GRIEF.
I am 33 years old,
and grief and I are on a first-name basis.
Not the delicate, black-veiled grief
people like to talk about at funerals.
I mean the feral kind.
The kind that kicks your front door in,
drinks your coffee,
sits on your chest at 3 a.m.,
and says,
"Well. This isn't the life you ordered, is it?"
No.
It isn't.
I grieve the child
who never came.
The pregnancies that existed only
in hope,
in calendars,
in ovulation strips,
in prayers whispered into bathroom mirrors.
I grieve a body
that sometimes feels less like a home
and more like a hostage negotiation.
Chronic pain-
what a ridiculous phrase.
As if there's anything "chronic"
about waking up every day
and discovering your own body
has chosen violence.
I grieve the birth I imagined.
The music.
The moment.
The movie version.
Instead, life handed me a rough draft
written by someone who clearly skipped the instructions.
I grieve breastfeeding.
Not because three months wasn't enough,
but because I wanted more.
Because love is a strange thing-
it always wants one more minute,
one more day,
one more ounce.
I grieve the mother I thought I'd be.
The wife I thought I'd be.
The woman who could do it all
without needing rest,
without pain,
without limits.
She never existed.
And frankly,
she sounds exhausting.
I grieve my little brother.
The absence of him.
The conversations we'll never have.
The years he should have gotten.
The future that was stolen
without asking permission.
Some losses don't get smaller.
You just get stronger
from carrying them.
I grieve family.
Not the people-
the idea.
The fantasy that blood automatically means loyalty.
The fantasy that love always protects.
The fantasy that betrayal comes from strangers.
Sometimes the deepest cuts
come from people who know exactly where to place the knife.
I grieve the years lost to toxicity.
The birthdays missed.
The memories that never happened.
The family photos
with invisible empty spaces.
I grieve distance.
The miles.
The oceans.
The impossible arithmetic
of loving people you cannot reach.
I grieve friendships
that turned out to be lessons.
Being dismissed.
Disrespected.
Made to feel "too much."
Too sensitive.
Too intense.
Too emotional.
Funny how the people who benefit from your silence
always call your voice a problem.
I grieve the girl who was gaslit.
The teenager who learned
to question her own reality
before she learned to trust it.
I grieve the woman who was assaulted.
Not because she was broken.
Because she deserved better.
Because what happened was wrong.
Full stop.
No asterisks.
No explanations.
No excuses.
Wrong.
I grieve living in a world
where cruelty often gets promoted,
where injustice trends,
where empathy is treated like weakness.
I grieve being neurodivergent.
Not because there is something wrong with me.
There isn't.
But because it can be lonely
to live in a world
built for different wiring.
I feel everything.
Everything.
The beauty.
The heartbreak.
The joy.
The rage.
Sometimes I wish I felt less.
Then I remember:
The same depth that breaks me
is the same depth that lets me love.
So here I stand.
Thirty-three.
Scarred.
Exhausted.
Grateful.
A woman stitched together
from losses that should have buried her.
A woman who has cried oceans
and still somehow carries fire.
I am not who I thought I would be.
Thank God.
Because she was built from assumptions.
I was built from survival.
From grief.
From hard truths.
From resilience.
From learning that strength
isn't staying untouched by life.
Strength is letting life break you
and refusing to become bitter.
Strength is carrying grief
without letting it carry you.
Strength is saying,
"Yes, this hurt."
"Yes, this changed me."
"Yes, I deserved better."
And then continuing anyway.
So here's to grief.
The unwanted teacher.
The relentless bastard.
The companion I never asked for.
I hate what it took.
I honour what it taught.
And despite everything-
the pain,
the betrayal,
the loss,
the longing-
I am still here.
Still laughing.
Still loving.
Still fighting.
Still becoming.
A strong fucking woman.
Not in spite of my grief.
Because of it.
Yours Sincerely, Brianna de Graaf
