This is a little long winded and personal. Please forgive me.
It's been exactly one year since my great aunt passed away - she was a pillar of the family, a very intelligent and witty woman whom we all loved. She used to cut out stories from the newspaper/ magazines and mail them to me while I lived away, and she had the most incredible handwriting I’ve ever seen. She was, to use one of her favorite things to call me, a “real mensch.”
Less than 48 hours after that, I got broken up with. We had been dating for almost two years. It was the healthiest relationship I had ever been in. Yet, we were laying in my teenage bedroom at my parents house, and she was crying. All I remember is thinking to myself “FIGHT for her you DUMB MOTHERFUCKER, you CAN’T lose another woman” - but I didn’t. I was scared. And just like that, the best year of my life came crashing down in spectacular fashion.
Two extremely hard hits at once.
I had to keep moving forward. I didn’t see any alternative. And as a result, I sank into what I can only describe as my own death spiral. Lots of cigs, lots of booze, lots of work, all to drown out the voices in my head telling me “maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
I didn’t allow myself to MOURN then. To feel sad, to feel loss, and to work it out constructively and communally. Now, a year later, I’m finally allowing myself to feel those emotions about both of those things. Finally crawling out of that death spiral. Mourning isn’t weakness, nor is grief.
Just…if you haven’t properly mourned something, anything, I recommend allowing yourself to. Keeping something like that inside, no matter how compartmentalized it may be, is a bad idea.
