The Grief We Don’t Name
When memory ambushes you in the algorithmic age.
While cleaning today, I found a pouch of personal items I used to keep at my ex’s place. Things like a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and deodorant.
I’d forgotten about that pouch. Yet there it was, shoved under my dresser, covered in dust.
Suddenly it was 2022 again. He and I were heading in the right direction. Or so it felt.
Fast forward two years. Once I realized he and I would not go the distance, I poured myself into methods of healing my broken heart. The usual suspects took center stage. Massages. New clothes. Long phone calls with close friends who received my tears and gave me hope. Purging anything that reminded me of him.
Took me a solid year to do that work. Still not done, but I can honestly say I’ve come out better, wiser, and stronger on the other side.
But as anyone who has lost someone you love knows, stumbling upon something as seemingly insignificant as a pouch of toiletries that has an affiliation to a different time (or person) can send you spiraling right back into Trauma.
Fast.
I wasn’t prepared for what that pouch would stir up for me.
That’s the thing about grief: it doesn’t knock. It just arrives.
Sometimes it’s a memory. Sometimes a song.
And lately, for so many of us, it’s the algorithm.
Not because it’s evil. But because it’s trained to mimic what you miss.
You scroll past photos, quotes, stories, each one like a digital pouch under the dresser. Reminders of who you were. What you thought you’d have.
I won’t even get into what the Covid years did.
And just like that: spiral.
That’s the grief you don’t name. The one that lives in your devices. The one you can’t delete. The one you keep pretending is “just a little overwhelm.”
It’s not just burnout. Or distraction. Or another hour lost to a scroll you don’t remember.
It’s grief.
But not the kind you’re taught to recognize.
This is quieter. Slipperier. Algorithmic.
It’s the grief of:
Ideas you never pursued because someone posted it first.
Friendships that faded into DMs with “lol” and “you still there?”
Time—so much time—handed over to machines that promised connection and gave you craving instead.
The version of yourself you used to be before you filtered, optimized, and learned to speak in carousel-worthy punchlines.
We don’t collectively talk about this kind of grief. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t sell. It doesn’t make the evening news or shout or get the most likes, comments, or shares.
All the same, it wrings you out and makes you ache all over.
And if you’ve felt it, even for a second, you’re not broken.
You’re awake.
And maybe, just maybe, you’re ready to stop pretending that “overwhelm” is a personal flaw…when it’s often the natural response to a system that never lets you rest.
I don’t have all the answers. But I’ve been walking through this terrain, too. Mapping it. Writing it. Grieving it out loud. Often awkwardly.
If you're here, maybe you're walking it, too. And maybe it's time we started naming the grief we've all been carrying.
Together.