It seems the time that passes between entries on this newsletter increase with each one. Months have passed since I last wrote here and some of it is due to lack of discipline, some is related to my available bandwidth (I do have a different newsletter that demands a lot of my attention), but that’s not even most of it. Mostly, I just don’t know what to do with this newsletter anymore.

Chase types out his inner dialogue as his watch band continues to snag on the edge of his laptop. His hear begins to race and his face feels hotter each time the two devices collide. Rather than yeet his laptop out of his fourth-story bedroom window, he quickly unfastens the watch and set it carefully on the desk next to him.

He checks the timer on his phone.

14 minutes until his clothes are done drying. Yes, Chase did not set aside dedicated time for writing any of this. He chose to pop open the laptop with just a short time before a guaranteed interruption from the completion of his previous task. Great planning as always. He pats himself on the back.

The timer on Chase’s phone starts blaring. He shuts it off, slips on his shoes and makes his way to the basement of his building where the community laundry room is. Sometimes, he opens the dryer door to find that the one of six that he chose is actually no longer drying clothes and he will have to try again.

Everything is dry.

He lets out a sigh of relief. There isn’t time for another hour to spend on drying clothes. In just two hours he is meeting with friends for a little get together and while that seems like plenty of time to get ready and travel four block up the street, he actually doesn’t do great with having things scheduled very close together.

Chase needs to wrap this up if he plans on walk over to the store to pick up sweet treats before this event. If only he knew the reason why he’s writing this in the first place, he’d know how to conclude it. He’s pretty sure that the only reason he is writing this is for the sake of writing what he’s feeling. Not that he’s hungry, his skin feels dry, or that the sides of his hair are beginning to touch the insides of his ears, but the anxiety.

He read somewhere online recently that human brains like to hang onto significant dates from the past and relive them cyclically1.

The time is now 3:55PM and Chase needs to be getting ready and leaving in the next couple of minutes. The time crunch he created for himself along with the topic he decided to unpack right before the event has cranked his anxiety knob from a steady 4 to a 9 (it goes to 11 obviously).

He does some deep breathing with his hand on his chest. Feeling his lungs rise and fall again. He’s got this.

It’s 3:55 p.m. Chase still needs to get dressed, walk to the store for something sweet, and meet up with friends. His anxiety is louder than he’d like, but it isn’t in charge anymore.

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This is the first time you are seeing the opening paragraph to this personal essay but it is the seventh time I’ve deleted multiple paragraphs and started over. Each time I make it a little further and realize that nothing I’d written needed to be said, questioned why I felt so strongly about writing anything at all today, and gave up.

Also, the texture of my hair is bothering me today. There. That might be most of my problem. I washed it last night, did not use conditioner even though I have hard water and know better. Then I also skipped putting any kind of product in it to help prevent this dry frizzy feeling it’s giving me. I have pretty short hair. It shouldn’t take any maintenance really but just as a sensory situation, I want to rip it all out right now.

Ok, I got up and got it wet and spritzed something on it just now. I don’t know if that’s going to help. I can always jumping out of my fourth story window.

The theme I keep circling around and then abandoning is dating.

I want to write candidly and also share this with people like I normally would and yet, the person(s) I go on the date with could be friends with me on Instagram. And I’m not even writing about whoever those people could be. It’s just about me and I think I don’t want to scare anyone off before getting a chance to get to know them more.

“Getting to know each other.”

Is it just me, or does that sometimes feel emotionally exhausting to even think about? I love learning about people. Getting know how someone else thinks and feels about the universe. What is their reality like?

Oh god.

I’m about to select-all and hit delete again.

No.

All I really want to write is that I’m stuck in a thought loop. That I carry a kind of existential dread about the universe and my place in it. That I’ve lived close to grief in a lot of forms, including losing people to suicide and being there for people standing dangerously close to it themselves.

I don’t think I have the words available to convey this right.

What are the odds that I’ll meet a person who sees the world the way I do? Or, not that they see it the way I do, but understand the way I see it. How do you find someone who understands you?

I’ve been through marriages, raised kids. I’ve been through things that feel like they added layers faster than I could process them. I feel like there is a lot to me and sometimes it feels like maybe there is too much about me. Like my lore runs too deep and I’m maybe a little too broken.

I know in my mind that this isn’t true but I’m wrestling with it.

Wow, I’ve made it the furthest without deleting everything. Maybe this is what I wanted to get out. Maybe my hair finally started feeling better (it didn’t).

The dating apps are off my phone now since a little over a week ago. I met someone that I like talking to and they seem to at least understand my humor and honestly that’s like 90% of it.

Anyway.

I think part of me is always going to worry that I’m too much.

But I’m starting to wonder if the right people don’t experience that as “too much” at all. Just… more to understand.

And that feels worth staying open for.

Sitting at my favorite temporary third spot, Parkway Tavern having my first outdoor patio shot of Malort for the year. I sat down with the intention of writing about a song for my main newsletter. But here I am.

Surprising to nobody, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my own thinking lately. Ugh, it’s hard to even write these thoughts out because I’m so far down the rabbit hole of thinking about how other people will think about me thinking about my own thinking.

Here’s the scene.

Last night, I’m sitting on the floor of my claw foot tub while hot water showered down over me. All I could hear was the sound of a million water droplets splattering around me. For a few minutes, there were no other thoughts. Just me existing in the present moment.

That’s huge for me.

I’m usually always scanning. What am I doing? How am I being perceived? What is everyone’s perception and mood?

Not just over thinking.

This is meta-cognition.

If I’m sitting around a bonfire with friends, listening to music, doing all the bonfire things. I am not just scanning everything and everyone for moods, micro expressions, and behavior patterns. I’m one more level removed from that and observing myself doing this from the outside. Aware that I am not fully in the present moment and instead am doing my hyper vigilant thing.

The result is me feeling like I am there with a group but not actually belonging. Like I’m watching everyone else be observed by me from the outside.

If I continue my entire life like this, I will live out the rest of days merely witnessing myself trying to contextualize and narrate everything until it’s over. Then I’ll wonder, what was all this for?

This is why therapy.

So I can learn and practice things that force me to process the immediate things in my environment. It’s harder to think about thinking about everyone else thinking, if I’m naming facts that I see and hear. Or focusing on physical things I can feel.

This is also why I love going out with friends to see live music or dance. All there is, is loud music, friends, and movement. Everything in me is existing in the present, engaged and living.

I don’t want to meta-narrate my life away.

Back to the shower.

Once I remembered that my adult kiddo was also in the apartment, my thoughts shifted from the sound of water, to them thinking about me being in the shower too long. And then I started thinking about how I’m thinking about this layered overthinking dynamic I’ve created again. The meditative shower time had ended.

My hands are cold and the neon Parkway sign has begun drawing a fun variety of small bugs all around me. Each one of them seems to think that something very exciting is happening in both of my eyes and desperately want to get inside them.

Rather than sit on this patio, drinking Malort while I watch the sun set where the road meets the sky and trees on the horizon, I did this.

I wrote about how I observe myself thinking about everyone else thinking about what I’m thinking.

Almost nobody is thinking about me or what I’m thinking about. I know this. But I watch myself watch everything else anyways. Each layer removed that I am from everything else around me, the more secure I feel, but also, more alone.

I’m excited to move forward as I practice NOT doing this as much. I can’t stop it completely. It’s who so am.

