Firefly. It could have gone for so many more seasons! The world still grieves…

The loss of my grandma and uncle.

I live in Norway, but my mum is from the north-east of England (Seaton Sluice). As a kid, we spent all our major holidays there. We would all live in my grandma and uncles house when we were there. My grandma and uncle were awesome people. She would make me pancakes in the morning and he would take us for day trips when he wasn’t working. When we visited my uncle would sleep in a sleeping bag on the couch, so we could have the beds.

Basically all of my best memories from growing up are from Seaton Sluice and the surrounding area. We would go to the swimming pool, St. Mary’s Lighthouse, golf course and the Spanish City in Whitley Bay. Countless trips to Tynemouth Castle, because I had a fascination for castles. Shopping at the market in Blyth, where my uncle would always stop to talk with one of the stall owners he knew. Not to mention the 2 bottle crates and 4 bricks in my grandmas garden which we used to build a boat, bus, plane, or whatever our fantasy allowed. My uncle also had a shed in the garden which housed a large model railway.

My uncle died when I was around 7 or 8. My grandma deteriorated quite quickly after that and died a few years later when I was 12. She lived in a nursing home her last few years and the house was sold in 2000. At the time the impact of what I’d lost didn’t quite register with me. It was in adult life that it really hit me, and since then I’ve never quite got over it.

I regularly keep an eye out in case their house ever goes back on the market. I could never justify nor afford to buy it of course, as I live in Oslo, Norway still, and traveling to Newcastle isn’t as easy as it used to be. We used to be able to take the boat from Oslo to Newcastle, and there used to be a direct flight from Oslo Airport. Both are gone now as Newcastle is no longer a popular shopping destination for Norwegians. In many ways it feels like I’m not just mourning the loss of my uncle and grandma, but also the loss of Seaton Sluice as it feels like a large part of my identity.

Fortunately my mum is still around. We’re very close and always speak in English. I still read the Northern Ehco online, listen to BBC Radio Newcastle and watch episodes of Vera so I can feel like I’m still in touch with it all. I’ve watched all the episodes of “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads” a number of times, and love it whenever a geordie appears in a TV show or radio play. Whenever a friend of family member goes to England, they pick up a copy of the Beano for me. The fact that we named our child Vera is no coincidence 😋.

I used to do yearly holidays to Newcastle/Whitley Bay after becoming an adult, but after we had our first kid, travel isn’t as easy anymore. I hope to take her there when she gets older though, to show her the sights from my childhood.

I’ll probably always mourn them. I got a tear in my eye yesterday when St Mary’s Lighthouse showed up on an episode of Vera. At the same time, the mourning feels manageable.

Ok, that post was way to long. If you made it all the way here, thanks for listening to my ramblings… And if you’re from the North East, give me a wave 👋.

I’d say Steve Irwin, but in reality, no amount of time is long enough.

My dog’s death. I had to put him down over 14 years ago. And while the first 6 years was honestly tough to hard in that process, after that point, it steadily got easier to accept. I don’t ever plan to replace him, though.

Losing relationships, even the bad ones. It’s been 3 years since I had actually been with someone. But I think what really just kept stinging me and making me reluctant to try again was that the last three relationships I had been in, I was really pouring into what I thought was my best in resources, time and effort. Yet they ultimately weren’t enough because of both circumstances out of my control and not really knowing someone’s true colors until after the fact just ruined it all.

The thing with “lessening the pain” is that there isn’t one key solution that is applicable to everyone’s problems. Some people simply just - got over it, however they did. Others, leaned on hobbies, inspiration and influence. People with different approaches and handling.

Why does grief need a time-limit? What’s something you were grateful for for “too long”?

My dorm neighbour and friend killed himself while on an internship in another country. We were something like friends for like 2 years. We had some really good moments but I didn’t even know his last name.

When LLMs first became big, my mom gave me ChatGpt premium and I fed it his discord messages to behave like him as a custom GPT. I balled like a baby. My gf was very confused, as he had died 3 years prior and I had barely mentioned it.

I honestly wish I had been at his funeral, but I didn’t know any of his family or friends.

I’m going to interpret “too long” as “longer than I expected”. To that I world say the sudden loss of a college friend that I, to be honest, failed to keep in contact with. Still miss that guy.

I take some comfort in that by the time he died, he had turned from being an outcast and victim of bullying to having three wonderful children with a beautiful and loving wife.

My marriage. In all my past relationships, it usually takes me about as long as the relationship lasted to get my feet back under me, but in this case, that time would be 10 years, so I really hope it won’t take that long. I’m on year 4 now. I read somewhere that men take longer to get over romantic relationships, because usually their romantic partner is also their best friend, and mine was no exception. We broke up because we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. I was in active alcoholism, and despite us both knowing that I wanted children, and she absolutely did not, we plowed ahead regardless. It seems stupid, but we truly loved each other. Heck, I guess we still love each other, we just have acknowledged that we’re not compatible in a way that severely limits our long term goals. It sucks. Logically, I should be able to just get right back on with dating, but it hasn’t been so easy.

There’s been multiple things standing in the way. First and foremost, some childhood trauma that had been trying to resurface for as long as I was an active alcoholic. Add that into a severely dysfunctional family dynamic, and you get a big ol’ mess that I’m only now starting to emerge from. I’m back to browsing tinder, and even though I do fine with matches, I just haven’t the energy to message anybody. Like, I just assume that they’re going to waste my time, and so I just sit by myself instead. I’m trying to become the person that would attract my ideal partner, so I’ve been putting extra time in at the gym, and have refocused on some hobbies of mine, like writing, and performing stand-up comedy. But even those seem like a chore sometimes.

I had a formative falling out with a former friend years ago. We used to love bomb each other, and I just couldn’t bear to get rid of them.

Recently did a bonfire ritual and burned aaaalll of that away. It was cathartic and felt like a good close to that long chapter.

Everything. My brain holds onto grief like a dog holds onto a squeaky toy.

Subway changing the way they cut their subs.

It’s been more than 20 years, I’m still not over it.

The Pokémon tcg. I periodically get interested in new cards they put out, and then I remember that playing pokemon that need to evolve hasn’t been competitively viable for 13 years. I like the gatcha app they put out though

Estrogen, relationship with many hugs

It’s not really grief. Thankfully in my young life, I’ve yet not lost anyone, close to me, beyond my own decisions. But it takes me seconds to let go of people without ever expressing how much they mean to me. Then it takes me years or forever to let go of the thoughts.

Definitely loss of relationships. Not romantic, but friends and family drifting apart. Wondering how they are, dwelling, trying to figure out where things went wrong.