A friend recently told me, “share from the scar, not the wound.” Work through your tender shit. Let it be tender and private and sacred. Then share those lessons, share the healing of it.

There was a period of time when the major block of my sharing was a fear of judgement, mostly of me trying, of “going for it,” of being that person on the internet someone thinks is cringy or lame or pathetic or insert whatever thing people think about people who try. Not to mention that no matter how general I share, I’m sure there are people in my life who will know exactly what (or who) I’m talking about, and am I really ready for them to know those things? The thing holding me back from writing more, sharing more, going after my dreams used to boil down to but what will people think. I have worked very hard to do it anyway, to remember that what other people think of us is truly none of our business, and to practice my own preaching that the more we are ourselves, the less we will be for some people but my god, the more we will be for others.

As a brief anecdote, at an event recently, someone came up to me and not so lovingly and more than somewhat mockingly said, “wow you’re really feeling your feelings on the internet lately, I’m not gonna laugh, I’m not gonna laugh.” (said while laughing). When I tell you this would have been the thing that once broke me. I was staring in the face the very thing I had most feared (hi welcome to my thesis for how we grow), and instead of dying I had this moment of wild self regard. Wow girl, you’re really doing it - you’re participating enough that someone has something to judge! What a victory! How cool, you’re pushing someone’s buttons! What fun, someone is thinking about what you’re doing this much! Did it hurt my feelings? Of course. But instead of shrinking from it, instead of going back into my cave and returning to a smaller, quieter, less honest version of myself, I can see all the freedom and liberation and juicy juicy self esteem that sits on the other side of being someone who can not only tolerate, but sees some weird and twisty win, that someone does not like me or get me, or fully misunderstands who I am. How powerful to become someone who holds onto themselves in those moments. What a formidable person. I like her.

Alas, the deeper you go, the deeper you go. So now that I have semi-conquered my lifelong fear of judgement (newsflash to me, I will be semi-conquering this for the rest of my life), there is a new block to explore in this ever-evolving journey of public self-expression.

A couple days ago, I went to sit down to write a piece called “feel it don’t fix it.” I’m naming that because I can’t wait for the day I’m ready to write that one and share it with all of you. At its core is the thesis of that age-old adage that the only way through is through and our work is not to try to fix our most excruciating, painful, and uncomfortable feelings, but to feel them fully, let them work you, be a human willing to be changed and rearranged, and come out the other end something more honest, more true, a bit closer to god. I think (hope) it’ll be good when I write it. But the truth is, I can’t write that essay right now without sharing a bit more of what is actually going on, and I’m not ready to do that. I am in a season of moving through some big shit, so filled with growth, but also a fuckton of pain, that even within my inner circle I am only talking about it with (I have counted) a sacred 8 — consider it the modern MySpace top 6. And while much of it has indeed been mined for gold, I’m a little too in the wound phase still.

If I were to write the essay I’m not ready to write I would say I can feel myself changing before me, that the protectors who have been standing guard of my heart, of my most tender bits, who have been protecting me from what I most fear have been sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, standing down because those parts are ready to be exposed. But that means it also feels…exposing. I’d write that it feels like the proverbial rock I’ve hammered at 99 times finally broke on the hundredth hit, and I have never known life without the rock that’s shattered and it all feels brand new. I would write that I have entered into some weird fuck it era while also still feeling scared. I’d write that I feel ready for so much more than I ever have, which means I have to grieve all the years I didn’t realize how much I wanted, how much I muted myself. I’d write that it just feels like I’m swimming in a sea of endings and beginnings (thank you very much eclipse season). But that all feels quite vague without anything specific to back it up.

It’s a confusing time to share on the internet. To share but not overshare, to speak freely and from the heart without energy leaking that which I’m not ready to give away. To hold some invisible boundary. How does one admire the likes of Joan and Eve and Lena and then NOT share their most honest bits? But how does one know when something is still ours to hold and tend to? Where is the room for alchemy, for the metabolizing period that is so necessary? How do we also live our lives simply to live them?

So then I tried to write the essay in a general way, but it came out a sanitized 5 pages of platitudes. I wanted to share about how we can’t protect ourselves from getting hurt. About what happens when it doesn’t feel like our bravery is rewarded. The liberation of staring down the barrel of a big fat fear and coming out the other side. Powerful stuff. The specific is, as they say, universal, and the only way I know to share the real growth and what I’ve gleaned is to include at least a little of something specific that felt like I was betraying myself when I tried to touch it.

I have spent a lot of my life trying to fix my feelings. Understand them. Get to the bottom of them. Turn them into something useful. Find the lesson. Make the feeling go away so I can get back to being the version of myself I prefer, or better yet, become a new and improved and far more lovable version of myself. Hot take - it has never worked and it really is self acceptance over self improvement.

I called a friend about it, who is also a phenomenal writer, and she reminded me that writing about it too soon may indeed be my way of trying to “fix” it instead of simply feel – to already have the lesson, to already have something worthy to share from it. And then she reminded me of a line in my last essay, where I shared that “I was feeling alienated from my own creativity by the machinery required to share it.” Artists and creatives have always mined their own lives to create art. “Everything is copy,” as queen Nora Ephron once said. And yet, what does it mean to be an artist in an era when people are posting what they eat for breakfast on the internet, where there is an active churning of new content all the time, when there is little to no pause between the making of the thing and the sharing of the thing.