But also, let’s cool it a little bit, yeah?

My first former-anniversary date since the divorce came and went this past weekend completely unnoticed.

Months ago, I was certain this would be a day. The kind of day you brace for. The kind you circle in your head long before it arrives. Surely, I’d spend it tangled in thought, clearing my schedule to sit with it. A date like that doesn’t just pass quietly. It demands attention.

Instead, I forgot it existed.

It hadn’t crossed my mind since early January, when I was lying in a hospital bed in the ICU. And even then, it barely registered. It wasn’t until Saturday morning, sitting with a cup of coffee and pulling up “This Day in History” facts about They Might Be Giants, that I noticed the date.

March 28.

The day, in 1930, that Istanbul officially stopped being Constantinople. A piece of trivia I’d learned a couple years ago and filed away as serendipitous, since it also happened to be the day I got married in 2018.

“Oh. Woah.”

That was it. No spiral. No emotional flood. Just a quiet moment of recognition.

I started wondering why.

Was it because I’ve been so focused inward lately? Growing, rebuilding, learning how to exist without that constant emotional tether? Had I finally stepped far enough forward that this date no longer dragged behind me like a shadow?

Or was it something else.

The last three anniversary dates — when I was married — felt… weird.

Punctuationally1, that last sentence has way too much going on.

For years, multiple times a year, I’d hear my partner talk about doubts. Regrets. The life they imagined for themselves versus the one they were living. Married. With me. Sometimes this came up on my birthday. Sometimes on anniversaries. Sometimes just… whenever.

Which meant those “special” days quietly turned into check-ins.

A soft but urgent, “I’m okay, but this can’t keep going like this forever. I need to know where we stand.”

Followed by the sweet, sweet relief of reassurances. The kind that feels like relief in the moment and confusion later when the cycle repeats.

So this year, when March 28 showed up, it didn’t arrive as an emotional boss fight. There was no weight to it. No sense of loss. Not even the absence of anxiety.

It was just… Saturday.

Somewhere along the way, without noticing, I reclaimed it.

Not as a milestone. Not as something to survive. Just as a day on the calendar. A day that happens to also mark the historical shift that eventually gave us a song that led me to some of the most important music in my life.2

And that’ll work for me.

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2

Hold on, TWO footenotes? Calm down.

Kiss Me, Son of Blog

Istanbul (Not Constantinople): How one song led me to They Might Be Giants

I can’t hear this song without thinking of this one episode of Tiny Toons Adventures in 1991…

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2 years ago · 7 likes · Chase Roper

Many months ago - sandwiched somewhere between divorce and exploded brain aneurism - I booked a flight and hotel for 4 days in Butte, MT. I would have flown out on March 14 and by today, would have woken up in my hotel bed in Butte, ready to fill a plastic gallon jug with a wildly green boozy drink and take to the streets with my friend.

I always thought it was madness that Butte was the place to be on St. Patrick’s Day. I also never considered myself much of a St. Patrick’s celebrator. It seemed like Chicago was the place to be since they dye their river green. But did you know that Butte, MT has one of the highest populations of Irish descendants per capita in the country? My friend told me this just before describing the swarms of people marching in the street while chugging their BORG containers (black out rage gallon).

There were months of near daily phone calls from this friend. We leaned on each other during some emotionally complicated times. There were mentions of me driving out to visit when the weather improved, a little flirting. Occasional pictures.

We never really defined anything, but there was closeness. Trust. Something that felt like more, without either of us saying it out loud.

As March approached, the excitement on both ends grew. I heard about more places she wanted to take me, people she hoped I’d finally get to meet.

At some point, about a month ago, I realized I was catching some serious feelings. I didn’t expect her to change anything, and I didn’t want to ask for anything different about our dynamic. But I did feel like I needed to pace myself differently. I wasn’t sure what to do with it yet, but I decided to be upfront and tell her.

I shared where I was with my feelings.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” she replied later.

“Nothing. I’m not asking you to do anything about this. Just letting you know how I’m feeling about you and that I might have to make some adjustments on my end when it comes to certain phone topics.”

“Well I don’t have anything nice to say.”

This was a huge deviation from the way we used to interact. I had definitely pressed a button.

After a day, things seemed to fall back into place. We resumed our normal pattern. I took that as a good sign - that she trusted I wasn’t going to require anything from her and that I was handling things on my end.

Within two weeks, we no longer had contact of any kind.

Just a day before that shift, she had asked about me coming to Butte for her birthday in April to see a band. It’s possible she meant it rhetorically, but we had talked about summer camping in Montana and other future plans. So I looked into it and texted later that I’d love to talk about coming out for the show.

Her reply caught me off guard.

She said she wanted to wait and see how things went on St. Patrick’s Day before talking about future plans. Confusing, since future plans had come up before. She also didn’t like that I was “inviting myself,” even though I only brought it up after she mentioned it.

She also didn’t appreciate me sharing my feelings.

Finally, she said she had always thought of us as just friends and never wavered from that, and she was concerned that I had lost track of our dynamic.

I went from being someone she talked to every day (someone she reached for to decompress) to no calls, no texts, and eventually being blocked.

I waited, without chasing, for a couple more weeks. Then I made the call to cancel the trip.

I’d rather use the e-credit for something in the future than explore Butte, Montana by myself while burning precious PTO.

So tonight, I’m making shredded corned beef street tacos with buttery mashed potatoes, topped with pickled cabbage slaw. For drinks, an old fashioned made with Irish whiskey and a simple syrup I made from a can of extra stout Guinness.

I’ll laugh with friends and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

I set my own pace for things in my life now. I give my time and attention for as long as it feels healthy for me to do so. I’m practicing sharing my thoughts and feelings without first running them through every possible reaction or outcome.

Instead, I let people show up how they’re going to show up.

Meet me where I am. Or don’t.

The result might end, stall, or deepen a relationship. I’d rather live inside something honest than quietly follow a version of it I made up in my head.

Sometimes that leads to uncomfortable outcomes.

But so far, most of the time, it’s also been my biggest source of joy.

Over the weekend, I met up for coffee with my ex-wife. It was our first one-on-one since the dust settled after the divorce this summer. And it was very intentionally planned on my part.

A much-earlier version of me would have cut all ties with any mutual friends and scorched the earth just to avoid complicated feelings.

But I love these friends.

There isn’t a complicated feeling I’m unwilling to deal with if it means keeping these people in my life. They make it better. I hope I show up for them the way they’ve shown up for me.

My ex has her own friendships within the same group. It feels shortsighted to assume we can’t exist in the same space. It might even be possible to have some version of a friendship post-divorce.

At first, I assumed that would be easy. I think we both did. Nobody knew each other the way we did. I mean really knew each other. Staying friends felt obvious.

But grief changes the way things land. The story you tell yourself about what the other person thinks starts to shift. The hurt would resurface and my nervous system would ignite in flames whenever we were both at a friend hang. The days that followed required some unpacking in therapy. For a while, I wondered if friendship just wasn’t going to work.

But that seems stupid.

I’ve been working on being more authentic and transparent in my friendships and the more I’ve let myself be honest and vulnerable with my friends, the more I trust those relationships. I think that level of security has been a huge factor in how I feel when I’m around my ex amongst those friends. The more recent group hangs we’ve shared have gone very well. My nervous system feels steadier during and after. Less aftershock.

So I decided to test it.

