It felt as though grief broke me into a million pieces after Juliette died, and when I tried to reassemble myself I realised that some of the pieces didn’t fit any more. There were new parts too, and I found a lot of these were critical to my good mental health. It seems naive now that I did not anticipate how all of this would impact my relationships.
Yet how could it not? My beautiful girl died, and overnight my values changed. What mattered before suddenly seemed less important, even irrelevant. The knock-on from this in terms of friendship was that I could no longer offer people the same deal as before, and while some friendships became stronger, a fair few were snuffed out. I was nobody's idea of a good time. Later, new people appeared. Among these were real and empathetic souls with whom I could be myself, often because they too had experienced the worst of losses.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When Juliette first died, I clutched at the rags of my former life even as they split, and losing friends only amplified the despair. As for our little family unit, I was obsessed with keeping what remained of it intact, to stay married, but I “failed” there too. My ex and I had both lost our beautiful daughter, and it affected the dynamic of how we related to one another. Perhaps our marriage would not have ended had she lived? Sadly, I’ll never know.
I think I’m an averagely flawed human being, but before Juliette died, I was much more of a people pleaser. Grief, debilitating depression, and consequent therapy have all opened my eyes. I’m now far less tolerant of mentally damaging situations that I had accepted over decades, but challenging these has made me unpopular with individuals invested in staying within them. In essence, I recognised how certain relationships were hurting me. And I couldn’t, after everything that’s happened, force myself back into a box because others preferred my silence within those relationships. Yet losing people I love, playing the villain in their story so that I can stay sane has, at times, felt like an extra layer of heartbreak.
On the upside (and I always try to find one), I think I’ve become better at recognising authenticity, and as a result my life is full of good-hearted people - golden souls to whom I can be generous with my love, and my time, because I never doubt that we have each other’s best interests at heart. This is a bittersweet gift – one I’d trade in a heartbeat to have Juliette back - but without that choice, I’ll take it.
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