“When I wake up every morning, I roll over and find you still gone. I’m alone in a way that I’ve never been, since you left me behind.” - Sturgill Simpson
Even though grief is a universal human experience, the journey through grief seems - again (still?) - to be a road that one must travel alone. For me, the difference between introversion and introspection seems to be a matter of degrees. Or maybe mood. As I’ve written before, I often feel alone even in a crowded room. Indeed, I continue to find that large crowds are overwhelming. I find myself avoiding them when I can - or leaving early when I can’t.
This sense of “aloneness” is evolving, though. I don’t necessarily feel isolated or lonely (as I did earlier this year); rather, I sometimes find that I prefer my own introspective company to a large crowd where nobody knows what I’ve been through. Similarly, I prefer talking to a small group of friends who know the context of my life at the moment - even if we don’t talk about Sami, I take comfort in being with people who know. Who know that my loss is always with me.
Sometimes I secretly wish there was a scarlet W on my chest - that people could tell just by looking at me that I’ve been widowed! I’m mostly joking, but there are times when I wish I could avoid the awkwardness that comes with feeling the need to explain why I live alone. Why I moved and changed jobs. Why I’m often quiet.
During Sami’s brief illness, as well as in the nearly 2 years since she passed, I have found gatherings to celebrate the lives of friends who’ve also passed to be especially difficult. I want to honor my friends, and to support those they’ve left behind, but my own grief is often too close to the surface in these settings. I’ve found that I need to give myself the grace to not feel guilty about leaving these gatherings early. I suspect that my grieving friends understand. At least I hope they do.
Thinking again about the barbecue we hosted after Emma’s graduation last month, I’ve also realized that I have an easier time being in a crowd when I have a job. I’ve noticed a similar pattern in my extension work. When I’m doing something (cooking for friends or presenting information at a workshop, for example) I find that I’m energized and engaged. But small talk in large groups remains difficult. Once my work is through, I find that I need to leave. To be alone again. And I suspect my departures from these situations often seem awkward.
I listened to a podcast last week that suggested grieving is an educational process - that grief helps us learn how to cope with the physical, mental, and emotional changes that come with losing our attachment to someone - or rather, with realizing that our attachment to that person has changed now that they are no longer here physically. The researcher, Dr. Mary Frances O’Connor, suggested that when we make an attachment with someone (a spouse or a child, for example), the neurons in our brains change physiologically. The loss of that attachment requires our brains to adjust to new ways of relating to the world. For me, at least, this adjustment is an introspective process.
Now, more than two years into my own journey with grief, I find that introspection and distance have helped give me perspective. When Sami first died, most of my memories seemed to focus on the trauma of her disease and passing. Today, in June 2025, I find that the happy memories of our 35 years together come to me more frequently. I find that sharing these happy memories is not as difficult as it was early in my grief. And while I suspect that sharing these memories with others may continue to be uncomfortable for others at times, I find that this doesn’t bother me in the way it did early in my journey.
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