Grief Doesn’t Have a Uniform
In my 31 years walking God’s green earth, I’d have to say that the majority of those years were spent grieving. Do you see how ridiculous this sounds? Out of my 31 years alive, I’ve spent well over 22 years in emotional shamble. Let’s take a trip down memory lane really quick. I promise that at the end of this blog post it’ll all make sense. (LOL at “take a trip.” Sis is always ready to catch a flight.)
March 21, 2000. On this day, I witnessed my first heart break at the tender age of nine. I lost the only girl in the world that knew me best. What was once a regular day at school turned into a neighborhood tragedy in a matter of hours. Being as young as I was, I understood what was transpiring but at the same time, I didn’t. I thought that grief was an instant feeling. I thought that once I acknowledged that my mother was no longer in the physical realm, I would begin to process my grief. However, that isn’t how it works. Life stood still and moved forward simultaneously for the next nine years. By the time I hit eighteen, the rebellion was at an all time high. If you knew me during these years, especially middle and high school, then you know exactly what I’m speaking of.
I would honestly rate the loss of a parent as one of the worse experiences that one will ever endure. This was my feeling for years and it was a hill that I would have died on…. until I lost the only man in the world that knew me best. This right here should have put me in the dirt. Losing my brother was the final straw. An experience that flipped my world upside down. An experience that I am still recovering from and trying my best to understand two years later. Baby, as time passes me by I feel like I was just born tired. Emotionally, mentally, physically exhausted. The waves of grief drown me periodically, at times leaving me breathless and gasping for air. Chest pain so harsh that it brings me to my knees instantly. I’m talking about gut wrenching grief. Some days the waves are 100 feet tall, other days, a few inches. However, after the pain there’s peace.
For this exact reason, I push forward and fight my way through it. I remember the days when grief kicked my ass every single time. I was weak, I had no strength, I felt defeated, I had no faith in life getting better. One word, well two words: GOD & THERAPY. But I’ll save that for a future post because I have some jewels to drop about the lovely world of Mental Health and the stigma it has within in our communities. Our African American communities.
Throughout my life, I’ve lost many people. Relatives, friends, colleagues, partners. The crazy thing is, many of them aren’t even dead. Which lead me to discover years ago that you do not only experience grief when someone dies. Grief is not always exclusive to death. Grief is also about loss, and loss comes in many different forms. Some losses are easy to recognize, while others are harder to comprehend and understand. No matter the cause of grief, be patient with yourself. Grief is a profoundly personal experience that we journey through in our own unique way.
Being completely honest, I’ve been experiencing the process of grief in a different light for the past few months as I am grieving someone who is still alive and well. They are just no longer apart of my life. It’s the death of our friendship, our relationship, the hopes and dreams, the future that was connected to myself and this person that is so hard to completely disconnect from. It’s so crazy to think of living without someone you felt you couldn’t live without. Someone you thought you’d have in your life forever. This goes for platonic and romantic relationships. Through my healing journey, I’ve learned to understand that we don’t possess people, we simply experience them. I am honored and grateful to have had the opportunity to experience all that I have with all that I did. It has been an honor to love them. Eternal sunshine.
As 2021 began to come to a close, I realized that I needed to purge all of the negative and heavy emotions that I had been harboring. All of the guilt, the anger, the frustration, the anxiety, the depression had begun to take a toll on me. I was exhausted. I was bitter. I was very unhappy, and this just wasn’t how I liked to live my life. Life is meant to be lived happily and peaceful and ya girl was the furthest from that. So, I fled. I booked a solo trip to the homeland and RESET. I disconnected as much as I could, and went deep within to find the wire that I needed in order to connect myself back to the outlet. These past few days I have laughed, I have cried, whewwwww, did I cry. I realized that this was all in God’s plans for me. I had to disconnect to reconnect and I found my way back.
2022 will be one of the biggest years of my life. I graduate with my Master’s in Public Health, I’ll be relocating to begin my new career as a Research Scientist in a new city (wink wink), and I start my DrPh program in the fall. Today, I am grateful, thankful and blessed for so many different reasons, but most importantly for having my peace and my sanity. God is so mindful of me.
Grief comes in all forms and looks many different ways for many different people. As I sit on the bed of my corner-suite room at the W Panama in my silk robe, moisturized skin, mimosa in arms reach, romanticizing myself and resetting my soul as my first solo trip of 2022 comes to an end, my grief looks and feels luxurious, and very expensive and I really love this for me.
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