What grief is teaching me about love
The anniversary of my divorce, accepting grief is unique, and learning to see my mess as my teacher.
Welcome to week five, season two of The Messy Middle.
This season is all about accepting parts of self.
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Last week I sent out our monthly journaling prompts, if you didn’t get a chance to use them feel free to dive in today.
Every year for the last two years I dread this day.
In the weeks leading up to May 8—or as I called it, “D-Day,” I’d anticipate the grief that would come again. The painful reminder that on this day, he left. That on this day, he decided to stop trying. That on this day, I heard the man I loved most, and who loved me in return, tell me he couldn’t love me anymore. Nobody needs an annual reminder of that.
read more about my divorce in my memoir, “where the river flows.”
And maybe I’m a masochist. Maybe by remembering this date and naming it, I’ve made it harder to not remember. Maybe I’ve induced more suffering than was neccessary to grieve the end of my marriage. Or maybe, I loved him so much and so big, that I needed to give the heaviness a place to rest so I could properly grieve. A burial site to visit and bring flowers to. A funeral for love in the wake of what most people in my life didn’t understand, and an endless loop of feeling alone in the mourning post-divorce.
But today, I woke up and forgot. And I was reminded that grief is not about waiting to forget—it’s about loving until the grief is free to go.
I knew today was May 8th and I’ve known it was coming for days—I actually had a friend invite me to dinner tonight last week, so it’s been in my calendar and mind as a day to remember. But the date didn’t stir up the “D-Day” thought loop. I didn’t think about him or us at all. And in a small moment on my walk with milo today, I looked at my calendar and thought, “oh, it’s May 8th. Isn’t that—it is. Oh, I forgot.”
I smiled. Not because I forgot him or us, and not because it was the first time I’ve gone days and weeks without remembering. But because I was reminded of days when I wondered if I’d ever go a day without feeling the grief.
I remembered first having this feeling when my high school friend Lyle was killed in a boating accident. I felt tortured by the daily thoughts of him. I didn’t want to stop thinking about him, though, because I was scared if I did it would mean I’d forgotten him, and I couldn’t bear the idea of both losing him in life and my own memory. Still, I longed for relief from the constant mourning, and wondered if I’d ever have a day go by where Lyle wasn’t on my mind. And then one day, he wasn’t. One day, I thought about him, and realized it was the first time I’d thought of Lyle in days.
So when today I thought of “D-Day” and realized it hadn’t held me as it had in years past, I smiled in the knowing that grief does dissipate. That the constant remembering does fade. And that even when we let go of them, it doesn’t mean they’re forgotten.
Letting go of them doesn’t mean they’re forgotten.
What’s messin’ around in today’s newsletter:
Accepting our grief: How can we honor our grief process exactly as we need it? What does a personal grief process look like?
Today’s Tip: I’ll offer a practical tool that you can start to apply this week.
Journaling Prompts: Some questions I’m pondering around owning my grief.
Grieve the way you would love.
Jamie Anderson once said “grief is love with nowhere to go.” This, I believe, is how my grief exists: as a big, beautiful, endless devotion to the people I’ve lost. And, if I’m honest, a twisted obsession, attachment to, and sometimes resent for. What I’ve learned in the last two years after getting divorced is that my grief patterns are reflections of how I loved Josh, and if I want to really let go, I have to acknowledge the ways I really love. I have to be honest with the parts of me that love in unwell ways, and how those mechanisms shape my grief.
I’ve been in a lot of therapy. We know this lol. For a while I worked with an Attachment Therapist, and she helped me understand how to navigate a relationships with an anxious/avoidant attachment style. She also gave me tools to move more into a secure state, and taught me that attachment styles aren’t fixed boxes, and we can change.
The way I have grieved (or not grieved) my divorce has shown me that rejection and abandonment still trigger me. I simultaneously longed for us to get back together and felt bouts of rage (and sometimes hatred) towards him. Grieving him felt like an internal tug of war in which I confused myself constantly: did I miss him or hate him? did I want him back or want myself back? was he the reason or was I?
I’m starting to wonder if I suffocated Josh the way I suffocated my grief.
Constantly looking for answers in my grief, I realized this was part of the demise of our marriage in the first place: hyper-fixation on analysis, overthinking everything, and seeking answers where no answers needed to be.
Once I stopped trying so hard to figure my grief out, it had space to actually breathe.
And so in giving my grief air, I am learning. I am learning that how I grieve is a reflection of how I love. And so maybe, if I chose to love a little differently, maybe my grief will look a little different too. Maybe if I love with less control, my grief can be free to move. Maybe if I love with more trust, my grief can take her own course. Maybe if I let more love in with less doubt and less fear, I can let my grief in, too.
Maybe, my grief is teaching me how to love.
Today’s Tip: Give grief air.
Reminder: you can grieve anything. A person. A relationship. An animal. An identity. A part of self. A bodily function. A place. A time. A future. A past had or not had. Parents we didn’t have. People who didn’t show up. Experiences we wished had shaped us. The ones we wish hadn’t.
Whatever feels like it is gripping you today and feeling hard to let go of needs grieving.
Journaling Prompts (share your answers in the comments!)
What are you grieving?
How have you been treating your grief?
In what ways does your grief manifest in your life?
What is your grief telling you about how you love?
What is one way you can love your grief?
I hope these prompts are helpful, I’d love to see what you come up with in the comments. The more we name these things outloud, the more we collectively reduce the shame and help eachother come out of the dark.
All my messy love,
Rach
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