We sat. We caught up. We interacted the way we always did. I didn’t feel on high alert beforehand or during. I felt calm. The hours and days afterward have continued to feel normal. There’s for sure been some attempts at ruminating but I’m able to recognize and redirect almost effortlessly now. No fighting the urge to reach out more than necessary. No heavy ex-related thoughts or feelings hijacking my daily flow.

That feels like progress.

We’ve texted once or twice since. Low stakes. No attachment to the outcome. That feels healthy too. From here, I think I just let her show up however she’s comfortable, and I’ll do the same. It doesn’t require more energy than that.

Is this what healing feels like?

This time last year, it was common for me to get off work, walk over to my favorite ramen bar where all my friends worked and write something for this newsletter if the bar was too busy for conversations.

That place has since been turned into one of the least cool places in my community by some millionaire Trumper who bought it and fired everyone.

About an hour ago, I finished my teletherapy and walked up a few blocks to a place called Parkway Tavern. It’s a spot I visit on and off. Actually, when my dad was first of drinking age, HE came here. It’s a Tacoma institution. One my friends who used to work at the ramen bar, now works here (although he’s not here tonight.) and Parkway Tavern has Malört so a little bit, it feels like I’m somewhat finding my new third place.

Nothing will fill the Moshi shaped hole in our lives though. That was a magic time.

I sat down here with the intention of beginning my next book. A analogous look at my childhood experience with mental health, family secrets, and creating burning bridges in the name of growth- all set in a fictional fantasy world. I’m excited. But the second I opened my phone, I decided to start writing something else, somewhere else.

One of the most important steps to writing something new is all the time you spend avoiding writing it. That’s what I’m doing.

someone at a table nearby is trying to impress the woman at his table with his intellect by describing the similarities of capitalism and communism. So far, I have not heard him articulate one sentence that supports this idea.

All I know is that this is a piece of dialogue that will not be useful for me to steal and apply in my story.

The table is actually filled with three big white dudes and one woman and it’s like the dudes are in a competition to see who can impress her the most but none of them have ever had original thoughts or talk about anything besides memes or fishing.

Down the hall from where I’m sitting, is shuffleboard (indoor miniature curling), a dart board, and a pool table. That is a room where I do not belong. I mean, I’m allowed back there. I haven’t committed any heinous crimes against pool cues or anything.

But I’d be so far out of my element.

I used to be a stand up comedian. I guess I’m still one because I could walk up on stage, grab the mic out of the mic stand, move the mic stand to the back of the stage behind me, all while starting my opening bit. It would be obvious to the audience and the comics in the room, that I’ve done this many times.

I feel like, if I walked back there, everyone would know, on site, that I have no idea what I’m doing. That’s why I don’t belong. I’d feel the same way about bowling but whenever I’ve walked into a bowling alley, there have been birthday parties where small kids are using bumpers. Once they let kids into bars and offer bday bumper pool, I’ll go back there with all the confidence of a grown adult.

Actually, why isn’t there bday bumper pool? And why aren’t bowling alleys just bars with no kids?

I hope you aren’t waiting for me to wrap all of this up with a philosophical conclusion that ties all of this nonsense together. I’ve got bad news.

I’m a shot of Malört and half a gin cocktail into this thing and I’ve had no idea where any of it is going from the moment I typed “This time last year…”

Maybe Parkway will be a permanent third location. Maybe I’ll try multiple third locations. Maybe it was just the closest one to my house with Malört on a Thursday where a friend works.

So that’s going to have to work for now.

Ok.

Time to start writing this new book.

I haven’t done any writing in this space for a while, so I’m just going to rest my phone on my chest and talk quietly into my voice memo app. Hopefully, it comes out okay.

I’m lying in my hospital bed. It’s January (I don’t know, the third?) It’s a Friday. It’s 2026.

About a week ago now, I was standing in my shower on a Saturday morning and was suddenly struck with the most overwhelming and excruciating pain in my head that I’ve ever experienced in my life.

The Speed of Pain

I don’t know if you’ve ever had something hurt so quickly that just the intensity and speed of it catches you off guard in a way that immediately worries you. Like, oh no, this isn’t normal. This isn’t a normal amount of time to go from not hurting to hurting.

It made me end my shower immediately. I dried off in a panic, threw on a T-shirt and boxers as fast as I could so I could get into bed and just be horizontal. For some reason, I thought that would fix it.

I remember holding the sides of my head with my palms and panicking, because Gracie, Dawsyn, and Noah were all at the apartment. Christmas had just been a couple of days earlier. I felt like I was about to have an aneurysm rupture in my head, or that one was already happening.

I remember moaning. I thought I was going to throw up and wanted someone to get me a pot or something, but I couldn’t articulate it. Gracie asked if I needed something, and I said, “Yes, but I don’t know what.”

Then I threw up all over the side of my bed and the floor while trying to move my power strip out of the way. I don’t think I did a great job of that. I barely made it into the bathroom, and I think I sprayed the toilet with vomit trying to get there.

That had to be terrifying for Gracie, to see and hear all of that and not know what was happening.

Mistaking Emergency for a Virus

Everyone thought I had a virus. I thought I had a virus. Noro, maybe. At that point, though, I remember thinking, this is different. I’ve had so many stomach issues as a kid, so much nausea. I’m very familiar with being nauseous. This wasn’t that.

For the rest of that day, I wasn’t constantly nauseous. Instead, I’d get worsening head pain, like a migraine, that would eventually send me back to the bathroom to throw up again.

I insisted it was a virus I’d recover from. Between Saturday and Sunday, I felt a little better. Between Sunday and Monday, I felt about the same. I assumed I wasn’t recovering because I wasn’t eating or hydrating enough. I planned to do the BRAT diet, get Pedialyte, and take care of myself.

Blood Where It Shouldn’t Be

But the reality was that, as I learned days later on Tuesday, four days after it happened, I had actually bled into my brain in the shower that morning.

I still don’t know the exact source of the bleed. The assumption from the neurology team is that I likely had a deformed blood vessel since birth near my brain stem, and it finally decided it was done existing and burst. So an aneurysm that exploded. This also meant I was experiencing an active stroke even though I never had any of the classic “stroke acronym” symptoms. But it was a stroke.

All the times in my life that I’ve made references to smelling burnt toast to suggest someone is currently having a stroke and I was robbed from smelling the burnt toast when it was actually happening.

Officially, they tell me I had a subarachnoid hemorrhage.

There I was, lying in bed with my head not properly elevated, my body not positioned correctly, and blood was accumulating in my cranium. That’s why I was so fatigued. That’s why I had trouble concentrating. That’s why the pain never went away. My body was focusing all of its energy on “hey we gotta keep this idiot alive.”

It took until Tuesday to realize I needed to go to the ER. That disappoints me. But I did it.

ICU Time

Now, I’ve been here almost a full week. I’m getting better. My head isn’t continuing to bleed; it seems like it was a one-time event. They’re being very cautious because there’s a seven-to-ten-day window after something like this where the blood is still where it shouldn’t be. During that time, pressure can change in unexpected ways and affect blood flow.

After about ten days, you’re usually good to go.

Monday will be ten days, which is when they plan to discharge me after a final angiogram. I had one angiogram on Wednesday already.

It’s about three in the morning, and I can’t sleep. I got downgraded from ICU to the level below it two days ago, but there’s no beds available, so I’m still physically in the ICU. The only person on this floor who can actively walk around the hallway and pass all of this neurological exams.

