When vulnerability comes chasing after us, our instinct is to outrun it. It’s a direct response – to avoid, to flee. And after years of doing so, I’ve learned there’s one thing you simply can’t escape. Grief. Once it finds you, you’re left with no choice but to let it. Sit with it. Bear it. You simply can’t outrun grief no matter how hard you try.
Spring ironically felt like death to me when it came last year. I was going through my first excruciating breakup. Quite melodramatic, I know, now that I’m writing this a year older (and perhaps a bit more mature), but it truly felt worse than getting an underwhelming exam score – at least with that, I knew how to do better next time. The breakup, on the other hand, took some of my limbs without my permission. I could barely move.
My first response to it was to run. I did unhinged things I wouldn’t even do drunk; went to places I wouldn’t go to even with a gun. I avoided doing things alone because I was afraid grief would follow me. I asked strangers – people who had nothing to do with me – to outrun it with me.
But who was I fooling then? It took me a while before I realized grief was a spiral staircase that knew no bounds; I was going downwards.
When I grew listless of my lousy distractions, it caught up to me. I wept. It rendered every bit of progress I thought I was making irrelevant. How foolish I was to believe I was making myself happy.
I’m past wishing to do it all over again, to get it right this time, because dwelling on it that way feels merely superficial. It’s a lesson learned, that’s all – a tough one, even. But if I ever find myself on a similar staircase, best believe no one will see me run.
The best response to grief is to face it head-on. When it visits me again, I will take it with me wherever I go – like an old friend visiting town. I will give it a tour of the little corners of my life so it knows me beyond the reasons that had it summoned. We will talk and talk and talk, until it gets sick of my stories and decides I’m no longer worthy of the visit.
Grief will always find me whenever it misses me, and I will bid it a proper farewell when it leaves.
Now, it's your turn to write.
- When have you tried to run from grief or difficult emotions? What happened when you could no longer avoid it?
- How did you try to distract yourself from your pain in the past, and what did you discover when distractions no longer worked?
- If grief were a visitor, what would you want to say to it when it arrives?
- Write a letter to your past self during a time of grief. What would you want them to know now?