August 1 was a really, really good day—it was full of joy, connection, and tacos. It felt like a good omen, to have a day like that to kick off the month. I was happy, and it was wonderful.

But I turned the corner, and my heart is a little heavy. It’s not surprising. It’s always something I know is coming, eventually. This month contains the anniversary of my mom’s death, my aunt, and two grandparents. While time has grown a field of wildflowers between each one, I still find there’s mud on my shoes, so to speak.

Grief, when it’s fresh, is different. It’s overtaking, all-consuming. Like a haunting.

Grief, after some distance, becomes like a horse you cannot train—perfectly behaved at times, and then it will simply buck you off, seemingly out of nowhere. Careful, or it’ll trample you.

Sometimes, it’s soothing to offer grief little tributes: look at old photos, make a favorite meal, read through old messages and letters. You can, for a time, sit with the ghost. As if you’re not always sitting with the ghost, in one way or another.

We carry grief like water: sometimes, it spills down the sides, and sometimes it does not. But we are always, in one way or another, carrying it. It is becoming on thing or another, but it is always water—be it river or rainstorm.

August is a month where I feel less myself in a lot of ways. Less rooted, less moored. Every feeling is closer to the surface. I cry more easily. But there’s a strange heaviness that settles under my skin like a suit of armor. Only, instead of protecting me, it weighs me down.

Grief is like that, too.

August is a month where I have a hard time making basic decisions. I know this, now, after many years of figuring out myself. I didn’t always. But I try to give myself a little extra grace, when I inevitably start waffling about choices. Do I go? Do I not go? What do I want? What do I feel? Am I really angry about X or is it grief? Am I really hurt by Y or is it grief? Where is the root to this or that feeling? Sometimes, I get in my own way.

I am also either more sensitive of my own feelings or I become way less tolerant of other people’s nonsense. It might be both. It’s probably both.

I don’t have the capacity to take on things I normally would without hesitation. What might not bother me during another month hits like shrapnel. I don’t expect anyone to walk on eggshells, but I am certainly far more aware of when I feel like I simply cannot. (Boundaries are good and healthy and important on an ordinary Thursday. But they are even more important sometimes.)

And when you’re in the middle of a labyrinth without a map, you can only keep going. There’s no secret beyond that. It’s one foot in front of the other. And that’s the downside and the mandate of loss: You cannot fight it. You can only accept it, like an answer to a riddle you never wanted.

Does all this sound maudlin? Perhaps it is. But the hard bits of life sometimes get swept under the rug, and I don’t want that. Because maybe someone else out there is feeling this too, and that means they feel less alone, reading this. That’s the whole point of writing, isn’t it? Connection. Reflection. Community. A shared heartbeat. A mirror.

So, if you ever find yourself going through it, know this: You don’t have to do it alone. There’s someone a text message away. There’s that quote about the cracks are how the light gets in, and yes. It’s that. Darkness is only ever temporary. It might seem otherwise. It might insist that it is a constant. But that’s a tale told by a liar, without a convincing smile.

The days pass. The light returns, bit by bit. And there’s always warmth on the other side.

Until next week, kittens —

XOXO

PS If you haven’t ordered Offerings for Ordinary Gods yet, it’s available worldwide wherever books are sold. But Inkwood Books and The Head and the Hand have signed stock. And if you liked the book, please leave a review somewhere online! Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, etc. That and word-of-mouth really mean a hell of a lot. Okay? Okay.