“Grief, I have learned, is really just love. It is all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up… and it is in your throat. And sometimes it is in aisle seven.” –Jamie Anderson

 

My Interpretation: Grief does not care about timing. It does not check your calendar. It does not knock. It just shows up & asks, “You thought I was done?” It can ambush you. The way grief waits until you have finally put on real pants & tried to exist in the world again… & then it hits you in the grocery store. Or at a stoplight. Or in the middle of a sentence.

---

Series 4 – Post 3: The Grief Spiral

---

Grief does not always hit you on anniversaries.

 

Sometimes it waits

until you have brushed your hair,

put on jeans,

fake-smiled your way into Target…

 

& then – aisle seven.

The pet section.

The baby section.

The song that was playing that day.

A candle that smells like your mom’s house.

A fucking coupon you did not know you still had in your purse.

 

& suddenly –

your throat tightens.

& your face flushes.

& your heart is screaming:

not here,

not now.

 

But grief does not listen.

It never has.

---

There is no preparing for that kind of ambush.

 

The way you go from “functioning”

to “crying in a frozen food aisle”

with zero warning.

 

The way your chest caves in –

not from memory,

but from muscle.

 

Because your body remembers

what your calendar does not.

Your bones speak grief like a second language.

 

Grief is not linear.

It is lurking –

waiting for the quiet moment,

the pause,

the exhale.

 

& then it fills the space

like it owns it.

---

You learn how to excuse yourself quietly.

To duck into bathroom stalls.

To sit in parked cars.

To take “quick calls”

that are really just you trying to breathe.

 

You keep sunglasses in your bag.

You memorize the aisles that are too risky.

You avoid certain songs,

certain scents,

certain small talk.

 

You become good at grieving discreetly.

& that might be the most fucked-up part.

---

Why do we feel the need to apologize for it?

Why do we say

 “Sorry, I did not mean to cry,”

when grief is the most honest thing we will ever feel?

 

Why do we treat our heartbreak

like a burden

instead of proof

that we loved someone

or something

so deeply it cracked us in half?

---

I have cried in public more times than I can count.

After Savanna died.

After Rowe died.

After Trevor died.

After Diana died.

After Beau died.

After Koby died.

After the miscarriage.

After seeing something that reminded me of people

who are still alive but no longer here.

 

& every time,

it stings a little deeper –

not because of the grief itself…

but because of how quickly I am expected to recover from it.

---

Grief in public feels like breaking a rule

you never agreed to.

 

But here is the truth:

≫You do not owe anyone composure.

≫You do not owe anyone silence.

≫You do not owe the world a sanitized version of your sadness.

 

Let it come.

Let it break through.

Let it make a mess –

in the produce section,

behind the steering wheel,

on a walk when someone says your dog’s name

without knowing what it means.

 

You do not have to hold it together for strangers.

You do not have to tuck your grief in to be respected.

 

Let it come.

Let it move through.

 

Then wipe your face.

Hold your head high.

& keep walking.

---

You are not crazy.

You are mourning.

& mourning has no rules.

 

Xoxo ♡