A note of context: I played ultimate competitively for a long time, and this newsletter began as an effort to examine life through the lens of the sport.
I want to write about grief. About how the most critical thing I can do is feel it.
About how lately, I think grief is what happens when what we love changes.
About how grief is inevitable but, in the world we live in, invisible and undesirable and scary and to be avoided.
About how grief is constantly setting me free.
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How do we grieve? How do we make sense of grief? It seems so obvious to me that we’ve lost track of the answers. The economic and social and environmental realities we face today are only what happens when you can’t feel what hurts.
I know we’re waking up to this, though. We’ve got all kinds of mechanisms for masking it and stuffing it down, but our grief is alive under all of that— an energy that we all feel, but perhaps don’t know what to do with. We’re starting to remember.
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When I think of grief, I think about my final phone call with my dad. I think about friends losing brothers and grandmothers and friends. Relative to ultimate, I think about the CUT kids, the Mechanix guys, the Gendors players.
I think about death, and the enormity of human beings breathing in one moment and not the next. I think of entire lives arranged around one another, and then of giant, gaping voids where phones keep ringing and eventually get disconnected; where apartments get cleared out completely, down to the storage fee you pay someone else to throw out that which you cannot; where what’s left are photographs and wondering about what the coming holiday will be like without them.
But I also think about how there’s so much more in life that hurts, and how it all adds up, and how it’s easy to forget that and just keep it moving—maybe because we’re not supposed to be “soft” in sports, maybe because we’re not supposed to be “soft” in life. And I think about how no amount of ignoring, running away, or playing off can make it not be there.
Grief on all scales is part of us, and we cannot be whole unless we give it its due.
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I can’t remember being sad about my parents getting divorced. Only feeling it for others, and feeling a responsibility to watch out for my siblings, and a sense that somehow all this was a sign of maturity.
But I was 8, and my home was breaking apart. Of course I was sad. I just didn’t know how to feel it.
Twenty-five years after the split, I found myself in therapy, struggling in my relationship and wondering where the snide comments and belittling remarks came from. Where had I learned the absolute certainty that if things weren’t done my way, in a way that made sense to me, there’d be disaster? And up it came, like an eruption from a geyser. This tidal wave of energy that completely knocked me out. I got out of the shower one morning, put on some music to listen to while I ate breakfast, and never logged into work because I started sobbing and couldn’t stop.
I was so, so sad.
Next came hours, days, weeks, a couple months of feeling what had been trying to come out from under all of that struggle.
All kinds of memories that felt like they had happened yesterday despite my not having touched them since I was a kid. My dad being sick all the time. All the screaming and shouting and manipulation and embarrassment buzzing in the air. The awful reality that the adult I looked to for proper care had too much in the way of providing it.
There is grief in how life lets us down. Vast sadness that set into my body long ago– weights I was born hoping I wouldn’t have to carry. It’s not about life having wronged me; it’s about feeling life fully.
My heart was broken over all of it.
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It was as though I had found a key to a lock. Grief explained so much. All that feeling, unfelt. Of course it had found all kinds of ways to surface. It’s an energy that has to move.
Analysis of what that grief was causing is only the second-most important thing. What matters far more is how it all made me feel. How completely crushed and helpless I was. How defenseless and meek and surrendered I became.
I cried a lot, I wrote a lot, I slept a lot. And I wondered, what had I been running from, and why?
The white flag felt so sweet and soft and good. It was so honest to have no defenses to keep up, nothing to stave off. I saw myself floating through space, timeless and aimless. There was nothing to do but hurt. I felt like a glow stick that had been snapped open and was bursting with light.
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Grieving, the way I see it now, is so natural and right. It’s such an integral part of love, and love is where it leads back to. I really feel that. Embracing grief certainly made me more comfortable being there during my dad’s death, and I’m grateful for that. I wish he were here now, but a person only dies once, and that deserves full presence.
We have so much to grieve. There is sadness in every day, in the things we call small. A broken mug; a fresh tree stump; a lady bug that can’t find its way outside. Dashed hopes for what your family would be. These things hurt on the realest level, the one where we are most alive, and when we don’t feel the hurt, it grows.
Not that any of this is easy. It makes total and complete sense to turn away from grief—to barricade the doors when it’s in the neighborhood. Once I let grief in, I felt powerless. Our world is not set up for that kind of yielding. There’s too much to do, not enough time off, and far too few resources for it. That which we’re meant to do collectively is kept hidden; our grief leaves us feeling alone. We’re expected to “be strong” and “just get through it” like it’s homework with a deadline. The infrastructure for revering and honoring my grief wasn’t there when I was 8, or 18, or 30. It isn't there now unless I look really hard and ask someone else for help.
I don’t fault anyone for skirting the issue. There is, in fact, wisdom in setting our grief aside. Grief that is too much to bear is real.
But also.
When we are ready, our grief is waiting for us, lovingly. We don’t have to fear it.
Extra thoughts
The above is what I feel most called to share in this issue. But I also want to offer an addendum.
For anyone who is feeling like grieving is doable—where it feels ok to lean into it and feel it and follow it… and also, maybe, for anyone wondering what the stormy feeling underneath the surface is really about…
The following framework opened a very important door for me, just when I most needed it. These are the words of adrienne maree brown, a thinker and writer and teacher whose work speaks to some of my deepest truths:
if you’re feeling numb, dig into that feeling. numb leads to overwhelmed. overwhelmed leads to rage. rage leads to heartbreak. heartbreak leads to something’s gotta change. don’t give up on pursuing yourself.
Two things to close with
Thank you for reading. If it feels right, I encourage you to pass this along to someone who might like it. That kind of thing goes a very long way.
Free writing, with no goals or destination in mind other than to take stock of what’s going on with me, has been the foundation of my journey. If that’s a practice that you’re interested in, consider dropping in on one of my writing groups. It’s easy and enjoyable, and folks write about all kinds of stuff (in other words, it’s definitely not all heavy or deeply personal).
There’s so much grieving to do
Mmm, yes. Thanks for the share, brother, and for wading into uncharted waters. Grief is a theme I've been slowly turning more attention to, though not yet with the intentionality it sounds like you have. A quote here from Quanita Roberson (https://player.fm/series/series-2603509/ep-123-the-inner-work-of-facilitation-with-quanita-roberson) that nicely weaves some of the themes you explore in this newsletter (I would add anger to her list, as a secondary emotion):
“We mistake shame, blame, and guilt as emotions. But they are not. They are where we go to hide from emotions... We think we are taking responsibility when we sit with the shame and guilt, but actually we are dodging responsibility for what lies beneath... Which is usually deep grief.”