Latest / She Rose: Women Who Turned Pain Into Purpose / When They Say Move On: Finding Your Own Grief Timeline | She Rose
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of loneliness that arrives not when you are alone, but when everyone around you insists you should be fine by now. It feels like standing in the rain while everyone else has already gone indoors to dry off. I want you to take a deep breath with me right now. Just one. Let it out slowly. I know your day has been long. I know your shoulders are up near your ears and your mind is racing through the list of things you didn’t get done today. But for the next few minutes, I want you to put the phone down or rest it gently in your lap. We are going to talk about something heavy, something many of us carry in silence because we are afraid that if we speak it aloud, we will look broken, or worse, ungrateful. You know the phrase. Maybe you’ve said it yourself in moments of frustration, trying to comfort someone who is stuck in their pain. "It’s been six months." "Time heals all wounds." "You need to focus on the positive." "He wouldn’t want you to stay sad forever." It comes from a good place, usually. People are uncomfortable with grief. They don’t know what to do with it, so they try to fix it. They treat sorrow like a problem to be solved rather than an experience to be lived. But here is the truth that no one tells you: Grief does not have a schedule. There is no manual that says, "By week four, you should be back to normal." There is only you, and the unique, jagged shape of your loss. Let’s sit with that for a second. The pressure to perform healing. Society loves a comeback story. We love the arc where the hero falls, struggles briefly, and then rises stronger than before. But real life is rarely so cinematic. Real grief is messy. It is non-linear. Some days you feel like you are flying, and other days, a simple smell or a song on the radio can bring you back to your knees. When people tell you to move on faster, they are asking you to compress your humanity into a timeline that makes them comfortable. They are asking you to rush through the dark so they don’t have to walk in it with you. I remember a time in my own life when I lost someone I loved deeply. I was sitting at a dinner party, laughing at a joke, feeling a flicker of joy. And then, halfway through the meal, I looked around the table and realized that everyone was waiting for me to explain why I wasn’t crying anymore. They wanted the closure narrative. They wanted the tidy bow on the package. But I hadn’t closed anything. I was still holding the door open, hoping someone would walk through it. That moment taught me that my grief was not a malfunction; it was a testament to the depth of my love. To rush it felt like a betrayal of them. So why do people rush us? It’s often because their own fear of mortality is triggered by our visible pain. When they see you struggling, they are reminded of their own vulnerabilities, their own unfinished business, their own fears of losing control. By telling you to move on, they are trying to soothe their own anxiety. They are saying, "If you can handle this, maybe I can handle whatever is coming for me." It’s a projection of their discomfort onto your experience. But you are not responsible for managing their comfort. You are responsible for honoring your truth. And your truth might be that you are still angry. Or confused. Or numb. Or exhausted. All of these are valid. The crack is where the light gets in, as the poets say, but sometimes the crack is just a crack, and it needs time to seal itself. Nature doesn’t force a seed to sprout because it’s impatient. It provides water, darkness, and patience. Your heart is no different. It needs the dark to process the change. It needs the silence to rebuild its architecture. If you force it, you risk building on sand, and when the next wave hits, everything will wash away again. This brings us to the practical part. How do you navigate conversations with well-meaning friends and family who just don’t get it? You don’t have to snap at them. You don’t have to educate them every single time. But you do have the right to set a boundary that protects your peace. You can say, "I appreciate that you care, but I’m not ready to talk about moving forward yet. I just need you to listen." Or, "I’m doing okay today, thank you for asking." You get to define what "okay" looks like. It might feel selfish at first. You might worry that you are being difficult. But let me tell you, protecting your space is an act of self-respect. It is saying, "My healing matters." And it does. When you stop performing for others’ comfort, you create room for genuine connection. The right people—the ones who truly love you—will learn to sit with you in the quiet. They will learn that sometimes, presence is more powerful than advice. They will learn that they don’t need to fix you; they just need to be there. And those are the people who will remain when the initial shock wears off and the real work begins. I want you to imagine your grief not as a chain that holds you back, but as a landscape you are learning to map. Every person who tells you to move on is handing you a map drawn by someone else. It shows shortcuts and paved roads. But your terrain is wild and uneven. You have to draw your own map. You have to find your own path through the thorns and over the stones. This takes time. It takes courage. It takes a radical patience with yourself. It’s okay to be a work in progress. In fact, it is the only way any of us live. We are all works in progress, constantly shifting, constantly becoming. There is no final destination where you are "fixed." There is only the ongoing practice of showing up for yourself, even when it hurts. Even when it feels like you are carrying the weight of the world. You are not weak for needing more time. You are human. And there is profound strength in admitting that you are still figuring it out. So, here is my invitation to you today. For the next twenty-four hours, give yourself permission to not move on. Give yourself permission to stay exactly where you are emotionally. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to stare at the ceiling, do it. If you need to cancel plans to stay home and rest, cancel them. Do not apologize for your pace. Do not justify your feelings. You are allowed to be exactly as you are, in this exact moment, without condition or explanation. Notice how that feels. Notice the tension in your body as you release the expectation to be further along than you are. Feel the ground beneath you. You are supported. You are held. Not by the timeline of others, but by the steady, enduring rhythm of your own heart. Keep beating. Keep breathing. Keep going, on your own terms. The light is still getting in, even if you can’t see it yet. Trust the process. Trust yourself. Thank you for letting me into your evening. Thank you for trusting me with your story, even the parts you haven’t spoken aloud yet. I am here, always, in the quiet aftermath, ready to sit with you. Until next time, be gentle with your heart. You are doing better than you think. Goodnight, beautiful soul.