Month: August 2025

Grief Wears Many Faces

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Grief doesn’t always announce itself with tears.

Sometimes, it just makes you tired.

Forgetful. ANXIOUS!!! Impatient with small talk. Disinterested in things that once made you giddy. IRRITABLE!

Sometimes, grief looks like silence. Other times, it’s laughing too loudly at the wrong time.

It shows up as “I’m fine” in a text. Or that little pause before you say someone’s name, even years after they’re gone. 

Grief doesn’t like attention. It certainly loves solitude and isolation. It wears ordinary clothes (sometimes, with shower optional alternatives like lots of cologne). It shows up to work on time.

It smiles at the neighbor. But really hates surprises. It eats lunch. Then sits in your throat for the rest of the day like something unswallowed. And then it clouds your eyes with tears – making you wait for the other shoe to drop. Did I mention the foreboding of doom. Not knowing that the worst has passed.

I used to think grief was a season. Something you pass through.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

Now I think grief is a shape-shifter. It comes and goes. It makes itself comfortable in strange places — in the song you skipped, the birthday you forgot, the photo you weren’t prepared to see.

And I’ve stopped trying to outgrow it. Instead, I make space for it when it shows up. Like a language, I try to learn its peculiar vocabulary. I let the words roll of my tongue. I let grief sit beside me. Not to be tolerated, per se.  Just to be able to say, “Hi. I see you. Please no wahallah!” (ehehehe…) And really it’s enough.

There’s a quiet power in naming what hurts without expecting it to go away. A permission to redefine happiness and job in the presence of profound sadness. In fact, I am totally convinced that there’s a special ring of glory bestowed by our ancestors for allowing sadness to visit without trying to redecorate it as something else.

Anyway, this week, I’m not writing a solution. I’m just writing a recognition. Grief wears many faces. And it doesn’t make me broken to know them all.

Softness Is Not A Weakness

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There was a time I thought softness made me fragile and that being tender meant I’d be overlooked, talked over, taken advantage of. I thought softness was something you had to outgrow. Or hide. Or iron out with discipline. Or even sharpen with an edge of grit and hardcore “gangista-ness”.

But over the years, as I have mellowed and settled into myself, I’ve come to see it differently.

Softness has evolved to not be about being passive but about being quietly present. Often asking myself to sit with a bit of the discomfort of wanting to move faster. And then about feeling things fully while still choosing to stay open. When I remain soft, I don’t necessarily become blind to my propensity to lean heavily towards hope, or that there are risks in the loving, listening, hoping — and showing up anyway.

Perhaps the greatest gift that softness has given me is how to hold space and how to pause before reacting. I have become more comfortable with sitting with my own and others’ silence without trying to fix anything. I have even become quite good at writing without rushing to the conclusion and allowing my characters to speak… for the volume of the story to swell into something I could never have anticipated in my planning.

By leaning into softness, I find an opening into a fluency of language that is new and refreshing… and over time, I have found so much that is rich.

I have to admit though, that sometimes the Universe sends me little tests here and there. They’ve been times when people have assumed that my softness means that I won’t say no or that I will always give more or worse, that I will shrink to keep the peace. Let’s just say with softness in hand, I have learned to declare sacred space around it and well, for the sake of softness, I have found boundaries. I don’t abandon myself. I am soft but no less firm.

So. These days, I really protect my peace and instead of saying to myself, “toughen up,” I say, “Pause. Wait. Listen.”

I’m learning to trust that my tenderness is a skill and a tool of moving around the world in a way that serves all of me. I have come to appreciate that I feel so richly and so deeply. I love that I cry at well-written commercials. That I can’t read certain books without hugging them at the end. That I say “I love you” a little too easily sometimes. And for that I have been rewarded with many beautiful relationships, meaningful conversations, and an understanding of our human nature that makes me a better writer.

Softness is not a weakness. It’s one of my sharpest tools.

