I’m not gonna bore you with the details of a failed relationship, especially when both parties were simply navigating problems too big to fit in a one-bedroom apartment. The important part (unfortunately) is that I was heartbroken. I went from having my entire life planned out to floating in space without a tether. I lost not only my relationship, but also my best friend, my future, and even some parts of myself. It was truly one of the hardest times of my life.
Again, the heartbreak isn’t the point. The grief that followed is.
I dream in vivid imagery, especially when I’m processing my emotions. For weeks, my nights were filled with scenes of drowning, my body being eclipsed by wave after wave in an endless ocean. That’s exactly how I saw grief. Grief, to me, was an undertow yanking at my feet, unrelenting in its attempts to pull me under. I had to constantly fight to keep my head above the water, perpetually bracing myself for the next wave of sadness. It left me exhausted and disoriented, continually scanning my surroundings for the next reminder that I was experiencing profound loss.
This wasn’t a new feeling to me— I’ve lost loved ones who I miss every day— but it was certainly weird to grieve something that hadn’t died.
Which brings me to what happened. It all came about when my roommate and I went on a walk and stopped at a local church to check out the architecture. We walked up the stairs, admiring art pieces of Jesus and noting the community events posted on the corkboards, until we came to big, heavy wooden doors. As I pushed open the door, I felt something change in the air. Since it was 2 PM on a Wednesday, not many people were present, but the few who were were scattered in the pews, heads down and deep in prayer. Music was playing quietly through loud speakers, and the lights were dimmed comfortably. It was peaceful. All I could think about was how desperately I craved that peace and, of course, the one person I wanted to share that peace with. Ouch. In crashed the next wave of my endless ocean, and a tear escaped my eye while I scanned the room.
I am not a religious person; my closest experience with god was begrudgingly attending church on Sunday mornings after sleepovers with my Christian friends growing up. My mom vehemently rejects the concept of organized religion, and, like a good daughter, I carry her skepticism forward into my day-to-day life. Still, walking by the confessionals lining the church walls, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a god out there who was revelling in my misery. Why else would something that brought me so much happiness end so abruptly, so decisively, on a random day in October? I’ve never been someone to fall into things casually, so the minute I opened my mind to that feeling, it became all-consuming. At first, I was convinced I had committed some terrible crime by mistake and all my suffering was an omniscient being pulling the strings as punishment. As I weathered the wave of sadness, I decided I was simply playing my part in an expansive narrative called life. Rather than being an autonomous being whose suffering was mere happenstance, I was in some way being guided to the pre-determined life set out for me.
My interpretation of religion never extended to a heaven or hell, it was firmly planted in the present. It also didn’t change how I lived, just how I looked at my experiences. I would cry at night, hands clasped together over my mouth to keep quiet, silently praying that something somewhere would heal me, save me, stop my grief. Even in my better moments, I was grateful to the universe rather than myself.
My writing at this time was heavily imbued with religiosity.
At my worst, I’m knelt by the toilet
Puking up 3 years of broken promises.
So I tell god they’ve wronged me.
Doesn’t matter who is up there
I just need someone to listen.
Someone who can exorcize the demons
Nestled so deeply in my mind.
Hands interlocked at my chest
Over the heart I’m holding together.
On my knees, I hold my breath,
Waiting for something to answer my prayers.
So far, it seems like a very negative take on religion, but I promise there was more to it. I honestly believed that if I could just figure out the universe’s plan, in all its enormous complexities, then I would understand what was happening to me. It gave me peace and comfort to know I was, in this moment, not responsible for creating a fulfilling life from the bottom up. Instead, I could trust that once the supreme being (whatever that meant) was satisfied, my life would return to normal, and I would’ve processed my grief.
Obviously, I traded a lot in exchange for that temporary peace— I went from believing in self-determination to naming ‘fate’ as the executor of my will, i.e. the only thing capable of making choices for me. I hesitated when thinking about the future, unsure of what the omniscient force had planned for me. Equally obviously, this isn’t really how religion works for most people. I don’t think any of this should be read as an honest divine realization; it is much more a symptom of desperation in the wake of immense sorrow.
The grief lessened on another random day, just like the one in October, except snowier. I couldn’t evoke that same deep belief in a trickster god punishing me for some invisible sin. I couldn’t even believe in a god who was testing me to show my strength. Even worse, I realized that most of the good things I experienced were because of my choices. I came to the underwhelming conclusion that maybe sometimes life just sucks and people just leave. Way less fun than converting to a new religion, I know.
I haven’t gotten over my grief, mostly because I don’t think you ever do. You learn to swim in the ocean, and the waves become less and less catastrophic. I’ve gotten comfortable with grief, I think, in part because I leaned on religion to give me the peace that I had lost. I also won’t say I’m at the same level of skepticism I was before. I feel ever so slightly more open to the idea of a higher being, probably out of fondness and gratitude.
Whether or not there’s something out there deciding my fate doesn’t really matter to me. But if you’re out there, thanks for helping me get through October.
Simone Brown 