I have always thought of grief as a transition space. The time with your loved one is in the past and your future without your loved one is not fully developed yet. Sometimes this is called the liminal space. As space between the past and the future. Think of grief as a doorway. A doorway leads you from one space to another. A doorway is a transitional space.
Imagine your front door. You are standing inside the house and getting ready to go outside. You have to pass through the door way to go outside. If you were to stand in the doorway, you would be neither inside or outside but in the transitional space. Grief is very much like the doorway. Your loved is no longer here and your new life without them feels too hard to walk into. This is grief the space, in between who you were with your loved one and who you will be now that your loved one is gone.
This transition space can feel sad, lonely and uncomfortable. But, I encourage you to not rush through doorway of grief. The doorway is the preparation space for the next thing. In the case of your front door, it prepares to go outside. Maybe you open the door and realize you need a jacket or you don’t need your sweatshirt. The doorway of grief is the same. If you can be in this transition space you may realize you could use a grief companion or a grief group or other resources to help you or you may need some time alone to gather your thought and move through the doorway of grief. Either way, taking time to be in the transitional space, grief can be the way to move through the doorway.