Personal Story
When your world shrinks
By Momma R
Navigating friendships, family, and work when so few people understand what your days really feel like. After loss, your world doesn’t explode — it contracts. Conversations get smaller. Tolerance gets sharper. The room for pretense disappears. You notice how many interactions are built on assumptions you no longer share, timelines you no longer believe in, and emotional bandwidth you simply don’t have. It’s not that you’ve become cold or difficult. It’s that your nervous system has learned something most people haven’t: life is not theoretical anymore.
Friendships shift first. Some people mean well but speak from a distance they don’t realize they’re standing in. Others disappear quietly, not out of cruelty, but because your reality disrupts the story they need to tell themselves about safety and fairness. Family can be harder. Roles calcify. Expectations linger.You may find yourself doing emotional translation work you never signed up for — deciding what to explain, what to let go, and what you no longer have the energy to manage. This isn’t bitterness. It’s discernment.
Work is often where the gap feels starkest. You show up, deliver, and function — but inside, your days carry a weight no calendar can account for. Productivity is visible; grief is not. The world rewards performance, not the quiet discipline it takes to keep living honestly after everything has changed. If your circle is smaller now, it’s not a failure. It’s evidence of alignment. Your world didn’t shrink because you’re broken. It shrank because only what’s real can stay.