everything felt hard today and then i realized why

feeding myself felt hard today. getting up from the couch felt hard today. learning swedish felt hard today. everything felt hard, which felt bad. i beat myself up until i realized i'm probably just sad. 

a family friend passed away yesterday unexpectedly. her health was poor, but it wasn't like anyone was prepared for this outcome any time soon. 

death is already an incomprehensible thing, but being an ocean and several hours' time difference away made it especially hard for this news to sink in. it slowly did, and i became scared for my family, not knowing how grief will affect them and unable to provide much solace or support from all the way over here. 

i will be trying, though. i will at least try and set up recurring video calls with family members—nothing overly planned, but regular enough to keep us all in more frequent communication. we have a family group chat, but that's not the same as seeing each others' faces on a regular basis, even if virtually. 

i lost my own friend a year and a half ago. most of the time that's somewhere in the background of my mind, but now it's come to the forefront again. 

grief feels like a second-level emotion for me. by that i mean, there's a class of emotions that feels easy and likely to arise on a day-to-day basis, like frustration or annoyance or even delight and affection. but one level below that, there's another class of emotions resting below the surface, like grief or despair or love-so-big-it-hurts, that only arise themselves if i've already entered into the first level. once i'm in that first level, the emotion can morph without warning into any other that waits in the second level. 

today, this looked like me crying in frustration about learning swedish, then gradually crying harder and harder until i finally sobbed that i simply miss my friend. and now i miss both, and i hope my family can hold each other as they grieve, too.