The Grief of Change

Even when we’re the ones choosing the change, it can still stir up grief.

It’s something we don’t often talk about - that even joy-filled changes can carry threads of loss. Moving house, starting a new job, or even something as ordinary as renovating a room can bring both excitement and unease.

We’ve been renovating our bathroom recently. The walls stripped bare, the old fixtures removed, new tiles and paint taking their place. I’ve been surprised by how emotional it’s been.

That room held years of memories - small everyday moments, morning routines that blurred together, conversations called through steam. But it also held the other kind — the tears, the slammed doors, the moments when life tilted sideways. It carried the echoes of what we thought we wanted to forget.

Standing in that space as it changed, I realised how much a room can hold — how much we hold - until we strip things back and start again.

Now, the newness feels both beautiful and disorienting. There’s a moment in every change where the past overlays the present, like a faint reflection in glass. You can still sense what was there before, even as you stand inside what’s becoming.

It reminds me that grief doesn’t only belong to endings we didn’t choose. It can also show up when we willingly turn the page - when we say yes to renewal. Because every beginning asks us to release something old, even if that something was difficult.

Grief, in this sense, isn’t a sign that something has gone wrong. It’s the heart’s way of honouring everything that has lived here - the love, the loss, the ordinary, and the unspoken.

So I’ve been trying to let the feelings be what they are. To hold gratitude for the new space, and gentleness for all that it has carried.

Because change, like grief, is layered.

And maybe the truest form of moving forward is learning to carry both - the love for what has been, and the tenderness for what it took to get here.