notes from a person passing through

Written after noticing my own laughter sounded like someone else’s voice in the room.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Grief is quieter sometimes. It’s opening the fridge and realizing something you bought weeks ago has liquefied. It’s brushing your teeth in the morning and feeling like you’re doing it for someone else’s body. It’s looking in the mirror and not feeling much at all, just an odd kind of absence. The kind of sadness you can’t name hides in those moments when you feel miserable but don’t know why.

When my dad died, people told me to take my time. I think I did, but not in the way they meant. It was the start of a new university year, and everything was online because of the pandemic. I’d wake up just in time to say “here” during roll call, then fall asleep again the same minute. On paper, I was present. But in reality, I was drifting. Someone I’d been talking to started telling me he was in love with me. I didn’t feel flattered, I didn’t feel anything. I refused his advances, quietly. Like someone who knew they couldn’t carry another person’s feelings on top of everything else.

That period was also when I was about to start taking antidepressants for the first time in my life. I didn’t read the side effects. Not even once. I knew they were there, but I chose to avoid them because I didn’t want to give the experience too much weight. If I didn’t look too closely, maybe it wouldn’t become real. Maybe I could slip into it quietly, without forming an opinion.

Meanwhile, my mom was in pieces. I’d never seen her that way before. She was broken open, trying to function inside a grief that swallowed everything. And because she couldn’t fall apart any more than she already had, I didn’t either. I stayed as calm as I could, I ate when I could, I kept the kitchen balcony open during the day, I answered messages. Because someone had to stay upright.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Dreams that felt warmer than the dead

Sometimes, in my dreams, my dad feels more alive than I do when I’m awake. He’s doing ordinary things: driving, laughing, cooking, just existing and I’m just watching. Those dreams feel warmer and more real than most of my actual days. It’s like he’s still somewhere, and I’m the one who disappeared. The living dead, drifting through routines that never quite feel like mine. Grief does that. It flips things. The dead become vivid. The living go quiet. I’d watch people move through their lives with color in their cheeks, messy hair from the wind. I felt like I was behind glass, barely making a sound.

And the longer it went on, the more I adjusted. There’s a kind of emotional decay that sets in when you live like that for too long. It’s not loud or obvious. It’s just this slow, creeping numbness that settles into your routines. You stop picturing the future, you stop checking your reflection, you live around the grief like it’s furniture you can’t move.

Ironically, I like to sleep in complete darkness. I don’t leave a light on for myself. I don’t expect anything to come back. But maybe that’s the strange thing about grief. It doesn’t want to be fixed. It just wants to be seen. Even if the only one watching is the ghost it left behind.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