Well, after today’s first round of Fasnacht parades and some early morning fishing, I took a minute to look over my recent brainstorm writing to figure out how I’m really feeling. After reading through it all, I realized I’m still really angry. I’m not even sure why exactly—so many things have happened since the start of this whole grieving process—but everything keeps circling back to that grief.

To paraphrase Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the stages of grief are not linear. Some are skipped. Some are just brushed against and never revisited. Some last for years and never fully leave. When she wrote about the five stages, she made this clear. But as humans, we crave a linear framework. Without it, everything feels like chaos.

So here’s how it’s looked for me, and maybe this will make it more coherent—for you, and honestly, for me.

**Denial**: No, not the river in Egypt. Just plain disbelief. “This didn’t happen.” “This couldn’t have happened.” And yet it did. I still find myself brushing up against denial from time to time. After living in a set pattern for so long, part of me still expects things to snap back into place. That’s classic denial.

**Bargaining**: This one’s strange. Bargaining is usually “If I do this, please just let everything go back to normal.” I’m not sure I ever did this. I knew what happened. I knew it was final. There was no magical undo button, so bargaining never really took root for me.

**Anger**: Now *this* one—I know this one well. It’s the one I default to, over and over. If you’ve followed my writing, you know the anger is a recurring theme. Some friends and family worry that everything I do now is just fueled by that anger. And maybe it is. His suicide, my mother’s death, my aunt, everything that imploded during that cursed year—yeah, I’m angry. My social media posts scream it, and thankfully, many have given me grace to let that anger vent instead of turning inward.

Quick sidebar: Anger isn’t violence. I’ve never wanted to lash out. Some might argue my destructive coping mechanisms were a form of violence against myself. Maybe. But to me, they were just desperate escapes.

That anger, though—it’s made me question a lot. When you’re looking back through the lens of anger, every interaction can be reinterpreted. I’ve been angry at myself more than anything. For not seeing the signs. For seeing them and doing nothing. I pride myself on being intelligent. And this makes me feel like a fool.

The idea of “closure” adds fuel to that fire. People love to say, “I hope you find closure.” But closure is a myth. We crave it because it’s a neat endpoint that satisfies our need for a clean resolution. But that’s not how this works. That kind of closure doesn’t exist. And for someone with PTSD, the lack of control and unanswered questions is hell. PTSD survivors want control because trauma ripped it from them. So no, I don’t have closure. And that frustrates the hell out of me.

**Depression**: Depression isn’t new to me. I’ve had it for years—it just colors everything differently. Some people experience a marked drop in mood after a loss. For me, the baseline just sinks a little lower. The grief blends in. It’s not always distinguishable. But it’s always there.

**Acceptance**: This one gets misunderstood a lot. We think of it as a final stage, the place you arrive after going through the others. But in my experience, acceptance is scattered *through* the entire process. You can feel acceptance while you’re still angry, still bargaining, still depressed. Even denial has moments of acceptance tucked inside. I live my life now with the understanding that all of this happened. That’s acceptance—not because it’s resolved, but because I’m surviving.

The last 27 months have stretched me to the edge—loss after loss, upheaval after upheaval. Each grief has its own stage, and sometimes they overlap. I’ve grieved multiple things at once, each in a different phase. It’s chaotic. One day I’m in denial over one loss and in full-blown anger over another. I’d love to research this idea of multi-level grief because living it is exhausting and deeply confusing.

Some losses still ache years later. Time hasn’t healed them; it’s just softened the volume. Grief doesn’t end. It loops back in ways you don’t expect.

Anyway, I just finished my first Fasnacht parade of the day and scored an alien mask. Those used to be rare, but now they’re more common. Still, it was fun running around in my unicorn mask, killing toads and super mutants.

 

I miss my mom. She was a good egg. If you’ve still got yours, give her a call or shoot her a text. Tell her you love her. It’ll make her day—and it’ll remind both your dog and your mom that you’re the good person they already think you are.