A Moving Target

One of the interesting things about experiencing trauma in the social media era is that the algorithms adapt to you. Sometimes for better. Sometimes for worse.

I could have done without the ads for retro-style American Airlines T-shirts or Reagan National Airport wall art. I could have done without the tribute posts from seemingly every grieving parent who had lost a teenager to illness, accident, or suicide over the last 19 months.

But occasionally the algorithm washes in something that helps. At one point, I saw a stream of posts from strangers with variations on the same mantra: “Depression can’t hit a moving target.”

Nobody seems to know who coined it. The closest thing to a source is a 2019 memoir about running with a dog, and its author says it was an old concept when she found it.

But it helped normalize what had come naturally to me.

After the collision, continuous movement became my coping mechanism. At first, it was finding Christine and Spencer and bringing them home. Then, there were obituaries to write, photos to find, and arrangements to make. And then on I went to planning an over-the-top memorial event worthy of them.

The same week as the memorial, the NTSB forwarded a message from another family member describing her desire to honor the loved ones she lost by advocating for change.

I felt this desire too. But I didn’t know where to start — or if I even had the mental acuity to do it at that point. And I certainly wasn’t up to helping others get organized.

But thankfully, others were, and I grabbed the lifeline they provided.

For about a year and a half after that, working with other Flight 5342 family members on advocacy kept me moving and gave me a sense of purpose, even when grief and the challenges of being a single parent under difficult circumstances made me want to run away and hide many days.

But as much as the continuous motion helped, I worried all along that it would be a temporary solution. I would eventually need to stop moving, right? Or at the very least, it couldn’t be healthy to spend the rest of my life swimming in my trauma.

I do keep moving in other ways, too. I attend concerts and comedy shows, spend time boating on Narragansett Bay, take long walks and bike rides, and bring my dogs to the park. I say yes to plans with friends more often than ever and joined the ranks of middle-aged men with baggage in the dating pool. I’ve never really been a gym person, but I now find it to be a constructive outlet for the anger and frustration that never leave.

But there is no permanent escape.

A few days of enjoying life are usually followed by a drag back into the depths of despair — each high demanding a low to offset it.

Since I began writing more frequently, an increasing number of people have been checking in to see if I’m OK. I appreciate it, and I understand that it probably seems a bit unhinged to write about such difficult and personal topics so often.

But I find it helpful.

By stepping back into my grief voluntarily on a consistent basis, it becomes easier to step into occasional moments of joy with a less severe “grief hangover.”

It also bothers me that the story of the Flight 5342 collision has not been told completely anywhere. It’s complicated and can’t be tied up neatly with a bow. Most people also don’t realize that very little has changed as a result of the collision even after a yearlong NTSB investigation that produced 50 specific safety recommendations.

So I’ve decided to just tell the full story myself — however long it takes.

I’m still far from done, and I worry a bit that my trips into the weeds of collision avoidance technology, government dysfunction, and corporate greed won’t hit the same way as the personal stories that brought most of you here.

But that’s OK.

Every sad or maddening thing I write buys me a little joy the next day. It keeps me a moving target.