Grief Has a Good Memory
Sitting with what the mind refuses to release.
This piece is about grief, looping, and the stories my autistic brain will not let go of. It is about what it means to carry a memory long after it is over, and the slow practice of learning to sit with what I cannot fix. I write from the space between. Between understanding and unknowing. Between childhood and now. Between what happened and what I needed.
This is a story about finding the path. Not by making sense of it all, but by being willing to stay with what is.
“Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.”
— Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
I used to think I didn’t understand feelings. What I’m learning now is that I just didn’t have the words for them. The truth is, I feel everything deeply. When someone else is hurting, I feel it too. I can’t always separate their pain from mine. Even watching movies can be too much. When they’re sad, I feel it all the way through. It stays in me, becomes a feeling memory. I think that’s part of why grief hits so hard and stays so long. The memories aren’t just thoughts. They come back as feelings in my body. And when they return, my mind tries to make sense of them all over again. That’s where the loops begin.
Lately, I’ve been feeling very sad. And it makes sense. I’m grieving. There’s something about grief, paired with the way my thoughts loop and return, that creates an echo I can’t get out of. My mind keeps bringing me back to what happened. Even when I say I don’t want to think about it anymore. Even when I try to let it go. When I feel like this, I return to When Things Fall Apart. I treat it like a guide, something sacred that helps me remember what matters and how to keep moving through the weight of grief.
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
— Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
I keep coming back to this. My mind isn’t punishing me. It’s trying to understand. It’s trying to find meaning in something that doesn’t make sense. And maybe what I need to learn is that some things are not meant to make sense. Some things are meant to be felt.
For me, looping isn’t just overthinking. It’s part of how my autistic brain processes unresolved experiences. It keeps returning to things that don’t make sense, trying to find clarity or closure. Even when I know I won’t find it, my mind circles back. Not because I want to be stuck, but because I am trying to feel safe. The loop is my brain’s way of protecting me from something unfinished.
There’s a memory from second grade that still returns. I made a poor choice, then lied about it. That lie hurt a little girl. Because of what I said, she was blamed and treated unfairly. I told the truth later that same day, but the damage had already been done. I don’t know why I lied. My mind still tries to figure it out. Sometimes I think maybe I just didn’t want to own what I had done. Other times I remember I was only seven. Probably not thinking ahead. Probably just reacting. Still, that moment lives in me like a knot I keep returning to. Not always to untangle it, but sometimes just to sit with it. It comes back not because I want to relive it, but because my brain is searching for a way to understand it. To make it make sense. And maybe that is what looping is. An old story asking for a kind of resolution I may never get.
I tell myself to move on. I really do. I try to stop the loops. Sometimes I succeed. Until a sound, a place, a phrase brings the past right back and the cycle begins again.
I want to move forward. I want rest. I want peace. I know I don’t need to rationalize everything. But I also know that my mind is wired to keep searching for clarity. That’s not a flaw. It’s a form of care. A way my brain tries to protect me from being caught off guard again.
I’ve spent so much time trying to understand. Not just the situation, but the people involved. Trying to hold compassion. Trying to accept that even when everyone is doing their best, sometimes that best is not enough to keep things together.
There is something honest in letting things fall apart. Something brave in not rushing to rebuild. I am learning to sit in the rubble without shame. To breathe here. To feel here. To trust that this too is part of the path.
My thoughts still loop. I still want rest. I still long for quiet. But I am learning that maybe the quiet doesn’t come from escaping the noise. Maybe it comes from learning to sit with it differently. Maybe rest begins when I stop fighting the mind that is always trying to make sense, and instead start listening to what it is trying to show me.
I don’t want perfect. I want peace. I don’t need answers. I just want to feel a little more ease in my body. And maybe that is the beginning of a new kind of understanding. Not of what happened, but of myself. Maybe this is what it means to find the path. Not by fixing the past, but by being fully present with what is. Letting each moment be enough. Letting the now be where I begin again.
“The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell. In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable.”
— Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
If this piece resonates with you, I invite you to sit with it slowly. Whether you are autistic, grieving, or trying to make sense of something that refuses to resolve, you are not alone in the loop. Sometimes the most honest thing we can do is stay present with what remains unfinished. That presence is part of the path too.