The Myth of ‘Moving On’: Grief in a World That Doesn’t Stop
We live in a world that expects grief to behave.
Take your time—but not too much.
Feel your feelings—but keep them tidy.
Move through it—but please, don’t linger.
Meanwhile, something inside asks quietly, “Why am I not over this yet?”
Grief doesn’t ask for closure, it asks for companionship.
Grief rarely fits the timeline we’re handed. Whether it’s the death of a loved one, the quiet unraveling of a relationship, the ache of a parent who was never truly there, or the rupture of migration—there’s pressure to metabolize loss quickly, cleanly, and with grace.
But grief doesn’t work that way.
It doesn’t end. It shape-shifts. It recedes, then returns—sometimes in the grocery aisle, sometimes in a song, sometimes in the scent of soap that brings you to your knees. It weaves itself into the fabric of your life.
The Grief We Carry
Psychologist Simon Shimshon Rubin describes continuing bonds—the idea that we don’t sever ties with what we’ve lost, but renegotiate the relationship.
We don’t move on. We move with.
A memory. A ritual. A conversation you keep having in your head. These are not signs of being stuck. They’re how we carry love forward.
A daughter talks to her late mother while cooking.
A man visits the sea on his partner’s death anniversary.
An immigrant whispers to a photo of home.
A couple healing after infidelity reads old messages—not to romanticize, but to reconnect
A therapist lights a candle each year for a client lost to suicide.
These acts are quiet refusals to forget. They are also acts of resilience.
When Grief Has No Clear Edges
Some losses defy definition. Pauline Boss called it ambiguous loss—when someone is physically gone but psychologically present, or vice versa.
These griefs don’t come with funerals. No casseroles. No clean endings. They linger. Not because something’s wrong—but because something mattered.
Healing isn’t erasure. It’s making space for sorrow without being defined by it.
You wonder if there’s something wrong with you for remembering.
There isn’t.
Grief is not a weakness. It’s loyalty.
A form of love with nowhere else to go.
If you’ve ever smiled at work with a heart full of shards,
If you’ve stayed steady while something inside you cracked—
You’re not broken. You’re carrying something precious.
The world may not pause for your pain. But you don’t have to rush your healing.
Let grief take its time.
Let it teach you to live without letting go of what mattered.
Let it soften you, deepen you, make space in you.
Moving on is a myth.
Moving with is life.
(Pasadena, CA – July 2025)
