I used to believe love was the most overwhelming feeling.  I thought love was the ultimate reality—until I experienced guilt and grief simultaneously.  I believed love was endless u ntil I met grief face-to-face and realized it was eternal. Grief made me a time traveler. It dragged me back to moments I wanted to forget and froze me in memories I had no power to change. The thing about emotions is: they usually come in pairs. Disappointment arrives with anger. Sadness walks hand in hand with nostalgia—or sometimes, exhaustion. Even the purest joy is shadowed by the awareness of its impermanence. Emotions are rarely simple. One opens the door, and another slips in quietly behind it. Nothing is ever felt in isolation. Grief didn’t just visit me—it built a home in me. It rearranged the furniture of my soul. Grief, I’ve come to learn, is not just an emotional response. It’s a confrontation with reality itself. It’s the collapse of the illusion that life moves in a straight line. Wh...