The longer I live in this world, the more regret and heart ache I’m filled with. Aching, due to the lives that are no longer present with me on this temporary island of time, and the regret due to the repercussion of the shame that takes place for never feeling like I spent enough time with them.
See, time is an interesting thing. I would argue that there is, and never will be, enough of it. It’s a cruel thing if I’m honest, with its hand constantly ticking at each minute of my life. The major problem is that it doesn’t allow us to stop. The sun will still rise as the moon falls, leaving no moments of pause.
Usually I wouldn’t think about this as deeply as I am now, but this past month I’ve found myself in a rough season of grief. Within these moments, I have noticed that nobody paused, stopped or even took a break. My classes kept going, assignments were still due and meetings were still mandatory.
I don’t think anyone will tell you that grief has ever been easy. However, for something that’s so notoriously known for being difficult, no one really provides a sense of relief.
Unfortunately, I have been invited to my second funeral of this semester. I don’t know why but, subconsciously, I think I assumed that since it had already happened once, there would be a familiarity that would keep me afloat.
Oh, how I wish that were true.
Instead, I found myself taking this grief even harder than the first time, a literal sinking of sadness was wrecking my life. Now, as I reflect on the past few weeks, I genuinely believe this is because, since that first death I experienced this semester, I have forced myself to keep up with the pace of the world. I haven’t slowed down once.
When I received the call a few weeks back that my aunt had passed away, such a beautiful day had been transformed into the worst day of my life. Yet, with such thoughts in mind, not once did the world say, “I’m sorry,” or stop for me to take a breath. Instead, it felt like the world had gone faster, like some messed up joke.
I was met with the 11:59 p.m. deadline again and, to no surprise, no classes or events had been canceled. There was still an obligation to keep going, and since the world had told me it wasn’t going to stop, neither could I.
This thought right here is when we mess up. As soon as we fall into this cycle of routine, or “forced” tasks, we become trapped in a system that only we ourselves are programming.
Why, though? Why do we have this need to rush? To complete everything under the sun. Why haven’t we fought it?
We become stressed, tired, burnt out and not once think to go against this norm.
It wasn’t long before the consequences of ignoring my grief got the best of me. Towards the end of the week I had begun to completely fall apart. All my plans, the stability I thought I had, were gone and I had officially broken down.
I finally was met with mourning, but not in a healthy way. Due to my lack of stillness beforehand, I had let my grief build up so much it felt like there was no recovery. My grades started slipping, my relationships felt stale and worst of all, I was so alone, only met with the continuous grace of my sadness.
My only next step was to fall back into the program. I carefully stitched a smile onto my face and continued on with the rest of the world.
I want to tell you I have learned my lesson, that I have allowed myself to pause in the contrast of society. I yearn to tell you I have healthily mourned and processed all that I’m feeling. However, I’m forced to tell you that I don’t have a guide to grief and I don’t think I understand what it means to say no to the rules of time.
Grief, still to this day, has been residing in my heart, and all I’ve managed so far is the consistent checking things off of my to-do list. Some days have been a lot harder than others, but then there’s days I forget that there are even such troubles in my life. It’s weird, and I know there’s some balance out there, I just need to be willing to stop for a moment and look for it.
And there’s that idea of pausing again. You and I, we deserve to grieve and not be rushed by the rest of this world. Yet, we also owe it to ourselves to keep going and not trap ourselves in the darkness. I guess you can tell I’m still learning this whole thing, and frankly, I think that’s where the beauty of all this lies; in our free will, with the power to learn and decide what happens next.
We’re given a choice in how we live our lives, but you must make sure that, ultimately, the choice is yours, not one of this world.
If not, well, you’ll be just as stuck as me in this horrid cycle.