Grief is like particulate matter in the air. After your chosen mechanism relieves you from its weight (mine is tears), the particles float back up until gravity pulls them back together, gaining mass and spiraling further down. They settle heavy, back onto your chest until you heave them into the air through a mass of tears. Your mind plays tricks on you, making you think that it was not that long ago; the laughter, the sunlight and warmth, the love. Every second of heaviness that you have trudged through becomes cleverly repressed by a random, clear memory. Its happy, wondrous feeling becomes concrete. But those memories belong to another life. The happiness is long gone. Yet they must exist somewhere out there, living anew in another dimension. How else could they come to you again with such clarity?

Where were we? In 2015, Sydney died. In 2016, Sheba died. In 2017, my father died. In 2018 – I’m going through a divorce.

I have long moments where I feel sorry for myself. At first, the days where I indulge in feelings of sorrow and “woe-is-me” type ruminations, seem to be cathartic. I feel like I am narrowing down the problem, waiting for that beam of inspiration that surely must be just around the corner. Working through feelings is good, right? Or maybe these ruminations serve to only drive myself deeper into depression because there is no solution except to just experience the pain as it comes, and release it when it goes.

We’ll see what happens.