flâneur

Grief is like Pong played in reverse

fortressofdoors.com · 380 words · saved by 1 readers

When something really bad happens to you, one of the few silver linings is that you gain a new perspective and can use this to help other people understand your rare experience. Grief is one of those things that’s hard for people to understand; most people see how I’m doing on any given day and assume that’s a “sample” of how I’m doing. “You seem like you‘re doing okay,” and “I don’t understand how you’re handling this so well” are the kinds of things people say. I mean I guess there’s some world in which I became suicidal or an alcoholic or, I dunno, started wearing all black and started playing depressing music all the time. But that’s not this world, thankfully. My point is there’s this expectation that since the approximately worst possible thing that can happen to a parent happened to me, I should be totally destroyed. And yet. I’m not visibly performing “being destroyed.” There’s two reasons for this. The first is that life just goes on, there are still bills to pay and children

When something really bad happens to you, one of the few silver linings is that you gain a new perspective and can use this to help other people understand your rare experience. Grief is one of those things that’s hard for people to understand; most people see how I’m doing on any given day and assume that’s a “sample” of how I’m doing. “You seem like you‘re doing okay,” and “I don’t understand how you’re handling this so well” are the kinds of things people say. I mean I guess there’s some world in which I became suicidal or an alcoholic or, I dunno, started wearing all black and started play

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