"Grief is a Room I Keep Rearranging"

I keep the door closed most days.

But some mornings, I walk in like it’s any other room in the house—casually, deliberately, foolishly hopeful. I tell myself, Maybe today it won’t hurt as much.

It’s still there. The same air. Still and stubborn, like it forgot how to breathe after you left.

The room doesn’t change, but I do.

The first time I entered it—really entered it—you were only hours gone. The air still tasted like your shampoo. The window still held the last smudge of your goodbye. That day, the room collapsed onto me. The ceiling felt too low, the walls too tight. I remember sitting on the floor with a coffee cup in one hand and your voicemail playing on loop in the other.

I rearranged the first thing that week.

A photo.

I moved it from the nightstand to the shelf. Too close to the bed, and I couldn’t sleep. Too far, and I feared forgetting your face. I whispered, “You’re still here,” to the frame, as if it would whisper back.

It didn’t.

So I rearranged again.

Your sweater—blue, oversized, with a tiny tear in the left sleeve—moved from the chair to the closet. I took it back out the next day. Then folded it. Then unfolded it. Then wore it. I wore it until it didn’t smell like you anymore.

I tried to throw it out once.

I couldn’t.

Grief is not a single wound.

It is a series of small, invisible bruises you forget about—until someone brushes past them with a memory.

Like the time I found your note in the drawer. I had seen it a hundred times before. It was nothing—just a grocery list with your looping, ridiculous handwriting:

“Milk, bananas, toilet paper, and something sweet for my favorite person (you!)”

I stared at the word “you” for so long it lost meaning.

I rearranged the drawer that day. I put the note beneath old bills and expired coupons. Buried it.

Until I needed to read it again.

Sometimes the rearranging feels like a ritual. Like if I move this mug to the other shelf, or dust your book collection in reverse order, you’ll come back.

Sometimes it feels like defiance.

As if I’m daring the room to fight back.

And it does.

The grief seeps out from unexpected corners. A pair of shoes I never donated. A song that crawls through the walls when I’m not paying attention. The way sunlight hits the room at 4:47 PM in September, exactly when you used to say, “This light makes everything look holy.”

It still does.

People tell you time heals. They’re wrong.

Time doesn’t heal.

It rearranges.

Like me.

At first, I needed every item untouched. Like evidence. Like proof that you were. But eventually, grief started whispering new questions.

What if I paint the walls?

What if I move the bed to the other side?

What if I stop counting the days since I last heard your laugh?

Is it betrayal or survival?

I still don’t know.

But I painted the walls pale green last winter. You hated green. I think I did it to spite the memory. Or maybe to stop seeing you in everything.

Funny thing is, I still do.

Today, I moved the lamp.

It had always sat in the corner next to your side of the bed. You loved that lamp. I hated it. Too bright. Too yellow. But it was yours.

I moved it to the desk. A small change. The room barely noticed.

But I did.

The grief didn’t roar today. It didn’t curl around my throat like it used to. It just sat quietly in the chair, watching me.

It seems… calmer now.

Not gone. Never gone.

But quieter.

Like it’s tired too.

A friend asked me recently if I was “better.”

I told her that healing is a myth we tell the living. I said grief isn’t something you overcome. It’s something you redecorate.

You dust the shelves of memory. You fold away the worst of the pain, then unfold it again on rainy days. You find comfort in the rearranging, even when it never feels like enough.

You stop trying to forget. You just try to make the remembering less painful.

And sometimes, you laugh in the room again. That’s the hardest part.

Guilt shows up like a ghost and says, How dare you smile here?

But I smile anyway.

Because you would’ve wanted me to.

Tonight, I left the door open.

The room watched me brush my teeth. I waved at it. It didn’t wave back. But I swear I felt something shift.

I turned off the light, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t hear you crying through the walls.

Maybe it’s time to bring a plant in here. Something living.

Something green.