The Shock of Loss

And being seen in the mess

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i felt lucky to write this week’s newsletter in this special spot. i’m not lying when i say these letters are ripped from my journal :)

This newsletter talks about grief & loss.

I want to thank you for your patience as I’ve been in creative hibernation, chipping away at my book (updates coming soon…!). I’ve been writing more than ever, but within the quiet privacy of a Word document. Admittedly, I’ve gotten quite used to writing without being perceived, without publicly sharing, and while it’s been comforting in some ways, the gap of not sharing and reflecting with this community has been deeply felt. I’ve missed you and am so grateful that you’re here.

As the heavy-lifting for the book is coming to a close, I’ve been waiting for the “right” moment to return, anticipating the moment when I’d feel “ready” to share again.

I had a newsletter queued up in my drafts, and then, last week, I saw I had a missed call from a family member.

My mom, was my first thought with a held breath. For the past ten years, she has been steadily declining with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and I’ve been preparing myself for her passing. I’ve imagined how it’d feel and what I would tell people, in part to process and in part to give myself a false sense of control.

I called them back, bracing myself for the news, but to my confusion, the news wasn’t about my mom.

Your dad passed away, were the words being said to me.

I can’t explain the feeling in my body, other than the world stopped and time didn’t exist and I fully left myself. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t rehearse it. I didn’t practice how this would feel. I write to you, still, in utter shock, as I try to wrap my head around it. My dad is gone, and mom is still here even though it feels like she’s gone, and it’s all so confusing. It’s like the video isn’t matching up with the audio and I’m struggling to make sense of what’s trying to be said.

This is my fault — my second thought. I did something to cause this or I didn’t do enough, and I can see how this tendency has followed me throughout my life. I’ve blamed myself for many things related to my dad because self-blame provided me with a tangible explanation to hold onto, to rationalize why things happened the way they did. I then learned that his passing was sudden, unexpected and unintentional. Self-blame could offer nothing more for me, and shock took its place.

As a child, my relationship with my dad felt simpler because the hope of who I wanted him to be was stronger than my awareness of the reality. As I entered adolescence and then adulthood, and that cloud cleared, our relationship became more complex.

It’s complicated to lose someone that you have a complicated relationship with. There were beautiful, loving moments, and there were painful, damaging ones. I’ve grieved many parts of my dad already because as I’ve learned, grief isn’t just about physically losing someone. Grief is also missing what you didn’t have.

For the past ten years, I’ve grieved my mom and the closeness I wish we could’ve felt, and in that time, I‘ve also grieved my dad and the parent I wish he could’ve been. A dad that didn’t have addiction or rage that shook the house, a dad that told me the full truth. I’ve grieved the hope that he could change and be the parent I needed, a parent that would call me and check in, and cutting that last thread of hope feels scary to the child within me who has found safety in that fantasy. It’s complex, and there are many layers.

The beautiful and confusing full-circle thing is that most of this grieving happened while I was writing my book, while he was still alive. Writing about my relationship with my parents forced me to unearth it, to see it right in front of me, and to come to a level of acceptance that I didn’t know if I’d ever feel. I wrote the book with the careful assumption he’d read it, and that scared me, but it also healed me, because it forced me to write with the knowing that it would be perceived and I would survive it. But now the heavy-lifting for the book is done, and my dad won’t read it because he’s gone, and nothing makes sense.

My twenties, I’m realizing, have consisted of two forms of grief, one on either extreme: losing my mom slowly, and now losing my dad with no warning.

Grief is messy, and it doesn’t come in steps, it comes in waves that take your breath away and then wash all the pain away so that you can get back up again.

Early on, I learned, like many others, that being perfect was how I could feel safe and in control. I learned that hiding away messy parts of myself was how I could avoid criticism. Amidst this shock that I haven’t made sense of, it’s tempting to continue that self-protection, to prolong my hibernation, to tuck my messy emotions away until I’ve “processed” it and have a bullet list of lessons to share with you, 5 lessons that sudden loss taught me. But I am so tired of that. I am so tired of needing to overthink my humanity, and needing to polish parts of me that were never supposed to be polished.

So, hello dear reader. I could listen to the scared voice in my head that wants to wait and wait and wait to share this with you all. But instead, I’m going to let you see me in my messy shock because pushing away connection for the sake of being perfect is not the point of life. I want to start before I’m ready because I never will be. One moment, I’m fine and the next moment I’m on my bedroom floor sifting through family photos, trying to conjure up memories that I can cling to. One moment I feel anchored in my body, present with it all, and the next moment I want to crawl out of my skin because the agitation is so strong.

I’m no stranger to grief, but it is strange to me how grief can change forms so quickly.

I think grief is the most tiring emotion. Our bodies are processing more than our minds can. This period of grief is the most potent reminder that multiple emotions can exist at once and they can feel like the biggest contradiction. Because here I am, shocked and angry and aching, and I’m also so grateful for nature and hot chocolate and the full moon and YouTube sound baths and remembering that this existence is so much bigger than my feeble human brain could possibly understand. I’m grateful for all that and more, and that gratitude doesn’t negate the grief but exists with it.

Consider this my official return to newsletter-ing. Back in April, I removed the Paywall from my newsletters, making all content and guided meditations completely free for everyone. This felt right, and it also gave me the freedom of not needing to deliver every single week because it turns out putting pressure on creativity absolutely destroys it. I’m back, and am still going to approach it intuitively. Some months I may post more, and some months I may post less. I realized that sharing from a rigid place is such a disservice to myself —and to you, your precious time, and the space in your inbox—writing just because of rules I’ve imposed on myself. I want my heart to be in everything I do, and writing intuitively versus rigidly is what allows me do that.

And how can I talk about loss without acknowledging LA? My heart is with anyone and everyone affected by the tragic, devastating fires. I wish there were words to make grief, in all forms, dissolve sooner. If you’ve been affected, I hope you can find a sliver of comfort today. I hope you can feel a sense of home again soon.

Recent affirmations.

It is safe to feel the full spectrum of my emotions.

It is safe to be seen as not having it all together.

It is safe to receive support and love because we’re not supposed to handle everything on our own.

It is safe to be cracked open by grief.

It is safe to remember that everything changes, and this will too.

We’re all grieving something, we’re all missing someone or something we’ve had or never had. Grief is a doorway into the deepest corners of our inner world. It asks us to sit with our humanity—the messy, raw, imperfect parts—and reminds us that being broken open is part of being alive. Whatever you’re carrying, know that you don’t have to carry it perfectly. It’s enough to just let yourself feel it. I hope that whatever you’re feeling, you allow yourself to be seen in it, if you want to be.

Thank you for holding this with me and, as always, thank you for being here.

Dad, may you rest peacefully. I hope you’ve found freedom.

♡ Meg