How long is too long?

 How long is too long to grieve?

It feels like everyone has their own timelines of when they think you should be done grieving and getting on with the world around you... and I firmly believe the answer is you don't stop. Things just become less sharp. It's like a wound that doesn't fully heal, one moment it is almost closed and the next it reopens and feels raw. 

There is also an expectation with grief that if you go to an event where people are grieving, that your grief will look a certain way. I ran into that on the weekend and could not "act" the part. People kept trying to provoke a response out of me but I was so far beyond numb that I had nothing to give them. No act, no tears... nothing. Just me, blissfully numb and not really responsive. 

Do I miss my mom? absolutely... I want to talk to her every day, I want to tell her all the things, but that is not on anyone else's time frame but my own. My grief is not orchestrated. It is not for display and not for public consumption either. I wonder why we feel entitled to have others grieve a certain way... I also do not understand the concept of a time frame with grief. This loss is fundamental and I don't think that my grief should be limited to 3-5 days. 

The way we view grief is wrong. 

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