What Can I Blame? Why Did This Happen?

I’ve been trying to retrace my steps and figure out what to blame this on. I take blood pressure medication regularly. I don’t skip it. Maybe I ate too much sodium? I can tighten the reins on my diet again. I’ve done it before.

I didn’t hit my head. I’m not inactive. I’m not unhealthy. I COLD PLUNGE.

But I think I’m stressed. I think I’ve been stressed for a long time.

Even though I’m in therapy, I’ve been focusing on interpersonal stuff. Mostly looking at relationships (dealing with divorce, deepening friendships, etc) without really managing the overall flow of stress in my life. I don’t let things go. I overthink. I hold everything accountable to some imagined outcome.

Is This Worth My Brain Exploding In The Shower?

I need to start asking: How badly does this actually matter?

Does this matter enough for my brain to explode in the shower?

Probably not.

Right now I have a mild headache, the first one since I got here. It’s a one, maybe a two. I took Tylenol. I don’t need oxy. But it feels like a failure to have a headache, like I’m backsliding. The nurse told me that’s not true. It’s expected. There’s still blood where it shouldn’t be, and it’s resolving.

I’m also stressed. And I don’t need to be.

I’m not making a New Year’s resolution to eliminate stress. Stress will exist. But I don’t have to sit with all of it. Some things I can just say, This will land how it lands.

Letting Things Land

What happens to my job after our merger? I don’t know. I’m going to stop trying to control it. I’m taken care of. I’ll just keep putting one foot forward.

I don’t need to steer everything.

I’m fine.

Right Now Is Enough.

I need to be here now. Moment to moment. You can’t stress nearly as much when you take things exactly as they are.

So I’m going to stop talking now. I’m going to close my eyes and lie here until it seems like a normal time to be awake and then open my eyes again.

Around eight, I’ll get breakfast.

And that’s how I’ll know it’s Saturday.

Oh, hey.

My book, This Title Won’t Convey What This Book’s About (Neither Will This Subtitle. Just a Heads Up), is now available on Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Kindle.

It started as a daily journaling habit a couple of years ago. I just wanted to write three pages of whatever came to mind each morning, partly to sort through the noise in my head, partly to fill a creative void. Those morning pages led me back to my guitar, helped me recognize patterns I was stuck in, and made sense of my anxiety, my marriage, my knee, and life in general.

Somewhere in there, I started narrating myself doing the act of writing my three pages, and that’s what turned into a book. Part memoir, part meta-narration, part “why am I like this?”

Think of it as less of a book about myself and more like a book about me writing a book about me trying to write a book about me.

It was an incredibly frustrating and fulfilling process that eventually became this little book of mine.

Where to get it:

Apple Books

Kobo

Barnes & Noble

Amazon/Kindle

This book was written during a chapter of my life where everything was changing, and honestly, falling to shit. I just didn’t realize that until just before I finished it. Weirdly, its a hopeful, sometimes sad, often ridiculous, and entirely overthought.

If you’ve been following me anywhere on the internet - thank you. You’ve already been part of this process and kept me feeling supported. This book is proof that anxiety and overthinking can occasionally pay off.

Do you know someone else who thinks too much about thinking too much? Send them this post. Or the book. Or both. Share it on Substack, Bluesky, Instagram, or even your company Slack. How does Discord work? Craigslist ad. Courier pigeon. Now I’m just naming ways to list things. It will mean the world to me for you to share this somewhere.

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Today was my birthday. It’s still my birthday as I write this but there’s less birthday remaining than when I first woke up. I’ve never been good at feeling happy on my birthday. I’d developed a pattern of thinking since I was a teenager where I think that I don’t deserve acknowledgment, consideration, or to be a priority to anyone. Every year, I’d hope that I’d feel those things on my birthday and even if someone made an effort, it wouldn’t fix me.

In the last few months, I’ve learned that it’s up to me to fix me. Not just by taking Wellbutrin every morning but through learning how to sort out the source of these thought and behavior patterns so I can clean out the emotional trauma closet and start healthier ways of thinking. That seemed impossible to me but here I am today, waking up at 6 AM so I can cold plunge with friends and watch the sunrise over the Puget Sound.

I didn’t have a party (I usually don’t unless I were to plan it), I didn’t get last second gifts (I didn’t get any actually), but I’ve been learning how to deepen my friendships with people and in weekly therapy which has shifted things for me. Accepting that someone like me genuinely was always hard for me. There was always a feeling that the words I’m hearing are one thing, but their true feelings are probably that they’re tolerating or putting up with me to be nice. That I’ll find out soon enough none of it is real.

When you learn to accept that you’re a likeable person and your friendships are deeper, built on vulnerability and trust, and practice your own emotional consistency, a low key birthday with some nice company and a breakfast with my oldest kid and daughter-in-law feels really fulfilling. A handful of friends are going to meet up later tonight for a watch party of tonight’s episode of The Chair Company and I’m looking forward to visiting and laughing a lot.

When I get home, I’m taking another friend’s suggestion to turn the lights off in my bedroom and light a candle. Then I’ll take shower/bath combo with a nice bath bomb and when I return to my room, it will be a very relaxing vibe. There’s something a little poetic about bookending my day with two polarizing ways of submerging in water. I think that’s the best way to kick off this next year in line with this disgusting personal growth spurt I’m in.

There really wasn’t a purpose to writing all of this down for my newsletter other than the small sense I get of having accomplished my writing for the day. If you read this, thank you. If you stop in and read anything that I’m writing on any kind of semi-regular basis, I’m really grateful to have you here. If you’ve never read anything before now and you never plan on returning, well then I hope you can sleep at night.

Okay, ended this one on a harsh note I guess. Let’s hit publish.

“No matter how long I stare at this page, it isn’t going to start writing itself,” Chase types from his desk.

The blinds are drawn on the window facing him to prevent a time-sucking dissociative state from taking over his mind. Despite this, he stares blankly all the same. Waiting for the words to arrive. For the inner voice to show up and tell a story. Or even to start writing about not having anything to write about. That gimmick has gotten him out of writer’s block before (It’s all he does, let’s be honest.)

Today, the well feels dry.

The Last of the Divorce Essays

“Last week, I wrote the last two essays that I have in me about my divorce from a few months ago,” he finally begins. “It’s not that my life is no longer affected or that I don’t sometimes think about things, but I think I’ve expressed everything I needed to.”

He takes a sip of water. It tastes just enough like water plus whatever he last had in that container for him to decide to wash it again and start over with new water.

“When this event first began, the well of my being had all this complicated, angered, and grief-ridden emotion poured into it. So much that the contents already there were forced out. Like running the faucet into this water bottle until it spills over. Once I wrote, shared in therapy, and processed my way through all that junk in my well; it was empty. I think I need to keep filling it with new things now.”

A Well of New Things

Chase pauses for a moment.

He wonders if that is why people refer to our emotional status as our well-being? Because they are conflating our very being to that as a well full of water. No, Chase. It’s not.

“Lately, I’ve been engaging in all sorts of friend activities,” he types. “Bartending for a sleepover-themed party, continuing my Sunday cold plunges, buying tickets for an upcoming Goth club night, and planning a cold-weather camping trip in November. I’ve met a friend for a late-night drink and nachos to lend my ear while she vents about a shitty guy and a crazy job. And I’ve agreed to take a nighttime walk with another friend at the last minute to head several blocks up to a burger spot, even though I was already in my comfy staying-home clothes. Why say no to a good conversation followed by a root-beer float and cheeseburger?”

