totally reasonable. Our brains are tired. If in this annual roundup you’re having a hard time with your memory, don’t be too hard on yourself. You didn’t drop the ball. You’re carrying your memories and experiences and the people you’ve loved who have loved you back, even if you’re having a hard time remembering the good. Even if you can’t remember what it is you’re grieving, it’s there with you, and it must have had some good in it if you’re missing it.
Stated more succinctly in the words of Khalil Gibran, “When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Or, in the words of Marvel superhero Wanda Maximoff, “What is grief if not love persevering?”
Iman Jafri
Associate Chaplain for Muslim and Interfaith Life