Grief

Grief after the initial shock is over, comes over to consume you at random hours. When you think that you have cried it all out or have moved past it, it just knocks your door and you open it because you are unsuspecting. It doesn’t care if you are wide awake or about to fall asleep or alone or in a crowd or with friends or family or with your thoughts or in the middle of a career changing meeting or having dinner or consoling somebody or cheering someone up. It just engulfs you!

We don’t grieve for a departed loved one or over a break up or a broken relationship or a lost friendship or a decision gone wrong. We grieve over what we thought could have been. We grieve over the loss of what could have been. We grieve over our unfulfilled desires. We grieve over a one-sided love. We grieve when a toxic relationship is over. We grieve over things, we calmly tell others, are not worth grieving over. But it’s natural to feel that way.

What we need to understand is that it is perfectly fine to cry over what we thought could have been. After all we are only humans. We are designed to feel this way. There is absolutely no point in denying our own humanity. We all grieve in our own ways. Some people close completely, others immerse themselves in crowds. The mechanics of how we get over it don’t matter. What matters is that we give ourselves the room for being human. To cry it out, to get over it but at our own pace and time, despite what anyone else may think.

Just like love and happiness should not be rushed, grief shouldn’t also be. Due time, due time! After all, our “could have beens” deserve to be mourned. So just breathe & keep moving forward; and eventually when the time is right, you will get over it. Not before, not after, just at the precise right moment in time!

Tooba Tanveer