The High-Wire Season: Coping with Grief, Shorter Days, and Radical Boundaries
Managing grief during a season of milestones is a lot like walking a high wire. You’re suspended up there in plain view, carrying the invisible weight of everything you've lost, trying desperately to keep your eyes fixed straight ahead. The world below keeps spinning at its normal speed, expecting you to glide across with grace, poise, and zero public meltdowns. But every unmarked anniversary, every sudden drop in temperature, and every upcoming holiday acts like a rogue gust of wind, testing your balance when you least expect it.
You learn quickly that the wobble rarely happens during the grand, dramatic moments. Most of the time, it hits during the completely ordinary ones.
The Grandparents Day Ambush
Yesterday was Grandparents Day at Adelyn’s school. The elementary school was a whirlwind of chaos—adorable construction paper craft projects, tiny voices giving classroom tours, and grandmothers aggressively holding phone cameras in the air like they were filming a Taylor Swift concert. For an hour, I was fully immersed in being Grammy—soak-in-the-smiles, proud-beyond-words Grammy. Adelyn proudly showed off her desk and classroom, and flashed that bright smile that lights up an entire room. In those moments, you are completely anchored in the present, wrapped in pure joy.
But grief operates on a cruel little lag. It sits quietly in the corner of a noisy, cheerful room, waiting for the applause to die down so it can whisper, “Hey, remember who’s missing?”
Back in 2025, Greg and I both made the trip. I drove over from my office in Terre Haute, and he came in from work in Marshall, so we took separate cars. We didn't ride together, but the magic was in the debrief at the end of the day: kicking off our shoes, running through the highlights, and praying time would slow down because the grandkids were growing up way too fast.
Yesterday, I walked out to my car alone, turned the key, and headed straight back to work.
Rearview Mirror Drama and Professional Composure
That’s where the high wire gets impossibly narrow. You go from a room full of first-grade magic straight into the solitude of your vehicle, staring at your own reflection in the rearview mirror, actively bargaining with your tear ducts because you have a full afternoon of meetings waiting and a face full of makeup you genuinely cannot afford to ruin.
You force your breath steady, fix your hair, smooth your blouse that you spilled coffee on while driving there, and walk into the office looking like a functional adult while your heart is still sitting in an elementary school parking lot.
Because really, nothing says "I'm doing great!" quite like aggressively fanning your eyes with a manila folder in the hallway so your mascara stays in its lane.
The Autumn Fest Threshold
As if the general approach of fall wasn't heavy enough, this weekend brings our annual Marshall Autumn Fest. Normally, it’s a three-day blur of classic small-town comfort: ice cream every night, questionable meat on a stick, curly fries, and catching up with people you usually only bump into once or twice a year.
It’s supposed to be light.
It’s supposed to be fun.
This year, it’s a brutal, suffocating landmine.
Last year, Greg, Avery, and I spent that Saturday at Autumn Fest together—just enjoying the normal rhythm of our family and our town. On Sunday, he suffered the heart attack that began twelve agonizing days in the hospital before he passed away.
That memory turns a town festival into a physical crime scene for the soul. Avery and I have zero desire to attend this year, and frankly, we aren't going to force it. Walking through a crowd, dodging polite small talk, and smiling while our minds are trapped in the anniversary of a nightmare isn't "moving on"—it's self-sabotage.
Saying "no" to Autumn Fest this year is how we guard our sanity on the wire.
The Looming Anniversary and the 5:00 PM Darkness
I made it through the workday with my composure intact, but my body knows what time of year it is. On top of the seasonal shift, a giant, aggressive date looms on the calendar.
October 3rd marks one year since Greg passed.
As that one-year mark swiftly approaches, the air feels thicker. The mind naturally tracks the timeline, replaying where you were, what you were doing, and how your world fractured twelve months ago.
And don't even get me started on autumn. I know it’s technically just the start of fall, but I can already feel the shift in my bones—
and frankly, ugh.
Channeling my inner Stark family: "Brace yourself, winter is coming."
The shorter days and those sudden, aggressive 5:00 PM sunsets trigger a physical memory of last winter, which was, to put it mildly, brutal. I remember the weight of night after night sitting in a quiet house alone, watching the sun go down before I even left the office, while the silence at home grew deafening.
Trading Wine for Weights: The Healthy Coping Skills Upgrade
Last winter, when the darkness settled in early, I found myself reaching for the quickest, easiest way to mute the noise. Too many weeknights ended at the bottom of a glass of wine—not because it fixed anything, but because it dulled the edges just long enough to get to bedtime. When you're dangling on a wire in the dark, anything that promises to stop the swaying feels like a lifeline, even if it’s basically just pouring grease on the wire for the next morning.
