Subject: Letter of Resignation

Dear Sir/Madam/Grief Department Head/Whoever Keeps the Ledger of the Living and the Lost,

Please consider this my formal resignation.

I am hereby stepping down. No, collapsing away from my long-held, unofficial post as The Strong One. The Quiet One. The One Who Never Says No. The Emotional Mule. The Resident Saint of Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms. The Human Duct Tape.

Effective immediately, I will no longer be accepting assignments that involve smiling politely when someone says, “You’re doing so well,” as if I’ve just passed a performance review on the corporate ladder of Tragedy. I will not be attending any more mandatory meetings with platitudes like, “Everything happens for a reason,” or “They’re in a better place,” especially when spoken by people who have never had to scrub grief out of their own bloodstream with steel wool.

I resign from holding it together. From being a lighthouse for everyone else while my own foundation rots quietly beneath the waves. From offering tissues to people who cry about my loss while I sit there dry-eyed like a particularly well-mannered statue. I resign from the Sunday brunches where your name is not mentioned, from the birthday cakes with fewer candles than there should be, from the practiced smile I wear like armor that’s two sizes too tight.

I resign from silence. From the way I keep your name locked in my throat, afraid to say it in case the whole fragile scaffolding comes crashing down. I resign from pretending this ache is manageable. That this absence is something I’ve adjusted to. I haven’t adjusted. I’ve just rearranged the furniture around the crater.

You see, grief lied in the job interview. It said I’d be sad for a while, then I’d grow stronger. Smarter. Wiser. That I'd transform. That I'd move through each of five stages then be all done with it. Grief said there was meaning in loss. That I’d come out the other side a better person.

Instead, grief is a long con. A grifter with a clipboard and a fake badge. It moved into my chest and started rearranging things without asking first. Replacing light with weight, replacing laughter with a tightness in my ribs that doesn’t ease up even when the joke is genuinely funny.

I’ve tried everything. Rituals. Therapy. Reading the stages of grief like a map, as if denial and bargaining were actual towns I could visit and then leave behind. But turns out, the stages are more like rooms in a haunted house—you circle through them again and again, and just when you think you’ve made it to the exit, there’s another door marked “Acceptance,” and it spits you right back into “Anger” or “Depression,” or worse, “Numb.”

So, I’m done.

I’m done being the designated mourner who always makes the pain digestible for others. I’m done with the idea that grief has to be tidy, palatable, or poetic. I’m done with moving on, because where exactly am I supposed to move to when you’re still here, everywhere and nowhere? In the song that played while we drove to the beach that summer. In the smell of your shampoo that lingers in a stranger’s elevator. In the goddamn way the sun hits the kitchen counter at exactly the angle it did that day.

I’ve carried this grief like a second spine. I’ve built a whole functioning person around the hole you left. But I’m tired. Bone-tired. And there’s no promotion at the end of this job. No gold watch. Just more of the same. More of that blank, echoing space where you’re supposed to be.

So, this is me, officially stepping down.

From being strong. From being stoic. From nodding and saying “I’m okay” when I’m anything but. From politely absorbing every tone-deaf comment because people mean well. From pretending like I don’t Google your name just to see it written out. From pretending like some part of me doesn’t still think this is all a bad dream I’ll wake up from any second now.

I know what you're thinking: What happens next? If I resign, who takes over?

Honestly? I don’t know.

Maybe someone else can be strong for a while. Maybe no one will. Maybe the whole façade will crack, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe grief isn’t meant to be managed. Maybe it’s just meant to be witnessed.

Because if I’m honest, I know this letter won’t do anything. There’s no inbox to send it to. No desk where grief stamps “ACCEPTED” and lets you clock out.

Grief doesn’t take resignations. It doesn’t do severance packages or farewell cakes. It shows up like it owns the place. It plants itself in your bones and dares you to pretend otherwise. Some days it shrinks enough to let you breathe. Other days, it spreads out like smoke and fills every inch of you.

I guess what I’m saying is, this resignation isn’t really a resignation. It never could have been.

It’s more of a protest. A howl. A messy, furious declaration that I’m tired of pretending this is a job I ever applied for, let alone one I’m good at.

But still. I’m submitting it. Because even if it changes nothing, I needed to say it. Out loud. In writing. Like a spell or a scream or a whisper through a closed door.

I resign.

And if you must, go ahead and send back your official reply. I can see it already, stamped in red ink, bureaucratic and cruel:

“Your resignation has been denied.”

Of course it has.

Still, I’ll keep writing them. Every day, if I have to.

Sincerely,

The Ex-Strong One (In Theory)

Still Here. Still Grieving. Still Trying.