Lowercase-g grief

Issue 122

Hello friend, welcome to Scrap Facts. I’m Katherine, and I’m glad you’re here.

If you’re new here, welcome. This newsletter came about from my health reporter days when I wanted to find a way to give life to the many fascinating tidbits that got cut from my stories. Now it’s evolved into a space where I write about what I learn wherever I can.

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Just two weeks after returning home from Boston where I left my spouse to start his PhD program, I drove up to Philly for a half marathon.

The race went fine. I finished, which something I didn’t do last time I took a stab at this particular course. (Tell me about your DNFs and I’ll assure you that you, too, can recover from it!) But it didn’t go as well as I wanted. By the end, I felt pretty crappy and was just ready to be done.

Make no mistake: the smile is because the finish line is 10 feet in front of me and I had been fantasizing about lying down for the last half hour.

Whatever, running is objectively silly. Large races are essentially a bunch of people pay to run a bunch of miles that don’t take them anywhere. Who cares?

Me, apparently! Because when I called Ben (aforementioned spouse) to check in, an unexpected rage ignited inside me. Every grievance I had amassed in recent and ancient history were like dry kindling. The particulars are kind of fuzzy now, but at the time I found fault with the entirety of my life. I constantly feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, or that if I do, it’s hard and I’m struggling, I sobbed. Nothing is wrong, but also: everything is.

Eventually, my fire burned itself out. I hiccupped as I calmed down, and apologized, grateful that only he (and later my mom when I went through a bonus round of feeling sorry for myself) had witnessed. I was embarrassed that the most cowardly version of myself came out of its little cave because of *checks notes* a hobby. When I got home, I crawled into bed, empty, alone, and sore.

I brought up my silly little rage with my therapist, and he hit me with something out of left field: He suggested I was grieving, and that anger is simply a part of that process.

I scoffed. No one has died! I am just struggling to stay on top of my life, and depending on the day this is either because I am smarter and better than everyone, or I am actually the Worst Person Alive. Therapist Dan shrugged and said I don’t have to believe him, and warned me that if I don’t acknowledge where these feelings are coming from, I will simply not move through them.

I know capital-G Grief. Not well, thankfully, but that will inevitably change with time. Grief is daunting and physical. To stifle something as wonderful and all-consuming as love is devastating. As long as we love those we’ve lost, we never really put Grief down.

I’d never considered the existence lowercase-g grief. Can you mourn something that isn’t alive? A concept? A version of yourself? A previous life?

I suppose transitions are a form of loss. Even if we are moving onward and upward, we are leaving a rendering of ourselves and our circumstances behind.

As a kid, I never thought about that part of growing up at all. I just wanted to get there so I wouldn’t have to worry about how it would all get done. Now I’m older, I realize that there is no arrival — we’re already here. This is it.

Just you wait, kid.

If I’m honest, this is not what I thought my life would look like today. I didn’t think I’d leave journalism, I didn’t think I’d give up drinking, I didn’t think I’d be queer, and I didn’t think that all of that would make even answering the question Who am I? that much more complicated.

I didn’t think I’d ever be in a long-distance relationship again. I didn’t think that such a relationship would look like me doing twice the chores with none of the joy of Ben’s company. I didn’t think that the stress of it all would impact my sleep and eating, and after all my frantic summer runs, I didn’t expect to bonk so hard in silly little race, either.

I’m not mad about it. Really. I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could, because I know some of these discomfort I feel in the short-term won’t last forever. Nothing is permanent, as my dumbest and also most profound tattoo reminds me when I remember to look. Most of the time, I really am fine.

But still — I could see how misalignment for the worse may lead to some frustration. And frustration, rubbed until its chafed and raw, leads to rage. It doesn’t seem like rational rage, though, so we tell ourselves it isn’t and we are fine, we just need to buck up a bit and be grateful, which leads to…more rage. Or, as I am learning, lowercase-g grief.

I don’t really know what to do about that, other than shift the perspective. Instead of starting with everything is fine, I just start with parts of this really, truly suck. Then, I can let myself be surprised by little moments of joy. These delights don’t fix everything, but they at least add some ease to existence and help keep lowercase-g grief at bay. Some of mine from the last week include:

• A housewarming party with a friend I’ve gotten to know over the last year

• Going to a movie by myself

• Taking care of the yard work (the triumph of it, doing it was more sweaty than anything)

• My indoor and outdoor cats

• Seeing other runners at a track workout. We didn’t run together, but we gave each other The Nod of Encouragement, which was nice

• Getting to know a new friend over coffee

• Dinner with my neighbors, in which one of the 7 year-old boys turned to his sister and said, apropos of nothing, “The good news is that you may develop super powers. The bad news is you may not.” Truer words have never been said.

I think there is more lowercase-g grief around than any of us want to admit. Who wants to be ungrateful in this day and age when the internet shows us all the suffering and Capital-G Grief in the world in real time? Maybe the way to start is just to admit that the world we were promised doesn’t exist, but the one we haven’t isn’t all bad.

One of my pockets of joy.

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What else have I been up to?

Rage reads: I decided to re-listen to R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War. This is my third time going through this book. I’ve listened to it once and read it once before—Emily Wu Zeller’s voice acting is incredible.

For me, The Poppy War trilogy is 10/5 stars. I love the fantasy world-building and nuanced characters so much. I respect Kuang’s use of fantasy to retell mid-20th century Chinese history set in a time similar to the Song Dynasty (about 1000 years prior).

But what I enjoy the most is the righteous rage Rin (the protagonist) feels. It’s palpable, justified, and all-consuming, and make you as the reader feel hungry for power and destruction.

I also read and loved Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder recently. Loosely, it’s a literary fiction/horror novel about a new mother who slowly turns into a wild dog. It is a commentary on the rage-inducing reality of being told that Women Can Have It All, only to realize that you personally cannot. (And again, no one really can.)

Follow me on Storygraph for more.

Rage watches: In the last week, I’ve seen The Substance, My Old Ass, and the 2009 masterpiece Jennifer’s Body. All of these have to do with growing up as a woman in some way. There is some rage in all of them, but also love and humor.

That’s all for now. Stay curious, friend! ❤️

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