Tag: grief

  • The Day I Decided to Become an Asshole

    (A Love Letter to Boundaries)

    herbal tea in my favorite starry cup I re-found in a different location because things you once loved have a way of finding you.

    You know those ridiculously empathetic people who feel other people’s emotions like they accidentally subscribed to their internal newsletter?

    Hi. Yes. That’s me.

    There I was. In my room. Crying. Heartbreak-level crying. Soul-ripping, cinematic grief. Over images of his father, a man I have never met, by the way. I don’t even know the outcome of the situation. For all I know, everything could be completely fine.

    But my nervous system? Oscar-worthy performance.

    And here’s the plot twist: this is for someone who, if roles were reversed, would probably emotionally evacuate the continent. I’ve had my moments – the kind where you quietly fall apart – and he was nowhere to be found. I trust my intuition. I really do. But sometimes I have to ask: who exactly is my intuition working for? Me? Him? The plot? The jury is still out.

    So naturally, mid-cry, I thought: You know what? I’m done. I’m becoming an asshole. No sympathy. No empathy. Emotional firewall installed. Sponge mode deactivated.

    Because I have been absorbing environments and people since birth. I used to soak up entire rooms. Thankfully, I’ve stopped downloading random strangers’ emotional weather. Growth. Maturity. Boundaries.

    But that one guy? My antenna is apparently wired directly to his satellite. Premium subscription. No cancellation option, or maybe I need to speak to the customer service and demand cancellation like it’s Adobe.  

    And I’ve been told, repeatedly, that one of my “soul lessons” is stronger boundaries. To harden up. To become, essentially, hard cheese. While he, apparently, is meant to soften, become one of those softer cheeses with inedible rinds. 

    Beautiful polarity theory. Love that for us.

    But then why am I over here processing what I think might be his emotions like I’m the unpaid intern of his subconscious?

    Here’s what I realized though, mid cry over a man I haven’t even met, getting deeply affected:

    Even if you absorb something, your life keeps moving. After the crying session? I washed my face. Met my date who was back earlier than expected. Met a friend after. Laughed. Ate. Chilled. Slept peacefully. The world did not collapse because I felt too much. Thanks to an injury I did not ask for last year for teaching me how to process emotions rather than outrunning them.  

    And that’s the part nobody tells you about being sensitive: You’re not fragile. You’re permeable. And permeability without boundaries feels like suffering.

    But permeability with boundaries? That’s power. So no, I’m not actually becoming an asshole. I’m becoming contained. There’s a difference.

    Boundaries aren’t about shutting down empathy. They’re about choosing when to open the door. Not every signal deserves entry. Not every emotional wave needs to be ridden. Some of them can pass like weather.

    And yes, thank God for breathwork. For techniques that bring you back into your own body. Back into sovereignty. Back into “this is mine, that is not.” Thanks to an amazing man who taught me that simple technique.  

    Because here’s the real moral of the story: Feeling someone else’s emotions doesn’t mean you’re responsible for them. And absorbing pain doesn’t make you spiritually advanced. It just makes you tired.

    So I’m keeping the empathy. But I’m installing better filters. Hard cheese energy. With a soft center, selectively accessed. 

    And honestly? That feels a lot healthier than becoming an asshole, even though I’d love to be one, even for a day or two. 

  • Grief: The Skateboard, the Shopping Cart, and the Almost-Said “I Love Yous”

    Grief is weird. One minute you’re ugly-crying over your dog who just crossed the rainbow bridge, the next you’re staring at a €20 voucher wondering if it’s a sign from the universe to impulse-buy another skateboard. (Spoiler: it was only enough for a massage gun. Bank account saved. For now.)

    We lost our sweet doggo – the happiest little soul – and even though I knew it was coming, apparently nobody is ever ready. I still think he’s going to come bounding around the corner. But grief doesn’t just arrive with tears. It also arrives with random bursts of “YOLO.” Like ignoring your doctor’s orders and hopping on your board with a busted hip because apparently the Kübler-Ross stages of grief now include skateboarding.

    And then there’s the other kind of impulsivity. The kind where you suddenly want to call your parents and say “I love you” like some soft-focus movie montage. But the words stick in your throat as if you’re trying to confess a crime instead of basic human affection. We literally talk every day. They know I love them. Why is it so hard to say it out loud?

    It got me thinking: why do I only use “sweetie,” “dear,” and “honey” when I’m being condescending? Why do I find people who are emotionally constipated with words of affirmation so irresistible? (Probably because we’re both sitting there thinking “feelings are cringe” while simultaneously bursting with them.)

    I thought I’d grown out of that. But then I remembered: it took me nine months with one person to choke out “I love you as a person.” Not “I’m in love with you.” Not “I love-love you.” Just “I love you as a person.” It wasn’t even romantic. It was pure, universal, unconditional love. It was also about as emotionally risky as streaking through a board meeting.

    So here I am. One special dog’s unexpected passing away triggered a full-scale existential audit: an almost-skateboard purchase, an almost-confession to my family, and a Spotify wormhole that made me feel like I was watching the last five years of my life as a movie.

    And maybe that’s the weirdest part about grief: it’s not just sadness. It’s a mirror. It shows you the shopping carts you fill to patch the hole in your heart, the words you almost say, and the love are learning how to give without drowning the other person in it but somehow still feel.

  • The Spider in the Bathtub: A Story About Goodbyes

    It was almost a year ago.
    A spider accidentally drowned in the bathtub.
    Not a metaphor. Not a symbol. A real spider.
    Small, delicate, curled in on itself. Its little body in the water puddle.
    I picked it up gently and laid it out on the coffee table, hoping maybe it was just stunned. Maybe it needed to dry.
    Maybe it would wake up.

    I left the room for a moment.
    When I came back, the spider was gone, thrown away.
    No ceremony. No goodbye.

    I felt the kind of grief that punches through logic. The kind that makes no sense to the people around you. The kind you can’t explain. I know because I had tears in my eyes when he said he threw it out, the kind of tears he could not relate to and didn’t even take seriously.

    But I knew this wasn’t just about a spider.

    Because I’m still not over it. After almost a year.

    This was about every goodbye I never got to say; laid in front of my eyes in the form of a bathroom spidey I had formed a mild emotional attachment to, whose accidental death was my fault, and it was thrown out by the person I loved.

    In my life, people leave.
    Not dramatically. Not loudly.
    Just… suddenly. Quietly. When I’m not looking.

    Loved ones pass away when I’m away.
    Breakups happen over the phone.
    Pets are gone when I’m away.
    Endings, real ones, never seem to happen face to face.

    There are no doors closing. No farewell hugs.
    Just empty space. A sudden absence. A vacuum that no one acknowledges.

    So I carry them.
    All of them.
    Inside.

    That spider cracked something open in me.

    Because I wanted to sit beside it.
    Watch. Wait. Witness.
    And if it didn’t come back, I wanted to give it a good goodbye.
    A sacred one.
    Even if it was “just” a spider.

    But I wasn’t given that chance.

    And that’s been the theme.
    The life pattern. The grief blueprint.

    “I wasn’t given that chance.”

    What do you do when life refuses to give you closure?

    You get it in your dreams at night.

    You get it in the wind that makes you remember a certain moment in your life.

    You get it by making new memories by yourself in the places you used to go together. In the streets you laughed, kissed, argued… Lived life. Even briefly.