It's Only Been...

Lately I’ve been making a few short videos on TikTok. I don’t know yet if they’re doing much of anything, but they have changed what I’m seeing. My feed has filled up with people who are grieving, many of them newly so. And I’ve noticed how often the same phrase comes up.

“It’s only been…”

Only been three months.

Only been a year.

Only been five years.

I understand why people say it. I said it too. Time feels like the only measuring stick we have, so we reach for it, hoping it will tell us something useful. Hoping it will explain why we still feel the way we do, or reassure us that what we’re feeling makes sense.

I remember my sister telling me once that someone had asked her how long it had been since Robert died. At the time, it had been seven years. The person paused and said, “Oh, that’s not very long.” I don’t think they meant anything by it, but that comment stayed with me. Seven years felt like both a lifetime and a blink. Long enough to have survived a lot. Short enough to still feel him everywhere.

I’ve been without Robert for a little more than twenty-three years. Long enough that people sometimes assume the grief should be quieter by now, easier to sit with, less likely to surface. Not because they’re unkind, but because ongoing grief makes people uneasy. The world is comfortable with loss in brief doses. Grief has its own rhythm.

What I’ve learned is that the calendar isn’t a verdict. It doesn’t measure love, attachment, or what it means to live in a world where someone important is permanently absent. It only marks time passing.

So when someone says, “It’s only been…” or reacts with surprise that the loss is still raw at times, I don’t hear a problem with the person grieving, I hear uncertainty about how to sit with something that doesn’t resolve neatly.

I remember early on trying to wrap my mind around the idea that he was gone for good. Not gone for now. Not gone until things settled down. Gone forever. That word alone felt too big to hold. I don’t think I could grasp it then, and I’m not sure I fully can now. Living inside a reality where someone you love is permanently absent does something to the way time feels. It stretches it. It compresses it. It becomes unpredictable.

If you find yourself reaching for the calendar when you talk about your loss, it’s often because time feels like the safest shorthand. Numbers are easier to offer than the full weight of what you’re carrying. They give people something solid to grab onto without asking them to step too close.

Most of us learn early on that grief makes others uneasy. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know where to put it. So we make it easier for them. We keep it brief. We choose language that won’t linger too long in the room. We learn what parts to share and what parts to hold back.

That kind of restraint is awareness; it’s knowing the difference between being honest and being exposed. And it’s often how people keep moving through a world that hasn’t quite figured out how to make room for long grief.

You’re allowed to speak in numbers when that’s all that feels manageable. You’re allowed to let your grief take up the space it actually occupies, whether it’s been three months or twenty-three years. Not everything needs to be shared to be real.

With grace for the mess,

~Stef