Grief 101

Sometimes I think my life is a never-ending process of grief.

Yes, I know that sounds dramatic, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Regardless, grief is a very difficult feeling to come to terms with. Initially, grief presents itself to be incredibly intense, expressed through anger, anxiety, and sorrow. You think it ends there, but somehow it never actually does. It later presents itself as this quiet underlying feeling that you sometimes can forget about, til it hits you midday at a national park, or in the evening on a Walmart grocery trip. Yes, those are both real examples.

I have known what it is to grieve for what feels like many years now. Grieving my relationships with my parents, grieving friendships, grieving romantic love. I thought that when eventually, the intense attachments would pass, then so would the grief. I thought that somehow I was above humanhood, that somehow I would be the person to outrun grief and to heal it all away with all my neat coping mechanisms. Life has a funny way of humbling people, most especially when they least expect it. You think you are above? Just wait, and soon enough you’ll know exactly what it is to be below. Maybe I’m a pessimist, or maybe I’m just a realist. I myself am completely unsure.

I really miss my dad. I miss him all the time. I see him in every Arab man I come across, I hear him in every Arabic song, I feel him every time I gesture with my hands in the ways that he does. This grief has never left me, and the truth is I don’t want it to. Although there is a pit in me dedicated to him, it means that at least he is still with me. Don’t get me wrong, my dad isn’t dead. Well, I’m never actually sure unless I’m standing in front of him. It’s a complicated thing to have a parent that’s an addict, one that you have to search the streets for hours to hopefully bump into. I haven’t felt like I have had a father since I was 12 years old. That is a strange thing. It’s even more strange to think that it’s been 10 years since then.

I used to cry over my father all of the time. I’d cry for hours about needing to go see him, then I’d cry in the middle of a busy downtown street talking to him, then I’d cry for the months that followed. Cry is a very pretty way to describe it, it was much more desperately human than simply a few tears. I was ruined. Over and over and over again. Frankly, I still am. It’s just a lot harder for me to tap into now. That level of grief cannot live forever, it is simply too taxing on the body, mind, and soul. The grief stays though, and in the right moments it comes back full force. I really miss my dad.

I really miss my ex. Ah yes, that one is much more wholly embarrassing to plainly admit aloud to the public. Whatever, crucify me. I’m human and it’s true. I think of him all of the time. Things I want to tell him, places I want to show him, all of the love I still want to give him. I think of all the times I attempted to be strong and in control and in doing so acted cold and uncaring, all of the times I tried to present myself as someone I wasn’t, someone moved on. I think of all the things I did, and the person that I became out of shame and hurt. I think of the fact that, still to this day, he’s my best friend and that I have never come close to feeling any connection that compares. I think of the fact that, however weak it now may be to still love, care, or hold on, I still quite honestly do.

Grief is like living your life and then realizing that you aren’t fully present or joyful and not knowing why, then sitting alone for long enough until it all starts to hit you. I don’t know how else to describe it.