Writing While Afraid

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No one tells you how loud fear can be in a quiet room.

You sit down to write and suddenly everything gets noisy.

What if it’s not good enough? What if no one relates?

What if this is the piece that exposes too much?

There are some stories I’ve carried for years. Not because they’re particularly extraordinary, but because they’re… fragile. I know once I say them out loud, they’ll change shape. They’ll become shared. And that scares me.

I’ve written whole essays only to delete them at the last paragraph.

Closed journals mid-sentence. REFUSED TO READ journals because I was afraid of what I would find there. Typed confessions and then backspaced myself out of them.

It’s not that I want to hide. (ok, so maybe yes, I want to run from what I will find there… but let’s focus!). It’s that I don’t always feel ready to be fully seen or even to see myself. Sometimes the truth feels too naked. Too raw. Too soon.

But here’s the thing I keep learning:

Some of the best things I’ve written were written scared. 

Not because I had conquered the fear.

But because I decided that fear wasn’t the final editor. Oh! The joy of meeting myself in that vulnerable space was so so special. There’s a special kind of power in writing through the trembling and putting your finger to the page despite the doubt. When I am able to brave the truth, it resonates so deeply… it is not perfect but it so faithfully speaks about the condition of the heart and soul, of the experience of the moment… and there’s no greater gift!

I don’t always publish those pieces. In fact, many of them stay tucked in my folders, or sit quietly in my handwritten journals. It’s kind of like a waiting room of all my little projects waiting for their number to be called. But even as they wait, there’s something comforting about a storehouse of written stories. And I know that when the time is right and when the stars align and the main something shifts, I will be able to share. 

In any case, the act of writing is a kind of exhale and so, I continue to be convinced that even if I am afraid, I should write. Slowly I am accepting the journey of then taking the next step and sharing it anyway. Especially sharing those that feel the scariest to look at.Ultimately, for a writer and a storyteller, fear doesn’t mean stop. Sometimes, it just means pay attention and speak in the text. 

That First Rejection Letter

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I still remember the first time I got a rejection letter.

Printed. Formal. Almost polite enough to feel like a compliment—if you didn’t read it too closely.

I had submitted a short story I loved. It was raw, maybe a bit clumsy, but honest. I had stayed up two nights revising it, cutting and rearranging until it breathed right. I believed in it. I had determined that I need to get some awards under my belt. Up until that point, everything I had worked on would sail to the top. I was confident this would be no different. Hard work always paid off. 

I also painfully paid for many submissions in different short story competitions. Most ranged between ten dollars ($10) and no more than $15. So, yeah, I was confident. I was giddy. I told everyone about razing through this one competition that was quite great (I don’t have the heart to write the name of the competition).

And then the email came.

“We regret to inform you…”

The words that followed didn’t matter. As is my habit, I just closed the door on the nastiness that must have followed. I’ve never reread them.

But I remember the feeling. That slow sink in the chest. That flush of embarrassment, even though no one else saw it but me. I remember putting the letter in a drawer like it might contaminate the rest of the day.

What struck me most was how final it felt.

As if one editorial committee’s “no thanks” meant “never again.”

As if someone I’d never met had quietly shut a door I didn’t know I needed open.

I didn’t write for weeks after that. Maybe longer. I don’t remember. I just remember avoiding blank pages. They felt too loud. Too risky.

But eventually, I wrote something again. Not because I felt brave. But because the stories kept tugging at me. Quietly. Persistently. Like children tapping at the edge of sleep.

And here’s what I’ve learned since then:

Rejection is not a verdict.

It’s not a label.

It’s a moment. A signal. A chance to pause, maybe—but not to stop.

That letter didn’t mean I wasn’t a writer.

It just meant that piece wasn’t the right fit for that place at that time.

Which, by the way, is not a sentence I would have accepted back then. But here we are.

These days, rejection still stings. But it doesn’t define me. Not anymore.

Now, it’s just one line in a very long paragraph.

And I keep writing.