To the one carrying what you don’t tell anyone,
There are things grief hands you that never make it into conversation.
Not because they’re shameful, but because they’re too heavy for ordinary language.
Too real for small talk.
Too raw to drop into a room that’s never learned how to hold you.
You know those moments …
when you’re surrounded by people yet feel like you’re living half-a-step outside your own life.
When you’re laughing, nodding, playing along, while something in you whispers,
none of this shows what I’m actually carrying.
We become experts at hiding.
At pretending the weight is manageable.
At shrinking the truth so we don’t scare anyone away.
At acting “fine” because the alternative feels too big, too messy, too misunderstood.
But here’s the part we never say out loud:
sometimes we isolate ourselves on purpose.
Not because we want to be alone, but because being honest feels impossible.
Because grief rewrites your insides in ways you can’t translate.
Because you’re exhausted from trying to sound normal when nothing is normal.
If this is you; the one who has whole storms inside that no one sees …
I want you to know something simple and true:
you’re not strange.
You’re not broken.
You’re not failing at grief.
You’re human, surviving something that has no script.
And even the things you can’t say out loud deserve compassion, not containment.
One true thing:
You don’t have to make your grief palatable. Real is enough.
Quote:
“Grief teaches you how to hide in plain sight, and how to tell the world you’re fine while your heart is burning quietly inside.
The bravest thing you’ll ever do is admit the truth … even if only to yourself.”
- Jeanette Winterson
(A reminder that your truth doesn’t make you weak - it keeps you afloat.)
Song:
“Skinny Love” - Birdy
(A quiet unravel. A song that understands what you carry without asking you to explain it.)
A note from me:
If you’re reading this with that familiar tightness in your chest, the one that says, finally, someone said it you can reply. You never have to polish your pain for me. Write messy. Write half a sentence. Write nothing for weeks and then everything at once. I’ll be here.
With softness,
Kirsten