Unfinished: A Memoir

by Priyanka Chopra Jonas

I never really examined or dealt with my grief. Instead, I tried to power through. I was doing my best to be resilient, but the fact is that I was burying my grief rather than coming to terms with it. I moved from one extreme to another, like a pendulum, always in motion, always swinging. Either I was working long hours, moving fast, traveling, not giving myself time to think, or I was completely inside myself, shut down, uninterested in seeing friends or seeking company. Over time, I came to realize that my grief, rather than diminishing, had simply become an ever-present companion. Once I realized that it wasn’t going anywhere, instead of trying to distance myself from it, I allowed it to move in with me, as if I were a host, perhaps, and we were in a symbiotic relationship. I accepted that I would take it with me wherever I went, like I took my cellphone and my keys. Or perhaps like I took my determination and my loyalty, which are simply parts of me, as grief was, too, now. You might think this would be an impediment, but somehow the comfort of knowing that this grief, so personal to me, was like a priority item in the tuck box of my life allowed me to move forward. I knew it would always be there. It might change, evolve, become larger or smaller, but it would always be there. And this acceptance, it seems, helped me move forward.