After my boyfriend died, I found myself clinging to small rituals—listening to Hamilton on repeat, rereading our old texts—just to feel close to him. When I told a friend, she gently said, “You’ve got to stop doing that.” She meant well. But what I heard was what so many grieving people hear: you’re doing this wrong.

This post is about where that pressure comes from—why our culture is so uncomfortable with real grief—and why there's no such thing as grieving "the right way."