In my last post, I wrote about leaving toxic places, touching on the grief that surfaces when we realize certain places or people are no longer safe for us.

I need to dive in a little deeper, to the pain of grieving something we never had.

Grief is necessary when we lose something precious. When processed well, grief can be good and beautiful, true praise of what we have lost. Proof that something beautiful was in our lives.

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

grieving something we never had

Yet sometimes grief grabs us in the deepest places and holds on because instead of grieving what we lost, we may be grieving something we never had in the first place.

The child in the closet who pretended she was straight to maintain her place of belonging in the family, will someday have to grieve never actually belonging to that family. The boy who raised himself while caring for a parent does not weep because his father died. His tears are shed instead for the father he never had. And never will. The woman who has always struggled to feel beautiful because as a child, a boy publicly humiliated her and labeled her as disgusting. She does not weep for the loss of popularity, she weeps because she has never felt seen as beautiful. The parent who is triggered into deep anxiety when facing food insecurity because of a global pandemic is not grieving today’s hardships. He is grieving a childhood that never knew that security.

Sometimes we grieve because we have lost something. But there is an equally bottomless pain of grieving something we never had in the first place.

For all who grieve and feel the pain of loss over things that never existed – yet should have existed – you are not alone. Some losses feel forever and stretch beyond human reasoning and comprehension.

This loneliness, this deep and utter feeling of betrayal, loss and isolation is exhausting.

coming home

And yet, when the song and dance is over, when the dust clears and all that is left is the raw authenticity of our lives.

Those moments where we were the truest to ourselves.

The best versions of who we could be.

With startling clarity, we can look around and realize that there is something inside of us that has outlived the betrayal, grief and losses of life.

We want to engineer a world where everyone admires us, holds us in high esteem. Where safety and security are the norm. We try so hard to control the outcome of the broader story yet all we can really do is control our own narrative. When all else has been lost or is out of our control, we can and must speak our own narrative. Make our own way. Belong to our self.

Perhaps the only way to find our true place of belonging starts with coming home to our self. Belonging to our self.

This is not a journey I can guide you on because this journey will not look the same for any one of us. Our journey of coming home to our self is as unique as each of us.

It’s taken me decades to truly come home to, and belong to, my self. More often than not I wished I could trade in my self for another one braver, more beautiful, stronger, more articulate, and better than this one. Yet I finally love her. More than being shaped by her experiences, she now experiences life by the shaping of her narrative.

By belonging to her self, she holds the pen in her story. No matter what she gains or loses, she knows she will always have her self.

And she is more than okay.

Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Photo courtesy of Adrienne Gerber Photography.