What's a word to describe this feeling?

I typed into the chat bar:

“What’s a word that encompasses feeling mad, sad, longing, tired, grief”

Melancholy.

I put the kids’ bikes on the porch, angry that there are only 2.

I see a picture of a teen who is Anni’s would-have-been age getting their driver’s license and I feel mad.

I think about Anni picking up her brother from school, scrolling on her phone while she waits.

I think about her helping her sister with her math homework, both of them giggling because they don’t understand coefficients and giggling even more because they know I understand it even less than them.

I imagine Anni starting to look at college websites and I feel a weird twinge of gratitude that I won’t have to navigate dropping her off at a campus far from home.

All of these scenarios never would have happened anyway, and I suppose I grieved those things the day we got her diagnosis. It’s easy to get weighed down by the “should-have-beens” and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m desperate to feel some thread of emotional connection to her, even if that emotion is anger. Like an intentional stirring of that thing inside of me that misses her less. No, not less…just differently. And I feel almost anxious to be in touch with the deeply feeling part of myself again.

Truth is, I don’t even mind there’s not another bike. I miss her stroller.

I don’t mind there’s not a driver’s license. I miss her car seat.

I don’t mind she’s not rocking the school pickup. I miss her being with me while I wait for her brother.

I don’t mind her not helping with math. I miss the math of her medications.

I don’t mind her not looking at colleges. I miss the idea of her being with me when we drop the other two off in their dorms.

”Melancholy refers to a deep, persistent sadness or gloom, often accompanied by introspection and a sense of longing or nostalgia. It captures the complexity of emotions that can include anger and fatigue, especially in the context of loss or unfulfilled desires.” Yep. About sums it up. Thanks, AI.

Melancholy isn’t just sadness. It’s more like a stew that includes a blend of feelings that include longing, tiredness, and anger.

In the nearly two years since Anni died, I’ve explored new rooms of grief. I don’t think I realized how big the Grief House is, or how many secret passageways. The grief before was anticipatory of what was coming and grieving what never would have been. Now, it’s most tangibly a feeling of longing for her physical presence. I’ve had a couple of deep, comforting, not-long-enough moments of connection with her. But most of the time, I just yearn for her. Her crazy hair, her slobbery hands, her knobby knees, her enchanting smile. Now I just wait for something (anything) that will tap into a deeper part of my memory, like a gold miner panning day after day, catching glimpses of a flash in the pan with no promise of big luck. Just enough moments of seeing a glimmer to keep looking, waiting, watching. All I can do is continue to cultivate the skill of paying attention. Of being very present. Of noticing the little things. Of smiling and saying, “Hi, Anni” when I see a splash of prism in unexpected places.

So I’ll allow myself to be mad. Melancholy. I’ll sit with my feelings as tenderly and attentively as I’d sit with her.

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More words for this, and what the brain is doing underneath them: Grief and the Brain.