I want to talk about grief, because it's everywhere. Take a second and make a small list. What are you grieving? A person? Freedom? Spontaneous shopping trips? A dream? Maybe it's the state of the world.

Now, how do you *deal* with that grief in a healthy way?

A lot of people talk about Kubler-Ross and the 5 stages and I don't find them very useful, honestly. There's no process, no order in them, and some of us cycle through them endlessly. When I'm grieving, I want to know how to deal with the pain.

I much prefer William Worden's tasks of grief. They are orderly and concrete and you can feel them and deal with them. And it's easy to see where you are if you get stuck.

Task 1: Accept the reality of your loss.

You have to be able to say "I lost _." It doesn't have to be out loud, but it has to be acknowledged.

Task 2: Feel the pain of the loss.

You gotta let those feelings in. Whether it's anger or ambivalence or gut-wracking sobs, you have to feel what the world is like without that person or knowing that dream will never exist.

Task 3: Adjust to a world without the person/idea you're grieving.

You have to start planning for the rest of your life without that person or that dream. Rearrange your life and space so there's no gaping hole any more.

Task 4: Reinvest your energy in life while honoring the memory of what you've lost.

Your loss will always be a part of you, but the final task is to get to a place where it isn't always painful, and where you have a life that is equally fulfilling as the one before your loss.

Many of us are stuck right now somewhere before task 3. We know more adjustments are coming and have no idea when.

This is why we're grieving so hard and so long.