It’s an expression of grief and mourning isn’t it? What else might you call it. Spend decades never fully allowing yourself the luxury of mourning and it will turn around and bite you. Raised by people among whom there was never the privilege of taking time to grieve, because that surely leaves you soft and vulnerable, and chased away from your sadness with shame and guilt (because what other bullwhip will make you straighten your back), it is only a matter of time before your body consumes itself.

So call it by its name. Isolate. Take long, solitary walks. Stare for hours at art and share your feelings on it with nobody but yourself. Sit alone with the shades drawn and listen to Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 on repeat, and hang desperately onto every tortured string. Allow the keening vocals to draw across your skin lightly like a razor. It cuts but not deep enough to do harm. You just want to finally and guiltlessly feel as deeply as you are capable of feeling, and then deeper. No more shame. Cry helplessly with no motivation to hold it back for as long as it lasts.

Feel.

No guilt.

No shame.

Be weak. Allow yourself.

Immerse yourself.

Mourn.

Be you.