Filling that Empty Space

It’s true. Chase has been more social than maybe ever in his life.
Where he once dreaded having phone calls from anyone, he now has standing, almost-daily calls to debrief about the day with a friend in the far away land of Butte, MT. Plus a slurry of voice memos flying back and forth with his dear friend and fellow Substack writing compatriot, .

Before long, he’ll have a well of new experiences from which to draw.
Each one, a new building block for that foundation he’s re-constructing in his life.

He takes one last look at his screen.

“Okay,” he says. “I guess this passes as having written something.”

He nods his head and clicks Publish.

What’s something new that’s been filling your own “well” lately? Creatively, emotionally, socially? Tell me in the comments or reply to this email; I’d love to hear what’s been refilling you.

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For the last two Sundays, I woke up while there was barely light in the sky, and put on a pair of swim shorts. Followed by socks, pajama pants over the shorts, a shirt, and a warm sweater. Before I put on shoes and exit my apartment, I grab a towel and some flip-flops.

I never thought I’d say this about myself but I met with friends and then proceeded to stand outside on the gravely shore of Owens Beach looking over the Puget Sound. After removing every bit of clothing besides my shorts, we walked directly into the very cold open waters. I’ve become a Cold Plunger.

My Body Files a Complaint

I approach the place where the water and rocks blend and can feel my body physically sounding alarms.

TURN BACK

WHAT ARE WE DOING?!

Look, I struggle with most showers over the fact that I’m about to become wet. More accurately, the struggle comes after the shower when I have to transition from wet back to dry that I hate.

Pushing through my nervous system’s warnings, my feet hit the water. It’s not shockingly cold but that first moment feels wrong. Like something in my brain is short circuiting. The sun is rising, the air is crisp as a breeze lightly moves through the air. And here I am, without my fabric shields against the cold, forging ahead into the sea.

As the briny water meets each dry patch of skin past my shins, thigh, waist - the mental challenge becomes increasingly difficult. The hardest thing to submerge; my back.

Coldness racing through my body as my back sinks lower in, I finally have to pause because my breath has been stolen away (likely in shock.) Once I’m in and submerged to my mid chest, I raise my dry arms up and rest my clasped hands on my head.

For the 10-13 minutes that followed, I would remain standing, chest deep in the water with my lower extremities mostly going numb, talking with my friends while we watch a beautiful sunrise. My last two Sundays have started just like this followed by some great coffee and sitting in a car with friends while blasting the heat with full force.

It’s a remarkable experience that I’m shocked to say, I look forward to joining my friends for every Sunday. I can’t speak to any of the health benefits to cold plunging but it has has a very real therapeutic effect. I’m training my mind to sit with discomfort instead of avoiding it, and to trust that my mind has good intentions. I’m also forcing my often overthinking and anxious mind to be immediately and fully engaged in the present moment.

Turns Out, The Sea Is Just Salty Therapy

I’m starting to think cold water, like my anxiety, isn’t something to conquer. It’s something to coexist with.

It’s only been two Sundays, but the effects have started to ripple into the rest of my week. If I can walk straight into the Puget Sound, knowing I’ll be freezing, knowing I’ll be uncomfortable, but also knowing I’ll be okay - then maybe I can meet other moments in my life the same way. The discomfort will come, but it doesn’t have to be a stop sign. It can just be cold water.

(I’m sure there’s a better way to polish up that comparison, but I’ve run out of writing steam.)

If you’ve found your own version of “cold water,” I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Or hit reply and tell me what’s been helping you stay present lately.

And if you want to keep following these experiments in discomfort and healing, you can hit that subscribe button below.

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The mechanical keyboard clacks away in rhythm with Chase’s thoughts. He sits at his desk, wearing a green long sleeve tee, darker green chinos, and light green slip-on Vans. It occurs to him (too late) that he has dressed himself in a three-tone green outfit.

Sometimes the smallest observations open the door to much bigger thoughts. For Chase, today, that door swings open wide.

Intrusive thoughts creep back after a few weeks of reprieve. Over the past two days, feelings of resentment and betrayal have found their way in again. Therapy has given him names for these moods, but names don’t make them leave. They arrive anyway, uninvited.

The Silence

He wishes he could return to the days leading up to the Event, the moment that split his life, and guide his past self in a healthier direction. But time travel isn’t available. So he sits, in the present, ruminating.

He replays one remembered line: “You’re a very close and important friend.”

Most of his friendships prove that true. None of them require him to reach out every time. There is a natural rhythm: an Instagram reel, a plan for gaming, a ridiculous complaint about work. It took him months in therapy to learn this but silence doesn’t equal rejection. Reciprocation. That’s what friendship looks like.

The Question

But here, in this friendship, it doesn’t look like that. The “very close and important” bond has dwindled into something unrecognizable. Publicly, they appear fine. Privately, where the friendship once thrived, there is only silence. unless Chase is needed for something.

And so he sits with his confusion. Wondering if he’ll publish any of this. Because his close friends are also her close friends, and he does not want to rock the boat. More than anything, he wants to move forward. To not think about this, or the past eight years, ever again.

“I don’t want to write about this anymore,” he types with a sigh. “Just want to detach and let it all go.”

Maybe he will hit publish. Maybe he won’t. But he is trying to tell the truth and sometimes, that is enough.

It is 5:35pm and Chase is meeting up with friends to eat some snacks and watch Princess Mononoke. His mouse pointer hovers over the publish button and then to the X in the corner of his browser.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he thinks. And then another thought intrudes -

“Why did she stop wanting to be my friend?”

Khaki Town

It’s noon.

I’m sitting in a corner office at the credit union. The door is closed. Ninety percent of what surrounds me is beige. Sure, the walls are a “darker shade of off-white” and the desk is a “light wood,” but if you zoom out? It’s khaki town.

Two months have passed since my marriage ended. The grief has been felt and filed away. In its place: new routines, creative outlets, and (most surprisingly) connections with friends who actually like me.

Turns Out People Like Me?

For a long time, my default setting was assuming people only tolerated me. Or that friendships were extensions of my marriage. But it turns out, there are all sorts of characteristics about me that people are into?

Lately I’ve been:

• Losing hours to Civilization VII and Minecraft with friends.

• Actually talking to people on the phone.

• Meeting up for food and drinks with people I haven’t seen in years.

• Getting FaceTimed out of nowhere so a friend could body-double while panic-searching for a necklace.

I tried to assert that video calling someone directly with no warning is psychotic behavior. She insisted that it is “actually what friends do” and so I “can go ahead and get used to it.”

Feelings ≠ Facts

That same friend called me on my lunch break yesterday. She’s moving and needed to vent.

“I keep feeling like maybe I’m making a bad decision and something terrible is going to happen.”

“Oh,” I said, “you’re having anxiety.”

Sometimes just naming the thing helps. My therapist’s been teaching me to do the same: describe the emotion, name how it shows up in my body, and stop confusing feelings with facts.

• Feeling: My chest is tight. My hands are jittery. My breathing is short and quick.

• Fact: I am experiencing anxiety.

The anxious thoughts about why; those are just interpretations.

I remember one night, it was late, and my wife at the time was counting off her worries and doing some expert-level overthinking.

