"sometimes you don’t realize you’re breaking until you already have"
I know this truth all too well. I'm sorry you've been there as well. Actually, a lot of this article reminds me of myself.
When I became a mother so many people urged me to appreciate every moment because, "the days are long but the years are short". The more I look back on life from my melodramatic perch in middle age, the more I think that's just life. Days take on the quality of years, especially when they bleed together and become "a season of life". We forget seasons end, even the most prized ones.
Before you know it you're 41, looking back on your strange journey of a life, mourning things like you're in your eighties.
That's when I tell myself to snap out of it because some day I really will be, God willing, in my seventies or eighties thinking how I never appreciated middle age.
Days becoming seasons, and seasons becoming entire chapters, is exactly like how life unfolds when we look back.
What you said about middle age being a season in itself….. It isn’t something to hurry past or measure against what came before or after. It has its own meaning, depth, and beauty. Thank you so much for this comment. And I love your ramble!
I'm either living as a caterpillar, or in the chrysalis of my own making, otherwise known as the cooker, which can last for years, until some butterfly version of myself emerges. That calm before the "next" storm, ie, visit to the chrysalis, a nest where I can "melt down" with a modicum of sanity, while figuring out how to resurface, yet again. When the kaka hits the fan I reframe as best possible :-)
Such a practical way to look at it. Sometimes you need space to process and reset before moving forward again. Pulling back doesn’t mean you’re stuck, but that you're taking care of yourself. Thats how people keep going!
Hello, I am so sorry to read of the loss of your father, especially at the time of our isolation. Loss and grief are certainly misunderstood in our culture. I too have learned, through pain, to allow grief to surface, and then to allow it to be seen and heard. It certainly has been a learning process, but it is true, the healing path is a roadmap to inner freedom. Thank you for this important essay.
Thank you so much. And you’re right, grief is so misunderstood, and so often we’re taught to hide it or rush through it. Learning to let it surface and be seen has been one of the hardest and most freeing parts of this process for me too!
Great post thank you for putting grief into language so many of us recognize but struggle to name. now for my personal experience and from working in my mental health that can’t grief can be challenging or professionally and personally.
Some losses (and not the ones that cut deep like parents or pets) -but (and take this as it hits lady!)- ones like fucking assholes who misuse "power" and actually perpetuate the harm they are "appointed to uphold"-are gifts in disguise...you bounce back wiser, honoring your own strength when you didn't even know it existed inside you before, and more resilient to see through the bullshit. Loss of loved ones and pets-not the issue here. Loss of "friends", colleagues, people you didn't anticipate seeing leave your life-sux in the moment-but leaves WIDE open space for those who are authentic and will only continue to enhance you in ever way-and their loss goes with everything they were draining from you this whole time. (BTW-please don't ever leave me! 😂😂❤️❤️) You are so much stronger than you know-but I know since the day I interviewed you! You are awesome through and through!
Oh-and those "losses" mentioned-open space for true, authentic greatness to arrive in your life! Pace yourself cuz you are gonna change the world lady! ❤️
That loss clears the field. What’s left is space that ACTUALLY belongs to you, without distortion, obligation, or control. And when people reduce you to your worst moment without knowing you, it says more about them than it does you. I love you. And for the record, I’m not going anywhere!!
I am so sorry about your losses. Your father dying alone in the hospital is one of the criminal things that happened unnecessarily during Covid. My step dad also died in the hospital without my mom at his side. For the year between his death and my mom's I wasn't allowed into her assisted living apartment. It was a beautiful place she was in and not the assisted living place's mandate, but our CA govt. I finally got an ok to be with her in her final days. But the rage I felt over not being allowed to be with her turned into over-drinking alcohol, losing my appetite, dropping too much weight. But I hired caregivers who were allowed to be with her. One of them spent Thanksgiving and Christmas 2020 with my mom rather than with her own family. Actually, from the photos the 22-year-old caregiver sent me, my mom was having a better time with her than she would have had with me! So I was left with both anger and loss, but also a renewed faith in human goodness. And when I came out of the coma I was in last January from Septic Shock, who should there be in my room but that caregiver, now an ICU RN. She told me that my mom had sat her down and told her to go to nursing school. She said she carried a photo of my mom with her all through her schooling. And she told me my mom was watching from Heaven and that the two of them would make sure I was alright. At that moment, I realized that my mom had never really been alone like I'd thought because she knew how much I loved her. And because the walls put up by the government were just physical ones. There are no walls when there is love. You are always together. I am sure your father knew you were with him, even though you were not there physically. I'm not a Christian. I don't follow any religion. But I know there is a higher power — or powers — and people can call it whatever gets them through tough times. And I know there is an afterlife where we are reunited in Heaven.
Your experience holds both the grief and the grace of that time, and the love you showed your mom never stopped reaching her. That caregiver’s journey feels like such a continuation of your mother’s impact in the world. I love the reminder that love isn’t limited by walls, rules, or physical presence. Thank you for reading my work and for sharing part of yourself.
"sometimes you don’t realize you’re breaking until you already have"
I know this truth all too well. I'm sorry you've been there as well. Actually, a lot of this article reminds me of myself.
