The family friend who held me in a tight hug and told me it was ok to cry. And kept holding me and repeating it, until I realized she wasn’t inclined to let me go until I cried for her.
Another family friend who asked how I was doing two weeks after. I said “great!,” because I was in a genuinely happy mood—the saw the look of deep sympathy and realized that I was supposed to feel very sad and not good in the slightest.
All of this ♥️ And, in retrospect, the way that others (not my family) pushed that kept me in a sadness/trauma pattern and prevented me from holding onto my most joyful and funny memories of my friend. When my dad passed away several years ago, I refused to repeat that pattern.
The college admissions interviewer who believed that as soon as I mentioned his death, it was my obligation to swallow the rest of my sentence to give her the space to express sympathy.
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