This year cracked something open in me. The kind of crack you don’t see coming and can’t tape back together. It came when I lost my dad. A sentence that still doesn’t feel real to say. There’s no manual for grief. No right way to do it. Just a slow, strange unfolding of days where the world keeps spinning while yours feels like it’s stopped.

What I’ve learned is that growing through life isn’t about finding the light at the end of the tunnel—it’s about learning to walk in the dark. To feel everything, even when it hurts like hell. Especially when it hurts like hell. That’s where the real growth hides.

Letting It Be What It Is

For most of my life, I rolled my eyes at anything that sounded too self-help-y. Mindfulness? Meditation? Journaling? Pass. I saw those things as soft, maybe even avoidant. I thought strength meant pushing through, not pausing. And then life threw something at me I couldn’t push through. Not with logic. Not with distraction. Not even with humor.

Grief stripped me down. It made everything raw. And in that rawness, I started to experience each moment for what it actually was—not what I wanted it to be, or thought it should be. Just what it was. Brutal, beautiful, boring, painful, peaceful—sometimes all in the same breath.

I stopped trying to label every emotion. I let them hit. I sat with them. I cried in places I didn’t expect. Grocery stores. Parking lots. The shower. And in that surrender, something unexpected happened. I began to grow. Not in some romanticized “grief made me wise” way. But in a quiet, grounded, inch-by-inch kind of way.

The Tools I Used to Make it Through (That I Used to Laugh At)

Here’s the irony: all the things I used to side-eye became the very things keeping me afloat.

1. A Book of Poems That Changed Everything

I’ve got to start with this one: This poem book cracked me open in the best way. It didn’t sugarcoat grief or pretend healing was pretty. It met me right where I was. Some days, I’d read one poem and feel like it had been written for me. Other days, it made me feel less alone. Like someone out there got it. And that alone is medicine.

What struck me most was how poems can say what prose can’t. A few lines could hit deeper than a 400-page book. It made me realize that healing doesn’t always happen in a straight line. Sometimes it comes in fragments. And those fragments can be just enough to hold you together when you’re falling apart.

2. Journaling: Saying the Quiet Things Out Loud

I started journaling not because I believed in it, but because I didn’t know what else to do. I was angry, numb, confused. Writing helped me put shape to the mess. It wasn’t about writing something profound—it was about dumping whatever was in my head onto the page.

At first, it was just chaos. Rambling. Swearing. Grief in its messiest form. But over time, patterns started to emerge. I started understanding myself more. Seeing the small ways I was healing without realizing it. It’s weird how writing can show you things your brain hasn’t caught up to yet.

Now, journaling is like a pressure valve. It doesn’t fix everything, but it gives me a place to put it.

3. Meditation: The Art of Sitting in the Shit

I used to think meditation was about achieving some zen state. Floating above my problems. Spoiler: it’s not. It’s about learning to sit with what is. Even when what is feels unbearable.

Some days, meditation feels like peace. Other days, it’s just me closing my eyes and feeling like I’m being hit by emotional shrapnel. But even on the bad days, it helps. It teaches me not to run. To breathe. To stay. That’s the real practice.

This short Navigating Change hit me hard one morning when I needed to just be still with my grief. He doesn’t offer solutions—he invites you to witness what’s real. That alone can be life-changing.

4. Movies, Shows, and Books That Say What You Can’t

Sometimes, I just need to watch a story that mirrors what I’m going through. Not to escape it, but to feel seen inside of it. There’s something healing about watching someone else wrestle with grief, confusion, or change—and come out the other side. Or not. Sometimes they don’t. But just witnessing it helps.

Shows like After Life or The Leftovers, books that dig into loss without flinching, stories that make you feel less crazy for how hard this all is—they matter. They remind you that you’re not the only one trying to figure out how to live in a world that’s lost someone you love.

And sometimes, healing looks like just sitting and watching something that brings your heart a little peace. This You are Right Where You Need to Be unexpectedly hit me in that way. It’s honest, raw, and reminds you that loss changes your shape—but it doesn’t end your story.

Lessons I Didn’t Ask For But Got Anyway

Grief has a way of being the world’s worst teacher with the world’s most valuable lessons. I wouldn’t have signed up for this course if I had a choice. But now that I’m in it, here’s what I’m learning:

• You can’t skip the hard parts. There’s no shortcut through grief. No “life hack” that makes it neat. You just have to live it.
• People show up in unexpected ways. Some drift, others appear out of nowhere. Let that surprise you.
• It’s okay to change your mind. About how you cope. About what helps. About what strength looks like.
• There’s no right timeline. Healing isn’t a calendar event. It’s a series of moments, regressions, and breakthroughs.
• Joy and sorrow can coexist. You can laugh on the same day you cried so hard your ribs hurt. It doesn’t mean you’re doing grief wrong. It means you’re human.

When You Lose a Parent, You Lose More Than a Person

Losing my dad wasn’t just about losing him. It was about losing a version of myself. The version of me who had a dad. Who could call him on a bad day. Who didn’t have this scar yet.

It shifted everything. Made the world look different. Smaller in some ways, sharper in others. I started noticing things I used to miss. The way the light hits at certain hours. How people hold their grief quietly in public. The kindness of strangers. The fact that everything is more fragile than we like to admit.

But this shift also gave me something. A deeper appreciation for the people still here. A hunger to live more honestly. To speak up. To love harder. To stop pretending things are okay when they’re not—and to actually do the work of healing when they aren’t.

Using the Tools Instead of Mocking Them

Maybe the biggest growth I’ve had this year is letting go of the part of me that mocked things that help. I get it now. Why people journal. Why they meditate. Why they underline poems or dog-ear pages in grief books. It’s not corny. It’s survival.

When life guts you, you reach for anything that helps you put your insides back together. And if it works—even a little—you keep reaching.

I’m still learning what helps me. Some days it’s writing. Some days it’s a walk. Some days it’s calling a friend just to say “today sucked.” But the key is, I’m doing it now. Not just talking about it. Not just laughing at it from a distance.

And I see the difference. In how I carry myself. In how I show up for others. In how I let myself feel things all the way through.

You Don’t Have to “Get Over” It

If you’re going through something similar—grief, loss, big life change—here’s what I’d say: you don’t have to “get over” it. You don’t even have to “move on.” Those phrases are kind of bullshit.

You just have to keep going. With it. Through it. Around it. However you can.

Grief becomes part of you. Not in a way that weighs you down forever, but in a way that reshapes you. Softens some edges. Sharpens others. It’s not the whole story, but it will always be a chapter.

And if you let it, it can be one that teaches you how to live deeper, feel harder, and appreciate the people and moments that actually matter.

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If you’re in the thick of it, I hope something here helps. Maybe it’s that poem book. Maybe it’s journaling. Maybe it’s just knowing that someone else is out here fumbling through grief, too.

Whatever it is, just keep growing—slowly, imperfectly, honestly.

Even in the hardest moments, life still finds ways to break through. And so do we.

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