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There is so much literature on grief. How to feel it, how to navigate it becoming part of you, and how to live with it while continuing with a life that doesn’t stop for your loss. I’ve seen graphics about grief being folded into you like butter into a croissant, like a book on a shelf that becomes more full, even a TV show describing grief as a knitted sweater that you wear, as if grief is at all comforting.

Many people I know have lost someone important to them this year. Coworkers, friends, distant family members lost parents, pets, cousins, sons, jobs. There must be something in the air, or maybe my own losses are making me more attuned – the way you suddenly see your ex-lover’s name everywhere or see the car you’re shopping for on the road. Salience. It started in April with the sudden and devastating loss of my best friend’s mom, but it could have started last September when I learned my grandfather had a rare form of cancer. Maybe it really started in the pandemic, when my parents had just divorced. Or way back when my college boyfriend ghosted me. That’s the thing about grief – it compounds. It doesn’t strike you then weightlessly shape-shift into something manageable. No. Grief hits, and then you’re reminded of all the other grief and the weight it holds on you.

April 6, I’m in a meeting at work having some inspired discussion. I get a text from my best friend saying her mom just died suddenly. Her grief becomes my grief. I go home and cry all night. I tell other friends and they cry. Grief hit us.

At the time, I was grappling with a job that was much too much for any one person. I survived on an inner dialogue that said if I just keep fighting, keep pushing, keep working for it, it will all be worth it one day. If I can do it here, if I can push through this environment, this stress, I can do it anywhere. I had been screamed at in this role, snided by coworkers, faced patronizing behavior and daily opposition, and still I managed to gain enough control to do my job well. I rode the bull. I lost myself, lost my balance, lost my health, lost my happiness. Accessed a new level of stress that my body didn’t understand. But I kept pushing because I believed in the work. All fight, no flight. This was my dream job, a launch pad for my larger aspirations, so of course it was going to be challenging. This must be the good stuff. This is what they say needs to happen to accomplish your goals. I was successful despite the obstacles. Keep pushing, it’s worth it. You’re doing the right thing. 

June 20, I go into the office for a 1-1 with my boss. It wasn’t supposed to be in-person, that change was made yesterday. My boss’ baby had just been born across the country and was still in the hospital with respiratory problems, yet he flew here today. I put on a new green dress I was excited to wear. It’s been hard to feel good in clothes with the weight I’ve gained from the stress of this job.

It wasn’t until I heard the words “and one of them is yours” that I realized what was happening. Layoffs. Two positions were being dissolved. Everyone else is taking pay cuts. Blindsided is an accurate word. You’re laying me off? Grief, shock, panic, bad job market, really – me?

Layers of emotion are stacking. Feeling validated in the divine intervention of it all, and so, so heartbroken at the loss of something I felt so passionately about. Like a bad breakup. It hurt while you were in it, and it hurt so bad when they were the one to dump you. Especially when you did everything right. 

June 21, less than 24 hours later I was on a plane to a conference on the other side of the country. At least I would see my people, my network, my support system. But it felt too soon. I got dumped, and 24 hours later I’m in a new city at a 4 day singles event. Too many emotions to process, too much to handle. A whirlwind. Crying, screaming, can’t cry at the airport, not generally one to scream. What the fuck is happening? Universe, where are you taking me?

At the conference, I’m getting calls from my mom that grandpa is getting worse quickly. I wasn’t close with him in adulthood and I’m regretting that. You need to come now.

June 24, leave the conference a day early. Fly to Northern California to be with family as my grandpa fades away on hospice. The only option is to shove my emotions away, at risk of bleeding on everyone as they try to keep it together. Grief hit me again and again, back to back, like getting punched out in a fight.

June 25, my grandpa passed away on Sunday afternoon. I wish I could say it was peaceful. The powers at be in the medical industry had done wrong by him from the start.

I had the honor of writing his obituary – a task I did not know would be handed to me as we sat around his body in the living room of my grandparent’s home, but one I gladly took on. I didn’t call enough when he was alive, this is the least I can do.

The obit was beautiful. I’m very proud of it, and proud of all I learned about him through writing it. Most of it I knew already, but hearing retellings from the people who knew him best made it all the more impactful.

Fast forward to July 17. I’m submitting a job application for a role I’m really excited about – it’s exactly the work I was doing before, but now I feel better equipped to ask for the support I need and to keep myself in tact. The application needs a writing sample. I have the badass blog post I wrote in my last action before my layoff, describing the profound work we were doing to target new audiences and evolve the newsroom. And I have the obituary. My other most recent writing sample.

When grief hits all at once, with events like a sudden layoff and the death of a loved one, it compounds with all the grief you’ve been ignoring. Grief keeps compounding from there. When you’re 80 years old, imagine all the grief you’ve compounded. You’ve now seen so many things end, so many people lost. Your parents, pets, friends, maybe even children, have died. Jobs and relationships have ended, joy has come and gone. Where does the grief go? Is it the rubber band ball that gets infinitely larger? Or is our task to keep letting go? To keep giving up more of yourself, releasing the parts of you that want to choose sadness, to make room for the next wave of grief? That seems sustainable. Maybe the joy that is meant to balance grief takes up so much space that it lightens the load. But what if it doesn’t? What if grief stays, adding up like a patchwork quilt of the emotions you hold in your life. That can’t be it, right? 

This story is sad, most definitely. I know that this will be a pivotal point in my personal stories going forward. A moment when life’s challenges came all at once.

I don’t have all the answers for how to navigate grief, or how to feel well again, but I know that being present with where you are is the best way to get to where you want to go next. Alignment is within reach, especially when you’re willing to take some hits to find it.