An acquaintance asked me yesterday when I realized I had moved past my grief. The question left me stunned, and I had a trio of strong reactions:
- How could anyone possibly think that there would ever be a time I had moved past my grief?
- Was I living my life in a way that misled people about the continued depth of this loss, and was that somehow dishonoring my sister?
- What the hell do you say to a question like that?
I paused longer than the other person was comfortable with before eventually saying that I had just integrated the grief into my everyday experience, not left it behind. She seemed intrigued but afraid to ask more, so I elaborated anyway. I am my grief, and my grief is me.
Any negative emotion I experience easily becomes heavier than it would have before, because the weight of the grief easily thumbs the scale, so to speak.
The prospect of giving things time and being patient feels suddenly frightening, because my relationship with the promise of the future has been cracked.
Sometimes my day-to-day experience feels just a little muted, like someone got too zealous with an Instagram filter and added shadows to the edges. I’m not always aware of this, and go about my day thinking this perception is objective truth.
It’s a slight edit to the raw experience of life, and I don’t know how to turn it off. I doubt I can. So I have to find a way to make new images with this filter.
Unmoored Sister 