💐 the day everything changed.

there is a day that divides your life into a before and after. for me, it was quiet. just another ordinary morning with the sun shining through my blinds. but then it wasn't. with one phone call, one sentence, the world i knew was in pieces, and i didn't know how to hold them all. people often talk about heartbreak like a sharp pain, but grief is different. it isn't just one moment, it is a thousand moments in one. in the beginning, grief feels like you're drowning. it is so loud and overwhelming. then there is the shock, the anger, the endless replaying of "if only" situations playing throughout your head. but over time, grief shifts. it doesn't vanish, but it softens. the sharp edges get rounded over time. sometimes you even forget it is even there, until something reminds you, and the sharp ache comes back.

for a long time, i thought of grief as a weakness. as someone who feels really strongly, i thought that if i was stronger, i’d move on faster, i’d cry less and i’d be able to fill my life with enough noise to drown it all out. but i’ve learned something really important though, and its that we grieve because we loved. the depth of the pain is equal to the depth of the connection. every tear, every ache, and every hollow moment is the proof that someone mattered to us. a quote that i read that i resonated with is "what we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose, all that we love deeply becomes a part of us” by helen keller. i started to understand that love doesn’t disappear, but lingers. it lingers in the memories that we look back at, in the way their voice still echoes, in the small things they did that now mean everything. 

the hardest part of grieving, though, isn't just the loss. it's the loneliness that follows. we live in a world that seems more connected than ever, with people sharing their "perfect lives" all over the media. meanwhile, you're sitting there wondering how the world can keep moving, when yours just stopped. you expect days like birthdays to be hard, but it's often the smaller things. one second you're fine, and the next you're trying to hold back tears in your favorite coffee shop because THE song plays. even with loved ones around you, sometimes it feels hollow, because grief isn't something with an easy fix, or a fix at all. it's a journey, which you have to travel solo.

grief is messy, it's unpredictable, and it's personal. but, with all that said, it is also proof of how love gives our lives meaning. the world will always keep spinning, with the sun rising to shine no matter what, but you don't have to spin with it. because grief isn't about forgetting, but about learning how to carry your love for them differently.

~ ☀️