When I became a mother so many people urged me to appreciate every moment because, "the days are long but the years are short". The more I look back on life from my melodramatic perch in middle age, the more I think that's just life. Days take on the quality of years, especially when they bleed together and become "a season of life". We forget seasons end, even the most prized ones.
Before you know it you're 41, looking back on your strange journey of a life, mourning things like you're in your eighties.
That's when I tell myself to snap out of it because some day I really will be, God willing, in my seventies or eighties thinking how I never appreciated middle age.
(Apologies, I have a tendency to ramble!)
Days becoming seasons, and seasons becoming entire chapters, is exactly like how life unfolds when we look back.
What you said about middle age being a season in itself….. It isn’t something to hurry past or measure against what came before or after. It has its own meaning, depth, and beauty. Thank you so much for this comment. And I love your ramble!
I'm either living as a caterpillar, or in the chrysalis of my own making, otherwise known as the cooker, which can last for years, until some butterfly version of myself emerges. That calm before the "next" storm, ie, visit to the chrysalis, a nest where I can "melt down" with a modicum of sanity, while figuring out how to resurface, yet again. When the kaka hits the fan I reframe as best possible :-)
Such a practical way to look at it. Sometimes you need space to process and reset before moving forward again. Pulling back doesn’t mean you’re stuck, but that you're taking care of yourself. Thats how people keep going!
Hello, I am so sorry to read of the loss of your father, especially at the time of our isolation. Loss and grief are certainly misunderstood in our culture. I too have learned, through pain, to allow grief to surface, and then to allow it to be seen and heard. It certainly has been a learning process, but it is true, the healing path is a roadmap to inner freedom. Thank you for this important essay.
Thank you so much. And you’re right, grief is so misunderstood, and so often we’re taught to hide it or rush through it. Learning to let it surface and be seen has been one of the hardest and most freeing parts of this process for me too!
This hit home for me. Thank you for this wonderful piece🙏
Im so glad it resonated. Thank you!
Great post thank you for putting grief into language so many of us recognize but struggle to name. now for my personal experience and from working in my mental health that can’t grief can be challenging or professionally and personally.
This was incredibly moving
Thank you so much!
Some losses (and not the ones that cut deep like parents or pets) -but (and take this as it hits lady!)- ones like fucking assholes who misuse "power" and actually perpetuate the harm they are "appointed to uphold"-are gifts in disguise...you bounce back wiser, honoring your own strength when you didn't even know it existed inside you before, and more resilient to see through the bullshit. Loss of loved ones and pets-not the issue here. Loss of "friends", colleagues, people you didn't anticipate seeing leave your life-sux in the moment-but leaves WIDE open space for those who are authentic and will only continue to enhance you in ever way-and their loss goes with everything they were draining from you this whole time. (BTW-please don't ever leave me! 😂😂❤️❤️) You are so much stronger than you know-but I know since the day I interviewed you! You are awesome through and through!
Oh-and those "losses" mentioned-open space for true, authentic greatness to arrive in your life! Pace yourself cuz you are gonna change the world lady! ❤️
That loss clears the field. What’s left is space that ACTUALLY belongs to you, without distortion, obligation, or control. And when people reduce you to your worst moment without knowing you, it says more about them than it does you. I love you. And for the record, I’m not going anywhere!!
I am so sorry about your losses. Your father dying alone in the hospital is one of the criminal things that happened unnecessarily during Covid. My step dad also died in the hospital without my mom at his side. For the year between his death and my mom's I wasn't allowed into her assisted living apartment. It was a beautiful place she was in and not the assisted living place's mandate, but our CA govt. I finally got an ok to be with her in her final days. But the rage I felt over not being allowed to be with her turned into over-drinking alcohol, losing my appetite, dropping too much weight. But I hired caregivers who were allowed to be with her. One of them spent Thanksgiving and Christmas 2020 with my mom rather than with her own family. Actually, from the photos the 22-year-old caregiver sent me, my mom was having a better time with her than she would have had with me! So I was left with both anger and loss, but also a renewed faith in human goodness. And when I came out of the coma I was in last January from Septic Shock, who should there be in my room but that caregiver, now an ICU RN. She told me that my mom had sat her down and told her to go to nursing school. She said she carried a photo of my mom with her all through her schooling. And she told me my mom was watching from Heaven and that the two of them would make sure I was alright. At that moment, I realized that my mom had never really been alone like I'd thought because she knew how much I loved her. And because the walls put up by the government were just physical ones. There are no walls when there is love. You are always together. I am sure your father knew you were with him, even though you were not there physically. I'm not a Christian. I don't follow any religion. But I know there is a higher power — or powers — and people can call it whatever gets them through tough times. And I know there is an afterlife where we are reunited in Heaven.
Your experience holds both the grief and the grace of that time, and the love you showed your mom never stopped reaching her. That caregiver’s journey feels like such a continuation of your mother’s impact in the world. I love the reminder that love isn’t limited by walls, rules, or physical presence. Thank you for reading my work and for sharing part of yourself.