I still felt my grief pretty heavily for most of the day today. Thank God for my cousin. She lost her mom 7 years ago and knows exactly what I’m going through.

She talked me down in the middle of the day and I just got off the phone with her a little over an hour ago. We talk or text almost every day now.

It’s funny, growing up, we weren’t really close and I always thought it was because we were such different people. But in getting to know her now, we’re actually very similar. It kind of makes me sad that it took my grandmother’s death to bring us together, but at least we’re here for each other now.

My grief has ratcheted up my anxiety and now I obsess about things that aren’t even going to happen. I try to talk myself down/calm myself by thinking rationally, which works most of the time.

At this moment, I feel ok emotionally, but there is so much grief in my body. It’s like I’m coming down with something, but the illness is grief. Shortly after my grandmother died, I would feel these random grief pains in my body. Now, every time I stress about something, I feel pain in my body. That never happened before.

My cousin says the loss of a close loved one is a trauma and it takes time for your mind and body to heal from that trauma. I agree with that. So I’m just going to let myself heal and be thankful for the good moments I have. Because right now, they’re fleeting.