For me, grief was quiet. It was the loudest silence I had ever heard, and all I wanted was to rewind time for one minute back to when I was in blissful ignorance instead of deafening truth. But I can't rewind time, I can only walk forward.
It's OK to not want to walk. I spent hours on the floor of my high school library after learning of the passing of one of my classmates and a good friend. I held my knees on the cold concrete trying to remember what the last words she had said to me were. It was a Wednesday and I was wearing a new shirt that I threw out the minute I got home. Like I could throw the whole day out.
It's OK to not want to talk.
I drove home like it was normal, listening to light music and trying to joke with the girl I drove home. I called a best friend, I told him I need him and ice cream, I picked him up and he held me there for what felt like forever. Right then, that's what I needed.
It's OK to be angry. I was so angry, at her, at our peers, at teachers trying to help, at guidance counselors saying her name wrong, at people looking at me funny, I just wanted to scream. It felt like no one understood, and honestly, they didn't. Grief is a shapeshifter and so is perception. To them, the flowery adjectives and sympathy filled eyes were the right thing to do and the right words to say. For me, it was suffocating.
It's OK to start to feel happy again. For a long time, I felt guilty whenever I forgot for a moment or smiled or laughed. It felt like grief was all-consuming and what I was supposed to be doing, but slowly the anger went away. That wasn't easy, it was hours and hours of therapy, constant work, and the most supportive friends and teachers, but I got there.
It's OK to talk about her. My memories with her became my most treasured secrets. Like I didn't want anyone else to know her the way I did, the minute I realized I could talk about her, I couldn't stop. And what I couldn't say out loud, I wrote. Those pieces brought her back to me sometimes. Writing helped. It made sure I wouldn't forget the little moments.
It's OK to think about her. My last day of high school, the slam poetry team we ran together making it to semifinals, graduation, first day of college, writing things I wanted her opinion on, an entire year after she passed, I thought about her through all of it. And now it's her birthday. She would be 19 years old.
It's OK to be sad today.
And it's OK to want to keep her with you. It's a small tattoo about a poem you wrote for her. It's OK to see dandelions everywhere and feel like she left them there for you. She is with you, especially on hard days like today.
I've learned in this year and a half that grief is quiet but ever-present. Sometimes it's hiding in the back of a New Year's party waiting for the ball to drop, sometimes it's on your shoulders during a psychology test, it's always there. Things will get better, days will be loud and light again, but birthdays are still really hard.