“I don’t know what’s wrong me,” she frustratingly declared.

“You don’t?”

This was good a for a short laugh but also it brings the anxious person back down for a second, even if fleeting. The feelings and thoughts have been named.

All of our emotions are real emotions and our nervous system responds accordingly. Just because the emotions are real does not mean the reasons for them are real.

Feelings ≠ Facts. You can describe the feelings you are having and how they are showing up in your body physically.

For example: My chest feels tight, my hands are jittery, my breathing is shorter and quicker. I am having anxious feelings.

Those are the facts. The interpretations of those feelings are just that. Our own interpretation. All the worried thoughts about why - those aren’t facts.

My lunch break is over now. You won’t notice a time lapse by reading this, but I promise, a lot of time is about to pass. . .

Six hours later

(Nope, never mind, I need to walk to the store)

17 Hours Later

A 21-year-old can be heard talking on the phone in another part of the apartment while I type in my room. I can only hope that he has been on what I assume is a record-breaking seven-hour phone interview for a job.

I am in my room, spending the thirty minutes before I leave for the office typing this paragraph and also adding more words from earlier yesterday. If you thought that everything written above the “Six hours later” was written in one sitting, I have deceived you through the magic of storytelling.

Now I’m sitting at a bus station on my way to the office. A person is sprinting past, hoping to catch the 590 to Seattle before it departs.

I hope they make it.

A bus ride and one 7-11 coffee later

A thought pops up—about her. My brow furrows. My eyes narrow.

“Just a brief thought, Chase. Acknowledge it, name it, don’t follow it into the cave of resentment.”

And then back to it. Numbers in digital boxes. Beige walls. Khaki town.

(This newsletter is basically a therapy extension for me. If you’d like to keep it going, consider upgrading to paid. It means a lot.)

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Question for you: Do you ever catch yourself confusing feelings with facts? How do you name your own emotions when they show up? Drop a comment below.

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I’m standing against a vibrantly painted wall in Tacoma’s Opera Alley. The sun is long gone and I don’t see a moon so I’m assuming there isn’t one. For all I know, it’s tucked around one of the tall building towering over me but I refuse to look.

A friend is meeting me at my favorite tiki bar. I’m here early because I start pacing around the apartment when I have something planned for later.

Anyway

The alley.

A couple with a small child walked passed me and into the tiki establishment. A bar.

There’s no way they’re getting seated in this 21+ business with that very not 21+ human tailing them.

Not 30 seconds go by and they exit, frustrated. Assumedly angry at their own lack of ability to read signs. Or know how bars work.

Across the street from me is a small scratch kitchen restaurant called “Over the Moon Cafe.” I can see people inside through the window; all of them on dates without a doubt. I don’t think two platonic friends go to this place on a whim. It’s just got date vibes.

I’ve been inside there exactly one time. On a date. It wasn’t the first time I’d eaten food somewhere with my date but those other times were all under the context of two friends eating garbage food at a Sherri’s on their way home from a comedy gig they were just booked on.

But that night, we were very recently officially dating. This spot looked cute and like the kind of place you go on a true “first” date. Every table had a little unique box with little hand written notes inside. The server explained that the slips of paper next to it were for writing our thoughts about our date and leaving it for others to read.

I wrote a review about a guy across from us whose date was wearing a cute dress and he had on a wind breaker.

My date wrote down that she doesn’t know the older man she’s sitting with and hoped whoever reads the paper will find her and rescue her.

Something like that.

Looking in there now, I wonder if anyone ever read our notes.

That person on the date with me that night married me almost a year later.

It feels like everywhere I walk in Tacoma has memories of our relationship wrapped around them. Which is tough when the person decided to end it and move on.

I’m also moved on.

That’s why I’m standing across this restaurant, waiting for my friend to get here. So I can reclaim my space and start impressing newer memories that will live along the ghosts of the others.

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This morning, FedEx pinged me: the art I ordered on Etsy is arriving. A large canvas of Disco Elysium. It’s part of my slow project of making this place look less like “ours” and more like “mine.” Hence, a large canvas painting of Disco Elysium.

What I noticed when looking at my delivery tracking is that this piece of art shipped from Istanbul. If you want a deep dive into why that feels significant to me, you can check out the essay I wrote about the song Istanbul (Not Constantinople) that I’ll drop in the footnotes1.

One night, in early March of this year, I was looking at the They Might Be Giants wiki. And there it was March 28. The day Constantinople became Istanbul. Also the day I got married. It’s Istanbul. Much like, as the song refers to, New York once being called New Amsterdam.

I was so excited to tell my wife that this important-to-me song happens to exist because of events that took place on the exact date that I would end up marrying this person who I felt was as perfect a fit for me as this song has been in my life.

What kismet.

I’m staring at my phone, remembering the day I learned what I thought be an obvious sign of serendipity. Although I will never be celebrating March 28 as my wedding anniversary again, there still remains an amusing parallel. From now on, March 28 will be permanently etched into my brain as the day that a Turkish city became Istanbul, not Constantinople and also the day that I got married to the one and that is no longer the case. I suppose I am my own Istanbul in a sense. Or would I be the Constantinople?

I was Constantinople before and then became Istanbul on March 28 when on my wedding day. So now, I am back to being Constantinople again. Look, just don’t think too hard about it.

I let an entire week pass before sharing any anxious overthinking, recursive writing in this space. Truth be told, I’ve been in weekly therapy learning how to process things and adjust my perspective when my overthinking and anxiety is overwhelming me. The last 4 weeks have been a mix of grief, discovery, and growth.

Finally, the best part last, I have finished the final draft of my novella. I’m working on creating a solid pitch so that I can send some queries to publishers. I feel like I should probably pay for a professional editor to go over it first but, alas, that is a luxury I cannot currently afford. After I get my feelings hurt from rejection letters, I’ll self publish this monstrosity and get it into everyone hands. Or eyeballs.

Alright the ending of this really got away from me.

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1

Kiss Me, Son of Blog

Istanbul (Not Constantinople): How one song led me to They Might Be Giants

I'm sharing my life and love for They Might Be Giants one song at a time. Subscribe for free weekly updates to Kiss Me, Son of Blog…

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2 years ago · 6 likes · Chase Roper

“My brain writes its most amazing fiction for an audience of one. Me. Unfortunately, those stories are also about me.”

Weekly therapy and constant practicing of DBT strategies has allowed Chase a brief respite from the otherwise constant ruminating and anxious spiraling. His friends have been an enormous source of security and (if you can believe it) joy over the recent weeks. Still, he finds his thoughts always gravitating toward one thing - the shattering of the life he thought he lived in and would continue on in the years to come.

Chase sits at his desk in his home work space. Two monitors glowing in front of him and reflecting a bit off his glasses. One screen is displaying the words being typed at this very moment. The other, ancient pillars and a distant coliseum from the fantasy City of Nokron against a backdrop of a dark starry sky. It’s from Elden Ring. A video game.

“I’ve been avoiding writing on this newsletter because all of my anxious overthinking is about a particular subject that I’m exhausted from actively processing and working through. It’s one thing to have unwanted feelings or thoughts and either spiral or distract yourself,” he writes while glancing at his phone.

“But intentionally naming the feelings, calling out the thoughts and holding them accountable to facts, allowing yourself to feel them, think them, and then move on. To practice radical acceptance of your reality and acknowledge and engage with it - that’s the ‘work’ people are always talking about.”

