hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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non-queer/gender boyfriend content incoming
rhys: *showing me an image on his fb feed that says 'autistic play is not inappropriate play'* what does this mean? inappropriate play?
me: autistic children will often play or interact with things differently to their neurotypical peers like... instead of building something with lego just sorting the blocks into size and colour or what have you and non-autistic adults see this as doing it "wrong" or not "appropriately" and try to stop it and force you to "play" how you are "supposed to". but there is nothing wrong with engaging in play differently as long as it isn't hurting someone, you're simply having fun in a way they don't understand. repeatedly trying to force autistic children to "play properly" isn't going to work it's just shitty and will make them feel bad because they don't understand what they're doing "wrong"
rhys: ohhhhh! is that why my mum would get frustrated with me for just posing my action figures on a shelf in cool ways and would try to get me to like. bash them together
me: yep! the "normal" way of playing with action figures is to act out scenes and make them interact with each other. but you had more fun arranging them nicely and looking at them.
rhys: i don't think she meant anything bad by it
me: not intentionally, no. she just didn't understand that is how you played and thought you just didn't know what you were doing and were confused
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My mew oc Mud recently kind of redesigned by @lotusmew thank you I adore hims this is his new look (just credit where credit is due) meeting @phlurrii 's lovely ancient mew Meau
It was pleasantly cool under the treeline but still distinctly warm, the ancient mew roamed in search of berries to nibble upon, modern fruits didn't explode with an array of flavors like they used to having evolved to be mostly just one, but collecting enough and taking quick bites of all of them nearly replicated the same taste.
They glided effortlessly around a large tree with vines beginning to crawl up along the trunk half wondering if they should perhaps pull the vines off if the plant was parasitic in nature..
Meau pondered before their attention was brought to the sudden awareness of a psychic pattern, they stopped suddenly staring upon the, creature in front of them. It could have been some previously unseen psychic Marowak variant were the skull it wore clearly not its own, it smelt of houndoom smoke and dirt as it dropped some psychic held berries in shock at seeing her. She blinked quickly at them confused before their ears went back and a low but deep growl rumbled in the back of the others throat.
Meau quickly felt a snarl growing from her own throat in response to the aggression her own ears going back in response, the others hands bent in claw like emphasis held out in threat and Meaus own paws sharpened ready to strike if necessary. Both parties snarled growling and hissing digits flexing in emphasis, Meaus fur puffed out and the others hackles raised.
They continued to growl, muscles tensing ends of tails flicking in agitation, ready to see who struck first, leaves russeled with patches of light passing through gaps in the treeline as-
"mmmhhyyyaaa"
Meau quietened as her ears flicked upright at the quiet sound, a yawn, a kitten yawn for sure, the others hands relaxed slowly as they too stopped growling. Tiny blue ears popped out from the side of the others body as Meau stared in wonder, a mew kit poked their head out to look blinking large pink eyes at her and making a soft mewing as they crawled around from where they must have been clinging to this others back. A purple muddy paw caught the kitten as they attempted to float forward gently stopping and pulling them back holding the kitten to their chest, a second set of mews began.
Meau leaned her body to the side to look without approaching as the purple other twisted slightly to reach their long arm around their back to scoop and hold a second kitten, darker blue in color with bits of yellow with more curly fur. This one seemed less curious of her burying their face into the fluff on the others chest as they mewed, they leant their head down and chirped making various soothing kitten calls to comfort the youngling, Meau recalled herself making such sound when her own child was born.
The other regarded Meau again before they slowly turned, the berries lifted by psychic energy once more, Meau watched their tail unwrap from around boney protrusions along their spine stretching out into a significantly longer tail and tilted her head as she regarded them again. They didn't notice, looking over their shoulder and gave a warning growl that clearly meant not to follow as they flew away quickly.
Meau blinked after them in pause.
She pondered.
And she followed.
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None mask version cause god dammit I drew a good face I wanna use it
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