Latest / Style Project: Style, home & everyday life / Grief in the Groceries: How to Keep Living When Everything Stops | Style Project
Transcript
- You’re standing in the cereal aisle, holding a box of granola you’ve bought for three years, and suddenly your hands just stop. The world hasn’t ended, but yours has, and the sheer normalcy of the fluorescent lights feels like a personal insult. Let’s get real for a second. We talk a lot about big moments here, the milestones, the weddings, the launches. But we rarely talk about the Tuesday morning when you realize that life has moved on without you, or rather, that you have moved on without them. You are making coffee. The machine gurgles. The water boils. It is such a mundane, beautiful, irritatingly persistent routine. And yet, it feels impossible. Grief does not care about your calendar. It does not care that you have a Zoom call at two or that the laundry needs folding. It sits in the passenger seat of your day, heavy and silent, watching you try to drive. I remember one morning, maybe six months after my own big loss, I was trying to tie my shoes. Just shoes. Simple laces. My brain knew how to do this task a thousand times over, but my fingers felt like they belonged to someone else. I stared at those loops for ten minutes. I wasn’t crying. I was just… paused. The routine demanded I move forward, but my soul was still back there, in that other room, in that other time. That disconnect is where so much of our exhaustion lives. It is not the grief itself that drains us; it is the energy required to pretend that the ground beneath our feet hasn’t shifted completely. There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from performing 'okayness' for the rest of the world. We put on our clothes. We apply our makeup, not because we want to look pretty, but because it feels like armor. We walk into meetings and nod and say the right things. Inside, however, there is a hollow space where joy used to be. Or anger. Or excitement. Whatever it was before. It’s gone. And replacing it with numbness takes more effort than feeling anything at all. I see this in my studio often. Women who come in wearing their best outfits, looking polished from the waist up, but their eyes are tired. They are trying to hold themselves together through structure. And don’t get me wrong, there is power in structure. There is dignity in showing up. But when the foundation is cracked, no amount of tailoring can fix the fit. It’s about the feel, not just the fit, as I always say. And right now, nothing feels right. The fabric against your skin might itch. The weight of a necklace might feel like a chain. You are navigating a daily routine that assumes you are whole, while you are quietly piecing yourself back together, shard by shard. So what do we do? Do we stop? Do we quit our jobs and hide under the covers until the pain passes? No. Because grief doesn’t pass. It integrates. It becomes part of the landscape. So we must learn to walk on new terrain without falling. This is where small changes, big shift comes in. You cannot force yourself to feel inspired. You cannot command your body to forget. But you can change the texture of your day. You can make the routines gentler. Maybe today, instead of brewing a full pot of coffee, you just drink a glass of water while the kettle heats. Maybe you skip the shower and use a wipe, and you tell yourself that is enough. Maybe you wear the softest sweater you own, the one that feels like a hug, even if it’s wrinkled. These are not failures of productivity. They are acts of survival. They are ways of saying to your nervous system, 'I am still here. I am still moving. And I am allowed to move slowly.' We need to give ourselves permission to be inefficient during this season. Efficiency is for people who have everything figured out. You are not figuring it out today. You are just getting through it. One thing I have learned is that your body keeps score. When you are grieving, your body is often stuck in a state of low-grade alarm. Your shoulders are up by your ears. Your jaw is clenched. You are bracing for impact. This is why resting feels so hard. Your body thinks it is running a marathon, even when you are sitting on the couch. To navigate grief through routine, we must retrain the body to know it is safe to be still. Try this: when you are washing dishes, feel the warmth of the water. Not just think about it, feel it. Let the heat seep into your fingertips. Notice the slipperiness of the soap. Ground yourself in the physical sensation. This is not mindfulness in the spiritual sense; it is simply anchoring. It pulls you out of the past or the future and puts you in the present moment, where you are alive. In that moment, you are not grieving. You are washing a plate. And that is okay. That is enough. These tiny anchors help us float through the days when the waves are too high to swim. We also need to talk about rituals. The ones that used to bring you joy now might bring you pain. Maybe it’s the song he loved. Maybe it’s the restaurant you visited every anniversary. Maybe it’s the way she used to fold the towels. It’s okay to step away from those. It’s okay to pause the rituals that hurt. You are not betraying them by stepping back. You are protecting yourself so you can return when you are ready. Instead, create new, smaller rituals. Light a candle not because it’s special, but because you want the light. Make tea not because it’s healthy, but because you like the taste. Fill a vase with flowers from the grocery store not because it’s aesthetic, but because color matters. These small acts of creation remind you that you are still capable of making beauty, even if it is fragile. Even if it is temporary. Especially then. Life continues, and so must you, but you get to decide what that looks like. You get to decide what fits. I want to leave you with this thought. You do not have to be strong. You do not have to be resilient. You do not have to bounce back. Bouncing back implies that you should go back to where you were. But you are not the same person you were before. You are different. You are deeper. You are more aware of the fragility of things. And that is a gift, even though it hurts. So let the cereal box sit in your hand. Let the coffee cool down. Let the laundry pile grow. The world will not end if you take a breath. If you need to sit on the floor for five minutes, do it. If you need to cancel the dinner party, cancel it. Your routine is a servant, not a master. It is there to support you, not to judge you. Be gentle with yourself. Be tender. Be kind. You are doing the hardest work there is, which is simply staying present in a world that feels unfamiliar. And you are doing it beautifully, even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside. Take a deep breath. Feel your feet on the floor. You are here. And that is enough. I’ll see you next time, sweet friend.