I know I can't afford a repeat of that this year. A hangover on top of existential grief is a special kind of hell I am officially opting out of. Numbing the ache doesn't make winter any shorter; it just makes the morning tightrope walk twice as slippery.
This season, keeping my balance means being ruthlessly honest about how I choose to fill the empty hours. Returning to the gym and locking back into my exercise routine has been non-negotiable.
Doing a kettlebell workout, stepping onto the treadmill or stairclimber, practicing yoga, or working through a weight session isn't about hitting a fitness goal or optimizing my life for Instagram; it is pure survival.
When you carry emotional heaviness around all day, it settles into your shoulders, your jaw, and your lower back.
Pushing through a workout forces my mind to shift gears.
You breathe deeper.
You sweat out the quiet rage and frustration.
It gives all that restless, dark energy a constructive outlet instead of letting it curdle on the couch at 6:00 PM.
Swapping the Screen for Real Space: Therapy in Person
Part of that upgrade also meant acknowledging where virtual help was falling short. Last year, logging into therapy on a screen from the very couch where I spent my lonely evenings felt like a half-measure—it was too easy to treat it like just another video call on a busy calendar.
So I made the switch to in-person therapy.
There is something necessary about the physical act of getting in the car, driving to an actual office, sitting in a real chair across from a human being, and leaving the grief in that dedicated room when the session ends. It forces me out of the house and out of my head. It creates a boundaries-first space where I don't have to pretend I’m holding it all together, and where the hard conversations can’t just be closed out with a mouse click.
Radical Self-Care over Society's Recovery Arc
Along with movement and real-world therapy, I’m prioritizing self-care that actually restores me:
Monthly massages, pedicures, and creating moments where my nervous system is allowed to unclench.
Part of that protection also means getting intentionally picky about how—and with whom—I spend my free time. When your emotional bandwidth is constantly tested, you quickly learn you don't have space for transactional relationships or half-hearted efforts.
A huge piece of my self-care this season has been choosing to align my time with people who treat me like a priority, not an afterthought.
Surrounding myself with genuine care and effort isn't a luxury; it’s a necessary boundary that keeps my footing solid when the rest of the world feels unsteady.
We live in a culture that loves a quick recovery arc. People want to see you "getting back out there," smiling at events, and proving that you're "doing so well" so they can check a box and feel comfortable. But grief doesn't follow a neat little timeline, and it certainly doesn't care that 365 days have ticked by on a calendar.
Taking care of myself this season means rejecting the pressure to perform wellness for anyone else’s comfort.
True self-care isn't bubble baths and inspirational quotes; it's radical discipline.
It’s saying a polite "no" to invitations that will drain the tiny reserve of energy you have left.
It’s booking the 90-minute massage because your muscles are literally locked from holding yourself together for eleven months straight.
It’s forcing yourself to eat real food, drink water, and go to bed early even when your mind wants to scroll mindlessly through your phone until 2:00 AM.
Choosing healthy coping mechanisms isn't about performing perfection or pretending the grief is gone. It’s about building a ridiculously sturdy safety net. October 3rd, the upcoming holidays, and the cold nights will test my balance—there’s no way around that.
But this winter, when the wind blows,
and the wire starts to sway,
I don't have to fall.
I just have to breathe,
trust my strength,
and take it one steady,
sarcastic,
well-hydrated
step at a time.
A Note from Jen
If you’re standing on your own high wire right now, watching the light change, I see you. The dread of the cold months isn't in your head; it’s in your bones, and it is entirely valid to look at the upcoming calendar and just say, ugh.
You don't owe anyone a graceful performance this season. You don't have to execute a perfect landing, and you certainly don't have to pretend the wire isn't shaking under your feet. Give yourself permission to swap quick fixes for things that actually hold you up—whether that’s a heavy workout, a professional chair across from a therapist, or setting a boundary that protects your energy. Sit down on the wire when you need to rest, keep your mascara intact when you can, and remember that taking it one single second at a time still gets you across.
With love and zero fluff,
Jen
Journal Prompts for the Walk Ahead
The Physical Inventory: Where in your body are you currently carrying the tension of upcoming dates or changing seasons, and what is one physical action (a workout, a massage, a deep breath, an early bedtime) that would allow that muscle to unclamp today?
Exposing the Quick Fixes: What coping mechanism did you rely on in past seasons that gave quick relief but left you slippery the next morning—and what sturdy, healthy replacement can you put in its place before winter sets in?
Dropping the Audience: If you completely stopped performing "recovery" or "doing great" for the comfort of the people around you, what is one invitation, tradition, or local event you would give yourself absolute permission to skip this season?
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