Dear Grief Guide, I'm Dreading The New Year

As the new year approaches, a listener's grief for her dad is louder than ever. She's wondering if it's normal for grief to resurface, even though time has passed. I read her anonymous letter and then offered her practical tools and compassionate wisdom for growing through grief.

Dear Grief Guide is a weekly advice podcast where I answer anonymous letters from people feeling lost, stuck, or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

Music © Adi Goldstein, Used with Permission

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide, A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost, Stuck, Heartbroken, Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief. My name is Shelby Forsythia. I'm a grief coach and author, And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live. Let's get to today's letter. Dear Grief Guide, As the new year approaches, I find myself dreading it like never before. Next week would have been my dad's birthday, And just this past October marked the second anniversary of his passing. For some reason, The weight of it all feels five times heavier this year. I've been full on crying, As if I'm right back at the moment I lost him. It's like the grief is fresh and raw, Hitting me harder than ever. I thought time would soften the edges, But it feels like I've been knocked off my feet again. Is it normal for the pain to come back in such an intense wave? As the calendar inches toward another year, I'm feeling more anxious, More depressed, And more exhausted than I anticipated. It's as though the idea of moving forward in time, Into yet another year he'll never be a part of, Only amplifies the sense of loss. I keep wondering if anyone else has experienced something like this. Is it common for grief to surge again, Even when you've had a little distance from it? I'm struggling to make sense of why it's so hard now, And afraid that the new year will knock me down for good. Signed, New Year's Grief. Hi there New Year's Grief, I am really glad you wrote me this letter, Because so, So, So many grief experts and resources and books and blogs and Instagram posts talk about holiday grief, But they fail to make space for or have conversations about New Year's Grief. The turning of another year, More time passing, Is a grief event, And can bring up emotions in us of, Oh god, I have to do this all over again. Another year without them. Another year for you, Without him. I will tell you that you noted you're moving into the second year, As of October, And so many grieving people I talk to, My grief clients, My students in Life After Loss Academy, Everybody says the first year is the hardest, They say the second year, And the year after that, And the year after that, Is often harder than the first, Because so many of our support people, Friends, Family, Even coworkers and societal structures, Maybe even therapists, Have distanced themselves from us. Oftentimes grief support groups conclude after a year, Friends and family pull away, Go on to other things, They're dealing with perhaps their own griefs and struggles and losses or celebrations in their own life, And by year two, It begins to sink in that the shock is gone, But the reality is really, Really real. The world looks much different now than it did before your loss and in the first year, And by year two, You have also started, In some ways I imagine, Accumulating milestones, Birthdays, Death anniversaries, Achievements like a graduation, Maybe marriage, Having children, Buying a house, Getting a promotion, Moving somewhere, You have started accumulating significant things in your life that your dad will never see, And there's this recognition of how many more of those you will have, How many seasons you will continue to live while he continues to be gone. Yes, The second year and the years after are often harder for so many of us than the first. Something that I want to make room for in your letter specifically is just feeling more anxious and depressed and overwhelmed than you thought you would, And this in and of itself is a kind of grief event. We talk about in Life After Loss Academy, You must grieve the person you lost, You must grieve the person you used to be that you can no longer be, Because loss has taken that version of yourself away from you. But a third thing that we also talk about grieving is how you thought grief was supposed to go. Because whether or not we mean to, We all build up expectations of what we think grief is going to look like. It'll get easier after the first year, I'll only be crying, I won't be angry and yelling or breaking things, My grief will come out gentle, And when I expect it, Such as watching significant movies or hearing a song on the radio, It won't happen. While I'm driving, And I definitely won't have a meltdown in the grocery store, Haha plot twist, It definitely happens and you will have a meltdown in the grocery store. But there is a grief that we rarely talk about, About needing to grieve what we thought grief was. We are painted this picture by society, The media, Friends, Family, The people around us, Celebrities, People we look up to and see in person and online about what grief looks like, And then we live it for ourselves, And it's like one of those expectation vs reality memes, There's this sense of, Wow wait, That's, I got ripped off. I am recognizing that the bill of goods I was sold about grief is so much more deep and complex and relentless and different than what I expected, And it is, Yes, Sadly, Frustratingly, Another thing to grieve. And, Even saying oh I'm grieving my sense of how I thought grief would go, I'm grieving the expectations I had for myself about what I would feel and when I would feel it and how long grief would