An Ocean Called Grief

There are moments when I feel like I’m trying to survive the huge waves of this ocean of grief, it’s as if I am left alone in the middle of this vast harsh water punching from every side of my body, and as I try to gasp for a little air, paddle beneath the surface, another tide comes pouring on my face, drowning me into a deeper agony.

Grief is invisible and impalpable, but it goes through every part of my body like an uncontainable disease with poor prognosis. It paralyses my ability to think coherently and it magnifies the thoughts that bring pain to my stomach like one blow after another. I am a man of science and I have always clung on to my rational belief of the pathologies, but as much as I try to search for the cause of this agony, I can only think of it as an idiosyncrasy- could it be genetic? I ask myself, but all answers lie on a single point of contraction. This grief must be autoimmune.

It does make sense when you’re acquainted with the kind of melancholy you only read in books, the picture starts to become alive as if you’re transcended into that point of view, and once you are there, all you can do is nod your head with agreement that what was once written has always been the truth, though you might wish that this kind of pain has a time limit and can be driven away once you don’t want to feel it anymore.

I consider it a conscious decision to surround myself with a selected few knowing that there will come a day that one by one, they will also have to leave. To be honest, I don’t cope well when people leave, partly because I feel as though part of me, which I have entrusted to them, leave as well, and the void it engraves makes me feel so emotionally destroyed. 

I am trying not to fight grief anymore, I am trying to be accustomed to it like another set of hands or a new limb, I think, for the most part of it, grief only hastens its effect once it detects resistance, so making peace with it is the best, yet the most unlikely option.

In the trying times of uncertainty, I can always rely that I have grief to back me up, like a shadow that hides behind the light- always casted, ever present, almost permanent. Perhaps there is more to understand with this emotion, why it is there and why it will always be, I am beginning to wonder if grief is simply a warning- a phase, a discovery- or maybe, if one can be ever so magnanimous, it is a transition.

I have observed that I tend to romanticize it way too much because I am so familiar with it. Growing up, trying to bottle who and what I am to avoid judgment had me acquainted with grief as a habit. It was there when I was teased for being different, it was there when my life fell apart, when everything was taken away from me- grief, was the witness and what has always been there, like a companion, and every time I search in retrospect why things happened, grief was always the guide that shows me why, like a flashback. 

Perhaps, grief is not autoimmune, perhaps it is a cluster of differentiation that signals my body that something is wrong, and while it can produce pain- gut wrenching- oftentimes, almost to the brink of breaking down, it signals my body to fight back.

Whether grief is a nemesis or a friend, whether it is detrimental or simply a caution, I guess, for the most part of it, it will depend on how you would view it. Just know that if you are hit by the massive waves of this ocean, paddle through as much as you can, and eventually, you’ll either learn how to swim or the sea will calm down. 

The good thing about life is that the sun will always shine no matter what, and so does hope. As sure as this shadow called grief, is behind me, I can always find assurance that there can only be one reason for it, there exist a light in front of me, and for that, I know I will be fine.