So in therapy—because everybody shares those sessions with the world—I had a moment worth writing down. I’ve talked before about how my upbringing shaped my grief, how I carried guilt for not grieving “the right way.” For years, that voice in the back of my head kept whispering that I wasn’t doing it correctly, that I was dishonoring people by moving forward differently.

Today my therapist looked me dead in the eye and said: “You didn’t do it wrong.”

She told me my grieving wasn’t wrong at all—it was just different. Different circumstances, different wounds, different memories to process. Tradition may dictate one thing, but tradition doesn’t own grief. Hearing that, even if she’s said it before, hit me like a sledgehammer. Sometimes I think she wants to yell “Stop it!” at me for playing the same broken record. Maybe she’s right.

It’s hard to unlearn the way you were socialized. Undoing that wiring feels like climbing a cliff with no rope. Society keeps shifting how grief is “supposed” to look anyway, but the lesson I’m trying to beat into my skull is simple: everybody grieves differently. That has to be the mantra.

And part of that is compassion—not just for myself, but for others who remember him differently. I’ve said before I want to make space for those people, even if their version of him isn’t mine. A friend told me, “It must be rough, because he was never that way.” I didn’t argue. I just stayed silent and let him grieve his memory. My compassion is in not demanding that everyone see what I saw.

The harder part? Granting myself that same compassion. That’s where I stumble.

Generations drilled into us: do your best, work harder, push through. That work ethic kept me alive but also keeps me stuck. Becoming disabled rattled my whole framework. Suddenly “doing my best” also meant telling creditors I couldn’t keep up. Now that benefits are kicking in, I’ve finally caught up. That’s good. The bad? My phone doesn’t ring as much anymore. Strange to miss debt collectors, but hey—dark humor is still humor.

I keep nudging forward. And I have to remind myself: nudging is still progress. Maybe even more impressive than sprinting, since I was never much of a sprinter anyway.

It’s a race, not a sprint. I don’t have to win—I just have to keep moving. My mom and my dog will be cheering me on from the sidelines either way.

And maybe, just maybe, I did my best.