Grief Doesn’t Expire

They say time heals all wounds but what they don’t tell you is that time just teaches you how to hide them better. Some days you laugh loudly, show up in clean clothes, post a fine picture and smile like your heart isn’t carrying the weight of a goodbye you never truly recovered from and other days, you crumble and you don’t even have the words to explain why, fret not my dear that is grief.

It is not loud or dramatic, it is a whisper in your chest on a random day. Sometimes it is a tear rolling down your cheek in the bus while you pretend to check your phone or guilt because the world moved on and you are still stuck with a memory that refuses to die. You don’t get over grief, you learn to live with it, you learn how to carry it without letting it drown you. You start laughing again but not like before, you start loving again but you flinch at the thought of losing again, you start living again but there is always a part of you that is half-here and half-there.

It could be a person, a dream, a childhood that never gave you safety, a relationship you were forced to end or a version of yourself you’ll never be again.  You see grief isn’t just for the dead, it is for anything that was deeply alive to you and then just for some reason gone. People expect grief to be linear, that after a few months or a year, you should be fine, that missing them randomly is weakness, that mentioning their name is a burden but what they don’t understand is this. 

Some losses become part of your DNA. You can move forward, yes but sometimes, moving forward just means learning how to walk with a limp. So hear this, if you hurt today bear it, if their name still makes your throat tighten, say it, if you are still carrying pieces of something long gone hold them gently. Cause you are not broken, you are human and some aches aren’t meant to be erased  just honored.

Grief doesn’t just end. It just changes shape. Some days it is a shadow, some days it is a scream, some days it is a quiet seat next to you at dinner. Well I’ve stopped waiting for it to leave, instead, I’ve made space for it because some things aren’t meant to be forgotten and some wounds aren’t meant to be closed.