Between the Heartache and the Everyday: The back-and-forth of Grief

The quiet absurdity of grief: somehow the world keeps asking for ordinary things while you're anything but.

Grief isn’t something we can map out neatly. When we’re in the thick of it, theories and models often feel distant or irrelevant. What we really need is to feel understood - to know we’re not alone in the chaos of it all. And yet, every now and then, something comes along that quietly reflects what we’re already living - something that doesn’t try to fix or solve grief, but simply gives language to its rhythm.

One of those is an idea that speaks to the strange, jarring reality of feeling both swallowed by sorrow and simultaneously expected to keep going.

This idea suggests that grief moves between two spaces: one where we’re deep in the pain, and one where we’re just trying to survive the day-to-day. Not because we’re healing. Not because it’s getting easier. But because life, maddeningly, keeps going. We still need to eat. Pay bills. Care for others. And all the while, our heart feels like it’s shattered in a thousand quiet places.

This juxtaposition between emotional heaviness and the mundane day-to-day can feel deeply uncomfortable. To shop for groceries while your world has just been torn apart seems so incongruent. And yet life requires that of us.

Many clients come to counselling distressed by well-meaning friends and family who encourage them to resume their daily routines - a subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle suggestion to “move on.” But that phrase is a painful oversimplification. When someone you love dies, you don’t “get over” it. The grief remains. It weaves itself into you. It changes your shape. Over time, you may learn to live around it, but it never really leaves. Grief isn’t a wound that heals. It’s a presence. A companion. Sometimes quiet, sometimes loud.

And yet… some days, we must do the daily tasks of living.

Some people find comfort in the image of grief as a ball in a box. The ball stays the same size, but the box - the life around it - slowly grows. And yet, even that can feel too neat. For many, grief is the box. It’s the air they breathe. Especially in the early months, and even for years after, the darkness can feel endless.

You might notice yourself swinging between different states - some days immersed in memories and sorrow, other days distracted by practicalities. This isn't a sign of progress or regression. It’s just how grief works. It’s unpredictable. Messy. Some days you function. Other days, you're undone. One minute you’re feeling fine at the supermarket, the next you’re sobbing in the car park. That’s not a breakdown - it’s grief, alive and real.

Especially early on, it can feel like you're split in two - handling paperwork, planning a funeral, responding to messages - while inside, you feel barely tethered to the world. This experience of being emotionally torn between grief and the demands of daily life can also begin long before a loss fully occurs – an experience known as anticipatory grief. And this doesn’t go away quickly. For many, it doesn’t go away at all. The grief softens in places, perhaps, but it also settles in. You may learn how to carry it, but it will always be there. That’s not failure. That’s love, enduring.

People grieve differently. Some throw themselves into logistics and tasks. Others retreat into stillness. Some need to talk; others hold it quietly. I once worked with a client who said her grief needed words. She came to counselling because the people around her didn’t seem to need the same kind of emotional expression she did. For her, talking and feeling were essential. For others in her family, grief showed up more silently - in action and thought. This difference created tension - like someone was grieving “wrong.” But the truth is, we each have our own language for grief. None of them are wrong.

Grief is not a problem to solve or a phase to pass. It is a lifelong process of carrying something that matters deeply. It does not demand closure. It does not ask you to let go. It asks only that you survive the day in whatever way you can.

And if you’re in that place right now - the dark, heavy space where nothing feels possible - please know: it’s okay to be there. You don’t need to find the light. You don’t need to feel hopeful. You just need to be. Grief is allowed to be unchanging, heavy, and unmoving. There’s no timeline. No right way. Just your way.

You are not broken for still feeling it. You are not failing because it hasn’t eased. You are grieving - and that, in itself, is an act of love.

And if you are someone who prefers to work things through with others, counselling can offer a space to sit with the weight of it all - no expectations, no pressure to be anywhere other than where you are. Just room to feel, to speak, or to be silent. You're welcome here, exactly as you are.