Continuing On When Life is Collapsing [What Do We Do With All This Grief?]
Thoughts on "Business as Usual" and Choosing Intentional Creativity Amid Troubling Times [Plus, What's Next for My Work]
“What Do I Do With All This Grief?”
A month ago, on a quiet Saturday morning, I took Enzo, our Golden Retriever, to one of our neighborhood dog parks. Much to Enzo’s dismay, we were alone for quite some time. Eventually, a woman entered with a small dog. She came near, and I anticipated the typical dog-owner hellos and introductions, but not what came after. What began as the usual small talk—the exchange of dog names, ages, and breeds—quickly shifted into something deeper. It began after I politely inquired, “How are you today?”
Without skipping a beat, she sighed deeply, “I am actually so overwhelmed by grief today.” She gestured broadly with her hands, “It’s all just so much.” She shared a few thoughts on the current political climate and events happening in our nation and finished with an exasperated: “What do I do with all this grief?”
Little did she know, she was speaking my language, and I was just the stranger to share this space with her.
The day before, I had just had a Zoom call with my literary agent about continuing to pitch my book project—a gentle, illustrated story that asks this very question and offers possible answers for children, adults, and people of all ages. When grief arrives, it can feel so overwhelming. What do we do with it?
Her question echoes throughout the zeitgeist right now as national and world news ricochets in heartbreaking waves. Whether it’s the whole world or our personal lives, life collapses into grief, fear, uncertainty, and pain. What do we do?
Life Goes On
This week in particular, I’ve noticed creator after creator, mother after mother, small business owner after small business owner, wondering aloud on social media: How do I balance the fact that this Terrible Thing™ just happened or is happening, yet I’m still here going on “business as usual”—doing dishes, laughing with my children, or promoting my work? We sense the disconnect, unsure of how to live in a world that feels full of contradictions and pieces that don’t quite fit together.
There are collapses and catastrophes on all sorts of scales while some of us are baking cookies, and we’re left looking at one another, asking: Is this okay? Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing? How do we live in the tension of the terrible and terrific, the beauty and the horror, the love and the hurt? How do we witness it, feel it, and continue living our lives?
Whether it’s in pondering our ordinary lives or witnessing extreme scenarios, like celebrities launching into space for fun while profound griefs unfold here on earth, some moments feel disturbingly like the Hunger Games happening before our eyes. It’s disorienting and upsetting. So many of us do not want to and cannot go on “business as usual,” like everything is “fine”—we see the fires!
As I take this all in, I’m brought back to a similar outrage I felt when my daughter died, and life went on as usual, and the world kept spinning. I wanted to scream. How dare the world continue on when my world was destroyed! Grief can deepen and expand when you suffer, and the world seems to pass on by with a smile.
Yet, life must go on. We must go on.
How do we live in this tension?
In Ignorance or With Intention
I believe it comes down to continuing on with intention versus ignorance.
I’m still here, creating as collapses keep happening, within my own world and the world at large. This may seem like business as usual, but it’s not. I’m not ignoring what I’m seeing. I don’t move forward blindly, disconnected from the pain around me.1 I’m choosing to live with purpose, on a mission in light of it all. I choose to move forward thoughtfully, in defiance of the Terrible Things™. I choose creativity as resistance. I choose to create as an act of mending my heart and the hearts of others in this hurting world.
I’m living the answer to the question: What do I do with all this grief?
Answers to the Question
If you’re feeling tired, overwhelmed, and wondering, What do I do with all this grief? as so many of us are, let me share what I’ve learned that helps:
We cry, and we create.
We rest, and we rise.2
We grieve, and we create.
We lament, and we love.
We call out, and we continue on.
We acknowledge brutality and resist with beauty.
What feels right for you? What would you add? What do you need to do in this moment or day? May you do what you can with what you have.
An Easter Weekend Note
There is much we can glean from the spiritual significance of this weekend as we move from Good Friday to Easter Sunday: a proper response to injustice is lament, to suffering is grief, and to despair is resilient, defiant hope.
I hope you receive and feel the Spirit of Resurrection this weekend. Let it move us to resist the darkness and all the ways it tries to destroy.
As For Me and My Work
With all of this in mind, here’s what’s next for me and my work—I hope these offerings serve you well and inspire you to continue on, in active hope:
A NEW ART COLLECTION
My new art collection, To Come Alive, is finally ready for release. Inspired by my trip to Paris in January and the gentle stirrings of joy, my new mini-paintings embody resurrection after seasons of despair. Each piece is an invitation to notice joy, beauty, wonder, and life, even in the midst of grief and uncertainty. To Come Alive releases first to email subscribers on Wednesday, April 23, and publicly on Thursday, April 24. I can’t wait to release this collection and share it with you!
WRITE YOUR GRIEF
What do we do with our grief? We can write it. I’m reviving my journaling workshop, Write Your Grief, as a regular, monthly offering based on your feedback on Instagram and email. WYG is designed to offer you a safe and sacred space to write through grief—whether big or small, recent or decades old, stemming from death, trauma, or another kind of heartbreak. These one-hour guided sessions will be held live on Zoom on the second Wednesday of the month. If this interests you, registration for May’s session is currently open.
BOOK PUBLISHING UPDATE
Maybe you knew or maybe you didn’t, but I’m still on the journey of pursuing traditional publishing for my story about grief. I love this story and the shape it’s taken. My agent continues to champion it, and I’m still holding hope that the right publisher will catch the vision.
JOURNALS
My faith-based journals, Rest: A Journal for Lament and Rise: A Journal for Perseverance, were created to help you process your pain, express your heart, explore your faith, and begin to find your way forward with Hope again through journaling. Whether you’re grieving a loss, navigating hardship, or simply seeking a healing space to reflect, these journals offer a structured yet spacious companion for your journey.
PEN & MEND
The Pen & Mend Collective is my monthly paid membership right here on Substack—a space where we explore writing as a sacred practice for healing and hope. Each month, you'll have access to a new writing prompt, a live Writing Room, an archive of prompts, community features, and occasional events, such as community conversations called ‘AfterWords,’ book clubs, and more. Upgrade your subscription to paid ($5 a month) to join us anytime.
A PERSONAL CREATIVE NOTE
Blackout poetry continues to be one of my favorite go-to creative tools, helping me process through anxiety, feelings that seem stuck, and situations when I can’t find the words myself. Similar to painting, I love the intuitive nature of it and discovering what emerges. Here’s one I created just yesterday.
May we continue together, with eyes open and hearts awake, creating and offering what we can to mend this hurting yet hopeful world.
Take care + Happy Easter to all who celebrate,
Kristin
P.S. Feel free to share anything you’re creating in the comments or anything here you found helpful. I’d love to hear from you!
I still stand by this piece I wrote:
Rest and Rise are the titles of my signature, faith-based journals. You can learn more about Rest: A Journal for Lament here and Rise: A Journal for Perseverance here.
Thank you Kristin! This is exactly the tension I feel much of the time!
It is so very hard to go about one's day "pretending" that it's business as usual, esp when it's easy to presume the world around is spiraling out of control. Thank you for addressing this heart matter and offering that our "proper response to injustice is lament, to suffering is grief, and to despair is resilient, defiant hope." ♡ this so much!