Dealing with Grief

In our lives many different key events will come up that will challenge us and help us grow. While many of these challenges are depicted in anime, grief is one of the least represented but always highly executed. While we may see sadness and anger from losing a comrade or friend fairly frequently, these moments are usually only playing towards those immediate emotions. We don’t always get to see the lingering feelings play out to fruition with a character dealing with their issues. Grief while very close to these emotions and trauma doesn’t quite have the same emotional feel. It is not a sharp pain but rather something that is dull and lingering (this is of course a personal opinion). It is something that feels like a coursing wave that flows over you ebbing in and out. This emotional feeling is represented well in the theatrical anime Ride Your Wave and the televised Natsuyki Rendezvous. Both these titles deal with characters lamenting and grieving for loved ones while feeling holding on to the vestige of those they have lost.

I bring up these anime because as someone who has been in the place of these main characters over the last month, I encountered grief. It is a wall that I have struggled with over the last month. I have felt stuck, unmotivated, and not knowing what to do next. No one knows what is the next step after these moments. At some point though we have to move forward. This posting is a way for me to try and take that next step forward through what has happened. Nothing will be the same and that is okay.