The Hidden Grief of Outgrowing Who You Used to Be
On mourning who you were and honoring who you're becoming
There’s a kind of grief that doesn’t come with a funeral, a sympathy card, or a clear moment where you know something has ended. Most of the time, you don’t even recognize it.
It’s the grief of outgrowing who you used to be.
Identity change rarely happens in one clean break. It’s subtle. You start noticing that the roles you once took on don’t fit the same way. Things start to feel off, and the places and people that once felt like home and family no longer do.
I used to belong to a private club in New York City called Norwood. I loved that place in a way that’s hard to explain. In Manhattan, apartments tend to be small, at least mine was, so I would rarely have people over. Instead, I’d meet with them at the club, so I started referring to it as my living room.
I’d walk in the door and people would literally shout my name. It was my Cheers, except with better furniture, art on the walls, and people dancing on the couches when we’d do late-night lock-ins. Those were some of the most freeing years of my life.
I was also going through perimenopause at the time, which meant I was essentially out of my head with brain fog, depression, and just a general sense of not knowing who or where I was. Add to that a growing drinking problem; my body was changing and I couldn’t handle the wine any longer. One night of fun could turn into a three-day hangover.
So, one day, I had to step away from what I loved the most.
I had to stop drinking and find out what was happening to me. None of the doctors I went to ever mentioned I might be going through the “change,” so I spent years thinking I was going insane. When my endocrinologist mentioned in passing that I was almost through menopause, a lightbulb went off.
I wasn’t going crazy. I was going through one of the biggest changes in a woman’s life.
And in order to step into the person I was becoming, I had to stop going to my favorite place on the planet. I wasn’t able to meet up with friends and not have a drink, because it would always lead to multiple glasses.
What I hadn’t factored in was the emotional fallout. When I stopped going to Norwood, I lost my connection to the many people I’d met and befriended there. Our friendships revolved around meeting up after a long day of work and unwinding over some food and usually a lot of drink. And having fun and laughing. There was so much fun and laughter.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but I began grieving for a meaningful part of my life that I’d lost, one I had to give up if I wanted to thrive in my next phase.
This kind of grief is rarely recognized by others or even ourselves. I was turning into a different person, and I wasn’t able to connect with most people like I had before. There’s a loneliness that comes with that, and a sadness that needs to be acknowledged.
I’m now over eight years sober, and I still haven’t found a community anywhere near as tight knit or fun as I had during my Norwood years. And there are days I still grieve what I had to give up. Granted, I’m still friendly with some of the people from those days, but we’re all in different places now.
Honor the Shift
Letting go of an old version of yourself doesn’t mean rejecting your past, but it does mean you might have to mourn parts of your life and people that you loved.
I think a big problem for many of us is that we don’t honor the life shifts we go through, especially the huge ones like menopause, losing a career, or even retiring.
Now that I’ve finished my fourth book and my first series, I’m thinking about creating some kind of ceremony out here in the desert in New Mexico. I don’t understand it completely yet, but this marks a massive change in my life. And since I’ve never really stopped to acknowledge the big turning points, I think it’s time.
This isn’t an ego thing either. I might do my ceremony alone with some prairie dogs, but I think a sign of self love is to acknowledge our strength, our struggles, and how far we’ve come in all aspects of our lives. We all need more self celebration.
If you find you’re not fitting into something any longer, or something feels off without a clear reason, maybe you’re moving into a new phase in life. And if you are, take time to acknowledge how you’re feeling. There’s no need to feel conflicted or ashamed about grieving what you’re leaving behind, even if you think it’s something small.
So rather than push down, deny, or pretend we aren’t going through a shift, maybe we should give ourselves the grace of grieving and the self-love to honor who we’ve been, who we are, and who we’re becoming.
Celebrate yourself. If you can’t, who will?
I talk about this more in my YouTube episode, The Emotional Cost of Starting Over in Midlife.