Thoughts on grief

Today I did something that made me feel incredibly awkward but empowered at the same time. An experience that was a bit saddening.

I was in a car with three other people heading back to NYC from a job in Rhode Island - we had just traveled there together the night before. Coming off a trip to visit family and being at my mother's grave in Arizona a few days earlier, I'd been feeling a bit more unsettled than usual about missing her. I felt that I wanted to put on my headphones and just be in my own place for a bit. I truly was enjoying my time with them but I like to listen to when my mind and body speak to me. It was just something I felt.

So after struggling with whether I should or not, I decided to do it. Why shouldn't I? What's wrong that? I wasn't being obnoxious, I wasn't being anything but true to myself. I was spending too much time thinking about if I should or shouldn't. I took out my headphones, placed them in my lap and waited for a moment to announce my move because I felt it was better to say it then to just do it. So then I awkwardly say, "Hey guys I just wanna announce that I am going to put my headphones on." Realizing that what I had just said was unexplained and actually really awkward I substantiated it with, "nothing to do with you guys just sometimes I feel a lot about my mom and just need to be in a certain space." I felt uncomfortable, put my headphones on and that was that. But instead of feeling ok my thoughts were now shaded by worries about how I made them feel and if they thought I was being weird or rude. But why? Why should I feel this way? Why was I worrying? Why is it ok for people to feel so many other things and act on them but grief and sorrow are so misunderstood and not accepted as emotions to openly express? Why do I have to hide it or experience it in a way others feel comfortable?

I'm writing this with my headphones on in the car feeling this way because I feel it is wrong that I feel this way. Maybe I'm a being a little paranoid and sensitive but I do believe that a lot of it has to do with what society had deemed appropriate. No one has said anything directly to make me feel this way but somehow I have to think greatly about how I express my grief and to whom and when. I have received many strangle and odd responses upon revealing my emotions to people outside of "normal grieving" scenarios. And that is unfortunate. But what is done in a healthy, introspective and healing way should be embraced not shunned. Not considered weak.

That is all. That is why I am sharing this moment with you.