Stage 5. Acceptance.
Well my friends, this has been an incredibly long, strange road, but we made it! We’re finally here to that place we have been working so hard to get to. That last stage during the grief journey: Acceptance. That’s a tricky word because it doesn’t mean that we are alright about what happened. We typically never will be. Instead, it simply means we have made peace with and accepted our reality and we are ready to move forward with our life as it currently is. Or another way to think about this is that it’s not ok it happened; it just means that we are going to be ok.
Once we arrive at this place, the hazy pain-filled fog will finally lift and we must decide what works for us and what doesn’t, as we move forward. It’s the point in time when we craft our new reality. Please note how I said “new”. We can never go back to the old reality we had grown accustomed to or expected because that is long gone. Instead, we must face a new reality with the boldness, the transparency, and the raw emotion that it will require. Finally, we will again feel like the good is beginning to outweigh the bad as we learn that “the sun [really] will come out tomorrow”.
So, here’s one of the most frustrating things about grief. It’s never 100% done. In truth, we absolutely will work through each of the stages and life will get substantially better. But as a caveat, mostly better. Because that loss? Yeah, it is still in there, even if its scars are carried deep within us once it’s been dealt with. There will still be those moments on random days that hit us hard. Trust me, I still have those days too from time to time, including one very recently. That is normal, and although it will be frustrating, it is nothing to be ashamed of. As Vicki Harrison said, “Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” And swim we will, my friends.
That is why once we reach the end of this particular grief cycle, there will be good days and bad days. Such is the grand predicament of life. No one said life would be easy, but I think when I was a kid, I never fully grasped how immensely difficult “adulting” would be until I experienced its perils first-hand. There are things to be aware of as you are moving forward from your own personal grief, a few of those which I will detail below.
Three important reminders about life after Acceptance:
Plan ahead for triggers.
They will happen, that I can promise you. And this is normal.
Don’t apologize for your pain.
You will backslide, at times. The path forward isn’t always linear.
You can use your story and experience to help others.
You went through this crazy thing. Why not use it to help others who may follow in your footsteps after?
Grief is a journey we must all go on, from time to time. We did not do something wrong to cause us to deserve it. Rather, it is something that happened to us, not because of us. As Earl Grollman said, “Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.” I often key in on the specific turn of phrase “the price you pay for love” when I think about the grieving cycle. If we never let anyone in enough to truly love them, that is the only time we can escape grief’s clutches in its entirety. But to me, never taking the risk sounds like a terribly sad existence.
In every glass house, there is at least one crack.
So, all we can do is move forward, never looking back.
I’ve wandered through dark nights and gotten lost for a few.
But in the end, a life of adventure and love is all I want to do.
You see, I’d rather choose to let love into my heart and risk losing it than to never know it to begin with. I know that sometimes I love and feel things too much. Call it one of my fatal flaws, I suppose. To be honest, it has led me down some painful paths but all in all, I remain here today with no regrets. Because in the end, whatever that looks like, I know that love wins. And that is my personal journey to acceptance.
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Cheers until next time,
Crystal
