Latest / Starting Over: Stories of Reinvention, Hope & Second Chances / When They Say 'Get Over It': Handling Grief's Speed Limits | Starting Over
Transcript
- You know that look they give you when you cry in public? That tight, uncomfortable shift in their eyes, like your sadness is a stain on their perfect Tuesday. Let’s get real for a second: grief does not care about your calendar. I want you to picture a moment that might feel familiar. Maybe it was last week, maybe it was three months ago. You’re sitting at a coffee shop or standing in line at the grocery store, and someone you love looks at you with genuine concern. They say, 'But isn’t it time to move on?' Or worse, 'You’ve been down this road long enough.' And in that instant, the air leaves the room. Your chest tightens. You feel a sudden, sharp urge to shrink yourself, to apologize for the volume of your pain, as if your healing were a project that was running behind schedule. Here is the truth that no one tells you in those polite, well-meaning conversations: grief has no speed limit. It is not a linear path where you check boxes and arrive at a destination called 'Over It.' It is more like weather. Some days you are sunny, some days you are storming, and some days you are just foggy and cold, and you have to navigate by instinct alone. When people ask you to move on faster, they are asking you to ignore the weather report of your own soul. We live in a culture that is obsessed with productivity, even in our emotional lives. We treat our hearts like businesses that need to be optimized. We want to minimize downtime, maximize output, and pivot quickly. So when we lose something—a person, a job, a version of ourselves—we feel pressure to compress the mourning process into a neat, digestible package. We want to be the strong friend who gets back out there in six weeks. We want to be the resilient professional who bounces back before the funeral dirt is even dry. But here is the messy reality: resilience is not about bouncing back instantly. Resilience is about bending without breaking, and sometimes, bending takes a very long time. When you tell yourself you should be further along than you are, you are adding a layer of shame to your sorrow. Now you aren’t just grieving the loss; you are grieving the fact that you haven’t fixed it yet. And that double burden is exhausting. It keeps you up at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering what is wrong with you because your heart hasn’t caught up to your brain’s expectations. Let’s talk about why people say these things. It’s rarely out of malice. Usually, it’s out of their own discomfort. Watching someone else grieve deeply can make us feel helpless. We want to fix it because fixing feels like control. If we can suggest a timeline, if we can offer a solution, then maybe we don’t have to sit in the dark with you. Maybe we don’t have to face our own mortality or our own unhealed wounds. So they hand you a stopwatch and say, 'Hurry up.' It’s their way of managing their anxiety, not yours. But you don’t have to accept their timeline. You don’t have to perform healing for an audience that doesn’t understand the script. This is where you have to draw a boundary, not necessarily with words, but with your presence. You can choose to stay in the feeling instead of rushing to escape it. You can let them see the mess. You can let them see that you are not okay, and that is allowed. In fact, it is necessary. There is this pervasive idea that there is a finish line called closure. We think once we reach it, the pain will vanish, and we will be ready to start a new chapter. But grief doesn’t work like a book with an ending. It works like a scar. It changes shape over time. It becomes part of your history, but it doesn’t disappear. The goal isn’t to forget or to rush past it; the goal is to integrate it. To carry it differently. When people tell you to move on, they are often asking you to leave the old self behind. But that old self loved the person or the life you lost. Honoring that love means taking the time to miss it. Skipping the missing means skipping the honoring. And that creates a kind of emotional debt. You might feel fine for a while, but later, the grief comes back, louder and more confused, because it wasn’t fully felt the first time around. Trust your pace. Trust that the tears you shed today are watering the soil for whatever grows tomorrow. So how do you handle it when the world demands you speed up? You return to your own compass. You listen to your body. Does your chest feel heavy today? Then rest. Do you feel a surge of anger? Then write it down. Do you feel nothing at all? Then maybe you are numb, and that is okay too. Numbness is a protective shell, not a failure. I remember when I went through my own big pivot, leaving the corporate world that was slowly killing my spirit. Friends would say, 'It’s done now, so celebrate!' But I wasn’t celebrating. I was terrified. I was grieving the safety of the paycheck, the identity of the title, the routine. I needed to mourn the structure before I could build the freedom. If I had rushed to celebrate, I would have built my new life on shaky ground. By allowing myself to grieve the loss of the old life, I made space for the new one to breathe. That was the pivot point. Not the day I quit, but the weeks I spent sitting in the quiet aftermath, letting it all settle. Give yourself permission to linger. Give yourself permission to be a work in progress. You are not behind. You are exactly where you need to be to learn what you need to learn. Some lessons require time. Some healings require silence. Some victories require tears. Don’t let anyone convince you that your process is inefficient. Your process is sacred. Next time someone asks you to move on, you can smile gently and say, 'I’m moving at the speed of trust.' Or you can simply hold your space. You can show up as you are, messy and slow and real. That authenticity is a gift to everyone around you. It gives them permission to slow down too. It reminds us that we are all human, all hurting, all hoping. And in that shared humanity, we find the grace to keep going, not because we have to, but because we can. One breath at a time. One day at a time. Take care of your heart today. It’s doing its best. I’ll be right here when you’re ready for the next chapter. Bye for now.