On Heartbreak And Grief And Everything In Between

We grieve differently. Each of us has our ways of dealing with loss. Some of us numb the pain and others drown in the pain until they no longer recognize who they were before they grieved. The older I get, the more I realize that life is just a series of moments of loving and letting go. Life is just a series of endless losses. I also learned that there is no grief that is bigger than the others. Grief is not a competition where someone can claim that our loss is nothing compared with theirs. Grief is not to be compared. Grief is equal to pain, having a broken heart, and losing ourselves when something has been taken away from us. The object of grief might be different for each of us, but we feel pain the same way. Grief should be something that unites us for the humility it brings. 

When we grieve something or someone, it means that we have experienced love. It means that our heart has the capacity to love something so profound. It means that at least once in our lives, we had something important that meant the world to us so much that we kept it close to our hearts. This thing or this someone was once becoming the reason why we woke up each morning, despite the harshness of life. And when we lost them, we grieved. A heart that once was filled with love is now empty. But that’s exactly the paradox of grief. It gives us so much pain, yet grief gives us a realization that our heart is bigger than the whole world, as it could provide so much space for the things we loved the most. 

There’s no manual for grieving. ⁣If you’re now grieving, feel what you need to feel. Feel the pain that it brings. Feel the way your heart can’t accept what you just lost along the way. Feel the way you need to look for something or someone to hold on to just to make sure that your feet are on the ground. I understand that the “5 Stages of Grief” theory looks like a perfect manual to go through your grief smoothly, but the truth is, grief is messy. Similar to a healing process, grief is not linear. It’s full of a back-and-forth feeling between anger, denial, sadness, and disappointment. One day grief looks like wisdom, another day it tears your life apart. Sometimes grief makes you lose your sense of self, another day it makes you find your true self. To be in grief is to accept all those five stages of grief and also the confusion that it follows.   

Sometimes our intelligent mind can’t understand the reason behind our loss or the broken heart that we have. And it’s okay to not know the reason, because most of the time, you don’t need to know the reason. You just need to accept everything that has happened. When you just lost something or someone, I won’t say that things will get easier, but one thing is sure: your heart has the capacity to love again. You can start all over again whenever you’re ready. Your loss is not the end of your story. This is not the end. This is not your end. Cling to those memories as long as you need to get through the day, but please also remember that there are also new experiences waiting for you to be embraced. 

Don’t define yourself by the grief you have right now. You are more than your loss and a broken heart. You are more than the grief that you’re feeling. You are the capacity of love that your heart can keep. You are the courageous soul that once welcomed love and let it go. You are the author and the main character in your own book. So, when one chapter ends, you are the one who can turn the pages and start anew. 

Grief takes time and so does your heart. Until you’re ready to start again, you are allowed to take one day at a time.