Is this still Grief? Why Does it feel so overwhelming?

Maybe it has been six months.

Maybe it's been two years.

Maybe 6 ...

Life has continued without them. People have stopped asking how you are. You have gone back to work, made countless dinners, celebrated milestones and even laughed again.

There are even days when your grief does not feeling over consuming and you can breathe.

And then...

A change in season

A smell

A photo

A birthday

Or nothing happened at all but suddenly you feel that emotional burst.

You feel like you are drowning in a sea of memories and tears.

You start to wonder, Why am I still hurting? Why am I still grieving? I can't tell this to my friends they will think I'm nuts. I already took enough time off work.

I should be over this by now.

This is grief.

Because no one told grief it had a finish line.

We used to think healthy grieving meant eventually letting go of the person who died. What we now understand through grief research is something very different. The relationship doesn't simply disappear research around continuing bonds shows us that our connection with someone we love can remain throughout our lifetime-through our memories identity stories choices and the ways we continue to influence who we are.

That relationship is life long.

Death ends a life it doesn't erase a relationship.

And sometimes we aren't only grieving the person we are grieving the phone calls that should have been happening. The empty chair at the dinner table. At piece of advice you needed. The milestones we should have been part of; the engagement, the graduation, the wedding, the job promotion or the vacation.

It's the future we assumed we would have together with them.

Sometimes grief becomes so heavy again simply because life has continued and they aren't physically here to continue with us.

And then there are the grief ambushes.

You can be doing remarkably well and still get knocked sideways in the aisle 3 of the local grocery store.

Both can be true.

You can laugh and you can cry because they're not here.

You can be healing and doing all the things to move forward and still have days when it hurts like ******* hell. You loved that person, its all the love that has no place to go.

Maybe healing was never supposed to mean missing them less.

Maybe it means building a life big enough to hold both love and loss.

So when grief shows up again it doesn't necessarily mean you have gone backwards.

Maybe something wonderful happened and they were the first person you wanted to tell. Maybe your body remembered a date before your mind did.

Or maybe you simply just miss them.

That doesn't always mean you need to be fixed, that you're doing this wrong.

Grief isn't evidence that you haven't moved forward it is evident that someone mattered.

So yes, this still can be grief.

And yes you can still be healing.

Continue to breathe

Erin