Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines grief as "deep sadness caused especially by someone's death." This definition isn't necessarily wrong; it encompasses the general idea of what grief actually is. The problem with this definition is that it cannot explain what grief really feels like, because the words don't really exist. Grief is, in my opinion, among the most profound emotions that a person can feel. It's almost indescribable.
As someone who is grieving, I have come up with my own descriptions to describe what it feels like as accurately as I can.
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Grief feels like drowning. I'll be floating along, feeling okay, and then suddenly it's like I have weights chained to my ankles, dragging me down toward the sea floor. The more it hurts, the further I sink.
Grief feels like stepping in quicksand. I walk along what looks like a sandy beach on a beautiful day, and then suddenly the ground gives out beneath me, pulling me beneath the earth. I feel more and more pressure and pain until, suddenly, I can feel no more.
Grief feels like not being able to breathe. I start out okay, and then it's like asthma--it makes things harder, but not impossible. But then, suddenly, no air is entering or exiting my lungs; it's as though I have a pile of heavy books on my chest. Breathing isn't worth the effort.
Grief feels like an M83 song. It starts slowly, and then it builds until there's nothing tangible about it--I'm not forming words, or coherent thoughts. My head is just full of noise and flashes of memories. It's bittersweet.
But the weirdest thing about grief, and the thing that I think makes it so unique--I don't have any desire to exit it. I don't fight the ankle weights, or try to use my fingernails to cling to the earth as it pulls me under. I don't gasp for air, and I don't rip out my headphones to gain some clarity. Grief makes me want to give up. It takes everything I have out of me; it exhausts me. There's not a thing in the world that makes me pull myself out of the pit of despair.
The thing I'm learning about grief is this: it subsides in its own time. Gradually, the shackles will release; the sand will let go; the air will flow into my lungs; and the noise in my head will become bearable.
In Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay," it is suggested that it is the good things in life that fade so quickly. But the truth is that the bad things fade, too. The bad things, the black, disgusting, ugly things go away too. It just takes time.
But now, for me, it's the gold things that are fading. And I don't know when they'll come back.
So Eden sank to grief.
