working through grief



September 9, 2024  
☉♍︎ ☽♐︎ ☿♍︎


A new life documentation since I haven’t put anything on this blog in a long time. 
I think I’m in need of a thought output ever since I stopped therapy. After 2 years of having regular sessions, I stopped because I got kicked off my mom’s health insurance when I turned 26. (i’ll get my own eventually ok lol)
How has life been for me in the past year? .... wow o wow
I wish I could say I’m more content, that I am able to find it in me to live every day, I wish I could say a lot of things for my life.
But the reality is, I can’t and I won’t.

I think for a long time I cared about how my life looked like to other people, I want to be able to tell people that i’m doing okay and that life is working out. I get this trait from my mom who cared a lot about the image of our family when growing up.
My real life though, is still filled with what feels like an unending amount of grief. 
Before having to experience such an immense grief in my life, I would’ve thought that this feeling would be more fleeting. 
I guess I thought life moves on and you just have to move with it.
Funny thing is, I do still think that. It’s true in that you just have to keep moving with life, but now I know the feeling isn’t fleeting. It’s that the pain is still just as heavy as it was when first being faced with death, it is a weight that I carry every day and will continue to carry. I think that over time, like working out a muscle, the weight just becomes a little easier to hold. Some days it still drags you down, but other days you’re running a marathon with it.

Truth is, I’m exhausted. I don’t think we give each other enough grace to let ourselves be sad, or exhausted, or overworked.
I turned 26 this year, which means I’ve been working a job for the past 10 years, and was in school for over half that time. In the past 6 months I took 2 vacations. It was my first time allowing myself to take time off as an adult, and it made me want more. It helped me see outside of my grief bubble for a moment and experience the world for those that can’t anymore. 
But, at the same time the sad girl in me got homesick very easily (truth is I was just missing my cat)

The point I’m trying to make is, maybe there isn’t any working through grief. I think it just begins to live with you. 
And that’s okay.
I think our greatest power as humans is being able to transmute these pains of life into something meaningful.
(which, creating meaning in one’s life is a whole other topic in itself)
but being able to take this pain and feel it. know it. to create from this place of pain has felt more cathartic than therapy to me.
I like to think that’s a common thread in artists, it’s that we can’t always string the words for how we feel but creating images as a mirror into our mind helps show the world what’s going on in there.

I think one day, the room where grief lives in my mind will start to become a guest room. (right now it’s the theater room that’s playing too loud) The grief will start to be a guest in my home, always welcome to feel that sad love when I need it, but not overpowering every part of my being. 
Maybe an idealistic way of thinking but only time will tell.

I have a lot of sketchbook entries that I need to scan and post (one day I swear I will)
but until then, or until next time,

good bye!



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© abida khan 2024
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designer based in Houston, TX︎