I’ve been deeply consuming Phoebe Bridgers’ new album Lost Weekend. It’s brilliant. And raw. And honest. And vulnerable. And at times, very specific. But a song about a new relationship is coming out at least 4 years into said relationship, where it has enough stable ground that the subject is a co-writer and singer on the song (I am, once again, talking about Bo Burnham). A song about her dead dad is coming out for public consumption 3.5 years after his death. (as an aside, as a human with dead parents and longing for tremendous love, this album fucked me uppppp in the best way). It’s clear she is writing and capturing an arc of time and what it felt like at a variety of different moments, but there has been space for it to alchemize, for life to become art, for the wound to become a scar. And by scar I don’t mean, here is the thing tied up in a nice bow. I mean it as, “here is a true articulation of the specific way this pain and experience showed up for me that I can now share and access because I have moved through it and the volume is turned down from 10,000.”

In art, I want to know what it felt like when it was a mess, when it wasn’t resolved. I want the true messy honest human experience reflected back to me. But that art takes time.

So here lies the tension. I am feeling called in two distinct directions: share more & be more discerning. How do we allow ourselves to be more fully seen, to be in our most authentic expression, while still honoring that not every part of us is for everyone? Or at least, not yet. Because what are we doing here if not telling the truth? And also, we don’t have to heal in real time in front of people we do not know. There is freedom in being known, but let’s not mistake authenticity and visibility for unlimited access to ourselves.

It’s confusing when I genuinely get self esteem from a willingness to be vulnerable, to be seen for the parts I really like about myself and the parts that hold some shame, or self-judgement, or even embarrassment. I am very willing to share some things in real time, which I think is very cool. When that person at that event said I was “feeling a lot on the internet” they were, in part, referring to one of the more vulnerable things I’ve ever put on the internet – a picture of me in a bikini (plus a pretty honest caption). A photo was taken, an experience was had, I wrote about it, I shared it, in a matter of a day. I’m so proud of myself for what I shared, and my ability to do so is a product of lots of work and recovery. I have had endless breakdowns about my body but in that moment, there was no gaping wound. I did not share a photo of me looking and feeling like shit, I shared the feelings I have felt in the past about looking and feeling like shit. I don’t need to force exposure if ultimately it would cause self harm, but when I can share from the other side, I stay committed to sharing the things that still feel a little scary. Immediacy isn’t inherently reckless and privacy isn’t inherently hiding. In this case, sharing it didn’t require me to abandon some part of myself in order to prove I was brave enough to expose it.

The question seems to be less “has enough time passed?” and more “what part of me is sharing this?” Is sharing an act of self-expression/self-regard/service, or does sharing require me to abandon a part of myself that is asking to be protected? Is this coming from my wholeness, or am I hoping to feel more whole by sharing it?

So guys, I don’t really know how to end this essay. I am having so many downloads and writing them down. My phone right now is filled with notes and voice memos and half-sentences. Currently, I’m staring at one that says "write ferociously, publish w discernment?” Maybe? (I have another one that says god this would feel worse if I wasn’t feeling hot but that’s a different essay). Some of them will probably become the essay I initially sat down to write today. Some of them will embarrass me in three weeks. Some may stay between me, the cloud, and the fine folks at Apple tracking all my data.

I don’t totally know. Maybe it is less about having something to say and more about paying enough attention that eventually you do. Let yourself contradict yourself. Let something be meaningless or confusing or excruciating for longer than you would prefer. Let it gestate. Let it rearrange you. Let life hang there suspended and unanswered and not fully understood. Here I am with a full essay I didn’t expect to write, just by giving myself permission to not be ready to write something else and to let the place I’m in be worthy of exploring and sharing.

If the goal is to write and express what’s on my heart, then I guess this is it ya? That just for today there are things I wish I was ready to write about or brave enough to share, but the same part of me that has enough self esteem, self worth, self love to chase the things I want, is the same part of me that no longer wants to be reckless with my tender heart. It’s the same part that is learning to trust things to take the time they take, that doesn’t have to rush an outcome or a solution or a fix, that can surrender to a deeply uncomfortable process of uncertainty and gray.

There’s a delicious irony that by not forcing “feel it don’t fix it” to exist, I’m sort of practicing the thesis here. Truly nothing to be solved.

I’m genuinely curious how you are all navigating this, especially those of you sharing meaningfully online. Would love to hear more in the comments x

I started to think, wow, I should rewatch it and see how it lands now. I remembered how it transcended me the first time. How fucking blown away I was by the level of creativity, the brilliance, the music, the sheer capacity of one human brain to make something like this. How perfectly it captured that uncapturable “funny feeling” of what was, at the time, the most fucking insane moment of our lives. My god, I thought, if only I had a Substack back then I would have RIPPED IT. And then I realized: well well wellllllll, I have one now. So I decided to “make you some content, open wiiiiide.”

This is coming at a time when I’ve been continuously more bogged down and trapped by the need and obsession of our content-generating lives.

What’s the next Substack to hit the marker to grow? Am I writing enough “notes” on here? Should I do that Instagram trend? Should this be a Reel? How much do you have to post now for anyone to see the thing you actually wanted to make in the first place?

We have to make content to promote the content we’re making and the more content we make the more likely people will actually see said content. In Inside, Bo asks “Is it necessary, is it absolutely necessary, that every single person on this planet expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time. Is that necessary. Or to ask it a different way, can anyone…shut the fuck up?”

Apparently, in order to get ahead, the answer is devastatingly no.

I’ve been craving logging off. I’ve been craving reconnecting with what I was called to do in the first place, when I set out to live a more creative life. I’ve been yearning to feel inspired.