A notification lights up on his phone screen. It is not a message from the person his nervous systems insists on thinking about or that his mind is determined to conjure up stories about to make him feel bad. It’s just his grocery shopping app letting him know that they are refunding his cardamom. This is devasting news for his future chicken shawarma plans.

“My brain works overtime to create stories. A great quality for a writer but also a curse for a person prone to worrying. The last however many days have been filled with beautiful days, fantastic time with friends but also with imagined scenarios. Hurtful stories designed to either explain why this has happened or predict what is going to happen next in an effort to, I guess protect myself?”

Another notification flashes across his phone screen. The store is out of pita bread. Chase supposes he could serve his cardamom-free chicken shawarma over rice but it does not sound as appealing.

“There must be another person behind the scenes,” he continues. “My brain starts analyzing the past for clues to support this and my nervous system responds in kind by feeling more hurt, rejected, and angry. Despite the fact that the opposite has been stated clearly.”

He takes a deep breath, clenches, and relaxes his fist, and exhales slowly.

“I’m being told that I’m loved and cared about deeply, platonically, and that the door is open after some space and healing for a great friendship. But my mind wants me to assume the opposite. That this space is only going to widen over time and that ultimately, this was only said to lighten the blow.

These thoughts aren’t facts though. They’re just anxiety trying to Trojan horse its way in through memories. And I don’t want to give these things my time and energy anymore. Instead, I name it (sometimes out loud to myself). Just state the feelings that I’m experiencing the thought that I am having and remind myself of the facts. How I am interpreting them, and what is presently, factually, happening.

This all followed by some exercises to help me redirect my feelings and thoughts toward a singular thing I can focus on doing instead.”

Reading over what he’s written, Chase is now feeling like he sounds like an obsessed person who should never publish this. Truthfully, what he is experiencing is grief. A concoction of emotions and thoughts that come with a deep loss. Grief isn’t relegated only to people dying. What Chase is doing, is feeling all the feelings, allowing himself to experience it and also file it away in the proper place in his mind rather than spiral or avoid them.

He lost his person. Nobody did anything wrong. Nobody is accusing anyone of anything. Over time, they just wanted very different things. Primarily, Chase wanted to remain married and living together and she wanted - not that. They share friends, they have always communicated in open, respectable, and honest ways. He may not realize or feel this way now but he will be okay, but that doesn’t take away from the hurt. As They Might Be Giants once said, “the healing doesn’t stop the feeling.”

“I’m excited for this journey I’m on. I didn’t choose for the context in which the opportunity presented itself but rather than fight this - rather than letting my brain do what it’s always done - I want to look inward. I want to get to know me a little better and work on some things that childhood Chase has been holding by himself for a long time. It’s time for me to help that little guy out. Then, together, we can move forward as a more whole version of me. I just don’t know completely what that looks like and I get an anxious feeling when I look far ahead.”

Chase decides in this moment to wait about 15 minutes, then read what he has written before publishing it. Maybe it needs a revision, maybe it needs to be saved and was only mean to be typed and left alone. Whatever he does next, is entirely up to him.

“Overthinking will still show up. But I’m learning to meet it, acknowledge what it is saying, and send it on its way. That’s the real art. That’s the work.”

I’ve been sort of dreading reaching this song since I started this newsletter. When I first began writing through John Henry, I mentioned a sudden, traumatic loss I experienced as a teenager, just four months after buying this album. Every track carries trace memories from that time, but none more than Why Must I Be Sad?

This one was always going to hurt.

The Guy Who Taught Me How to Think

Growing up, my uncle Ron taught me a lot of things. How to meditate. How to control my scary dreams. How to appreciate poetry. How to defend myself. He was my gateway into philosophy and religions like Buddhism and Taoism. The first person who taught me that life had so many layers and perspectives.

One time, I came to him for help interpreting a dream. I’d been experiencing déjà vu inside my dreams. Every night, a different scenario, but that weird feeling of “I’ve been here before” kept occurring.

If anyone had read about that phenomenon, it would’ve been him.

I soaked up his words and wisdom like Diet Coke soaked into the carpet gets sucked up by a Sham-Wow.

And then, four months after I bought John Henry, he taught me one final lesson. How to survive the suicide of someone you love.

A Soundtrack for Grief

The violence of it, sudden and inescapable, confronts your entire worldview. It takes away the person you love and hurls you into a new reality that the old you can’t live in anymore. That version of me - the who existed before this loss - did not survive. I had to become someone else in order to move forward.

And I was listening to John Henry on repeat. At first, it was my escape. Then it became my reminder as I was attaching each moment to this album with mental epoxy.

After school, I’d walk home, dragging my feet, eyes on the gravel sidewalk, carrying the heaviness of it all.

Uncle Ron had been helping us paint the house so every afternoon that week, he’d be there when I got home. I’d tell him about a comedy sketch I was working on for drama class, and he’d give me movies or music to check out.

His suggestions, his feedback, quotes - I started writing them down in a notebook so I wouldn’t forget.

And then one day, I got home. . . and he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t anywhere.

A Song That Begs for Answers

Why Must I Be Sad? is the eighth track of the album. The organ sets a mournful tone, bellowing soulfully beneath John Linnell’s voice. His vocals aren’t just carrying a melody here. They climb, tilt, and strain as if he is trying to escape the answer to his own question. The bassline in this song is also top tier. If not for the emotional imprint, I’d say it is a no-skip track without a doubt. For everyone but me.

Toward the end, John Flansburgh enters with a counterpart of half-spoken lines layered under Linnell’s final vocals. And those final vocals have a rising tension where each “why must I be sad?” climbs slightly higher than the last.

It’s like he is pleading to the universe and each question remains the same but the lever of hurt included has multiplied. It ends with one final and powerfully sustained “sad” that feels like that sadness has consumed him whole.

Wait, What’s Alice Cooper Doing Here?

It wasn’t until last week, preparing to write this very post, that I learned a truth about this song. Something that I have admit made feel embarrassed and then laugh at all my past selves. The point of view for this song is supposed to come from a kid who finds all his sadness contained and given a voice by the music of Alice Cooper.

In fact, six out of ten songs from Cooper’s album, Billion Dollar Babies, are referenced in this song. The entire counterpart that Flans is singing toward the end are just him calling out eleven different song titles from Cooper albums.

How did I miss that my entire life?

Because I don’t listen to Alice Cooper.

I know School’s Out because it was on the Scream soundtrack. I know Feed My Frankenstein from Wayne’s World. That’s it. These references missed me completely.

A Song That Said the Thing I Couldn’t

Teenage me, living through the worst thing that had ever happened to me, heard this song asking a question I was already begging an answer for.

Why is this happening to me?

Why did he do this?”

Why did this person I love want to me leave me forever?

The lyrics start out with:

“No More Mister Nice Guy”

“I Love the Dead”

I’ve been thinking about it

Now I understand what he said

Never could an opening verse have connected with me so immediately.

It goes on:

No one knows these things but me and him

So I’m writing everything down in a spiral notebook.

And there I was, walking home on a hot, sunny day, listening to this song on my Walkman, kicking gravel, squinting at the sun. Wondering if I’d ever feel happy again. And this line hit:

I kick the rocks beneath me

I squint at the sun.

Sad, sad, sad, sad

Why must I be sad?

It was like the song had started reading my mind.

