Heartbreak Does Not Feel Good in a Place Like this
Grappling with grief after Grief
Dear lovely, MGC reader let me be completely honest with you. October has been hard. There have been some really good moments, some moments of lightness and joy. But overall it has been difficult.
I’ve been going through a lot of what I’m calling “small g” grief. For me, the death of my dad is “capital G” grief. Actually, more like all caps GRIEF. “Small g” grief has looked like changes that are completely out of my control - people leaving my life to move on to other things, friends growing distant, a budding relationship with a man I really like fizzling out and not because I wanted that, watching people I love change because of our shared all caps GRIEF.
It got me thinking - and really feeling - how loss really morphed for me after The Big Loss. There have been stages I’ve spoken about before - the shock, the disassociation, the grappling with permanence of loss. But that all had to do with The Big Loss.
Life moved forward after my dad died as was always going to do. Except now when something shifts, when something breaks, when someone leaves it stings a bit more. It carries more weight now. It bites harder. That all happened after The Big Loss and a lot of times is not directly connected to it at all.
Why is that? Honestly I don’t know. But I wanted to share it because it is something I feel other grievers can relate to. When you’re world goes upside down because someone dies, your sense of stability crumbles. And then every shift, every movement, every change from then on can rattle you even more. Or put another way - when your foundation cracks, you can kind of feel like a house of cards.
Now, again, I share all of that because I’m hoping if you feel that way you know you’re not alone. But I share it too because one thing I’ve also been learning this month is how much people can survive. How much pain they can endure, how much grief they can carry, and how they can still find support, love and connection at the same time.
I’ve learned this through my in-person grief group (more reflections on that in a later newsletter). I’ve been fortunate enough to hear their stories, feel the weight of their loss, and I’m constantly in awe of how much they have had to endure. And how they have been able to continue to push forward and build a life for themselves.
And so I share both sides of that coin. That heartbreak does not feel good in this place we call grief. But that we can also survive, we can find a way forward, we can hold our pain and also build anew.
I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have an in-person grief group near them, so one resource I want to share is the new season of All There Is by Anderson Cooper. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but in this podcast Anderson talks with folks who have experienced significant loss. His guests share how they keep going, the grief they carry, and everything in between.
I hope you’ll give it a listen and I hope it’ll inspire you as much as it inspires me.
Big Hugs xx.