GUYS DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE LIKE KINDA SAD. Or do… you weird masochist… whatever floats your boat.
Some people don’t disappear. They just slowly stop existing in the way you knew them.
I used to think losing someone was something that happened all at once. A phone call. A slammed door. A funeral. Something obvious. Something you could point to and say, that was the moment everything changed. But I’ve learned that some losses don’t announce themselves. Some people don’t disappear. They just slowly stop existing in the way you knew them.
Your older brother grows up, moves away, and one day you realize you haven’t sat on his bedroom floor talking for years. He’s still your brother. You still love him. But the version of him who used to be just down the hall only exists in your memories. Now you don’t know him all that well and question if you really want to.
A best friend slowly becomes someone you have to catch up with instead of someone who already knows everything. Conversations become birthdays. Birthdays become likes on Instagram. Somewhere along the way, the person you could call at 2 a.m. becomes someone you wonder if you even still follow.
Your parents stop looking invincible. You notice new wrinkles, slower steps, stories they’ve already told. One day it hits you that they’re getting older too, and suddenly you’re grieving a version of them that’s sitting right across from you at dinner.
Even places change. The restaurant where everyone celebrated birthdays closes. Your childhood home belongs to another family. The street you rode your bike down feels smaller than you remember.
It’s strange how grief can exist without death.
No one sends flowers when a friendship quietly fades.
There isn’t a funeral for the childhood version of your brother. No one gathers to mourn the parents who are still here but somehow feel different than they did when you were seven. There are no sympathy cards for realizing you’ll never again be the person you were before life started changing everyone around you.
You just carry it.
…quietly and awkwardly and sometimes damn does it feel like hell on Earth.
Maybe that’s why these losses are so confusing? Idk really. They’re invisible. The people are still alive. They’re still posting pictures. They still exist. But your relationship with them belongs to another chapter, and sometimes that’s what you’re really grieving. It sounds silly to grieve a follower, but it means their life keeps going without you. I think we spend so much time wishing people would stay the same that we forget they’re living a life that’s changing them just as much as ours is changing us. Maybe the hardest part isn’t accepting that people change. Maybe it’s accepting that we don’t get to keep every version of the people we love. (At least for me this is the hardest part).
Some chapters end without anyone realizing they’re the last. The last sleepover with your best friend. The last time your brother lived at home. The last family vacation before everyone became too busy. The last conversation before “I’ll call you later” quietly turned into months. You never know it’s the last time until it’s already become this bittersweet memory.
Maybe that’s why we grieve some people twice.
Once when the relationship changes.
And again when we realize it will never change back.
