The Pain of Grief

I’m still struggling.

And I think I might be for a long time.

I know I’m not great at showing how much I love people. I’ve never been good at translating what I feel on the inside into something visible or reassuring on the outside. But that doesn’t mean the love isn’t there. The depth of it is overwhelming sometimes. And I don’t know what to do with all of the love I still have for her.

I don’t know how to hold it.

Today I donated plasma. Then I spent time with friends. I found myself thinking of her often, I missed her. I kept wishing she was next to me. Wishing my fingers were laced into hers. Wishing I could glance over and see her face, feel her presence, feel us.

I don’t know if I’m meant to stop loving people I once loved.

I don’t even know if I’m capable of it.

And I don’t want this to be reality.

But it is.

One of the hardest parts is knowing that this wasn’t about lacking love between us. I know we loved and still love each other deeply. It wasn’t about not trying. It feels like a compatibility issue that only surfaced once we started finding ourselves as individuals. Just two paths that slowly stopped lining up. And that hurts because I wasn’t ready to give up on us.

I’m still not.

I don’t know how to hold this pain, the kind that lives alongside love instead of replacing it. The kind where the love doesn’t disappear when the relationship ends. It just… has nowhere to go.

The past few years have been years of loss. And I know that’s life. People die. Relationships end. We grow in different directions. I understand that conceptually. But understanding it doesn’t make it hurt less.

Lately, I feel like I keep losing myself.

But how do you lose something you don’t really have?

How do you know who you are when everything is always moving? When your perspective shifts from moment to moment, when your sense of self feels more like a current than a solid place you can stand? I’ve always lived this way…feeling like I’m slipping between versions of myself, never fully landing in one long enough to trust it.

I don’t have good language for what this feels like. I just know it makes everything harder. It makes grief harder. Love harder. Letting go harder. Remembering harder.

And it makes this feel incredibly lonely.

I feel alone in this experience. I’m hoping that can change this week. I’m hoping I can open up in therapy. Let my heartache be known, let myself be honest about how bad I’m doing. But I’m scared that I won’t be able to. I’m scared I’m not going to let myself be known enough to have space held for me.

They have a quote that keeps playing in my head, that I have read many times before, but never have felt this vividly, and it’s this:

“Your new life is going to cost you your old one.

It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense

of direction.

It’s going to cost you relationships and friends.

It’s going to cost you being liked and understood.

It doesn’t matter.

The people who are meant for you are going to meet you

on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort

zone around the things that actually move you forward.

Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of

being understood, you’re going to be seen.

All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you

no longer are.”

-Brianna Wiest