My grief is not like yours. I know this because you are not me and that’s all I need to know about you to determine that.

Do people who do not suffer prolonged, crippled by grief, feel less grief than those who do? Or is it only that they are stuffing it down creating a nuclear time bomb? What if they never crack, or blow or break? Are they heartless, or just emotionally better equipped than others?

I cry on trains in front of strangers at least once or twice a month. Used to be once or twice a week, before that once or twice a day.

I think of him less frequently and it hurts less when I do now. I hate this. It feels disrespectful, like I’m not suffering enough to honor him. It seems to be getting easier to glide along the surface of my mind without getting entangled with the reality of my emotions. Then after a while I start thinking, “Are these emotions actually real? Or am I convincing myself that I should feel this way?” Then I look at a picture of his handsome face and I just deteriorate into a sobbing mess.

I’m so confused by my lack of trust in my own perception of my emotions that I easily get turned upside down. My emotions are just a fucking mystery to me half the time. It’s a defense mechanism, I guess. Either that or I’m a fucking sociopath. Sociopathy seems unlikely, but I don’t have the words to express myself here.