Let me preface what is below by saying grief comes in many many different shapes and sizes. We have all lost something in our lives. A human, love, time, pet, job, things, childhood, space. And frankly, some emotions just suck. Grief is absolutely one of those. So as we try to dig deep, reach for vulnerability, and better understand ourselves; we try to express through word. And that is very hard to do.
Original writing by the rockstar of a human Maddy Bauder
Grief. The word never meant much to me until it decided to book a permanent room in the hotel of my brain. As a person who absolutely adores having their questions answered in full, not having a word for word definition really irks me. I may never know the complete meaning of that word no matter how many dictionaries I scour or how many years pass me by, but
maybe that’s because it’s one of those feelings too deep, too powerful to be expressed by human language.
I always heard the saying, and quite frankly a saying I held onto for dear life, “time heals all wounds”. I partly agree. For me, time is like attending a play. The new and recent experiences take center stage and require the most attention, but the nitty gritty work is still being done behind the curtain.
Time creates distance and distance blurs but it doesn’t purge. Time won’t stop the break downs, it’ll just make them farther and fewer between.
Some mornings I wake up and immediately know that those behind the scenes emotions, ya know the ones that are usually behind the curtain, have emerged from the background and are now standing under the spotlight. Those days are hard. Then there are other days that the memories feel much lighter, I can think of those scenes and respond with joy. Those days I feel thankful to have even been included in the script.
All right, I’m no Shakespeare so I’m going to momentarily stop trying to sum up the emotion ocean with a conglomerate of metaphors…
No one prepared me for the hard feelings in life. But I mean shit. I can’t blame them, how could they have? Although they might feel scary, painful, even gross sometimes, I realize they are necessary for me to understand and appreciate love. I understand that living a meaningful, true life is not one that only consists of shitting sunshine and rainbows. So yeah grief sucks, and I definitely haven’t found a definition that even begins to describe that roller coaster.
I guess my next mission on this journey of understanding is to stop wishing for what could’ve been and accepting what is. Hold onto what I was given, not what was taken away from me. And lastly, I will keep shitting sunshine and rainbows as much as the universe allows it 🤍
Rachel Cohen, LCSW is the owner and therapist at Seaside Counseling Center in Jacksonville Beach, FL. Rachel works with lonely, frustrated, and overwhelmed teens, 20 somethings, and perinatal mamas online and in-person.