Originally published on Dr. Z's Two Cents, July 20, 2026.
Summer Salutations, Dearest Blog Readers!
Let’s see…I’ve posted twice so far in 2026. That sounds about right.
Collective ~deep breath~ here.
To recap: January 2026 was all about grief & loss and February 2026 was a self-assigned book report on the Laziness Lie.
March 2026 I entered into my fabulous 40s:
[GIF FROM ORIGINAL POST]
April 2026 - July 20th 2026: in the words of Bart Simpson, “crap, bitch, crap.”
A lot of life stuff happened throughout the second quarter of 2026, unfortunately somehow including even more grief and loss. Plus other endings (contractual, environmental, etc.) strategically woven into July because why not.
To paraphrase a lyric from my favorite band #blink182 AND my go-to karaoke song #AllTheSmallThings:
Grief sucks, I know.
The original lyric commiserates about work sucking, but seeing as I love what I do… 😁 🫶
it didn’t meet my need for this post.
What is grief? Emotional pain…ooh, my brain is sneaky.
You see, my beautiful brain loves to try to protect me from the physical discomfort connected to my feelings. My brain does this BECAUSE GRIEF IS UNCOMFORTABLE.
It does this by ignoring my body’s signals that big emotions are en route.
The growing lump in my throat, feeling my heartbeat jump 20bpm when a memory flashes in my mind’s eye, when I have to concentrate to stop my leg from bouncing because my thoughts are moving so much faster than the present moment, or reminding myself to breathe when I realize I’ve been holding my breath in an attempt to diffuse the surge of incoming emotion… expressed primarily via fully-loaded tears & snot, which is #gross yet #necessary.
One thing I am realizing at a painfully rapid pace is that the grieving process requires SO MUCH starting again.
~I paused here for my own mini-cry break, so please, feel free to take as many as you need. This shit is heavy. Even when we’re doing everything “right”, which somehow makes it suck even worse.
Faced with the reality of starting again with a new normal, we (humans) usually have some level of difficulty adjusting. Not just the new normals directly before/after/during the event, but all the moments thereafter.
When the swell of support that carried us through what we can barely recall finally recedes, and life becomes still again.
Experiencing stillness in spaces once bustling with hope, love, and a plan; you find yourself hoping against hope that our beloveds are in fact just in the other room, or out running an errand and will be back soon. And it hurts all over again (and again) when the realization catches up with reality.
~enter another author tearful breakdown here~
Disclaimer: you may not believe or agree with my next statement, AND THAT’S OKAY ✅.
I know our loved ones who’ve already transitioned are still with us, especially when we get emotional, if we let them show up in unexpected ways.
As I wrote in my very first post one year ago today, you may or not remember that 7.19 is my late Momma’s birthday; and I am grateful for her visiting me so often yesterday:
1. my passenger seat belt notification activated when I put my car into reverse when headed out for the day (I had to buckle mom in for safety, of course. I promise my belt was already secured!)
2. I ended up driving behind a red pickup truck, with Diana, neatly scripted on the tailgate (her favorite color, type of vehicle, and her name spelled correctly…say what!???)
3. When I arrived at my childhood home and pulled into the driveway, a beautiful sun-faded monarch butterfly landed on the driver’s side hood of my car, and seemingly ~at~ me, slowly flapped its wings for several seconds before fluttering away just as I acknowledged it out loud.
[IMAGE FROM ORIGINAL POST]
Beyond doing our best to practice compassion for ourselves as we construct a guard rail around the craters of grief that unexpectedly take out chunks of us we weren’t prepared to lose, please keep going.
One task at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time, one breakdown at a time.
Grief seems to soften us in the harshest of ways. I suppose this is an entry point for expression, which is an antidote for depression…perhaps another topic to explore another day?
I will wrap up this edition of my 2 cents with a summation of my most recent grief experience:
There is never enough time to treasure gems, especially those cosplaying as humans in this lifetime. My heart is holding bittersweet gratitude for loving and being loved by my beloved over the last several years.
Until next time.
In gratitude, grief, solidarity, and beyond,
Dr. Z