The Awakening: What If You Stopped Postponing Your Life?
There’s a thought many of us carry quietly — almost guiltily — after loss.
I know I should be happier… but I keep waiting to feel alive. We don’t usually say it out loud. It feels ungrateful. Or impatient. Or somehow disrespectful to what we’ve lost. So we keep going. We function. We survive. And we tell ourselves that one day — after enough time has passed, after we’ve healed a little more, after life settles down — we’ll feel the fullness of being here again.
Grief taught me that “later” is not the solution we think it is.
I didn’t come to this realization because I was wise or spiritually evolved. I came to it because life forced my hand. Loss has a way of collapsing the timelines we take for granted. It strips away the illusion that there will always be more time to arrive at happiness, more time to say yes to what matters, more time to feel fully present in the lives we’re already living.
What surprised me most was not the pain of that realization — but the relief.
When you stop assuming you have forever, happiness becomes easier to touch.
And so much of what keeps us from joy isn’t grief itself — it’s the belief that joy must be earned after grief. That it has to look a certain way. That it needs permission. That it must be justified by suffering “enough.”
But grief doesn’t ask us to earn happiness. Grief asks us to stop postponing it.
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For a long time, I thought happiness was something you practiced. Something you worked toward. Something you got better at with time and effort. What I eventually learned is that joy arrives naturally when you stop bargaining with time.
I realized how much of life I’d been only half present for while I was waiting. Waiting for permission. Waiting for conditions to improve. Waiting to feel ready. Waiting to feel whole again before allowing myself to live.
But feeling alive, feeling joyful, doesn’t come from waiting. It comes from allowing.
Allowing yourself to enjoy small moments without guilt. Allowing yourself to laugh without explanation. Allowing yourself to feel alive even when parts of you still ache.
Happiness doesn’t require certainty. It requires presence. And presence doesn’t come from having answers. It comes from no longer assuming you have unlimited time to arrive at them.
Grief didn’t make my life smaller. It made it clearer.
Clearer about what matters. Clearer about what doesn’t. More aware of how much of life is happening right now — whether I’m fully in it or not.
If there’s an invitation here, it’s not to rush your healing or force your joy. It’s simply this: stop postponing your life.
Not because you owe anyone optimism. Not because you’re “ready.” But because you don’t have to wait for happiness. You just have to realize that it’s there, quietly waiting for you.
Additional Resources for Healing, Presence & Joy
Books & Reading Support
Order or learn more about Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief — Melissa Hull’s compassionate guide for living fully with grief. Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief (Official Book Page)
Free & Guided Support Tools
Dear Drew Extended Resources — free, companion resources tied to the themes of your blog to help you move through grief with agency and presence. Dear Drew Extended Resources (Parts 1–4)
Free Gratitude Journal & Meditation Guides — guided tools for gentle presence, awareness, and emotional grounding. These include:
FREE Gratitude Journal
Heart-Centered Guided Meditation
Quit Your C.L.U.B. (Core Limiting Beliefs) Mini-Course
https://www.melissahull.com/learnmore
Podcasts & Ongoing Conversations
Greater Than Grief Podcast — conversations about living with grief, finding meaning, and allowing joy. Listen to the Greater Than Grief Podcast (Apple Podcasts)
A Few Places to Continue the Conversation
If you’re craving connection or community:
Greater Than Grief Community— a space to grow with others who are navigating loss and learning how to be present again.