I often find that when the late evening hits, I, like the majority of you reading this, am guilty of passively scrolling on my phone while curled up, stagnantly, for hours. While this is not a habit I’m particularly proud of, nor do I really gain anything from it, I have noticed a running theme hiding between the heaps of TikTok affiliate shop adverts and AI sludge. A repeated quote plastered across the comment section of those grieving online: “Grief is like glitter. At first it’s everywhere, you try to clean it to restore some order… one day you move the sofa or find it in your pocket, and there it is again, a tiny sparkle that reminds you of what you lost.”

Now I will admit grief can be beautiful in some senses - but for the most part it is essentially like being completely flattened out by a fucking HGV. Maybe instead of glimmering, shimmery sparkles, it’s literally a condensed pile of muted, depressing grey ash sitting in an urn in the living room. The point I am trying to get across is I don’t understand why grief is so overlooked, forgotten and glazed over when at its core it’s a universal experience. An awfully shit one at that. Everyone who lives will grieve, and while these come through an array of shapes and forms, none of them are easy and should not be brushed under a rug once you have “completed” the “five stages”. How is there to be a blueprint to grief when individual perception seeps into every action of our lives?

When my dad passed, naturally, as an 11-year-old girl, my entirety of understanding life broke down right in front of my face. I thought I knew problems: playground runabouts and tattle tales, crying over scraped knees plastered with damp blue paper towels, and how my primary school best friend wasn’t placed in the same form as me at secondary. These all became throwaway problems when I was rushing to grab landline phones to call ambulances for my dad, who had collapsed in the bathroom. I held my little brother tight; we never really got on too great growing up. I often think about whether he remembers how his feet felt hot under the paisley red doormat in the peak of winter while we waited for services to arrive as adrenaline ran through us, the same as mine. Notice how this isn’t glittery or sparkly or any other stupid fucking word that airs out from what it actually is at its pit? Grief carries this weight with you in every move; every step feels more treacherous, risks feel more worth it, and it runs through your whole body. This will stay with you for as long as you live, even if it gets lighter over time. Grief is not forgiving.

As time progressed, I became more out of place; I grew more irrational and argumentative, as most teenagers do, and upon reflection now at 21, I have gaps and years that are completely blank white spaces from when I was grieving so heavily. My family was torn apart as much as they grew together in some senses; this grief was as much synonymous as it was singular. And for a very long time I drowned in this ever-growing cavity while trying to perform a circus act juggling schoolwork, stupid boyfriends, petty arguments and anything else your typical high school experience entails. My favourite, actually, from this list included a rumour which ran around when I was twelve: “Aurelia only has friends because her dad’s dead”. Wow! Thanks a bunch, babe! How about you try going through what I’ve been through and get back to me xxx

(I genuinely think I could write a whole section about how vindictive an all-girls school can be, but I’ll save that for another time; back to the whole point.)

Grief taught me as much as it has given me loss. Even now, at 21, nearly 10 years on, I still think about my dad every day; the yearning for him will run as long as I’m alive - but I know I physically cannot change this - I cannot magic his ashes back into him, and he will forever live in some shitty tube placed in our home office. I think what I am trying to say is that while people find consolation in alleviating their grief through various forms - sharing online, making quotes, stages and blueprints - whatever it is, it is okay to take grief at its face value. There is no harm in being honest to yourself, and those around you, about the harm grief has caused you and how it has undoubtedly changed you. You did not ask for this change and have instead been forced to spend your whole life trying to accept it. This is okay; this is universal.

As good as throwaway tiktok quotes are for some to relieve pain, I think it’s time we all start being more honest and make something that is harrowing for everyone a bit more widespread and not “glittery”. It is okay for it to feel shit. It is okay for it to feel atrocious. It is okay not to follow steps and paths, and to do whatever else media wants to encapsulate and control your grief; let it run free, let it run in a non-linear manner, let it look like mistakes, feel it as it comes and don’t push that down; learn how to use it to your advantage, see the silver linings through the hardships, don’t forget who you are, and take it with you wherever you go.

Grief is not glitter.