Each phase of life since my mom died has brought different struggles, triumphs, and varieties of emotion. I always knew that grief was lifelong and complicated, however, I definitely underestimated the ways in which it changes as time goes on.

I remember the beginning years as survival mode. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through each day until that day had passed and I was on to the next one. It was figuring out who I was and what my life was going to become during this awful new normal. Some days were harder than others and some didn’t even feel real.

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Now, as all of these years have passed, my grief has changed and evolved in ways so different than when I was that young girl trying to navigate a world without her mom.

I needed my mom in different ways than I need her now.

As I get older and watch my friends get to have now adult relationships with their moms, I start to feel this void in ways that I wasn’t prepared for.

I spent so much time trying to figure out how to live life without a mom that I didn’t understand what that would really feel like as the years continued to go on and my mom wasn’t ever coming back.

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Marriage. Babies. Shopping. Happy hours. Late-night calls when life is overwhelming.
These are just some of the first things that come to mind that I have gotten to watch
my friends share with their mothers.

Let’s get this straight. I wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone and I am so incredibly happy for them that they get to experience these things with the person they need most.

I would just also be lying if I didn’t express the way it stings with pain and jealousy every time I see it.

My mom won’t be at my wedding. She won’t get to be a grandmother to my kids. We can’t go shopping or go to happy hour. I don’t get to call her when life is overwhelming.

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As much time as I have spent over this past decade trying to figure out who I was and what my life looked like without a mom, it hasn’t made these things easier.

I’m not sure it ever will, and that is OK.