grief, you're so rude: learning to understand what I never could

i used to think that i understood grief. you lose something or someone, you cry, you heal, you move on. that’s the script, right? the tidy arc we’re taught to expect — like grief is just a storm that rolls in and out, leaving the skies eventually clear.

then came 2023.

then came my car accident.

then came the traumatic brain injury — and with it, a version of grief i wasn’t prepared for. one that wasn’t in the books of the sympathetic cards or the well-meaning check-ins from friends. this grief didn’t wait for an invite. it kicked the door down and made itself at home in my brain, my body, and everything that i thought i knew about myself.

as the anniversary of that accident approaches, i find myself revisiting a kind of grief that still doesn’t make sense. a grief that didn’t end — it just changed shape.

my grief was rude…

let’s start there — because it’s the only honest place to begin.

grief didn’t knock politely. it didn’t offer me time to brace or make sense of anything. it just arrived — loud, erratic, and unapologetically messy. it took things from me that weren’t supposed to be taken: my memory, my balance, my energy, my words, my sense of safety, my independence. it stripped away layers i hadn’t even realized were part of my identity.

this wasn’t just mourning the accident but the life before it — this was mourning me.

and yeah, grief was rude. it showed up during doctor’s appointments, in grocery store aisles, while scrolling social media, or staring at the ceilings at 2AM. it didn’t care what plans i had. it didn’t care about my timeline for “getting better”. it demanded attention without asking for permission.

but my grief was also insightful…

once i stopped trying to shove it away or put it on mute, something surprising started to happen. grief began to talk back.

it taught me to notice things that i hadn’t seen before: the quiet courage of relearning a simple task. the sacredness of someone holding space for you without rushing to fix it. the fragility of time and how often we take it for granted. the small, victorious triumph of being able to say, “i’m still here.”

it taught me that grief isn’t just about losing — it’s about meeting. meeting the parts of yourself you only get to know when everything else has fallen apart. meeting the truth of your own humanity. meeting people who love you, not in spite of your wounds, but because of them.

insight doesn’t always come wrapped in peace or clarity. sometimes it arrives as confusion, or anger, or unbearable vulnerability. but it arrives. and if you’re quiet enough, or tired enough, or brave enough — you start to hear it.

…and somehow, grief was transformative

i don’t want to romanticize it. there’s nothing poetic about traumatic brain injury. there’s nothing noble about needing help to do things that were once effortless. recovery isn’t linear, and i still have days where i hate the way things changed.

but i can’t lie — i’m not the same person i was before, and that’s not all bad.

grief transformed the way i see the world, the way i love, the way i rest, the way i speak to myself. it stripped me down — and what’s left is someone softer, but stronger. someone slower, but more intentional. someone who knows what matters, even when the days get blurry.

grief didn’t ask for my consent. but it did offer me a second chance — to meet myself again, to live more honestly, and to be transformed by pain rather than destroyed by it.

i still don’t fully understand grief…

i thought i would wrap this post up with some sort of tidy conclusion. but the truth is, i still don’t get it…not really.

it’s rude. it’s insightful. it’s transformative. and it’s still happening.

but maybe that’s the whole point. maybe grief isn’t meant to be understood — just lived. honestly, painfully, beautifully — one day at a time.