The Crucial Difference Between A Death and A Breakup
a.k.a. “Why we need to take breakups more seriously.”
I’m never supposed to compare losses. As an Intuitive Grief Guide, I’m supposed to honor the uniqueness and individuality of each loss that comes my way. Every loss is felt at 100% no matter what it is. Everybody who has lost has a different and special relationship to whatever they lost.
Truth, all of it.
But I can’t help but notice, as I work through my breakup, that there’s a really stark, important difference between losing someone to death and losing someone through a breakup.
There’s the obvious, which is someone’s physical existence. People who die are dead and gone while people you break up with are still living.
But in that “obvious” difference lies the hidden, heartbreaking difference between a death and a breakup.
We have no choice when it comes to death. It is a sucky, shitty, inevitable part of our humanity. We don’t get to choose when our loved ones die, how they die, or whether or not we get to say goodbye. Death is — for the most part — entirely out of our control or realm of choice. Our loved ones get taken…
