On loss

Loss is a strange thing. Not because it happens—we all know it will—but because it rarely shows up the way you expect it to.

You would think the moment would be obvious. The hospital room, the phone call, the final conversation, the clean line between before and after. But for me, that’s almost never how it works. I usually make it through those moments just fine. I show up, say the things, do what needs to be done, and then life continues on as if everything is still more or less intact.

Then, a few weeks later, something small catches me off guard. A random memory, a song, a familiar voice in my head, the realization that I’ll never see someone again in quite the same way. And that’s when it lands like a quiet weight settling in after the fact.

This week has had a bit of that feeling. A few quiet endings, a couple of reminders that life doesn’t always give you much warning when things shift. Nothing dramatic, nothing catastrophic, just the kind of moments that make you pause and take stock of what’s actually steady in your life and what might have quietly moved on.

Loss isn’t always about someone leaving the world. Sometimes it’s much quieter than that. A chapter ends, circumstances change, and the shape of your life adjusts in ways you don’t fully register at first. It’s often only later—when you look back—that you realize something meaningful quietly slipped into the past.

As it turns out, this happens in work too. Anyone who’s spent time managing projects knows the feeling. Teams form, momentum builds, people collaborate intensely for a while, and then one day the project ends and everyone disperses back into the world. We call it “closing the project,” which is a very tidy phrase for something that rarely feels tidy at all.

Real life, much like project work, tends to leave a little emotional debris behind. The relationships mattered. The effort mattered. The shared experience mattered. Even if the plan has technically wrapped up.

The upside—and I do believe there’s always an upside—is that loss tends to create space. Not immediately, and not always comfortably, but eventually. Space for something new, for different paths, for growth that you probably wouldn’t have chosen voluntarily but will learn from anyway.

So yes, this week feels a little heavy. I’m allowing that, because pretending otherwise never really works for me. But I’m also aware that the bright path forward is still there somewhere beyond the fog. It usually is.

Sometimes you just have to give yourself a day or two to squint at it.

T L ; D R - This week brought a few quiet reminders that things change and chapters end. Loss is part of life, but so is whatever comes next.