Sunday was not a good day.

Sunday’s only problem was that it was followed by Saturday, a day I’d been looking forward to since last fall.

Saturday was meant to be my daughter and her fiance’s wedding shower. It didn’t happen as planned (thanks, relentlessly unprecedented spring of 2020). It happened online.

Our Zoom shower was fun, no doubt … more than 30 family and friends joining in, we even had fun games thanks to my younger daughter, the maid of honor. We all toasted the couple with their signature cocktail, had goodie boxes sent or delivered courtesy of the groom’s lovely mom … for the time it lasted it was great fun.

Then it ended. And I was overcome by sadness, missing the people I love and had planned on being with. Trying to remain positive for my daughter’s sake (that’s what good MOBs do, I’m told), I stuffed it away to deal with later.

On Sunday.

I woke up sad, and that made me angry. Cranky, out of sorts, short-tempered and just ugly. Until about mid-day, when I realized I was breaking my Rule #3 — Feel, then Decide.

I had forgotten to feel. Because I didn’t get past my surface emotions, I didn’t have the relief of allowing myself to truly feel what was going on. Around mid-afternoon, I finally gave myself that gift. I got to source (Rule #1), I listened to my heart (#2), and I FELT.

I felt a physical “click” inside my chest when I did, a tangible and visceral opening of some sort, when my feelings made themselves known — kindly, gently, yet insistently.

I felt true sadness, and grief for the loss of what didn’t happen. At first, I felt selfish letting myself “go there.” After all, I am healthy, I am not financially desperate, the people I love are doing fairly well … really, compared to so many others, nothing was terribly wrong.

Yet it’s not selfish at all to feel what you’re feeling. We are all grieving something or someone, the missed events, the cancelled proms, the graduation parties that aren’t happening. We are grieving for our own losses, and for our collective losses.

We are sad.

And sad is okay. Because once we get past our short-tempered, cranky, snappy behavior and understand it’s happening because we are sad, we can take better care of our own hearts … and the hearts of those who happen to have the bad luck to be in the path of our initial emotions.

It’s okay to be sad; it signals that it’s time to wrap up in some love and ride it out. Today it’s raining, but my outlook is a bit sunnier. I received a reminder on my phone that it’s time to check in for my flight home … a flight that I never took in the first place.

Instead of making me mad, it gave me a little smile. It’s a reminder that before long I will be flying again, seeing family again, loving them in person.

I’m still sad … and also deeply grateful for these people I miss, the celebrations we’ve had together and those to come.