There is a point in grief where it stops showing up in moments…
and starts showing up in everything.
Not just the big things.
Everything.
ou begin to notice it in the smallest decisions.
What to eat.
Whether to get up.
Whether to answer a message.
Whether you even care enough to try.
It’s like every choice is being filtered through grief.
Work feels heavier.
Sleep feels off.
Even the idea of doing something you once enjoyed
feels like more effort than it’s worth.
Your energy is all over the place.
One moment you feel like you might be okay.
The next… you’re completely drained.
And sometimes it feels easier to just give in to that.
To not do anything at all.
I remember waking up some mornings
and having to force myself to literally move my leg over the side of the bed.
That was the win.
Not the whole day.
Not a routine.
Not productivity.
Just… getting up.
“Sometimes the win is just getting your leg over the side of the bed.”
And there were days
when I didn’t want to get up at all.
Curtains closed.
Laying in bed.
Not wanting to face anything outside of that room.
I know how hard it is when this thing called grief
feels like it is taking over everything.
It can feel suffocating.
Like there is no space to breathe.
No space to think clearly.
No space to feel anything outside of the weight of it.
It becomes hard to see joy in life.
And sometimes, the sadness is so heavy
it even keeps you from fully feeling the love that is still around you.
The hugs.
The support.
The moments that are trying to reach you.
Every fiber in your body
wants things to go back to the way they were.
To what felt familiar.
To what felt safe.
To what made sense.
But grief doesn’t work like that.
It’s almost like life is forcing you
to move through it differently.
And this is where we hear that phrase:
“Your new normal.”
I used to try to accept that.
Because on the surface, it makes sense.
Something has changed.
So it must be something new.
But the more I sat with it…
the more I realized something didn’t feel right.
We spend so much of our lives
building relationships…
creating memories…
becoming who we are within those connections.
So when that is suddenly gone…
of course we don’t want things to change.
It’s okay to not want that.
And the truth is…
things will change.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand:
I am still the person who loved.
Still the person who showed up in that relationship.
Still the person who carries those memories.
When I look at myself,
I may see the weight of what I’ve been through…
but I am still me.
Yes… something is missing.
There is a space now that wasn’t there before.
A quiet absence that you can feel.
But that doesn’t mean you’ve become someone entirely new.
You don’t have to force yourself into a “new normal”
if that doesn’t feel right to you.
What you are doing…
is evolving.
Learning.
Adjusting.
Figuring out how to move forward
with what you’ve been given.
Call it a new normal.
Call it growth.
Call it survival.
Whatever you choose to call it…
it will become exactly what it needs to be
for you to continue through your grief.
And right now, it may feel like grief is everywhere.
In every decision.
In every ounce of energy.
In every part of your day.
But even here…
in the heaviness
in the effort
in the days where all you can do is get out of bed…
You are still moving.
And one day, without even realizing it,
you’ll take a few steps
without it feeling as heavy as it once did.
Not because grief is gone.
But because you’ve learned how to carry it differently.
And however your grief shows up today…
I am here beside you.
Here Beside You 