Grief is a tricky thing, and it’s anything but one-dimensional. I always hear that healing is complex; however, my brain almost always begins to question why nobody ever talks about the journey to the point where you reach the decision that you “want” to heal. In my opinion, there’s not enough conversation about the inhibitions that make reaching that decision impossible. There’s not enough conversation about how moving on feels like an act of rebellion – like betrayal.
It feels like betraying all the love one has once felt for a person. It feels like an insult to the significance a particular person or event has held in our heart, like the pain we have felt will be belittled if we strive to “move on”.
It’s an interesting process. For most people, moving on sounds criminal because they find comfort in dwelling in their grief. Channeling the love you had for a lost loved one into creating a grief bubble feels right. It makes accountability easier. It’s easier to tell yourself that you’re grieving than to accept that you want to move on. The term “moving on” often even becomes triggering for people in grief retirement. However, it’s essential to realize that grief is the bodyguard of fear. It mainly shows up when there’s a huge fear involved, like what will the world think if I recover from death too quickly? Fear of what the ones gone will think if I let them go so effortlessly?
You know that their physical presence has left your life and the world. The fear kicks in when you realize that moving on might mean letting go of their memory, too – the only thing you have left of them. So, you never take their pictures down the walls or stop taking their name religiously before you go to bed because what if you forget, and what if their memory slips through your fingers too? What if.
There’s a cheat code, though. I recently read somewhere that it’s not “moving on” but “moving forward”. It’s not burning the book; it’s turning the pages.
Moving forward is the art of making peace with the fact that what once was, will remain in your heart. Your steps forward won’t erase the footprints behind you.
It’s all about accepting the bittersweetness of a person becoming a memory. It’s that first step you take towards putting yourself first; it’s about fighting the guilt that comes with it. It’s hard, the first steps always are but the healing does sound promising.
Take the first step and see how the world changes.