Grief Doesn't Have a Timeline (And Anyone Who Says Otherwise Can Sit Down)

"You should be over it by now." "They'd want you to be happy." "It's been a year."

If someone has said any of these things to you — first of all, I'm sorry. Second of all, they're wrong.

Grief doesn't run on a schedule. There are no five stages you move through in order and then emerge healed on the other side. That's a myth. A comfortable, well-intentioned myth that mostly serves the people watching you grieve — because grief makes people uncomfortable, and timelines make it feel manageable.

But grief isn't manageable. It's messy, non-linear, and completely individual. You can be fine for six months and then fall apart in the frozen food aisle because Fleetwood Mac came on. You can laugh at a party and sob in the car on the way home. Both of those things are grief. Both of them are normal.

"Moving on" is the wrong phrase anyway. You don't move on from someone you loved. You move forward — and you bring them with you.

The goal of grief work isn't to stop hurting. It's to build a life big enough to hold both the loss and everything that comes after it. To carry your person without it crushing you.

That's what therapy for grief looks like. Not a timeline. Not "closure." Just learning how to carry it differently.

There's no right way to do this. But you don't have to figure it out alone. 🌿