Everything Can Be Better by Tuesday!

Hi Sisters,

I’ve decided to try something new this morning. What if I just write to you, hit post, and move right along?

There are so many beautifully curated newsletters on this platform that inspire me and that I aspire to be like. But I think there is something real, raw, and terrifying about just sitting down to a blank draft page here on Substack, talking my shit, and sending it out into the ether.

I was at a writing retreat this weekend at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, led by

Cheryl Strayed

. The workshop was titled “Wild Awakenings.” While I felt wildly awake all weekend, when I stepped back into my apartment yesterday afternoon, I was absolutely tamed and tired.

Over the weekend, I drank all the Kool-Aid and licked the bowl clean. I woke up with the sun, stretched in the empty field, actually ate breakfast, spoke to people I’d never met before 9 a.m., and I sang, and I wrote, and I listened. I was so proud of myself for going there, for keeping my commitment, for being curious, and mostly, for being brave—brave enough to go somewhere I’d never been, without knowing a single soul, and still choosing to bare so much of my own.

I felt confident, wholly certain that I was where I was supposed to be this weekend, but then the bubble burst. Reality set back in. My center flew out from underneath me, and I collapsed in on myself. I went for a bike ride over the bridge—nothing. I got a cappuccino—nothing. I fought with my girlfriend, chomped on some nicotine gum, took a few puffs of a joint—nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The truest thing I can say to you right now is that I am scared of myself. Scared of my own range, of my ability to move through extremes violently and rapidly. Scared that it means something about me—my abilities, my life, my choices. Scared it might all just be my OCD. Or worse, my grief. My uncontrollable, ever-so-sneaky grief.

Lylas¹,

Somebody’s (scared) Sister

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Hi again.

I didn’t share this on Monday when I wrote it like I said I would because I wasn’t yet ready to admit to Zeina that the reason I so vehemently refused her offer to teach me how to spatchcock a chicken was because I was sad about my brother’s death. But I have since apologized and so I am releasing the drafts.

But just for you to know—I felt better by Tuesday. So please, let this be a reminder: It can all be better by Tuesday.

Before I leave you, I’m channeling my bravest big sister energy to share with you a bit of writing from this past weekend. I wrote this piece in response to the final prompt of the workshop.

Write a story about something that has happened since 8PM on Friday.

Since my brother died, all I want to do is talk about him. I’ve run into people who know, who don’t say anything but give me that look—that “fuck, I can’t imagine” look. I’ve spent whole nights with people who know, but don’t dare mention anything until we’re about to leave and then they hug me goodbye and whisper some wisdom in my ear before running off. For some reason, people think the right thing to do is to protect me from having to talk about it, as if living it wasn’t so much fucking worse.

Every time I’ve sat down to a meal or a conversation with a new person this weekend, I’ve thought about Sonny. Maybe it was something someone said, a word, a noise, a quiet lull in the conversation, but what am I supposed to say? “Your sneeze reminds me of my dead brother.”

On Saturday evening, I ended up sitting across from a woman named Maureen. Our table was quite full to start, but by the end, it was just the two of us. I asked her what she did for work, and she told me she was a nurse at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My heart buzzed like a pager at a restaurant: Your table is ready!! Your table is ready!! I received many signs from Sonny over the weekend—a feather that flew out of my luggage as I unpacked and my housing assignment in dorm room number three. But this sign was living and breathing and sitting across from me. Sonny dropped this woman into my lap as if to say, “Tell my story. Our story. She can handle it.” And so, I did.

I told Maureen about my time spent at CHOP over the past year. I told her about our Airbnb and how quickly our lives changed. We commiserated over the monster that is pediatric brain cancer and how no one knows what the fuck to do about it. I told her about Sonny and his doctors and how grateful I am that people are called to her line of work. I didn’t tell her that Sonny and I got stoned most nights in that hospital together, though I think she would have understood.

Before we split, she asked me his name. “Sonny,” I said. “Sonny,” she repeated, “I will keep his story with me and my residents.” Maureen thanked me for sharing and I spent the rest of the night replaying the symphony of my brother’s name rolling off the tongue of someone who, eight months after he left this earth, met him for the first time.

Thank you, Maureen. Thank you, Omega Institute. Thank you,

Cheryl Strayed

. And as always thank you to my Sonnyboy.

LYLAS!

1. Love you like a sister.