I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

I guess it’s a good thing the workload is so intense now because I wasn’t given much opportunity to think about the day before today. I spent the entire day at home, working on my thesis and various assignments, and I tried my best not to think about the tragedy of it all. For some reason though, I was still sad even though I was making a conscious effort to convince myself that it’s a normal day.

Apparently, your body, or your subconscious, remembers grief. There’s something called the “anniversary reaction” where grief returns at the exact same time each year through your body’s memory, even if you might have forgotten the date. I evidently did not forget any dates relating to our sadness, but even with a strong attempt to pretend nothing is wrong, my mind just kept making me sad.

I was feeling the psychosomatic symptoms first – I felt the familiar physical heartache, lethargy, restlessness, boredom, dread, exhaustion – I was going through sadness without even knowing it. Usually when my brain is tired from working, a nap helps me relax and decompress. So I tried that. Didn’t work. I couldn’t force myself to fall asleep.

I read that “anniversary reactions” happen for multiple reasons. Your brain naturally stores trauma deep inside your nervous system, seasonal changes could trigger memories, stress hormones are activated before you consciously know why… Of all that I’ve read, I couldn’t find any solution to this. I guess I could have figured that out – there is no solution to grief.

WordPress (this site) sometimes reminds me of the posts I wrote last year. Yesterday, I received a notification from WordPress to “go back in time” and “check out my post from Aug 7, 2025”. I don’t often read what we’ve written because it makes me sadder. This time I clicked on it though. I felt this out-of-body experience reading my own post from a year ago. It’s like I was reading the writing of another. I couldn’t really recognize my words but one thing I could recognize was the feeling I felt while writing them. Not to toot my own horn (this will make you laugh), but some of my lines back then were quite poetic! I surprised myself.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m not letting myself cry when I feel like crying. On Aug 6 this year, I kept tearing up for no reason (anniversary reaction; double meaning here), but I also kept stopping myself from crying. I’m worried that if I start I won’t be able to stop. I will unravel at the realization of the horror that is my life. Maybe I should watch a sad movie to make myself feel better. I used to do that when I was younger. You can laugh at this one too.

I wonder what anniversary gift you would have given me. Can’t wait to see you again. I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, and I’ll miss you more than you can imagine.

Love always,
Sha