Losing Someone Changes You Forever, Not Just at First
What I'd tell anyone who's just getting here.
There are three things I remember about 2013. The carpet at Cosmo’s magazine offices hurt my knees when I was organizing sex toys from beginner to expert. I froze the first time my grandma had a seizure. I took my “first” tequila shot on my 21st birthday at a Carmine’s on the Upper West Side in New York City.
Somehow, they are all connected.
My grandma’s first seizure was in November 2013, two and a half months into my Cosmo internship. By the time I turned 21, she had gone into the hospital three or four times. I almost didn’t go to my own birthday dinner because I couldn’t fathom celebrating when I knew that losing her was a matter of when, not if.
If I close my eyes, I can feel myself back at that crossroads.
My reality caused anaphylaxis-like symptoms. Hives. Heart palpitations. Throat shut. Inability to speak. Breathing like it was a full-time job.
I didn’t want to keep building the life I had fought so hard for. I was months away from graduation and on the path towards an entry-level job at a magazine. I had done everything right, and almost overnight, none of it mattered.
I couldn’t get myself to care about punchy headlines, celebrity news roundups, or the perfect sex toy. So I didn’t try to get myself to care. I gave myself permission to go in a different direction. I quit the internship early - the only time I’ve ever quit a job. I graduated and didn’t go straight into a 9-to-5. I picked up a few freelance social media clients that turned into a few more, then writing clients, and eventually into the career I have right now.
While endlessly scrolling a few days ago, I came across two women who reminded me of who I was in 2013. They both talked about how losing someone important changes things. Your gratitude deepens. Your list of complaints is a lot shorter. Goals that once felt lofty feel empty — they become your floor, not your ceiling.
The loss and the pivot were fresh in their lives. A year, if not months old. In mine, it’s a decade plus, and the ripples haven’t stopped. When I open my eyes again, I’m 33 with a husband, a dog, and a successful career as a writer. The sharp right my life took changed everything.
Of the many things I wish I could tell someone who has just lost someone they love, it’s that you benefit from letting your life change shape after your loss. First, grief makes your life so small. It’s all about survival — eat, sleep, hydrate, poop. If you do those four things, you’re having a good day. You build on that foundation for great days with things like exercising, socializing, and taking baby steps in pointing your life towards a completely different true north.
The version of you that sits in the front row at a funeral isn’t the version that gets up to leave hours or days later. You never get that first version of you back, or at least I never did. Instead, I got all the versions of myself I’ve been since. The whole world shapeshifted around me; I let it, and then I took stock.
First I did recon work after many (many) panic attacks in public places in New York City. (The Museum of Natural History tops my list.) Because nothing makes you reconsider your life like melting down amongst the dinosaurs.
Then, quietly in a therapist’s office. Not so quietly with friends. Over the years with Tyler. And on and on and on.
So, here’s one more thing I would tell someone who is just starting — I never wanted my life to shapeshift, but I did decide who I was going to be in the middle of changing realities. It counted.
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