take, Even saying those things out loud gives you a sort of breathing room or permission to have all of those things be happening right now. And, Just to validate this for you too, This is something that everyone I have ever worked with and myself multiple times have faced. Almost every grieving person I talk to speaks of needing to grieve and then come to accept what the experience of grief is actually like. And remember, Acceptance is not about liking what's happening or being okay with what's happening. It's about looking at what's happening and saying that's true. That's real. I am not hiding from the reality of that or I am not telling myself a story about what that actually is or should be. I'm looking at it and saying, Yep, Them's the facts. That's exactly what's in front of my face. I want to speak to now your fear that New Year's will knock you down. It may very well knock you down and it is an inevitable human practice, Ritual, Form of existence, I'm not sure what words I want to wrap around that, But it is human to fall down and it is human to get back up when you're ready. I did an episode very, Very early on in Dear Grief Guide that I hope you'll go back and listen to. It's episode 11, I don't know how to go on, Where I spoke to someone who wrote in about experiencing multiple losses in a row and how everybody told her just get back up on the horse again, Just keep trying, Just keep moving forward and she was like, Is it so bad to want to just hang out in the dirt for a little while? There is resting to do when you've been knocked down. There's grounding to do. There is sometimes too a soft recognition of looking around because you're now stopped, You are no longer in motion for a little while and seeing who else might be down here on the ground with you. Who else is having a season like this? Who else is struggling? Who else has been knocked down or knocked sideways by unexpected grief? And it's a lot more people than you might think. I've been spending a lot of time on threads lately, The social media platform tied to Instagram, But it's kind of like nice Twitter is how a lot of people are branding it. And because I talk about grief, I get served a lot of people's writings about grief and it has made me feel so seen and so okay in this season not trying hard to force things or to make magic or to do more than I can to make things special because I'm grieving. My mom died the day after Christmas, New Year's, Christmas, The holiday season is a real rough time for me in this corner of the world and New Year's and time passing is kind of a knockdown season. But to see even on social media, The company of others who are in the dirt with me, Metaphorically, Who have fallen off the horse, Who have been knocked down by the wave, Whatever metaphor you'd like to use is comforting. There is a not aloneness in this. The people in your direct orbit and your life may be in motion, They may be on horses riding towards beautiful sunsets, Things that you are not doing right now. But trust me when I say you are not the only one in the world who is spending the turn of the new year in the dirt. There are also some tips in that episode for how to take care of yourself in seasons like these when it feels like grief is stronger and you may not have the strength or the will or the desire or the capacity to think about continuing going on when it's harder than it feels like it normally is to muster up things like energy and hope. It's a really good one to go back and listen to so I hope you will. The last thing I want to offer you is this. If you are or would like to be a person who makes New Year's resolutions, You can make New Year's resolutions or commitments or whatever other language you'd like to use to describe them that honor and recognize your grief. You might ask yourself, How can I resolve to carry my dad with me even as I get knocked down? How can I hold him close even in the dirt? How can I make ways to see or feel my dad every day of the year? How can I create rituals on dates that feel important or significant kind of looking ahead to the entirety of 2025? And how can I remind myself that the dirt as with the ride on the horse is a temporary state and it's not a bad thing to be knocked down. It's simply a part of being human and very much a part of grieving is to be unexpectedly surprised and knocked down by grief. How can I make room for grief in all the ways that it shows up whether or not I expect it? And how can I find more ways to play a game of grief I spy out in the world, Noticing who else is having a similar experience to mine? When you look closely, And in this day and age when you train your algorithm to start seeing other stories of grief, It turns out that you are one part of a very, Very, Very large solar system of grievers. I'll leave you with this last thing. As I've said on so many other episodes, You do not have to have a happy birthday. You just have to have a birthday. You don't have to have a happy holiday. You just have to have a holiday. And for you, New Year's Grieve, You do not have to have a happy new year. You just have to have a new year. And the blessing of birthdays and holidays and new years is that whether or not you like it and whether or not you consent to it, They will happen with or without you. You are not in control of whether or not the day occurs. And sometimes in grief that's a blessing because all that's required of you is to hang on for the ride. Or to sit in the dirt and watch the sun come up and watch the sun go down. I am honoring your dad's second death anniversary. I'm honoring his birthday. And I am honoring all the ways that you and your grief find to carry him forward with you into this next year and the year after that and the year after that. You are not alone.