This Is What Grief Is

What comes next?

Today, I grieve. And grief meets me like an old friend. Distant on most days but always hauntingly close during my moments of weakness and misfortune.

It sweeps through my life uncontrollably, rummaging memories and damaging the most fragile bits of me. Grief feels like hearing every goodbye ever said to me — said all at once. It embodies all my fears and lends such weight to them that they feel immediately realized. It’s heartbreaking.

And this is what a grief, born out of love and the best of me, feels like.