I came to Live Out Loud, Yes, Even During a Pandemic

I have a quote pinned to the bulletin board in my office.
If you ask me what I came into this world to do,
I will tell you;
I came to live out loud.
I chose this quote for the cover of the program at my mom's funeral. If ever there was a woman who lived out loud, it was her.
But me? I tended toward quiet. I tended toward meek. I feared attention because attention invited judgement. And I couldn't bear another's judgement.
Which makes it doubly ironic just how judgemental I've become lately. 
I judge people who don't wear masks. I judge people who don't give me six feet of space in the grocery store. I judge people on Twitter, caught in viral videos screaming at store clerks. I judge people who post #AllLivesMatter.
I judge.
And fear being judged.
What I've forgotten though is that judgement – always needing to be right – is the thief of joy. And I am not feeling much joy lately.
Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it this way: 
Yet joy can so often be the thing I give up when being right seems more important. When the grief of what I have lost feels bigger than the hope of what might come.
Of course, my judgement has something to do with living through a pandemic. It has a whole lot to do with suddenly being subject to a lot of rules about where I can go and when, who I can see and how, what I can wear and why.
The world is undergoing a collective trauma, I keep telling myself. We are all scared out of our wits, even those of us who pretend they're not (which, some days, is me). 
But I can remind myself, I've been through this before. Not a pandemic, per se, but a trauma. A total transformation of what I thought I could trust. A massive shift in my world. This is just on a larger scale. This involves all of you, too. But yes, I've been here before, where, as Bolz-Weber says, "the grief of what I have lost feels greater than the hope of what might come."
Finding our way back to that hope is where we'll find joy. Yes, even in the midst of a pandemic. Even in the midst of betrayal. 
We will not find it in judging others, not even that bastard who broke our hearts. Let him judge himself. And we most certainly will not find that joy, not even a sliver of it, in judging ourselves. Not in "how could I have been so stupid". Not in "what does she have that I don't." Not in "I will never trust anybody again." "Not in "I should have known he would do this". Not in any of that.
We will find it in hope. Not blind hope that he'll change. Not ignorant hope that magical forgiveness will make this a bad memory. We will find it in hope that requires us to roll up our sleeves and shape it. In hope that reminds us how strong we are. Hope that's rooted in self-respect and dignity and refuses entry to anyone who won't treat us with either. Hope that's greater than the grief we feel for what we've lost.
We have all lost so much through this. Jobs. The ability to hug our aging parents. Faith in those entrusted with our public safety. Lives. We have lost so very many lives.
But let's remember that joy is found not when we judge each other or ourselves but in compassion. In a recognition that this is hard work, that this is traumatic. I speak of both pandemics and infidelity. 
Let us remind ourselves that we have navigated grief before. Hope can be our guide through grief. They are not mutually exclusive but rather companions. Let us hold each by the hand.