I feel paralyzed by the grief often. Today it looks like having a moment of feeling stuck, sitting on the couch. The house is cold but I don't want to make it warmer. I eat cold food, because it's more important to eat than it is to wait for the energy to come to warm up food. The cat is sitting next to me, asking for my attention.

I have sparse moments of feeling good, but not a lot feels that way these days. In Hindu culture there's a one year mourning period after losing a family member, so I give myself grace to just sit in it. If I can be still long enough, the tears come. There is nothing to solve, here, in my life. There is nothing to change.

Sometimes I think back to my conditioning, to my schooling at MIT, to my first decade in tech. And the voice that's conditioned is like "what is the point of all this? What is the evolutionary benefit of grief?"

I don't know, but I have learned to slow down and listen. I don't always feel that folks with whom I share a past understand, but then I hung out with my old classmate last weekend, who's also going through a lot of grief. He told me he always understands himself better after talking with me. Something in that brings me a sense of peace, or wholeness, about where I am.

I want to continue cultivating a deeper sense of love for "what is." I love myself for where I am. I love our species despite and through the broken and often myopic ways we treat our world. I love the friends of mine who have shared some of the same high intensity environments, and know about feeling pressure to perform.

Here's one thing that I know helps: crying. I have learned to cry all the time. I have learned to know what I'm feeling, instead of trying to meet my feelings with scrolling, eating, working, gaming, etc. I still do that stuff but I let myself feel way, way more. This is probably a huge part of what makes the grief manageable, and helps me trust in the mystery of it. Crying feels good.

I want to advocate for a way of living and being in the world that doesn't involve as much masking or pretending. I think it's totally accessible to most people, even if your life doesn't look like mine.

What does grief look like for you now? The door is always open if you want to talk