grief is bullshit but also grief is so WEIRD
I read Janelle Monaé's coming out article in Rolling Stone (excellent piece and really moving), and there's a part where she's talking about losing Prince, her mentor, and not having had his feedback for all of the creative process on her new album, and she says,
And I just immediately teared up; I barely even had time to consciously remember losing a mentor first.
I didn't linger on thinking about the (now old hat but nonetheless poignant) experience of creating without one's mentor because I went back to reading the rest of the article, but I remembered the sneak tears later and marveled all over again at grief.
We all talk about the initial 'stages' of grief and the idiosyncratic process of processing the initial sting of it, and we all less frequently hear about how grief never truly goes away even if it gets easier, but I'm more used to experiencing the latter property in the form of the occasional sharp pang when I'm reminded of someone I've lost, or a brief wistful reverie about how it would be nice to ask them about X or tell them about Y.
But this was such a visceral knee-jerk reaction, and it was hooked to a grief I hadn't spared more than a few thoughts for in months - an old event, before losing a two beloved pets and a grandparent I still miss (of course they don't have any sort of internal triage relating to importance or influence, though, that wouldn't even make sense; but I've thought about the latter more often in the last couple of years).
"It's a difficult thing to lose your mentor in the middle of a journey they had been a part of."
And I just immediately teared up; I barely even had time to consciously remember losing a mentor first.
I didn't linger on thinking about the (now old hat but nonetheless poignant) experience of creating without one's mentor because I went back to reading the rest of the article, but I remembered the sneak tears later and marveled all over again at grief.
We all talk about the initial 'stages' of grief and the idiosyncratic process of processing the initial sting of it, and we all less frequently hear about how grief never truly goes away even if it gets easier, but I'm more used to experiencing the latter property in the form of the occasional sharp pang when I'm reminded of someone I've lost, or a brief wistful reverie about how it would be nice to ask them about X or tell them about Y.
But this was such a visceral knee-jerk reaction, and it was hooked to a grief I hadn't spared more than a few thoughts for in months - an old event, before losing a two beloved pets and a grandparent I still miss (of course they don't have any sort of internal triage relating to importance or influence, though, that wouldn't even make sense; but I've thought about the latter more often in the last couple of years).