An impossible thing

on grief, illness, & being cringe

same, Pepe, same

Hi friends,

I recently perused the archives of this here writing project and was struck by the sense that everything thus far shared was most certainly written by someone else. Which I suppose, in a way, it was. Because the version of me who started this Substack is not the same me I am today. (Insert any and all platitudes about how we’re always and forever evolving, everything is temporary, the only constant is change, etc., etc., etc.) Because, yes, of course. I am perpetually in the process of becoming the next iteration of myself. Like we all are. But these past two years have felt particularly intense in this regard, the cycles of change moving along at an especially accelerated rate — just as I get comfortable with the me I’ve turned into, I get ousted from that identity what feels like instantaneously. It’s been disorienting and liberating and terrible and heartbreaking and cathartic and impossible and softening and frustrating and angering and clarifying and OMG exhausting.

When I sent out that first post last June, I was struggling. I had been for a while. With an undiagnosed brain injury caused by back-to-back car accidents eighteen months prior. With ongoing professional setbacks. With the upheaval to our lives and relationship brought about by my partner’s ICU stay and subsequent diagnosis with type I diabetes. It is not an exaggeration to say starting this newsletter helped save me last summer. Most (ahem, all) of what I’ve shared here has not been literarily or creatively brilliant. It has been mediocre, it has been poorly written at times, it has been embarrassingly personal. Reading back through past posts, I cringe often. I have many times considered deleting the entire archive and pretending this never happened.

I embarked on this project from a low place. I’m not sure if I would call it a rock bottom, but it certainly felt like the bottom of something. Either way, I needed a lifeline and writing (at first weekly and then not-so-weekly) posts for this silly little Substack unexpectedly fulfilled that need. So who cares if some of my past shares are cringe? If they’re embarrassing in their content, sometimes derivative, mostly a mess? Who cares if I’m not the best Substacker who ever Substacked, you know? I pursued a passion and it aided in my recovery from a terrible, life-threatening thing and it helped me navigate a plethora of shitty situations and maybe that’s good enough. Maybe it’s actually the best outcome possible.

As I shared in my last post, my mother is quite ill. Her diagnosis with incurable cancer has changed everything in my life. It has changed me. Irreversibly. I am not the same person I was a month ago. There are days I barely recognize myself. There are days nothing in my life makes sense. There are days I can’t find meaning anywhere. There are days it feels like everything is more important than it’s ever been before. People have been asking me how I’m doing and I always answer with, I don’t know. It depends on the day. It depends on the hour. It depends on a lot of things. Last weekend I cried my way through John Wick 4. Yesterday I cried my way through Air. In between, I watched Wild — in which the main character (real person Cheryl Strayed as portrayed by actress Reese Witherspoon) loses her mother to cancer — and didn’t cry at all. Grief is unpredictable in that way. It is wily and can surface at unexpected times, triggered by seemingly benign and not-at-all-sad things. Or surprisingly absent in the face of what we assume might activate it most.

But that’s not what I’m here to write about today. I’m here to say I’m not sure what’s next for this newsletter. The only thing I ever wanted to do when I was young was write words on a page and have other people read them. That’s still a thing I want to do, which is a big part of why I started this Substack in the first place. But I’ve got to be realistic about my capacity — especially given the recent news — and admit that it is limited. Which means a weekly newsletter is out of the question. At least of the kind I originally envisioned when I began creating on this platform. I’m also feeling the pull more towards privacy and haven’t quite figured out how to write the way I want to write about the topics that interest me without putting my entire life on display in real time. Because while I believe in the healing power of telling our stories truthfully, I also believe in the healing power of keeping certain experiences sacred. The line separating these things is fine. I’m still finding that line.

All of this to say, thank you for being here. Thank you for subscribing and commenting and sharing and clicking that little ❤️ at the top when you like something I’ve written. And thank you for your patience while I navigate an impossible thing.

xoxo

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One thing that always, ALWAYS brings me joy is sharing things I’ve found interesting or insightful or useful in some way. And even though Substack tells me very few folks actually click on any of the links I provide, I’m going to keep putting things out there. Take a peek if you feel so inclined.

1. Why Doctors Can’t Name Female Anatomy. Read this one. Seriously. But in case you don’t, the final paragraph:

Ultimately, changing the focus of women’s health—and in particular, acknowledging that comfort, pleasure, and sexual health matter at least as much as the ability to bear a child—will take more than changing terms. But what we can do, for now, is ensure that vulva has a clear, standardized meaning across medicine so that researchers, doctors, and patients can be sure they’re actually talking about the same thing. Both within and outside of medicine, terms like vulva help us expand our mental maps of our own bodies and shift the focus to broader notions of health and well-being, rather than just—as that 19th-century Gray’s Anatomydiagram put it—“generation.”

2. Also, a study from last month that shows there are even more nerve fibers innervating the clitoris than we have all been led to believe.

3. no good alone — Best thing I’ve read in a long time about the need to heal in relationship, in community, and not in isolation.

4. Brain training begins in the hips

5. What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

6. I Am Haunted by What I have Seen At the Great Salt Lake

7. I’m 45 and I Look My Age

8. KNOW YOUR CIRCLE — VERY helpful advice on how to support a loved one who’s navigating grief.

9. What I’ve been listening to while I do my taxes:

Thanks again, friends. Love to all. ❤️