A New Kind of Loss, the Same Kind of Pain

I never hear this song and not think of him. Or those days and those very hard feelings that I buried. I realize it’s a little bit on the nose to have a song about being sad make you so sad but this song does that for me. Listening to this song, brings with it, a whole lot of emotions that I can’t brush aside.

As this song approached my writing schedule, a little anxiety started to build. I didn’t want to write this post. I knew it would hurt. But I rolled up my sleeves, put the song on loop, and started anyway.

And then, two days ago, while preparing to write, I learned that my marriage was ending. The person I love most in the world would no longer be living in our apartment.

No one is angry or blaming. It’s just. . . emotionally complicated.

That’s kind of a lie. I’m wrecked.

My apartment feels haunted. Everything reminds me of us. I pick up my phone to text her something funny, and then remember, I don’t know if I’m supposed to do that anymore.

The life I had, the future I imagined; gone. That hurts in a way I don’t have language for yet.

Two Reasons to Be Sad

Eventually, I’ll learn how to be enough for me, as just me. Or however my therapist said it. This person was my best friend. We want to remain close, but it won’t ever be the same. And that breaks something open in me.

She’s the person who understood me better than anyone. Who made me laugh harder than anyone. She was just the absolute purest, loving, hilarious, and closest person I’ve ever known. It’s a heavy loss.

Maybe someday, I’ll meet someone new. I can’t imagine it. I don’t even want to. Because I don’t think I will never meet another person like her. And that’s okay. It’s okay to have been lucky enough to spend time living with a person like that. Most people don’t. Having it in my life, even though it remains in my past now, is a privilege I will cherish.

I know I can’t write anything that will change the outcome. All I can do is keep writing until I understand myself again.

In June, I wrote about the joy I experienced while sitting in a park amongst flowers thinking about how lucky I was to have this person in my life.

I was lucky. That hasn’t been erased. It exists back there, safe in the past. I feel like I’ve written myself into a hole that has become uncomfortably real and maybe a very different kind of sad.

A Repeating Chorus

Now, when I hear this song, I think of two moments in my life.
Two heartbreaks. Two losses. Two versions of me who didn’t make it through unscathed.

And it feels silly to me, maybe absurd even, that a song written as a satirical nod to teenage angst - anchored in Alice Cooper references - could become the emotional glue holding together such a life defining loss.

Twice.

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In my last post, I vaguely shared about an artist’s grant that I applied for.

The quick recap:

• A friend forwarded me a website to an organization based in Tacoma, WA (where I live) offering several grants worth up to $7,000.

• My creative medium (writing) was included and I decided to put together an in-depth packet to apply back in February or March.

• Near the application deadline, the president of the organization sent an email to all of the applicants. Reminder that the recipients are being reviewed by the private 5-person selection committee- made up of local WA artists. Performers, “producers,” etc.

• The email was signed off by the president, who happened to be headlining comedian that I’ve known for long while. Very funny. Very kind person.

• I found the organization Instagram and found that one of the previous year’s recipients were some WA comedians who perform and produce a show at a Seattle comedy club. A club that the org president (and likely some of the selection committee) is also involved with.

I became concerned about the legitimacy of this grant. They charged a fee to apply. The board and selection committee are private (which is probably normal?). And the president has a clear and direct connection (by way of being actively participating and belonging) to an entire category of applicants.

We are now several weeks into July and nothing has been announced. I’ve noticed a couple of comments on the org’s Instagram post asking if winners have been selected. The account owner liked that comment and that’s it.

I’ve sent out an email asking if there will be any “better luck next time” emails or announcement of the grant recipients selected. That email has gone unanswered.

I realize that this whole thing sounds like I’m whining that I didn’t get it.

Look, I’ll crowdfund my book project. I’ll reach out to some friends who enjoy what I’m doing and ask for a little online boost. A grant would have saved some time and allowed me to afford paying to use all local businesses and other local artists in my city to work on my project.

What irks me, is the possibility that the only comedy-category applicants that were ever going to be selected, are stand-up comedians that this president or the selection committee know or who all may directly or indirectly benefit from.

I don’t believe that this is the intention of the organization or of its president, but it certainly doesn’t look above reproach. The radio silence on who DID get selected only feeds that nagging suspicion.

It’s also funny to me to have a grant organization’s ethos (and name) be centered around combatting the gate keeping in WA arts communities while continuing to stand near another closed gate with a chance for a key if you just pay $25.

End of rant. Next week; something “fun.”

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Waiting.

Waiting is the worst thing. My body interprets waiting as anticipation which feels remarkably similar to anxiety. Waiting = anxiety.

I wish I could feel like the calm and patient person others see of me from the outside, on my inside. Usually, I’m quietly processing different possible outcomes or interpretations from others in a hyper vigilant act of trying to know how everyone else is thinking about what everyone else is saying. It all stems from a magic combination of mental illness and trauma informed behavioral pattern recognition. A fancy way of saying that I was born with a mind that is working against me and that some people broke me.

Last month, I applied for a local artist’s grant from non-profit foundation that I hadn’t heard of. Not that I’ve heard of many. I don’t really keep my finger on the pulse of non-profit, grant-making foundations. Nonetheless, a friend forwarded me a website and said “hey, you’re an artist - apply for this comedy grant to write your book!” To which I said, “Does writing count as art? Is what I’m doing still comedy related?” Their answer was a resounding yes. So - I applied.

I wrote out a detailed project plan, timelines, local businesses and other artists that I would tap (and pay with grant money) for editing, illustrations, you name it. I would plan readings at local cafes, small business bookstores. I even (expertly, I’d say) wrote out an incredibly description of what my book will be, why I’m writing it, and why I think it would resonate with so many people.

$25 or so was sent in with my grant application packet and I wait. I’ve been waiting for all of June, which is when the four awardees should be announced. Two from the general artists category and two from the comedy category. The email I received later in the month, explained the selection process. A team of five unnamed members of the selection committee would evaluate and make their recommendations. The committee is comprised of professional artists, performers, and producers in WA.

At the bottom of the letter was a signature from the president and co-founder of the foundation - a comedian that I know from the Seattle/PNW comedy scene. A wonderful person who is incredibly funny and talented. I decided to visit the foundation’s Instagram page where I found pictures of the previous year’s recipients in the comedy category. Other comedians that I recognize from my not-so-long-ago time as a stand-up comic. Great.

My anxiety stepped into overdrive. My previous hopeful excitement was drowned out by the usual doubt and catastrophizing things that haven’t happened. . . yet.

“The past winners were comedians in Seattle who were producing comedy shows at a comedy club where the president of this foundation also gets booked to headline when they aren’t on the road. This comedy grant was never going to be awarded to me and my dumb book.”

“I should have researched this before I bothered spending all that time applying and paying $25. They’re probably all laughing at my expense right now.”

I’d like to say that I know those things aren’t true. But I don’t know that. I’m a skeptic and sometimes I’m too cynical (I take medicine for it), and what I do know is that the president of this foundation is connected to the scene that the selection committee belong to. If I know anything about comedy scenes, its that everyone loves to scratch each others’ backs. I’ll book you on my show and let everyone know online how funny you are, and then you book me on your show and I’ll let everyone online know how amazing your shows are, and vice-versa.

This seemed a lot like that just less public.

So - I’m waiting.

Anxiously.

For what I expect to be either a “Thanks but no” email or a social media post announcing the winners, of which I will not be one.