volume one hundred and fifty-three

it looks like

📍Written hunched over in bed on Gubbi Gubbi Country, otherwise known as The Sunshine Coast, with the rain hitting the sides of the caravan on either side after a long week that has only been two days so far.

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Grief looks like being permanently connected — fingertip to keypad — to my laptop because I refuse to have social media on my phone. Visiting your profile again. Switching to the tagged posts. Seeing what other lovely stories have been shared of you. Scrolling your profile down to when we met and thinking “sweet little baby face”. Refreshing the page. Searching for traces of you.

Grief looks like replying to texts from Vancouver as I get them. As someone notorious for taking days (or even weeks) to respond, I am hanging on to any word from home. Every notification is like a hug from there. It’s me wishing I was not so far away and could share and listen to stories of you direct from the mouths of people who knew and loved you.

Grief looks like a lot of staring into space and my sister asking if I am tired and me unfairly snapping at her to say I am thinking about my dead friend and absolutely not tired.

Grief looks like reaching the waterfall on a family hike and watching brave people jump into the winter cold of the pool beneath. It looks like at the very last moment for opportunity, right as I am about to start the walk back to the car with everyone else, you popping into my head. I am fairly certain you’d have already jumped in. Swimmers with you or not. It looks like quickly pulling off my socks and shoes and getting in up to my knees as my brother-in-law waits behind with me. It looks like knowing I will not regret anything when I leave to go home.

Grief looks like crying in a closed food court coffee shop. It looks like laughing through my tears telling funny stories of you.

Grief looks like losing track of time while watching my one-year-old nephew play. Thinking that he doesn’t know what it means to be sad yet. Thinking that I hope he can not know for as long as possible as he builds Lego and giggles and taps his foot to his dad’s music.

Grief looks like planning my return to Vancouver and reconnecting with my endless summer goals. Chasing the sun on opposite sides of the globe, chasing stages on opposite sides of the globe, chasing loved ones on opposite sides of the globe.

Grief looks like my morning pages being letters to you every single day. “Thank you” is the most commonly used word.

Grief looks like going through a whole day of fun and realising not until the end when I get a text from a loving friend checking in, that I haven’t cried yet that day. Until then.

Grief looks like writing a note to you and popping it in the front of my notebook, alongside another note to someone else that I will also never get to deliver.

Grief looks like instantly telling all my other far-away friends when I am thinking of them. Refusing to mourn not doing so at any moment.

Grief looks like buying a new, expensive, cowboy hat. Splurging on something I have long wanted because what am I waiting for?

Grief looks like bare feet.

Grief looks like deciding what I need to let go of, writing that in journal form, and working up the courage to do it.

Grief looks like resentment.

Grief looks like Googling your name because I know you spent time here Down Under, and keeping the tab open of your face featured in the “Mullet haircut makes a stunning return in Perth” article.

Grief looks like searching for my next haircut on Google images because I got lazy but missing you makes me miss feeling cool with cool hair, the way you always looked cool with cool hair.

Grief looks like prioritising my creative pursuits, even if it means after everyone goes to bed. It means I get my family time and my writing time all in a day.

Grief looks like taking breaks in the caravan to cry, then freshening my make-up and returning to my family. It looks like having my four-year-old niece ask “What’s wrong with your eyes? Why are they all foggy?” because children have no filter.

Grief looks like renaming my savings accounts because what I was planning to save for is not what I am planning to save for now. Unknown and uncertain saving is a prayer.

Grief looks like writing an apology to someone I always thought owed me one. But realising none of that matters. I owe them one. And I give it.

Grief looks like people asking about you. People who never met you. People who offer me a reason to talk about you as much as I want to.

Grief looks like me replaying every interaction I can recall with you and wondering if I made as much effort to know you, as you made to know me. It looks like knowing that I didn’t. 

Grief looks like me missing that I will never get to see you, but maybe, as the days wear on, more so missing that I will not get to mourn you with those who will also mourn you. It looks like wondering if that is selfish to be what I am thinking about.

Grief looks like eating my feelings mostly in anything peanut butter flavoured.

Grief looks like getting to meetings because I am handling a pain I have never had to deal with sober.

Grief looks like denial. It looks like not actually believing that I won’t just be walking in the sun and see you ride up on your bike — your favourite mode of transport — and have you stop to chat for a long time.

Grief looks like whispering to myself, a lot, “Are you really gone?” and having to convince myself all over again that you are.

Grief looks like laughing with friends about how you catapulted us into hot horny summer when I saw you shirtless riding that bike and we spoke about it for days.

Grief looks like wiping unexpected tears, convinced I was done crying like there are rules about that, right before hosting a workshop because your friend you’re hosting with said exactly what you needed to hear — wisdom passed on to me from her child.

Grief looks like my tarot reads reconnecting me to what I wanted six months ago, a year ago, two years ago, my whole life. It looks like the plan I was slowly slipping and pivoting from — again — returning. It reads like they might be tarot cards I can’t help but think (or maybe just wish) you sent me. Why are they telling me to do what you loved?

Grief looks like tearful Zoom calls that comfort me.

Grief looks like writing about it because that is the thing I instinctively know how to do.

Grief looks like… I guess I’ll wait and see what else.

Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me something wonderful about someone you love.

hilaurendeborah

A post shared by @hilaurendeborah

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here are three things i struggled with this week:

⚖️ Walking the line.

🎇 Trusting my intuition.

💟 Missing my friends, my chosen family, my decade of intentional humans, very very much.

here are three blessings from this week:

🪩 Daily aunty dance parties.

🦋 Being amongst nature on multiple occasions.

🌝 Searching for the moon with my niece.

here are three goals for the coming week:

☎️ Make more phone calls back to one of my two homes, the one I am not in right now.

💤 Prioritising getting a full night’s sleep and actioning what that means for my commitments.

🛎️ Updating my housesit alerts because things have changed, for the better.

pics or it didn’t happen:

i got in

I love you. Now I am off to settle into my latest temporary home for the next six weeks, AKA find the closest ice cream shop.

🧡, LD (lauren deborah | she/they)