Grief and Boundaries

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Emotional involvement, whatever form it takes, requires a work of mourning. Who has never suffered after falling out with a dear friend and having to face that loss, for example? As I began to think about how the human psyche relates to itself and to others, I realized that grief and boundaries are certainties in any relationship. Perhaps that is why some people fear them so deeply.

This afternoon, while driving through the city, I started wondering how to care for and protect my body and my emotional life. Traffic was heavy, and I was moving slowly. Up ahead, at the crossing, I saw that the train was passing. I stopped, looked, listened. Holding the car on the clutch, I asked myself: “how is it possible to relate to someone without going through some kind of suffering?”. Years of psychoanalysis gave me an answer that kept me thinking the whole way home:

It is not possible.

Every human relationship requires a psychic work of mourning, because everything ends. The question is not “how can I avoid suffering?”, but rather, “how can I learn to work through psychic grief without ceasing to experience the good parts of life?”.

The train passed. The line of cars moved. I was on my way home after a deep conversation with my best friend. When I could, I turned left and, without warning, it occurred to me that life ends. There is no escaping entropy, and this principle extends to many spheres of human life. Grief is the pain of the boundary. Of the “no”. Of the end. But boundaries also remind us that living requires care and protection. The much-feared “no” is what allows us to live. A boundary is an expression of care.

And there I was, after so many years, books and studies on how all this works, from philosophical to psychoanalytic conceptions, negotiating with myself the need to face suffering and endings. And it is not one specific ending. I am not talking about romance, I am talking about any ending. Today, I see that every boundary requires the elaboration of loss and the belief that what one receives in return has value. When I decide to stop smoking, the pleasure of addiction is taken from me, but faith in a healthier body sustains me.

Epicurus once said that there is pleasure in limits. There is pleasure in moderation. And perhaps the key to moving through grief is moderation. Little in this human experience can be controlled, but much can be learned from oneself and from others. There is peace in understanding, at a psychic, almost visceral level, that grief exists regardless of my will, and that boundaries come to collect their due sooner or later. And to think I could have gone my whole life without realizing this.

I parked the car in front of my house. The day is cloudy, overcast, but the temperature is pleasant, and now and then a few rays of sunlight appear. I lock the car door and think, as I cross the street: “well, there is no way around it, grief is something we go through”. Suffering cuts, but it passes. If everything good comes to an end, then there is also a limit to pain. I sigh and drop my key. “Well, it can’t fall lower than the ground!”, I think. I stare at it lying there for a few moments. I pick it up and open the gate.

Being human is too damn good.