The Truth About Moving Forward From Loss

I am learning this year that not all people are hardwired to feel an intensified feeling of loss. As not all experience a loss that slashes their hearts in the spaces where we once were guardedly stored. For some, the past is of no consequence, whereas for others, the consequences of the past can stunt our very own strengths to move forward with grief. Maybe loss is more predictable than we think it is. Perhaps loss is as foreseeable as the snap of a rubber band tightly intertwined between our fingers.

There is a longstanding belief that loiters in the corners of my mind and envelopes me in: Our overflow of emotional energy that moves gracefully with fluidity can be taken away from us. We will fail to show up when we want to reciprocate ardent declarations of undeniable love but end up short-handed with an uncertainty of its return. An air of melancholy will surround the thought that our overflowing emotional energy, once tightly encapsulated—now breeds apathy.

I am always floored by those who feel so assured in their self-discoveries. Acquiring insight into one’s character feels like a form of self-betrayal. Openly moving inwards into ourselves with a telescope purchased for novice learners and accepting the reflection back into the lens while declaring its truth—sounds deceiving. Maybe it is grief that unearths our truths. Perhaps it is in those moments where we end up short-handed with the loss of our emotional energy, weakened by the depletion of the inheriting emotional tenderness; something greater than us becomes rich with their founded discoveries. Or maybe it is the yearning for rejection—loss, refusals—where we beg for grief to be a tool for locating our authentic truths.

Moving forward from loss is not entering a season of lessons learned. Grief is not a subject taught in classrooms—whose walls enclose fragmented children, learning lessons on acts of betrayal and stages of healing. Moving forward with sorrow is touching the loss and moving past its familiarity and towards something less recognizable. It is the understanding that in the wake of grief, we then fully rejoin the human family—return to our human roots to survive our sweet sorrow. I have returned, and it feels so good to be here.