A reflection on grief, change, and what it means to find your footing again - because for anyone in a relationship past midlife, the chances of standing in this place are no longer unlikely.
This post is not for everyone. Some will pass by these words, and that is perfectly fine. But for those who are standing - or have stood—where the ground gives way, I offer this quietly. No advice. No resolution. Just a walk alongside.
For those who have known deep loss and the quiet rearranging that follows. For those who understand that, after goodbye, comes not only absence, but the slow, disorienting work of learning how to exist in a world that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
Some may read this and feel uncomfortable. I understand. Loss unsettles everyone - even from afar. It reminds us of how fragile things really are. If this post finds you before your own reckoning, may it take away a little of the fear. It will hurt. But you will survive it. You will find solid ground again.
Grief does not ask us to be noble. It does not care for grace. It arrives, wrecks the furniture, and leaves you sorting through what's still intact. But it also teaches you who you are - and who is truly there.
When the Ground Gives Way
Grief does not speak in words. It speaks in sensations.
The racing of the heart. The shallowness of breath. The sudden emptiness where taste and sound used to be.
You are not broken. You are adjusting to a world that changed without your consent.
And then comes something harsher: the outside world.
One roadblock after another. As though death were a surprise to the very institutions meant to serve the living. Endless hours shouting at phone trees, your sorrow reduced to options and hold music. Screaming into the silence of polite indifference.
Sometimes, tension hums beneath the quiet. Not at life itself, but at the discomfort of being out of sync with a world that moves on while you remain in the stillness of loss. Grief doesn’t follow their tempo. It keeps its own strange rhythm.
And yet, amid the noise and disconnection, something quieter begins to emerge. Grace. Not the kind with halos and clarity. The human kind.
Food and flowers left without expectation. Kind messages arriving out of nowhere. A stranger helping you without asking questions. These gestures do not fix anything. But they land. They hold you upright, even for a moment.
Even in collapse, there is some coherence. Love remains—scattered like pearls across the wreckage. Not gone. Only quieter.
This isn’t the end of the story. It’s where the truth becomes uncomfortably honest.
Sometimes, when the ground gives way, it doesn’t destroy. It clears.
The Second Loss
Some losses are visible. Others arrive in silence.
At first, people show up. They offer words, gestures, food. Some mean it. Some want to mean it. But grief moves slowly. It doesn’t sync with calendars or social schedules.
Eventually, some friends grow distant. Some freeze, unsure what to say. Some are reminded of their own vulnerability and choose to disappear.
This, too, is a kind of loss.
The second loss. Not as visible, but deeply felt.
The loss of belonging. The loss of being truly seen.
It hurt. But eventually, clarity sets in. Not everyone is meant to walk through the hard parts with you. Some people are great for the sunny days. And that’s okay.
I also have disappointed others before. Been speechless when I should have said something. Backed away because I didn’t know what to do. We are all in the learning.
Letting go is not bitter. It is necessary.
Into the space that clears, something more real can grow. Connections that stay even when things are awkward. Relationships that don’t require performance.
You’re not too much. You’re simply on a different frequency now.
Let the false fall away.
What remains—and what’s still to come—will meet you where you are.
The Grace of Boundaries
Loss sharpens the view.
What stays becomes sacred. What falls away begins to make sense.
Boundaries are not walls. They are filters. And not everyone is meant to pass through.
There is no more space for those whose effort and presence quietly fade. My energy is no longer theirs to draw upon. I let them go.
I no longer explain my quiet. I no longer soften truth for comfort.
I don’t reject. I just choose peace. What belongs stays. What doesn’t, already knows.
There’s grace in endings. And even more in the kind of beginning that doesn’t have to announce itself.
Clearing the Way Back to Yourself
Becoming doesn’t arrive with fireworks. It comes in small choices. In silence. In pauses.
The world rushes. I do not.
I wake slowly. I leave space. I no longer explain stillness. I no longer please for the sake of being accepted.
Grief still walks beside me. But it no longer leads. It’s quieter now. Familiar.
And in the space that’s left behind, life continues. Not loudly. But fully.
I am not who I was. But I am not lost.
I am here. Quieter. Stronger. A little more certain of what matters - and what does not.
This is not about healing. It’s about becoming.
And so I continue— Not because I am ready. Not because everything is fixed.
But because life continues.
And I do, too. One breath. One step. One honest moment at a time.