While I Was Grieving

Life went on and on and on, and so has my grief

Getting the call from my dad’s friend that my dad had passed away, was not on my bingo card for 2023. For anyone who has lost a loved one, maybe you’ll understand when I say that it felt like my life changed in an instant. The world tilted in a different way and nothing looked the way that it used to just moments before. It felt like that scene in New Moon where Bella is sitting in her room staring out the window and the rest of the world was spinning and passing around her.

During my time off from work, I thought I would spend my time overwhelmed by my feelings and staying in my room avoiding everything all together. Instead, my mom and I lead the charge to resolve my dad’s accounts, plan his funeral, and taking care of my brother’s doctor appointments since he was recovering from a knee injury. Every day, there was something new to take care of. It felt like there wasn’t room to just sit in my feelings.

While I definitely didn’t ignore my grief, because I spent more time crying in my car or in public than I’d like to admit, I realized that just because it felt like I was moving through life slower, life didn’t care. There were still things to do. In a lot of ways, this was helpful.

I didn’t want to be the person who shut themselves away to grieve in their home. Instead, I jumped back into work as soon as I could and tried to find some sort of routine again. I went to the gym more often, took longer walks with my dog, and went into the office as much as I could. Even on my worst days, I still made an effort to show up.

Somehow the routine of my life was the thing that kept me going. I knew what to expect and that brought a lot of comfort when it felt like my life had been changed entirely. Looking back, I am really grateful that my work didn’t push for me to take more time off or kept me from certain activities. The chaos of freshman orientation that summer gave me enough things to distract myself with that I didn’t have to worry about being sad all the time. Is that the healthiest of coping mechanisms? Probably not, but it helped me understand that life had to keep going. That I couldn’t stop.

Though the weirdest thing I experienced in my grieving was how time was nonexistent. Somehow, there weren’t days or weeks passing by but just another routine to follow. Sleeping when the moon came out and getting up with the sun. Again, there I was like Bella, watching as the days and weeks passed by with no clue how each day was different or how things changed. Then something changed.

After a few months, time felt like it snapped back into place. Like I woke up from a really long dream and there was life, waiting for me to step back into it.

In the time since then, I’ve grown personally and professionally in ways that I didn’t anticipate happening. I’ve travelled and explored new places and I also made the most of my home. And all the while, grief came along with me sitting in the backseat of my car while I focused on everything that I had ahead of me.