People We Have Lost

The title of this post is a trigger warning in itself, but just to be sure, there are going to be some heavy topics discussed in this one so if you are not ready to read something like this or are not in a space to tackle issues of love and loss, I would suggest revisiting this post another time.

I doubt there is a single person on this planet who has not experienced loss - be it that of a loved one (human or fur baby), a favourite object, or relationships. We have all been at the receiving end of that merciless blow that life deals - sometimes, it isn’t as painful, we just stand up, brush the dust off our shoulders and move on. Sometimes though, the blow can be life altering.

Loss is a feeling I am reasonably familiar with. Not only have I lost numerous possessions to the void of clumsy forgetfulness (I am convinced there is a galactic lost and found box that holds all the hair clips and rubber bands l have misplaced over the years with the only explanation for their random disappearances being that they were sucked into the space-time continuum), but I have lost, in my tired opinion, more than my fair share of people - people who are still very much alive and hopefully doing well - just not around me anymore.

The years 2020 - 2022 or what I like to call ‘Peak Pandemic’ (PP for short) were some of the most trying years of my 28 years of existence in this lifetime and I am well aware that I am hardly alone in that experience. I’ll admit though, it was tempting to brush off my own struggles during the period as unimportant or "not as big a deal" especially when the world around me was going through a lot worse, but a wise man once said (and I paraphrase in translation), “Just because people around you may be facing relatively greater hardships than you, it doesn’t make your struggles any less real, painful or worthy of complaint”. This single line from an unlikely source gave me the courage to feel distraught and grieve over my losses - because what I lost was important to me, and just because it did not necessarily have to do with death, it did not make it any less painful.

Over the course of those 2 and a half years, while many lost friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances to the dreaded disease, I lost relationships, friendships, a job, a house and a sense of purpose. A 10 year long friendship with a dear friend ended due to differences of opinion that were irreconcilable and a buildup of toxicity that I no longer wanted to deal with. Some other friendships ended due to the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind”. One that hit me particularly hard was the end of what I considered a fairly close friendship with mutual respect and understanding, but I stood corrected in my hasty presumption when the said party “forgot” to inform me of their nuptials - which I found out through social media.

The loss that hit me the hardest was the loss of my future, one I had dreamed of for a significant period of time, only for it to evanesce in the span of one short cruel phone conversation. I had parted ways with a person I thought I would be spending the rest of my life with, and no matter how much you see it coming, how prepared you are for the end of a relationship, nothing lessens the soul crushing physical pain that comes with a heartbreak. Yes, physical pain. If you have loved, truly loved and lost, you know that the repercussions are not just emotional distress or waning mental health. There is actual physical pain as though the grief of separation is eating your chest from the inside, slowly but surely, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

The number of resources talking about “how to deal with a breakup” are far too many to even begin delving into - suddenly everyone in your life and their grandma is an expert on getting over it and moving on (I will admit guilt in this respect myself when my friends have come to me after their breakups). Advices galore – cry it out, start working out, get those endorphins coursing through your veins, get a haircut, get drunk, clubbing, date casually, rebound, revenge, stay single, get to know yourself, go on a detox, new music, new movies, whole new genre of entertainment, learn something new, delve into spirituality, tarot, astrology, meditation, move cities, block them and all their friends on social media, stalk them and their friends on social media  –  the suggestions are endless, and I tried nearly everything. Eventually, you become numb to the pain… you stop noticing their absence and you stop being reminded of them at the sight and smell of everything. Your heart gets bandaged…

But nobody talks about the cracks that remain – how your heart does a little flip when you come across a different person with the same name and how it is nearly impossible to be able to call that person by their name – it just doesn’t roll off your tongue as effortlessly anymore, despite having said it a thousand times before; or how while cleaning out your closet years later, you find a random little ticket stub from a trip you took together but you cannot reminisce about that trip as fondly because it would have to mean confronting your memories of them, which you have worked hard to block out; or being afraid to run into them when you visit the city or area they live in – and not just them but their family or friends, or worse still, their current partner… and yet you make up scenarios in your head about what would happen if you end up bumping into them by some ill-fated trick of the universe –wishing for it and dreading it in equal parts.

You can get over a person and move on, and yet still be ragingly angry about the injustice of it all because somewhere inside of you, still exists the person whose heart has just shattered because they have just found out that the future they had planned and looked forward to has been rudely and abruptly snatched away from them - and that is so much more painful and harder to reconcile with than the finality of death. After all, death can't be bargained with; you're not constantly fighting a losing battle between choosing to listen to the heart that wants the love and the head that insists on dignity. You lose either way. With death, the choice is made for you, and you have but to comply. Isn't it easier to just follow instructions and have someone else take decisions when you are overwhelmed?

This kind of grief, the one that comes with the loss of dreams that seemed achievable, of horizons that seemed attainable, never fully goes away. You just learn to live with it, console yourself however best you can, because you are not just grieving the loss of a relationship, you are grieving the loss of a future and the loss of that version of yourself who had that future, wanted it and was happy in it.

And how do you come to terms with the loss of yourself?