So last weekend I oscillated between keeping my phone on airplane mode and bricking it, (which I will now interrupt this essay about the commodification of our attention in the era of late stage capitalism to tell you you can purchase one here). Oh, the irony. Bo is rolling over somewhere.

With my phone off, I rewatched my favorite special. And oh my fucking god, you guys. It held up.

I spent most of it with a smile full of tears. I was amazed by what the human brain can create. Inspired beyond measure. In awe of the music and the jokes and the precision and the way one person could take something so amorphous and terrifying and turn it into art.

He’s just so fucking brilliant.

I expected to be reminded of the pandemic. Instead, I realized how much of the world Burnham was satirizing as dystopian in 2021 has simply become normal life. It was actually much scarier to watch this time. It felt less like a time capsule and more like a prophecy.

But the time capsule did smack me in the face with the reality of the descent; the, dare I say, trauma we collectively experienced. I was flooded with grief for us all. Guys, what the fuck happened to us.

Whatever brilliance he brought to that initial descent of our time inside, we have since lived in the descent after the descent.

We went inside, and then we sort of just stayed inside, didn’t we? Yes, the world reopened. We went back to restaurants and airports and offices and weddings and parties. We took our masks off. We hugged each other again. But some essential part of us stayed indoors, shielded from the dangers of the world. Like the lyrics that close Burnham’s entire special: “So this is how it ends. I promise to never go outside again.”

The entire premise of Inside is this man alone in a room, performing into a camera for an audience he cannot see. “Me and my camera and you and your screens, just as God intended.” That indoor home studio he created because he physically couldn’t go out into the world is now largely the norm. Our human interactions happen in larger and larger parts through screens - work, dating, friendship, entertainment, shopping, exercise, therapy, creativity, “community”.

We are at an apex of influencer culture, a bubble I believe (and hope) will burst soon. Everything is sold online, what was once a dancing app is now just a place to shop, there’s a new platform you have to engage with every day. It’s the rat race of how much content, how often, how much you have to post to be seen at all. Incentivized in the name of conquering our attention and our time. For them to make money. And now we can use AI to make the content faster so there is just more more MORE. RIP our attention spans.

There is this lifeless exchange of value. This utterly flattened human experience.

We see and hear this in “That Funny Feeling,” which I still think is one of the best songs ever written, including lines like “a gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall,” “the backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun,” and “a book on getting better hand-delivered by a drone.” It captures that utterly flattened absurdity of modern life, an endless stream of tragedy and consumerism and self-improvement and discourse until all that’s left is that uncapturable, ambient funny feeling.

It’s followed closely by “All Eyes on Me.” Bo is completely alone, performing like he’s in front of thousands of people, telling a fake crowd that does not exist to get their fucking hands up (and also to pray for him). Except we do exist. We’re just also alone, on the other side of the screen. It’s a fake collective experience that somehow becomes a real collective experience, which feels like the entire fucking contradiction of that time and, increasingly, of now. We have never had more ways to be seen, to perform ourselves, to feel connected to thousands of people, while being so physically isolated from one another. We experience our lives and simultaneously imagine ourselves being perceived living them. And the song is seductive rather than miserable because that’s precisely the point: staying inside doesn’t necessarily feel like deprivation when the internet can give us entertainment, attention, intimacy, and the sensation of being together.

At some point I looked down at the notes I was taking, watching and simultaneously thinking about the Substack I would later write about this experience – I was watching a piece of art about the compulsive documentation and performance of the self while compulsively documenting my thoughts about it so I could perform them for you later. Dammit, he’s good.

This part is confusing because writing this is exactly what I want to be doing. And like Bo is doing with the content he has made, we get to share our brilliance with so much more ease now, to make something alone in a room that genuinely reaches another person alone in theirs. We share our experiences and vulnerabilities and truth and hopefully we do feel less alone. That’s beautiful. But even the greatest whispers and callings of our souls can become performance.

David Foster Wallace once warned that “technology is going to get better and better, and it’s going to get easier and easier and more and more convenient and pleasurable to sit alone with images on a screen given to us by people who do not love us but want our money…that’s fine, in low doses, but if it’s the basic staple of your diet, you’re going to die. In a very meaningful way, you’re going to die.”

It did feel like I was being transported back to that time. And I found myself wanting to take a time machine to those early days and scream at all of us, myself included: TURN AROUND! DO IT DIFFERENTLY! In a weird way, I long for the innocence of that time.

I imagine this is something like what it would have felt like to watch a WWII movie in the early 1950s – monumental history you just lived, a depiction of a collective trauma while living inside the world that trauma helped create.

And it made me wonder whether the way we live now is partly what unprocessed collective grief looks like: the numbing out, the compulsivity, the anger coming out sideways, the black and white thinking, the insatiable appetite for more, the desire to escape our IRL lives and disappear into the abyss of our phones.

We barely acknowledge what happened to us, let alone process it. So often with trauma and grief, we just want to get our lives back. We want the terrible thing to be over. We want to return to normal. We want to feel like ourselves again. But grief doesn’t really work like that.

Francis Weller writes in The Wild Edge of Sorrow about the necessity of grief in making sense of a world turned upside down. He describes the pandemic as a moment that “shook our foundations and cracked the facade of normal,” a prolonged season of collective sorrow in which we were living in “the ashes of the familiar.” He calls what follows the “Long Dark,” an extended season of descent into loss, grief, mystery and vulnerability, in which we carry what he calls the “heavy cargo of grief.”

