Who's That Girl?

We’re often taught that emotions arrive one at a time. That grief replaces love. That joy means healing is finished. That if you’re still sad, you must not be okay yet.

But grief doesn’t work like that. And neither does love.

Grief is not the opposite of love; it is proof of it. It’s love with nowhere to go. Love that has lost its address but refuses to disappear. Because of that, grief and love don’t take turns — they coexist.

You can miss someone deeply and still laugh at a joke. You can ache for what’s gone and feel grateful for what’s new. You can feel devastated and lucky in the same breath. None of this is betrayal. None of it cancels the other out.

After loss, moments of lightness often come with guilt. That sudden thought: How can I feel okay when they’re gone? How can I feel joy or love again? But love was never meant to trap us in pain. Loving someone doesn’t require endless suffering to prove loyalty or sincerity. If anything, the warmth, connection, and even joy we feel again are signs that love is still alive — just expressed differently now.

Grief isn’t linear or tidy. It doesn’t disappear so much as it changes shape. Some days it’s heavy and loud. Other days it’s quiet, almost gentle, like a memory passing through. Love does the same. It evolves. It adapts. It learns how to live alongside absence.

What makes this coexistence so disorienting is our need for clarity. We want to label days as “good” or “bad,” hearts as “broken” or “healed.” But most days are both. Most hearts hold contradictions. That doesn’t mean we’re confused — it means we’re human.

Recently, while boarding the largest cruise ship in the world with a beautiful new family we’re building a life with, I was suddenly overwhelmed. This was a dream my late husband and I once shared — one he specifically wanted me to live out after he was gone. The grief hit in that moment. So did the guilt. Grief has a way of doing that, of making joy feel undeserved.

What made it easier was having a partner who understood. Someone who reassured me that we deserved to experience this life fully. That our hearts, shaped by loss, still deserve connection and joy. In that moment, it became unmistakably clear: grief and love aren’t rivals. They coexist.

The truest thing we can say is this: grief is love that remains. And when we allow both to exist, we’re not holding onto the past or chasing the future. We’re not erasing what was or replacing it with something new. We’re standing honestly in the present — and that, in itself, is a gift.

And maybe this is the quiet truth beneath it all: when grief and love are allowed to coexist, nothing is being dishonored. The love that shaped you is not fading — it’s expanding. It’s making room. Every step forward carries the echo of what came before, not as a weight, but as a presence. And if joy found you again, it isn’t a sign that you’ve forgotten. It’s a sign that love is still doing what it has always done — finding ways to live.

xo LM