It’s been a while since I last wrote anything on here. I’d love to say it’s because I’ve been too busy doing amazing, exciting things in life right now, but that’s regrettably not the case.
The latter half of August has been really rough. There have been many life changes that have happened this month that have had a profound and negative impact on my day-to-day for the past few weeks. There’s been a lot of grief to process in this time. Some days I’ve felt overwhelmed by it. Others I’ve managed somewhat better, but still far below my regular capacity for activity.
Here are a few points I’ve realised during my processing:
- It’s OK to be sad. We often try to chase happiness in times of grief, but that denies us the opportunity to actually heal. Sometimes you just have to embrace that things are just a bit shit right now, and that’s alright. So my advice is just stick on a sad song and let those emotions flow.
- You truly learn who your friends are in times of grief. I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by some truly wonderful people, who have gone above and beyond to help me along in this time. I don’t think I would have made the steps I’ve already taken without these people in my life. Treasure friendships like this.
- It’s easy to get angry in hard times. It often feels easier when you feel you can blame someone for the pain you’re feeling right now. Resentment feels good, as it allows you to replace the utter powerlessness of feeling miserable with something that makes you feel much more in command of the situation. But I don’t believe it helps. It just inevitably causes more pain to more people (including yourself) in the long run, and denies you a degree of ever fully healing. I’ve spent a lot of time deconstructing resentful thoughts, each time drilling into their root causes of what it is that’s actually making me sad at bottom of it.
- Times of grief are often also a chance to reflect. I’ve had many things I thought I knew about myself and my life collapse over the past few weeks. Many things I thought I wanted in life, and many things I thought made me happy no longer carry the same glamour. I’ve been able to see huge swathes of my life and attitude through a different lense, and I’ve had to take a long hard stare at many things I thought fundamental to my life. Perhaps not everything in my life will need to be changed, however this time has forced a level of introspection that is easy to sideline when things appear to be going well.
- It does get better. I was a complete mess 2 weeks ago, barely able to make breakfast without having some kind of major emotional backlash. Last week was better, and I was able to get on and pick up some of the pieces that had been discarded along the way. This week, though I’m still very sad, I’m able to get on with things to an almost normal level once again. It’s an ancient cliché at this point, but time really is the greatest healer. You may be feeling the depths of despair right now, but things will eventually be better.
Things are already feeling better than they did 2 weeks ago, and I hope they will continue to gradually improve. Hopefully, I will be back to more positive topics again soon.