Watching Inside, I kept thinking about just how much of that cargo we haven’t metabolized. We went through this enormous collective rupture and then, at some point, the world opened back up and we were expected to just...continue. “We need grief in order to heal these traumas and make sense of a world turned upside down,” Weller writes. Perhaps feeling the immenseness of what we went through, of what was lost, is how we begin to make sense of it and ultimately find a new way of being.

Because grief, when we refuse to sit with it, doesn’t disappear. I know from my own experience of personal loss that truly sitting in the abject despair, in the deep and uncomfortable feelings of pain and loss, is how they eventually begin to soften. Alas, the only way through is through.

Some of us had real awakenings during and because of that time alone. We slowed down. We changed our lives. We stopped chasing certain people or possibilities. We learned how to be alone. We left relationships or jobs. We made things. We discovered and remembered parts of ourselves we might never have discovered otherwise. And some of us hardened. I wonder if many of us did both.

Trauma and grief can be catalysts for enormous growth and change, while some other part of us quietly adds another layer of protection after having been so fucking scared.

I believe we heal under a compassionate witness, and my goodness, our sweet selves lost so much in those days. Guys, I’m so sorry for us.

I mean it with tremendous tenderness. Look at what we went through.

Of course some part of us got scared. Of course some part of us got comfortable in our houses. Of course some part of us learned that the world could disappear overnight and decided it might be safer not to need quite so much from it. But safer isn’t necessarily more alive. We’ve sanded away the edges of what makes us human, demanding a more sanitized way of life while claiming we want “authenticity.”

We got scared and distracted and angry and lonely and sought comfort wherever we could — we learned to experience our lives through screens and eventually to experience them as something to be fed back into those screens. And I’m so sad for us. I think we have so much to grieve about what happened and what we lost and what we’ve become accustomed to since. We can’t selectively numb pain and loss without also narrowing our capacity for joy, intimacy and creativity.

Weller writes that “a heart shrouded in untended grief and trauma will struggle to remain receptive to being fully alive.” SOUND FAMILIAR??!!! Maybe the grief we never metabolized is part of why so many of us now feel distracted, lonely, numb, overexposed, underconnected, and desperate to feel alive again.

I wanted to revisit Inside because I was feeling alienated from my own creativity by the machinery required to share it. Watching one human being make something so astonishingly creative reminded me why I wanted to make things in the first place.

In the age of AI, oh my god, to be reminded of the kind of art humans can make. To watch evidence of the almost incomprehensible creative capacity of a human being at a moment when we’re increasingly outsourcing creative production to machines. What the human mind and heart are capable of. One person felt something incomprehensible about the world he was living through and turned it into something so precise that years later another human being could sit alone watching it, crying and laughing and somehow feel more alive because of it. How fucking magical.

And maybe that’s part of the way out. Not some dramatic rejection of technology. I’m not throwing my phone into the ocean. I have a podcast and an Instagram and a Substack and apparently a ShopMy link for the device I use to prevent myself from using the device I need to access ShopMy. I’m in it. We’re all in it.

But I want to remember that the point of making things was to make things. The point of sharing our lives was to connect. The point of being alive is to feel ALL of it – including the pain.

I want to create when I have something to say, not to fill a content calendar. I want to leave my house (I just succumbed to one of those memberships that gives me a consistent place to work every day and get out of my house), I want to say yes to the parties, to have uncomfortable conversations and risk conflict with humans that matter to me, to continue to brick my phone, to watch things I love. I want to feel really really happy, and really really sad. I’ll continue to work not to fight either feeling (and all the other ones). I want to risk rejection and disappointment. To risk looking bad. I’ll hold onto myself along the way. I’ll let more of my humanity, my humanness, belong.

I want more art. More weirdness. More people. More feeling. More creativity. More things made by humans because they couldn’t fucking help themselves. (More please, Bo.)

As an uncanny aside, this has taken me about a week and a half to write, and in that time my experience went from ‘where is Bo Burnham’, to ‘Bo Burnham is everywhere’. Timing is funny. I truly did not think about the upcoming (now released) Phoebe Bridgers album and how much he may be a part of that (cue me crying to “Bobby” on repeat). I’m surrounded. BTW, in the spirit of this entire article, I highly recommend putting your phone away, lying on the floor, and listening to “Lost Weekend” all the way through a good set of speakers this weekend.

In the midst of writing this, fully immersed in Bo and listening to the soundtrack to Inside on repeat, I got to go to a listening party for the album before it came out. Phoebe was there, which was so fucking cool. I even got to meet her and talk about our mutual favorite yoga studio, where I see her in New York. But then I physically felt a presence behind me, turned around, and saw him standing there in all his tall glory. NGL, the hair on my arms stood up and I burst into tears, like the very cool very chill person I am.

I don’t get starstruck, and I’m lucky to have met so many artists I admire, but as he walked around Moonlight Rollerway eating a hot dog and playing arcade games, I physically could not find it in me to go up and say something. It was too important, too meaningful. How does one walk up to someone and casually say, “Hi, I think you created the single most brilliant piece of art of our generation, I am in awe of your talent and—” I wouldn’t have known how to finish that sentence then, and I still don’t know how to finish it now. (But maybe someone reading this knows him and can just send him this.)

Hey Bo, we need you. Can you please, please make us some content?

