Grief and Slinkys

Let’s be honest, grief is rude 😒. It does not care if you have waited an entire year to see the New Kids on the Block reunion tour 🎤 or if you are simply trying to enjoy a brand-new episode of your favorite guilty pleasure 📺. It just shows up. No warning. No invitation. No consideration for your plans 🚪.

Most of the time, we do not even have the space for it. The loss happened days, weeks, months, years, sometimes decades ago ⏳. So why now? Why today? Why can I not stop crying 😭? The feelings rush in fast and heavy. Overwhelming. Frustrating. Infuriating 🤬. And yes, deeply sad 💔.

Over the past few weeks, we have talked about how society can make us feel like our grief has an expiration date ⛔ and how grief often invites its friends to the party 🎭. Now we are adding a new twist. Grief loves to swing the door open and walk in whenever it feels like it 🙄. As if the loss alone was not enough, we also get the privilege of trying to push it back down at the exact moments we have waited for a release. Picture this. I am at my kid’s hockey game 🏒 and suddenly I am fighting tears because the rink decides to play the song my dad used to sing on road trips 🎶. Now I am sitting there in my nineteen layers of clothing looking like a swollen Teletubby, with gloves on 🧤, snot dripping 🤧, and mascara ready to betray me 🥲. Meanwhile, I am supposed to swallow the grief and pretend nothing is happening because society says this is not an appropriate time to leak emotion 🙃.

This is the impossible task of trying to squeeze our grief into other people’s boxes 📦 of what is acceptable. They are not you. They do not have your memories, your relationships, your love, or your pain 💭. We are all different. We love differently. We grieve differently. That is not a flaw in the system. That is just being human 🌱. Honestly, life would be easier if feelings came with an instruction manual or at least a warning label ⚠️, but here we are.

Think about the game Perfection, (hold onto your anxiety for a few seconds)! You can try to shove that square piece into the circle hole all day, but it is not going to fit ⭕❌. That’s what grief is. It comes in different shapes, different sizes, different intensities, and on completely different timelines ⏰. It shows up in grocery store aisles 🛒, hockey rinks 🧊, and late at night when you are just trying to watch TV in peace 🌙. It is okay if your grief does not match whatever rulebook someone else made up in their head 📘. You get to feel what you feel. You get to honor what you lost. You get to hold your grief for as long as it serves you and helps you heal ❤️‍🩹. That is not weakness. That is love doing its best to find a new shape.

If grief is going to show up whenever it feels like it, then fine. It can sit there quietly like a fanny pack. Nobody asked for it, nobody wants it, and yes, it is awkward and kind of ugly, but here we are. Just because grief shows up does not mean you owe the world a front row performance 🎭 to our potential freak out or leaky tear ducts.

Grief is love that has nowhere to land yet 💔. It will not always feel this sharp or this loud, and it will not always ambush you in the middle of public places. But in the mean time, you are allowed to feel your feelings without apologizing for them, and you are allowed to take a minute when it hurts. Let the wave come. Ride it. Breathe 🌊😮‍💨. Then go back to what you were doing when you are ready. That is not weakness. That is being human in real time.

So, when grief hits in public, the goal is not to stand out. The goal is simply to get through the wave 🌊. Sometimes that starts with catching yourself before your mind spirals. A quiet thought like, stay with me, can snap your brain out of its free fall just long enough to stay present 🤯. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just enough to interrupt the emotional chaos.

Then breathe. Slow, steady breaths tell your body it is safe. In through your nose, out through your mouth, like you are exhaling a secret you do not want to keep 😮‍💨🤐. It lowers the emotional volume so you can think again.

Your senses can help you stay grounded. Feel your feet on the floor 👣. Touch your coat 🧥. Count the lights, the tiles, or the threads on your scarf 💡🧣. You are not trying to erase the emotion. You are giving your body something to land on so your tears do not turn into a tidal wave 🌊😭.

If the wave is too big, step away, into the bathroom, hallway, car, anywhere with a little privacy 🚗🚻. That is not weakness. That is emotional damage control 🧯. You do not owe strangers a front row seat 🙅‍♀️ to anything.

Sometimes all you need is one sentence. Not a monologue. Not a dramatic speech. Just something true, like I miss them and this hurts ❤️. Then breathe. No TED Talk. No overthinking 🎤.

It hits hard in the moment 😔, but letting the memory move without letting it hijack your whole day is how you stay in control 💪. You do not have to shut yourself down just to keep other people comfortable 🙅‍♀️. Feel it, breathe, and keep living 😮‍💨🌱. That is how you carry grief without letting it run the show 🎭.

Grief is a lot like a slinky. It stretches, flips, and takes off in directions you did not plan for, but it can always be scooped up again 🫳 😮‍💨. If grief wants to tumble down the stairs, let it, because you can always gather it up and tuck it away in your fanny pack until you are ready.

Next time your memories or sadness try to overtake you, especially in public, don’t let it get you all twisted (like a Slinky, see what I did there 😉), take a deep breath and give those emotions a soft launch 🌬️ in whatever direction you’d like them to land. Preferable without getting yourself all tangled up if you can!

Let me know if any of this resonates with you 💬. Don’t forget to like and share on all the socials 📲. Go out and do something for yourself today 💛.

Written by Stacy Dahlke, LPC, an EMDR-trained therapist helping anxious, overwhelmed adults in Wisconsin navigate trauma, identity shifts, adult ADHD, and the complexities of grief.