Sneaky grief
We are all familiar with the typical sources of grief: death, war, loss of a job, loss of a relationship…these types of grief make sense to us. They are about the status of something in our life changing from something we want to something we don’t want – often unexpectedly.
But what about the grief that comes with changes we CHOOSE? The ones we WANT?
When we get up the courage to…take that job that brings new opportunities, move to the city we always wanted to live in, start dating again, have children…
Those are the good things, the exciting things in life. The things that bring adventure, new experiences, new chances. And also, their own form of grief.
Grief for the loss of comfort our previously stable version of life offered us. Grief for the sudden new risk of disappointment. Grief (maybe even shame?) over all the feelings we feel like we shouldn’t be feeling, because this change is good, right??!
This grief is the sneaky grief. The one no one expects us to feel and no one knows how to support and we don’t know how to justify within ourselves.
And yet it is still there with us, even in the middle of something good. Something we choose.
What if our grief could be the welcome cousin of love, the thing that reminds us, with intensity, that we are living to our most beautiful edge?
