After starting my career as a writer and losing my grandparents a year and a year and a half ago, I realized there is a constant change between two extremes of grief. I miss the people I have lost, but I use their memory to inspire my purposeful work; or I have days where I am so emotional I can’t even imagine how my feelings will ever measure up to anything useful other than to soak my pillow. There is nothing more and nothing less possible.
This week, two out of the three articles I was asked to write oddly enough involved the subject of grief. When drafting my ideas yesterday morning, I was excited because I not only had one, but two reasons to once again honor my grandparents. Something I will always hope to do.
I was doing well yesterday morning, had a rough reminder last night as I was going to bed and spent most of today sad and angry from that reminder. I will never understand grief, especially as this should be one of the happiest times of my life with it being the holiday season and graduating college on Saturday; one of the hardest and proudest accomplishments to date.
I was trying today. I didn’t tell anyone I was sad or angry (even though there were times I truly wanted to talk about it), because I was strong. I had to be. I had work to do, but in a way, I kept putting it off.
Tonight as dinner was cooking, I landed myself in a conversation about another form of grief. I was told that others hoped I would use my heartache (as it will form over the years in combination with my talent of writing) to help others, instead of solely losing myself in the emotion that comes along with grief and possibly wasting days of good talent. The person I was talking to had no idea the kind of day I had, but they made it 1,000 times better by saying those words. I will now finish the articles I was asked to write, with the passion I started them with.
Being a writer is hard. Grieving is hard. If you have people in your life that use their life experiences or creative passions to make an impactful difference for others and income for themselves, remind them every once and a while what their efforts mean to you. You can remind them why they started the fire of passion in the first place, even with every thing they have been through. It can make a world of difference.
If you find yourself dealing with any form of heartache, please, please, please express it in a way you feel comfortable. You could be changing someone’s world (most importantly, yours) by simply being you.
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