A Letter to My Past Lover: About Grief

This article is a part of the continuing series of my reflection on self, people, love, intimacy, solitude, and the most complex one, life itself. I write this series in the form of a letter to a past lover or simply self-talking. He was at one time one of my closest friends, and I seemed rather self-expressive around him, romantically spirited and simultaneously inferior, tactless, even cliche. This dramatic, cringing self-contradiction is a side of me that also everyone in this world possesses but does not commonly show up. So I hope you all relax your muscles and facial expressions while reading and enjoy these sweet-bitter pieces.:)

This article was originally published on Medium.com on June 7, 2024.

I’ve always felt a calling from deep grief at bedtime; I bet you know that. You must have gotten so many headaches over my unnamed, untracked sadness during the many nights we spent together in the past. In fact, I’ve found it headaching, too. Thus, I have had thorough self-reflection, even self-shaming. And that makes perfect sense — because I had no idea either where grief came from or what it meant in my life.

Until I began to write letters to you in a tone of gentle fondness — the way I attempted to dissect me in detail to you, trying to peel back its flesh and recognize every bone in detail. And then I began to see through myself. I began to be surprised that life was far more ordinarily peaceful than I had ever imagined and my grief far more mundane than I had ever imagined.

But apparently, I am not admitting that grief has no value. One thing I gained from writing is that I may be prone to mourn, yet I have extracted something more beautiful and eternal along it. What a fortune I own — life has given me poetry when it has given me tears.

So, hey, don’t try to talk me out of crying — because art follows behind. It is the path that breaks me through mediocrity and makes me uniquely grained. These words will resonate deeply with every ordinary person on the planet, bringing the sudden click to them that those bored sadnesses are never banal but instead are the first questions humans ask ourselves to explore why we are here and what makes us HUMAN.

I can never tell if it’s a benign suggestion(psychologically), but you know — people who cry aren’t necessarily pessimistic.

I wish you all well.