This weekend I found myself sitting with an old, familiar grief.

When I was a little girl, I imagined family remained constant. That if we loved one another and did our best, we would eventually arrive somewhere that felt like home.

Grief has arrived in so many forms these past five years. And often, for me, it comes on strong when I pause long enough to let the dust settle.

With the children away and the house quiet, I found myself here again today, standing in the wreckage of the expectations I once carried.

It’s in these moments where I long for that place where I didn't have to explain the whole story first. A place where if I disappeared for a few days, someone would notice. A place where, when a holiday weekend hit like a freight train, somebody would come sit on the porch. A place where I belong and am beloved.

I spent much of the weekend moving slowly between waves of tears, piles of laundry, animal chores, stacks of dishes, and long, lonely stretches of quiet. The practical tasks of a life still needing to be lived…all the while, grief remains remarkably indifferent to a to-do list.

As I moved through these ordinary tasks, I found myself thinking about my grandmothers. I long for their laughter and company and that feeling of being held in someone's affection and attention without having to earn a place there.

As the years pass, it becomes more difficult to separate the losses themselves from the lives that formed around them.

The miscarriage that shook my foundation. The divorce that altered the landscape. Family estrangement that carved away another piece of me. Relationships that arrived with promises that could not be kept.

With the passage of these events, a different, unexpected life emerged. There is so much beauty here. There are children, animals, wildflowers, silver and stones on the bench, my hands and my words, visions and ideas still arriving with startling regularity…

From the outside, it probably appears as though I’ve found a way to carry it all. In many ways, I have. The children are loved. The bills eventually get paid. The animals are tended to. The work gets done. The next thing is handled, and then the next.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem. The longer we carry our lives well, the more invisible the weight becomes. Competence has a peculiar way of disguising need. People see the high-functioning woman. They don’t always see the monumental effort required to keep showing up for a life that depends entirely on her.

Eventually, competence becomes its own kind of isolation. The trouble with becoming strong and capable is that people start assuming you don't need anything. And yet, grief persists, even when life is anything but empty. I feel that absence deep in my bones, no matter how much beauty grows around me.

I spent years believing that if I worked hard enough, healed enough, created enough, loved enough, I might eventually outgrow certain longings, or that what I was seeking might find me.

This weekend was a reminder that some longings never disappear. They surface on a quiet evening and remind you they still live somewhere in your heart. Maybe those longings are not meant to disappear, and are simply souvenirs of what matters most.

Today, and most days, I find myself grieving something deeper than what happened, or what was lost. Today, I grieve the distance between the life I imagined and the life that emerged. All the while, carrying on with the surreal, perpetual work of loving the life I have anyway.

Perhaps we all carry some version of this distance.

-Katie