This week we're joined by the ever so chic Clark Moore — writer, actor, author of the substack Wistover, and newly minted Parisian. We talk about taking the long way (and why the hard path isn't always the noble one), what it means to be an artist whether you're working or not, the grenade moment that blew his life wide open, and why it is so much harder to live an unfulfilling life than it is to change it. Plus narratives we inherit that simply don't serve us anymore, coming out of hibernation, and why "stop hedging" might be the best advice you can give yourself at any age. Clark is wonderful and so is this conversation!

in this episode:

• Clark’s 28 years (!!!) of auditioning, rejecting, and occasionally booking / and what it actually means to call yourself an artist

• High brow vs. low brow: why wanting your work to be “elevated” can be the thing that stops you from doing it and Clark’s ability to discuss gender theory and Nancy Meyers in the same sentence :)

• The grenade moment: blowing up your life on purpose to take inventory of the pieces

• Learning how to walk through the open doors and go where it’s warm

• Watching your peers lap you and why that metric might be BS

• Turning 35 and what Clark is calling “capital A adulthood”

my favorite quote from the conversation:

"Don't spin the globe and pick a random place to blow up your life and move to. Think about the things that aren't working, think about the things that are, and just lean towards the things that are and lean away from the things that aren't. Just take one step at a time in the direction that feels good and stop banging on the closed doors." - Clark Moore

As always, lmk what you think in the comments. I hope you enjoy xx

-

And so, I offer you the concept of mornings with GUS: a spiritual playlist to start your day. In short: I listen to music that touches my soul. And in turn, I get to start my day connected to my soul, to that vast, great, unknowable thing. And then I can get out of my own way. Then I can create from a container of trust and curiosity.

For me, music has always served as an expression that transcends. It pierces a part of my soul and touches that ground with a swiftness that can only be described as divine.

I sit firmly in the camp that art is a devotional act. And so to begin my day centered and connected, surrounded by some of the greatest acts of devotion humans have ever made, supercharges everything that follows. To bring me into greater clarity, truth, and alignment. To notice what I may need to release.

Maybe it’s jamming to Pata Pata and feeling pure childlike joy. Or Vivaldi’s Winter, or Bitter Sweet Symphony, or Dreams by The Cranberries, all of which make me feel like I’m quantum leaping. Perhaps it’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and the reminder that this too shall pass, or India Arie reminding me I Am The Light. Justin Bieber chanting Hallelujah to the sun being out, or Olivia Dean seeing love in her friends and on the tube. Perhaps the Five Stairsteps reminding me that things will indeed get easier, or the Avett Brothers bringing me back to the ever powerful meditation on death and mortality. It could be the cast of Hair reminding me to Let The Sunshine In, or good old George Michael calling me towards Freedom. It all belongs and all of it guides me to a wider aperture. Somehow both connecting to the thirty thousand foot view, the net holding us all, and the most quiet inner knowing, the miraculous spark inside of us all.

On a recent episode of the pod, someone submitted a question asking about my morning routine and I admittedly shared that my routine was in a bit of a transition. The most important thing about a morning routine for me is that it isn’t rigid. When I start to feel like I’m optimizing my meditation, counting how many days I streak or miss, or my morning pages feel like a chore, anywhere I notice myself slipping into perfectionism, I stop and ask: where am I building this from?

Is this nourishing me? Is this honoring a part of me that needs attention? Or is this just another sneaky way I’m trying to do my life perfectly, to try to control an outcome? To be the kind of person who does her mornings well? To bypass uncomfortable feelings? If I do my morning routine perfectly then I will be productive, then I will be good, then all my dreams will come true. Some sneaky code for me to perfectly crack or not.

So for me, personally, I have to keep that part fluid. I generally try to do morning pages and meditate, I have some spiritual readings and I try to get some sunlight and move my body. But again, I actively do this imperfectly as that is as much a part of my practice as anything else.

That said, I do find that grounding my day changes my day. Getting out of the finger trap of my brain and into the expansiveness of my heart allows me to be and create the kind of life I want to have.

If I connect back to myself, to god, to that feeling that it is actually all ok, that I’m held — and from that place I can be with whatever is in front of me. Whether that’s uncomfortable or excited, scared or playful.

In a recent commencement speech at Paul Quinn College, James Talarico said this:

“I ask you not to search for something out there. I ask you to notice what’s all around. I’m not asking you to believe something new — I’m asking you to trust something already inside of you. I’m not asking you to join an organized religion. I’m asking you to join something bigger than yourself. Find a spiritual practice that works for you — whether that’s meditation or fasting, gardening or bird watching, whether it’s in a church or a temple or a book club or a neighborhood group. Find a community that can help you touch the ground of your own being.”

Touch the ground of your own being. I now have this written on a post-it near my desk.

I trend in the direction of high engagement in my own spiritual practice. But days are long and full and busy, and if this stuff wasn’t so hard there wouldn’t be institutions and books and lifetimes of spiritual teachers helping us humans find our way back to ourselves. Easy does it, they say, and somehow easy often is what gets it done. So for me, and I hope for you, if I have something that can fast track me, I’m all for it. Especially on the days when something greater than me feels hardest to access, when my brain is the loudest and crunchiest. How can I find ways to make the access road smoother and easier to find? (Movement also does this for me, or jumping in a large body of water, giggling with friends, the sun on my face, a pink sky).

It helps me get quiet enough to listen.

For me, the goal is to connect back to myself, to return to childlike freedom, to experience the ordinary with wonder and awe. For deep sadness and great joy to sit side by side. To notice the parts that need attention. Some days call for gentleness with sadness or grief. Others are asking for excitement and momentum. But I don’t believe we have to white-knuckle feeling good or optimize our mornings for maximum output.

