Everything is entirely different, and yet I'm writing like I did in 2005
On the holidays, meaning reconstruction, and bringing Ariana Grande into every conversation. This is a newsletter from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT!
There’s a lyric from Ariana Grande’s new album, on the song Hampstead, where she sings:
I’m still the same but only entirely different
This semester I’ve come to know myself as someone who can relate anything back to Ariana (I’m a pop culture academic, okay!!!!), and this particular lyric resonates greatly. I’ve seen people critique it online, saying it’s redundant or makes no sense, but perhaps they don’t understand it on the ~deep, artistic level~ that I do.
There’s this theory, Meaning Reconstruction Theory coined by Robert A. Neimeyer, that describes the process in which we make new meaning in our lives following the death of a loved one. That is, our world completely changes—is shattered—in the aftermath of someone’s death. We in turn put the pieces back together, but the picture is now, like Ariana says, entirely different. Sure, they’re the same pieces, but they can never look how they did before they all broke apart. There is no way they ever could.
The holidays are often a difficult time for me. They have been since 2013, when my dad died a week before Christmas Eve. Every Christmas after was a reminder that nothing is the same, how could it ever be, because such a big piece of my heart was gone. Then we found out my mom’s cancer was terminal in 2021, that same day my dad died, on December 17. That was my last Christmas with the person who had the biggest segment of my heart. The last four years since have been a rebuilding of what I’ve known my life, my world, my family, my identity to be.
This is the first holiday season since 2013 that I’ve welcomed with open arms. Finally I’m excited to listen to my NSYNC and Beach Boys Christmas albums. I want to look at neighborhoods filled with Christmas lights with a hot chocolate in hand. I’m reveling in memories of my mom taking a photo with every Santa she encounters, and how much my dad and I used to love celebrating Christmastime from November 1 onwards.
Everything is different. Completely different. In the past four years I’ve worried that I lost a sense of who I used to be—bubbly and happy and carefree and guided by the whimsies in life. I didn’t want to lose those traits, not only because they are so integral to the person I consider myself to be, but also because they were among the parts of me that my parents knew, raised, and nurtured.
One of my students wrote a beautiful essay reflecting on this semester (which I will link as soon as they give me the permission to do so), and said:
most importantly thanks to Professor Piscatelli for being such an amazing teacher, and amazing podcaster, and what I can consider now a great friend, you really made my 9 yo self feel seen and even made my inner child cried a little because your class, your teaching method and your personality is all I ever wanted in a teacher as a kid, thanks for unconsciously helping me heal my inner child.
I cried when I first read this, and I’m crying now, because they perfectly articulated a thought that I hadn’t been able to previously identify. Teaching this semester and researching grief in popular culture and doing my radio show and writing is healing me. Sharing a classroom with students like them, being creative, and witnessing the creativity blossom of those around me has made me feel okay—in a way that 17-year-old me who just lost her dad and 25-year-old me who just lost her mom didn’t know if she ever would be again.
I believe healing is a never-ending process. Healing isn’t the end all be all, because I don’t think you can necessarily ever be healed, especially after experiencing life-altering grief. But I am healing, and I feel it so strongly, and that’s something I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to say.
And that’s why you’ll never catch me saying Ariana is a bad lyricist! Because even though everything is entirely different, I’m still writing newsletters just like I did when I was eight and my parents were there to read them.
Thank you to everyone reading this, because your support allows me to recognize I am the same me I always have been. Happy holidays from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT 💌
Thank you for reading. Please consider sharing the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT with a friend. It would mean the world! <3
