There have been times in the last couple weeks, months and years when there has been a weight so heavy on my chest that it has stirred a verbal response from my lips — a gasp, a groan or a gut-punching cry.
For too long, I didn’t have a word for this feeling. Sure, it hurt like hell, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. It wasn’t until I described it in therapy that someone gave me a word for it: grief.
“How could that be?” I asked myself. I’ve never experienced the death of a close human relative. Distant great-grandparents have passed, but I was comforted by the knowledge that they lived good, long lives. I lost my dog Sweet Pea when I was 18, but that was the closest death I’ve ever experienced.
It took me a long time (and a little bit of therapy) to admit that I was consciously or subconsciously grieving the loss of people from my life who were still alive.
Grief is a tough subject, and even harder to talk about when there isn’t a physical end to the person you’re grieving. I’m here to share my thoughts in the hopes that others realize it’s okay to miss people. Maybe we can finally pull back the curtain on this unspoken emotion and this tumultuous process.
Grief is hard and takes a different form in every individual. For me, the hardest part of not sharing life with someone else anymore is seeing things that make you think of them and realizing you can’t whip out your phone and snap a picture to share. You can’t let them know you’re thinking of them, and that sucks.
It’s also hard when something comes up in conversation, like “The Princess Bride,” and it prompts a memory in your brain that you want to introduce as an anecdote in the conversation. Instead, your lips curl into a sad smile, and you try to hold onto that moment for what it is — a good memory — and not what it has become — a reminder that they’re no longer around to make memories with.
Grief like this gets you when you least expect it. You go about your day and think you’re moving forward, and then late at night, when you’re trying to fall asleep, the weight wraps around your heart like a vise and you’re forced to stop and let it run its course.
People come into your life, and they change it for the worse or for the better. However long they’re there, they leave a little something. I think of an old friend every time I teach group solitaire to people. I now have a weird connotation for thunderstorms. They bring up a really good memory but also remind me that that person is no longer around to make memories with.
They say time heals all wounds, and while I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, time certainly helps. It’s a pleasant surprise when you change into your pajamas at the end of the day or you’re brushing your teeth before going to bed and think, “Huh. I really haven’t thought of [redacted] that much today. That’s cool.”
It’s also a healing feeling when you encourage yourself to share that anecdote that you would have kept locked away before. My friend almost ran into a branch the other day, and I laughed as I told them about the time I accidentally pulled an ex-boyfriend into a branch because I forget that I’m short sometimes.
If and when you’re ready, tell the stories. Live the cliche “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” It’s a relief when you can smile without that ache creeping into your chest.
Eventually, you make new memories with new people that soften the sadness you feel when you think about those that are gone but not forgotten. I made a new memory in the rain by sharing an umbrella with a friend, and it made me welcome thunderstorms again.
I’m not here to ask for your pity or your sympathy. I just want someone to know that when the little things hit you, when the weight in your chest feels like it’ll never go away, when you miss them so much it physically aches, you’re not the only one. I feel it too.
