Grief is interesting. We all wear it a little differently, but also the same. Like we’re all wearing clothes from the same designer, but the cuts, fits and fabrics are all just a little different and consummately suited to each of us, in a hideously unique way.
I notice it’s designs on my face, on my hair. I feel it’s weight on my body. Sometimes it’s too tight, jeans pinching me, and sometimes it’s too loose, I can’t manage the excess.
It’s uncomfortable, I tug at the neckline, the sleeves and the hem.
It’s opaque most times. I appear normal don’t I? Smiling, working, eating chatting.
But to me it’s smoky glass. I view everything through it. I see my changed life.
I’m not telling you anything new. Anyone who has lost knows. I feel compelled to acknowledge how grief fits me, how it looks on me, how it slips around and tangles me up and started as a thing I grabbed onto in desperation and now is a thing that’s hard to shake. It won’t come off. I don’t even know if I want it to.
A thing. More than a word, but maybe less than a world.