This playlist truly reflects my undiagnosed ADHD, and transcends all genre and time period. I want different things on different days and so it is a hodge podge in the truest sense. Some days I pick a single song to meditate to, when I just can’t get quiet enough on my own. Others, I blast it while I’m making breakfast and brushing my teeth. And often (very often) I am simply shaking my shit out in a living room dance party.

Some mornings I find God in a love song. Some in jumping around my living room in abundant joy. Sometimes it’s to be with the bottom of a well of feeling. Always returning to the idea that it is indeed, all ok.

Maybe this particular playlist speaks to you. Maybe you pull a song or two from it. Maybe there’s an entirely different brand of music that opens your heart and I just gave you a framework to go find it. But I truly, genuinely recommend starting your days with GUS: God, Universe, Source, or whatever that thing is for you.

The playlist is live, shuffle-friendly, heart forward, beautifully chaotic. Put it on shuffle and enjoyyyyy.

What music connects you to wonder and awe? Please share in the comments so I can add to my ever-growing list. xx

Here comes the looming day where I now have to decide “how do I want to spend Mother’s Day when my mom is dead.” I have so many tools in my tool box at this point. I have exercised the muscle of taking care of myself in many different ways. How to plan things that are nice for myself, to soothe and regulate my nervous system, to ask the people I love and who love me for what I need (ok this is the one I’m still working on), but I’m resentful at how many of my tools bump up against the reality of the day. In my perfect world, I’d go to the spa on Sunday and relax. Except, guess what…the spa will be filled with mothers and daughters. I could go to one of my favorite restaurants with a book I love. Except, guess what…everyone and their mother (literally), will be at said restaurants. I don’t actually feel a certain way about these arbitrary holidays, but the plan now becomes how do I avoid a world flooded with mothers and daughters. Am I just relegated to my house? Is that my only way to experience a “normal” Sunday? And then of course it isn’t normal at all, because guess what…it is indeed Mother’s Day, and my mother is indeed still dead. And there is no right plan that will allow me to avoid that.

The funny thing is, Mother’s Day, or any planned holiday, didn’t really mean that much when she was alive. Her last Mother’s Day, my brother and I sat on the couch with her and watched The Sound of Music (she couldn’t do very much at that point). The year before, I took her for brunch and a walk on the beach. She was pretty miserable to be around. (In her defense, a tumor had taken over her brain and we didn’t know it yet.) The year before that, I took her on a hike, and then she got pretty wasted at a meal after. (Also in her defense, her partner of twenty years was dying and would die a few weeks later.) The year before that, I dropped flowers off at her house with a mask on. I honestly don’t remember the years before that, because it was never that ceremonial — she usually just felt the obligation to make sure her mother was loved and celebrated. (My grandma died four months before my stepdad, if you’re keeping track.)

All of which is to say: I don’t have some strong memory of the magic of Mother’s Day. There were no special experiences. I didn’t bring her breakfast in bed. We always did something because that’s what you do, but the something was not that important. Frankly, there’s some real relief to not have a day met with so much obligation. But now, ironically, that she’s dead, the day looms the largest. Again, it’s annoying.

I would really just like for it to be another Sunday, please and thank you. Why must I lose a precious day of my precious weekend? Curse you Hallmark gods.

I’ve also learned that grief doesn’t stick to a calendar. It bubbles up when it needs to and feels impossible to access when it doesn’t. I might feel nothing on Sunday. I might feel everything. The part of me that is most resentful is there’s this whole day that shouts THINK ABOUT YOUR MOM, but the reality is, it’s actually the random Tuesday that nobody knows about when something touches a particular bruise and I find myself sobbing in my kitchen, or when I have a wave of realization that I don’t know who my family is anymore.

I’m happy for my friends being celebrated by their kids, but I confuse myself on what happens in my body when I hear about their plans. Some part of me is just genuinely happy for them and receives it like you would any other nice thing someone you love tells you about their life. But sometimes I find myself so angry that our society is set up so well to celebrate certain points of arrival and not others. We know how to gather around moms, but most everyone I know who has lost someone has been surprised by the lack of support they’ve received. Why does one life experience garner more attention and praise than others? And mostly I hate that I can sometimes feel their discomfort sharing with me. Those of us who know grief know how often it feels like holding the uncomfortable feelings of those around you, navigating the meta experience of how others perceive your experience and their inability to hold it. Or making others more comfortable because they simply don’t know how to love and support you. (How are you supposed to know what I need, when I don’t know what I need?)

On Sunday I’m going to get the most loving texts from wonderful people saying they’re thinking about me, and I won’t know what to say except: “hi it’s just another Sunday she never cared about these days please don’t make it a thing but also thank you because there’s this strange loneliness in navigating this dumb holiday and it means so much that you reached out.” Kind of a weird text to send. And also we get those texts on the hallmark holiday but not on that random Tuesday in the kitchen.

I’m almost 37, which doesn’t feel young in most of the ways I count time. But on the timeline of losing a parent, it’s still on the early end of my circle. There’s a small club of dead parent friends™ I can call and give little explanation to my feelings. What a relief to not have to do so much managing and explaining, for every funny nook and cranny of the feelings to be welcomed and accepted and mostly met with “ya me too.” We need fellow travelers for every stage of life.

