#also his yarzheit was yesterday. so.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

the thing about grief is everyone’s like “it’ll never get smaller but you’ll grow around it” and yeah that’s true. i definitely have grown around my grief and it’s not constantly all-consuming anymore. but it hasn’t gotten smaller, and i don’t think people realise what that means. i think people figure it’ll feel smaller because they did grow around it, but it just means that it’s on the back of your mind now instead of at the forefront. you can do things and live your life without constantly only thinking of your grief. but sometimes it will also make itself known, and the sheer enormity of your grief will overwhelm you because ultimately it’s the same size as the day it arrived

[poetry-protest-pornography]

Grief is a strange thing.

Someone really important to me died yesterday, and for me, mourning for him inevitably becomes mourning all the people I've ever lost, the pain just compounding until each loss feels magnified beyond comprehension.

Mourning him becomes mourning the actual loss, but also all the missed chances to connect, the plans we half made, the distance between now and the last time we spoke, and all the years that it's been since I got to hug him.

Mourning becomes guilt.

Of the three men I've ever thought about the potential of a future with, he was the second. We spent the majority of my mid to late teen years talking for hours several nights a week. We didn't officially date, but we were emotionally committed to each other, and for those years, there was no one else for either of us.

Eventually, the into-early-morning conversations were less frequent, and he met someone wonderful, and then I did, and we settled into the same easy friendship we’d always had, but relied on each other less and less, until we really only spoke a few times a year. And I never stopped loving him in all the time since, and I know he loved me, too, and it was the kind of love that sinks into you when you make space for someone, and let that space stay long enough that it carves into you but doesn't take anything away from you.

And so I'm hurting for that little piece of me that will always be shaped like hours long talks and years spent thinking maybe and him and the kind of friendship that starts and doesn't stop just because it changes, or because you take up less time in each other's lives.

And I'm hurting for his wife, who made him so happy, and his family who he loved even when it wasn't easy, and I'm hurting for him, who is gone and whose absence makes the world a little less beautiful.

And I'm morning a little for the friend I lost late last year, and my friend who was older than me but also my little brother who's yarzheit passed two months ago, and my grandfather, who's yarzheit just passed, and my father, who never really leaves my thoughts, and it's all happening at once, so I'm hurting for all the time between now and the last time I got to hug any of them, and all the plans we half made, and all the moments we missed out on connecting, and it's all so much to feel at once and still move through the world. And grief becomes guilt, and I'm so accustomed to feeling guilty that it all gets wrapped up around me in a way that's hard to distinguish from my base state of being, so it all lasts for so long.

Grief is a strange thing, and I'm writing this all out (fully crying in a waiting room) intending to ask for a little grace while I find my equilibrium, and for you to all be a little kinder to yourselves and to the people you love, and I'm realizing that these are things I can do, too. I can give myself grace while I figure out all these big feelings, and I can make sure that I tell the people I love that I love them, and I can try to have less missed chances to hug them.

These people who have left spaces in me didn't leave them empty, they're still there, and I know that they wouldn't want me to drown in this. I can do it for them, until I can do it for me. I can untangle all the overlapping hurts, I just need to give myself time and space to feel it first.

I'm sorry for the long ramble, I think I needed to put this somewhere as a reminder of sorts.

If you read this far, please take this hug I've got on hand.