Grief is a Road Trip

Forget Me Not Notes
Mar 30
3 min read

"Let's get the car packed up, we're going on a road trip!"

Living in a place where fun destinations are hours away by car, road trips were, and still are, a fun adventure. Often, the planning, packing, and anticipating stages of the road trip were just as fun as the trip itself. How does that have anything to do with grief??

Grief is a road trip.

What? Grief is a road trip not in the sense that you're going on a fun adventure, but rather that it's a journey, not a destination. How do you prepare for the road trip of grief, when often it's sprung on us as an emergency event coming out of left field? How do we make sure we have enough resources to make it on our journey? Will we ever make it to the end? Let's dive into that and see how we can navigate this journey the best we can.

Preparing for the Trip

When you think about a road trip, there is often a lot of preparation that goes into a successful trip. First, you pick a destination. In the idea that grief is a road trip, we don't have an end destination necessarily, but we have an ongoing idea of healing and coping. That is our "destination". Next, you gather supplies. You'll likely pack some clothes, toiletries, entertainment, and perhaps most importantly, snacks.

In our road trip of grief, packing clothes and toiletries would be similar to stocking up on tissues, cozy blankets, and the day to day essentials. Finding entertainment may be a tricky part of prepare for on a grief journey, as you may find a loss of interest in most hobbies or things you enjoy. Having an open mind to low effort activities can allow you to have a bit of reprieve from the big feelings and emotional exhaustion. This might be a coloring book, movies or books, knitting, or something else. Packing snacks for your grief road trip might be buying ready made meals that you can heat up on the days that you're overwhelmed, accepting offers of meals from your support circle, or stocking up with grocery delivery to eliminate one thing from your to do list.

Bringing friends along for your road trip makes the journey more manageable. The same is true for your trip through grief. Bringing friends into your journey makes the hard days a bit easier, the darkness a bit brighter, and the heaviness a bit lighter.

Sustaining Through the Trip

Road trips are filled with stops along the route. Stopping for gas, stopping to see beautiful sights, stopping to stretch your legs, and stopping at rest stops.

Stopping for gas in our road trip of grief could be a lot of different stops. It could be therapy, support group, or some form of professional help to "fill up our emotional tank". This could be spending time with loved ones, making time for friends, or connecting with others in their grief journey.

Stopping to see the beautiful sights along the journey of grief can feel daunting. Pausing long enough to see beauty in a world of hurt, pain, darkness, and gloom can feel impossible. This could be spending time in nature, planting a memorial tree/garden, taking a small trip to distract yourself from the reality of loss, or creating a new routine to incorporate gratitude.

Stopping to stretch your legs in your grief journey can mean different things for you, depending on what brings you peace. It could mean hitting the gym to move your body and release some of the physical stress that comes with grief. It could be starting yoga, practicing deep breathing, grounding techniques, brain games, dancing, or walking.

Stopping at a rest stop could be a list of different things for you grief journey. It could be asking your support circle to watch your kids for an afternoon so you can take some much needed alone time to process. It could be taking a nap when you're not sleeping well at night. It could be taking a day off from work to regroup. It might be low effort days on anniversaries or milestone dates that are hard to handle.