The day isn’t really about “Mother’s Day”. It’s a magnifying glass. For one Sunday, it puts the capital T Truth under a lens. The truth that my mom is dead. There’s no spiritual bypassing it. All the feelings I have about her being gone — the anger, the relief, even how normal it has begun to feel — get held up to the light. In order to decide how I want to spend my day, I have to check in with myself and really feel where I’m at in my grief. I may actually be feeling a beautiful amount of love and detachment today, and therefore don’t need much. I really can treat it like any other Sunday and if I see some moms and daughters, god bless. Or maybe I’m carrying some sadness I haven’t felt into in a moment. Or maybe there’s that deep primal loneliness, and what I really need is to spend time with someone I love. I want to run to figure out how to spend the day so I don’t have to sit with the uncomfortable feelings that might come up.

The plan as it stands (which is really not the point) is to hang with an old friend who loved my mom and go to a workout class together. Then potentially brave the Korean spa, if I havent had enough of the outside world. May feel something. May feel nothing.

I’m mostly just exhausted by the experience of checking in with myself and my inability to control grief and when it comes up. How fluid and shifting it always is. I hate that this one day forces a spotlight, like I’m supposed to conjure up some feelings simply because of a calendar date. Maybe it gets easier. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t think making a big deal out of it really works for me. But then again, here I am writing pages about it, so maybe there’s some big deal version of it that feels true.

I write this mainly for any of the daughters with dead moms who don’t find belonging in the grief groups or the “thinking of those without mothers” posts that will inevitably hit our feeds on Sunday. Who love and grieve wholeheartedly when it arises (which is rarely these arbitrary holidays) and may feel some confusing pressure to feel or do something, and maybe are also, just a little annoyed. I love ya. And I say, ya me too.

A grown man sat at a computer in the middle of the stage, searching YouTube, his birthplace, the origin of his fame, while old footage of him as a boy played on the screen above him. He sang alongside the younger version of himself. No elaborate set. Just him, a laptop, and the kid he used to be.

Someone online compared it to Peter Pan getting his shadow sewn back onto his feet, and I haven’t been able to let that image go.

Whatever version of him this is, I am A FAN. In one sentence I can tell you why: because this version of him is a celebration of self acceptance and authenticity. I keep watching those clips and thinking: oh. That is what happens when someone stops performing the version of themselves they think will get them the most love.

Watching a grown man sing to the boy version of himself felt like witnessing some kind of repair. Like he was standing in direct relationship to the self the world first met, without trying to outshine him or escape him.

We were watching him heal something, but we were also watching courage.

The courage to be seen without the usual armor. The courage to put down the version of yourself that once worked. The courage to trust that what’s underneath the performance might actually be more powerful than the performance itself. The courage to beam up at a younger you and say: this is who I am. I believe in this. I believe in us.

That is the thing so many of us are terrified of. We cling to the selves that got us approval. The polished self. The high-achieving self. The funny self. The easy self. The self that knows how to read a room and give people what they want. And for good reason. Those selves often got us love, attention, success, belonging.

But they can also become cages.

The last time I saw Bieber live, in 2021, he literally descended from a floating airplane to start the show. Massive sets, elaborate productions, pop-star persona at its fullest. Who knows if that was his belief or the belief of others about what he needed in order to be successful, but that version ultimately cost him, financially, physically, probably spiritually.

Some people didn’t get his Coachella performance. “Boring.” “Phoning it in.” “Heal on your own time.” Those people are just not clocking it, and that’s okay.

The more we are ourselves, the less we will be for some people. But my god, are we more for others.

I saw a stripped-down version of him that somehow felt fuller and freer than anything I’d watched before. I saw him stand alone and sing “Everything Hallelujah,” a reminder, in the middle of this insanely capitalist world, that every small thing is to be cherished, to be grateful for, is a gift. I saw Billie Eilish come up on stage as a fan, and he let her be one, a moment to just be a (one less lonely) girl, the same grace he’d given the little boy on the screen. I saw beaming faces in the crowd, healing and growing in proximity to something that felt so real.

In a world of AI and oversaturation, there’s something revolutionary about watching someone perform based solely on heart. I saw, IMHO, that stripping away the performance revealed more of the artist, not less.

In my coaching, I see this constantly. Smart, capable, creative humans who have built entire lives on being the version of themselves that works and who quietly know there’s more underneath. More honesty, more voice, more risk, more self-trust. But also more uncertainty. The question always becomes the same: what happens if I stop performing and start showing up as I actually am?

The work isn’t becoming something new, but having the courage to put down what isn’t true anymore and trusting that what’s underneath can hold you in your work, your relationships, your life.

(If you’re in that space right now, where something in you is asking to be more honest, more visible, more yourself, this is exactly the work I do with people. Reach out. Let’s talk.)

I’m also writing this partly as a note to myself.

I can feel the places where I still hold back. The places where I’m honest, but only to the point that still feels manageable. The ideas I don’t share because they’re half-baked, or too much, or might not land. The ways I soften what I know, or wait to feel more certain before I say it out loud. There is still a part of me living in the hopes that a “right” way of doing it will get me what I want. My value keeps getting tied up in having already figured it out, in having a tidy solution for how I fixed my messy feelings, as if that’s the only version of me that’s allowed to be useful to anyone. As if I’m only credible as a coach if I’m done growing (ridiculous).

The most uncomfortable part for me is I don’t have a clean diagnosis of where I’m shrinking, only that I am. I know if I gave less of a shit I’d overthink less and express more. What I can tell you is I probably wouldn’t have written this piece. I wouldn’t own my coaching this directly. I wouldn’t be turning on paid subscriptions this week without a perfect strategy for how it’s going to look (see note below).

