Grief is...

Grief is your exhausted legs at mile 26 of an ultra-marathon. 

Grief is your lungs gasping for air at the top of a steep hill. 

Grief is unsteady. It's how your legs feel after climbing or descending that steep hill. 

Grief is a hidden root that you didn't see and tripped over, causing you to fall and bleed.

It's you trying to find your footing but never feeling completely solid because your world has been turned upside down. What once was solid and concrete has been ripped out from underneath you — and there's no solution or fix for that.  Grief comes and goes, smooth and rocky. It ebbs and flows. 

There is no solution for grief but to just feel.  Feel the pain. Feel the shakey legs. Feel the hurt in your lungs.  Feel the cut on your leg from falling, the blood dribbling down your leg, the swollen joint, the bruising.  Feel it all and remember.

Feel and be honored, in a way, that you loved someone so much.  So, so, so much —  that it hurts this much to no longer have them here in your life.

Grief is a scar that you'll carry for the rest of your life.  Unlike the visible ones we wear from a trail we took too fast, that hidden root that tripped us.  We grow to be proud of these scars, for they are a memory of all the hard things we conquer, and with time, we can grow to become proud of our grief. 

I'm proud of my scars. 

I'm proud of my grief. 

And I am fortunate to have had someone I love so much.  

#grief #endurance #trailrunning #loss