There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from grief layered on top of travel. Not the romantic kind of travel with postcards and sunsets, but the kind that smells like airport coffee, recycled air, and the constant hum of anxiety beneath your skin.

Recently, we had to travel across the country for my husband’s family. His brother was terminally ill. The first trip carried that heavy, unspoken knowledge that time was running thin. The second trip came after he passed.

The grief I carried during these trips was not my own in the way people usually mean it. I did not lose a sibling. But I am deeply empathic, and grief has a way of radiating outward. I could feel it in my husband. In his parents. In each family member who had lost him in their own way. It pressed into the space between us, unspoken but ever-present, and my body absorbed it whether I meant for it to or not.

Nothing prepares you for how grief behaves in transit.

On that first journey, somewhere between layovers and long corridors, I lost my wallet. Not just misplaced it, but truly lost it. Cards. ID. The small anchor of normalcy you cling to when everything else feels like it’s slipping. Airports are already disorienting. Add grief, and the world tilts just enough to make you feel unsteady on your feet.

Grief does not pause for logistics. It does not care about boarding groups, reservations, or return flights. It comes with you. It sits beside you in cramped seats. It hums in your ears at altitude. It reminds you, again and again, that life can change in a phone call.

By the second trip, we were already worn thin. Budget, the rental car company, gave away our reservation. No apology. No accountability. Just an attempt to upsell us on a “premium” vehicle for an extra forty-five dollars a day. As if grief leaves room in the budget for convenience fees and corporate indifference. As if this was just another vacation hiccup and not a family walking through loss.

Those moments may sound small on paper. A wallet. A car. But grief magnifies stress until everything feels sharp. Every inconvenience becomes a weight. Every obstacle presses against an already bruised heart.

Layer on top of that the stress from both trips and so many things happening that were largely out of our control, and you can bet there were moments I almost lost it entirely. Airports, delays, crowds, noise, sudden changes, emotional conversations, and constant decision-making are a perfect storm for overstimulation. With my AudHD, there were times my nervous system was stretched so thin it felt like one more sound or one more demand might tip me over the edge.

I pushed through because that’s what we do. Because love demands showing up even when your body is waving white flags. Because sometimes there is no gentle timing for loss.

As if that wasn’t enough, my body joined the rebellion.

Right before the last trip, I got sick. Fluid trapped in my ears. A sinus infection that made my face ache. My chronic bronchitis flared, dragging my lungs into the mess. Taking on the emotional weight of others’ grief while being physically ill has made this last trip especially hard to recover from, both physically and mentally. Healing has not been an easy thing. It has been slow, uneven, and deeply exhausting.

So exhausting, in fact, that over the past few days I slept straight through my therapy session. I also slept through several alarms, something that normally would frustrate or worry me, but instead simply underscored how depleted my system truly was. When your body finally drops its guard after weeks of holding everything together, it doesn’t ask permission. It shuts down where it can.

What no one tells you is how grief settles into the body, even empathic grief. It tightens muscles. It shortens breath. It lowers immunity. It drains energy so completely that rest feels less like restoration and more like survival.

If you are reading this while grieving, supporting grieving loved ones, navigating illness, or managing a neurodivergent nervous system through all of it, hear this gently. You are not weak for being overwhelmed. You are not irresponsible for sleeping through alarms. You are not failing because your body and mind need more time to recover than you expected.

Grief is heavy. Carrying it for yourself or alongside others can be equally draining. Add chronic illness, acute sickness, or neurodivergence, and you are asking your body to do heroic things without adequate rest.

Be kind to yourself where you can. Let your body sleep when it needs to. Step away when you must. Cry in the airport bathroom if you have to. Ask for help even if it feels awkward. Let inconvenience be inconvenient without assigning it shame. None of this is a reflection of your strength.

It is simply the reality of loving deeply, standing beside those who are hurting, and surviving a season that asked more of you than you ever wanted to give.

And sometimes, surviving the journey is enough.

Much love and many blessings,
Mrs. B