What No One Warns You About

No one told me what grief would really feel like.
I thought I knew, I’d seen the movies. I thought it would be tears and sad music, long walks on the beach staring into the distance, dramatic crying into pillows.
No one told me it would feel like being skinned alive, like my insides had been scraped out and left exposed to the air.
Like I’d been rewired overnight into someone I didn’t recognise; part ghost, part zombie, part woman screaming silently into the void.

No one told me the loneliness wouldn’t just be emotional, it would be physical;
an ache in my chest, a hollowness in my stomach, a tightness in my throat that no amount of breathing exercises could shift.
Grief lives in your muscles, in your bones.
It sits under your skin, unseen but always felt.

No one told me I would feel like an alien in my own life, that emails, small talk, filling out forms would suddenly feel ridiculous.
Replying to texts with “I’m fine,” when I wasn’t fine, not even close.
I wanted to write back:
“I’m unravelling.”
“I’m surviving by accident.”
“I’m learning how to breathe again, badly.”
But I didn’t.

No one told me how loud the world would feel.
The supermarket. The mall. Even my own lounge on a bad day.
The clatter of shopping trolleys, the beep of checkout scanners, strangers laughing like nothing had happened; like the earth hadn’t tilted on its axis.

No one told me about the stupid triggers.
Not just photos or her favourite songs.
But a box of Panadol. A TV show she loved. A laugh that sounded like hers. The smell of chicken nuggets.

No one told me I’d second-guess everything.
Am I grieving the right way?
Too sad? Not sad enough?
Coping too well? Falling apart too much?
Should I smile more? Stay off social media?
Should I go out? Stay in? Take the sleeping pills?
Every decision felt like a potential betrayal; of her, or of myself.

No one told me how many people would disappear.
The silence. The awkwardness.
People who once texted her happy birthday now couldn’t say her name.

But…
No one told me about the unexpected kindness either.
The strangers who said the wrong thing but said something anyway.
The friend who showed up with food and just walked beside me.
The woman I never met who brought me lasagna.
The stranger at the hospital who gave me curry while her own husband was dying.

No one told me that someone saying her name out loud could make me cry and also want to hug them and never let go.

No one told me how much I’d miss being her mum in the day-to-day way.
The logistics of loving her.
The stupid things:
Picking her up from the train.
Texting to ask if she wanted katsu.
Reminding her to take her meds.

No one told me that grief isn’t just sadness.
It’s rage.
It’s jealousy.
It’s guilt.
It’s anxiety in the laundry.
It’s hopelessness before breakfast and heartbreak by lunch.

No one told me how tired I would be.
That my bones would ache. That getting out of bed would feel like a marathon.

No one told me that grief doesn’t come in tidy stages.
It loops. It doubles back. It sneaks up.
You’re laughing at the TV, and the next second you’re curled on the floor, sobbing over a phrase she used to say.

No one told me how much I would change.
First, I died; not literally, but parts of me.
Then I became a zombie.
Then, slowly, I became someone new.
Not better. Not worse.
Just… rewired.

No one told me I would feel like a guest at life.
Like everyone else had moved on and I was frozen at the edge of something I couldn’t name.

No one told me that toothpaste and petrol would feel ridiculous when your world has ended.

No one told me that healing wouldn’t mean moving on.
It would mean moving through.
With her.
Beside her.
Inside every part of me that still breathes.

And no one told me this:
Love doesn’t end. Not even after death.
And maybe — maybe — that’s the one truth I’m most grateful for.