Dear Hope: I feel like I’m supposed to be “over” my grief, but I’m not. Is there something wrong with me?

Dear Hope,

I feel like I’m supposed to be over my grief, but I’m not. Is something wrong with me?

We're fed a misleading idea: grief as a tidy process with clear phases and stages. But our lived experience never matches that convenient narrative. Our grief doesn't follow a predictable path toward some predetermined resolution.

The reality is that grief becomes a part of you. Some days it's overwhelming. Other days it walks quietly beside you. Sometimes it fades enough that you can breathe freely—until something unexpected brings it rushing back.

People prefer the simplified version of healing with clear progress markers. They become uncomfortable with grief that lingers. But eventually, we learn how to stop measuring our healing against their expectations.

This grief isn't a failure—it's simply the ongoing echo of meaningful connection and deep loss. The depth of this emptiness reflects exactly how much you valued what was lost. And that's nothing for which we need to apologize.

You don't "get over" loving someone. You're not trying to restore some previous version of yourself. The old version of you is gone. Instead, you're becoming something different—someone shaped by this particular experience, transformed by specific losses. You’re becoming someone new.

You're not failing at healing. You’re building your grief muscles. You're learning to carry the weight of grief in a way that allows you to continue living. That's a quiet, but significant, achievement that very few recognize.

Wherever you are in this difficult terrain—whether struggling or surviving or finding moments of peace—you're exactly where you need to be.This is the natural consequence of having loved deeply in an impermanent world.