Grief Is Calling

P R E P A R A T I O N ⁣ ⁣

content warning: suicide⁣ ⁣

This is a month of preparation for me. ⁣ ⁣

Apart from being a bit MIA due to oppressive fatigue, I am taking time to mentally and emotionally prepare for the end of this month. ⁣ ⁣

When I was young, the first of March signalled the exciting start of planning for my birthday celebrations. While that dwindled down the older I got, March still had the association of being my birthday month. ⁣ ⁣

Last year, two days after my birthday, a time that I typically spend turning inwards and reflecting on my growth and where I need to go, I heard the worst words imaginable and fell to the floor screaming. ⁣ ⁣

I will never forget that soul-crushing, mind-numbing, viscerally painful moment of being told that my youngest cousin had ended his life by suicide. ⁣ ⁣

One year later, approaching his first death anniversary, there is much that I need to prepare myself for. It's hard to make you understand why this is such a complex moment in time for me because I don't have it in me yet to go into the chaos and trauma that unfolded following his death, but there exists a whole host of messy emotions beyond just the grief that are tied into this period of time that we're about to enter. ⁣ ⁣

So I'm taking time. I'm holding space for myself. I am speaking to support. I am planning. And soon I need to start writing. ⁣ ⁣

It will soon be time for me to begin unpacking this trauma with my words so that I can finally have some release.