Everything Feels Heavy Right Now.

Everything Feels Heavy Right Now.

Here's What Your Grief Is Asking For.

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A month ago, a cat named Kiki died, and I have been carrying that loss ever since.

​Kiki was abandoned years ago in the townhouse complex where I used to live, left behind by someone who had also hurt her. My neighbor and I decided that wasn't going to be the end of her story. We both fed her every day, played with her, and made sure she was safe. My neighbor took her indoors, because I'm allergic and never could. But Kiki greeted me every single morning when I left for work and every evening when I came home. When I moved away, I visited her from time to time.

Kiki

Tiger's eye urn pendant, in the same golds and blacks she wore.

​In her last weeks she was diagnosed with an abdominal tumor, and her health declined fast. Our friends pooled money so she could be released from her pain with dignity and cremated. This past weekend, my neighbor surprised me with an urn pendant: a tiger's eye crystal on the front, Kiki's name on the back, and her ashes held inside.

​Here's the part I want you to notice: for a month, some voice in me kept whispering that I didn't have the right to grieve as if she were my cat. She lived somewhere else with someone else.

That voice is what I call the Created Self, the version of you assembled from other people's expectations about how you should feel and for how long. And it has been very loud lately.

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