I sit next to a palm tree this morning, on a perfectly-manicured resort in Cancun, watching perhaps the most stunning sunrise I’ve ever seen. I’ve just slept for fourteen hours straight, told my brother I’m sick as I crawled into bed at 5pm yesterday. I don’t feel well, that’s true. But I’m not ill. I’m exhausted. I find life exhausting - even life on a beach, with palm trees and an open bar.
There is no respite from grief. I found out Meredith is dead almost 10 months ago. I have had moments of joy and laughter since then, but they’re fleeting. Mostly, I observe the world around me and wonder how it keeps going. Don’t they know?
My therapist is sometimes a little too real for me. She says I’ve been avoiding my grief by overfunctioning. What does she mean? Teaching 10 spin classes a week and training 38 clients isn’t a normal amount of work?
I just took my first day off since October and slept for 14 hours. She may have a point.
It’s become socially expected to dispense advice. Social media asks that we share our lives and our insight with others. I’ve taken a hiatus from social media because I have no advice to dispense. I believe the handful of my riders who have sent me helpful books or given me heartfelt cards telling me they’ve lost and found a way to live again. I trust them. I hope this doesn’t last forever. But it’s been a long 10 months. Every day I just try to finish the day. Sometimes I have a dinner with girlfriends or a date to look forward to. But just as often I call and cancel everything. And then I promptly drop anyone who doesn’t get it. You’re upset I didn’t call you yesterday? Find a new friend. I’m not ready to be relied on yet. My world is still in pieces.
A close friend told me a few months ago that I look “so much better.” I laughed and said I feel worse now, as the enormity and permanence of Meredith’s death sets in more each day. She insisted that all summer the life was gone from my eyes, and now I look like myself again. I felt like she was telling me it’s time to be better. My family, my sister’s friends, and I disagree. None of us feel even slightly better. Mer’s best friends and I text and call when we can and no one has any sense of peace. How could we? And it’s not lost on me that Jennair shouldn’t be dead either. It’s all tragic, how these two brilliant young women now cease to exist. And where a new day once brought hope or opportunity, every single day we wake up now marks the longest any of us have gone without seeing or talking to Meredith.
I went to visit her childhood best friend last weekend, in honor of what would have been Mer’s 34th birthday. I got to meet her adorable four month old son. Meredith never did. Christine and I hugged and squeezed her two kids and talked with her husband while we drank a bottle of wine. It feels good to connect with other people trying to grasp the same truths, solve the same mysteries. But we remained just as sad when we hugged goodbye. Another of her best friends has three little girls. Every day I wonder with admiration how she pulls herself together enough to take care of them. Still another moved to New Mexico to start a new career and I wonder every day how she found the courage during her mourning. We are all doing what we have to. But none of us are doing well. We all watch the world around us with the same despair resting heavily on our hearts. We all roll our eyes and throw our phones with we encounter someone who doesn’t get it.
Tommy and I came to Mexico for Meredith’s birthday because we couldn’t bear to be at home. I simply didn’t want to celebrate Meredith by going to a cold grave. It doesn’t represent her. She was so full of life and hope and innovation. She loved harder and laughed louder than anyone I know. She embraced problems head on without hesitation. Try going 30 years with a cheerleader by your side, just a phone call away (and if she didn’t pick up the first time, she would if I called two more times right in a row no matter what important meeting she was leading, a trick I found hilarious no matter how many times she scolded me for doing it), who had the answer to anything, and then having her ripped away without warning. I genuinely don’t know what to do with myself each day. So I settle to just get through. And I stay incredibly busy.
I take a vacation from the cold. I turn my phone off when I get home at night (no, I don’t care how many emails or texts are unanswered). I throw myself into each spin class or client as if that hour is my entire reason for existing. I unfollow every single person on social media who post about their bad day because they missed a yoga class. I text my sister’s friends, I make plans with my tribe, I call my mom a lot more and I look in awe at the world. I wonder how it keeps going with all the loss and pain people face each day. Don’t they know?
And sometimes I sit on a beach, with my toes in the sand, having done every single thing I can think of to feel better, and just surrender to my sadness. It’s not fair that I feel the sun on my face right now and Meredith lies in the cold ground, alone. I’m not sure what to make of life anymore. I’m not ready to be better. If anything, I’m ready to fully embrace the loss our world suffered when Meredith was ripped away from it.
I’m still hiding out a bit. I have zero advice for anyone. But I realize that mourning privately is confusing, people can’t get it if I’m not saying it. So here I am, saying have patience with people who are grieving. Or don't - but know that you’re likely saying goodbye to a friend if you disappear during the hardest season of their life. I doubt I’ll ever actually return to the carefree Jess people seem to miss so much, I’m not the same. So if you’re waiting for that…don’t. But if you aren’t sure what to do or what to say to me or someone feeling the way I feel - just be there. Without expectations. Without criticism. Without asking why I didn’t put mascara on or why I canceled yet another dinner. And I will return the favor by not asking you how you get through each day, because don’t you know that Mer isn’t here?