I will overthink my way out of my soul.

The fear is always that if we put down the performance, everything falls apart. And sometimes things do. Certain versions of approval won’t hold. Some people fall away. You may be judged more, not less.

But you may also become more alive. More moving. More yourself. And therefore, much more powerful.

What was on the other side of Justin’s willingness to be seen was so much fucking cooler than the guy on the airplane. A grown man, a laptop, a boy on a screen, shadow sewn back onto his feet.

I want that for him. I want it for me. I want it for you.

*I am unceremoniously turning the paid option on for these, something I have threatened myself to do every time I hit send for the last 6 months. So for those of you who have pledged dollars since the very beginning, you’ll finally see those dollars evaporate from your accounts. I’m stupidly grateful for that mighty endorsement and faith. For those of you who want to keep a free subscription, words will continue to hit your inbox. And for those of you who feel that reading this is worth a monthly cup of coffee, I am dreaming and scheming up ways to make that extra bit feel even more worthwhile. I love doing this, I want to do it more, so thank you.

It’s New Year’s Eve. One of my best friends and I have cooked a steak dinner and are having a dance party in my living room on a rainy LA night. We’ve devoured Heated Rivalry over the holidays and fallen in love with Connor Storrie. We spend the night talking about what we want for our new year, the risks we want to take, the places we want to be more brave. At some point we land on a discussion about Storrie’s background in clowning and how we both could get so much from the practice of looking ridiculous.

We are two women committed to being more free, more authentic, more in our fullest expression in the world, and yet we find so much safety in control, in curation, in the tidiness of how we outwardly display ourselves.

Weeks later, I’ve landed in Paris. I’m at apéro on a terrasse with a group of friends, incredibly smart, dynamic, wise women with careers anchored in intellectual pursuits: journalists, radio broadcasters, writers, thinkers. Suddenly we are in a full conversation about a clown college an hour south of Paris and what it would be like if we all went. Clowning, of course, has a long history here in France, but why, I ask, is this conversation coming up once again?

Sorry, not sorry, I’m going to return to Connor Storrie. Because it would be silly not to acknowledge that this sudden fascination with clowning might be connected to the rise of an actor who openly talks about his background in it. At least to the public eye, he seems incredibly free - a walking embodiment of self-acceptance and what happens when someone is truly willing to risk looking ridiculous in front of others. The openness, weirdness, tenderness, and fullness of his humanity translate both on and off screen. I want what he’s having!

My god, I’d love to say I don’t care what other people think, but just for today, I still do. The gradient is much softer than it used to be, but this is still one of the core spiritual curriculums of my life. I will act as if I don’t care, but secretly I still want the cookie, the proverbial and sometimes literal award for doing [insert brave thing]. I want the attention. I want the accolades. It’s confronting how much shame I feel admitting that. A bit of honesty I know I’ll have a vulnerability hangover for saying out loud, which is silly considering it’s such an unremarkable, incredibly human thing to say.

When I make a list of the people I admire, it is always the writers, the thinkers - dare I say the influencers - who pierce through with some personal, vulnerable truth that captures some elusive and far more universal experience of being alive.

Which brings me back to the question: why do we admire vulnerability in others but fear it in ourselves?

So back to clown school.

Clowning has a long history in expanding minds through silliness and absurdity. It asks performers to access vulnerability through the body, through boldness and ridiculousness. What is unlocked when we are willing to really look foolish? To actually be embarrassing?

Again, I like the idea of it in concept, if secretly everyone loves it. If I act absurd and the audience erupts in cheers. I’ve written this before, but I want to be and revere cringe if the moral of the story is I was cool all along.

But real embarrassment is something else entirely. It’s the brave moment of absurdity, of vulnerability, of weirdness, met with crickets. The moment when performance falls flat.

And suddenly the question becomes whether you can keep going, whether you’re willing to trust some inner authority, some creative force, that says the risk might be the only way to get closer to something true. Yes, the clown, of course, wants the laugh. But the clown keeps performing when it doesn’t come. It’s kind of the whole point. Because the path to anything real - the most honest art, the most honest life - requires tolerating a certain amount of embarrassment.

You can’t fake the freedom that comes from actually moving through this. As the saying goes, the only way through is through. And something in us knows the difference. We can feel it in other people when someone is performing vulnerability or confidence or freedom, versus when embodied self-acceptance feels like the quiet byproduct of the metaphorical blood, dust, and sweat of having stared down the void and risked something real.

Are we really willing to fall on our faces, or do we just like to entertain the possibility, hoping the story will reveal we were secretly brilliant all along?

Historically, the fool has always been the one telling the truth. In Shakespeare, the clown or court jester is often the only character allowed to say what no one else will. The tarot’s Fool begins the Major Arcana as the wanderer stepping into the unknown - naïve, exposed, but open to transformation. And the modern clown follows the same lineage: the performer who risks looking ridiculous in order to reveal something honest about being human.

Perhaps we get closer to the truth when we’re willing to make fools of ourselves.

To be truly alive might be an inherently embarrassing experience.

I recently got to attend the dress rehearsal of Storrie’s episode of Saturday Night Live, and while I left with a newfound reverence for the machine that is SNL and what they manage to create every week, I wasn’t particularly inspired by most of the sketches. Except for the last one.

He played a stripper who had been hit by a car on the way to the party. It was stellar physical comedy and Storrie was relatively unhinged. He fully embraced the projections people place on him - his body, his sexuality - and pushed them into the absurdity of the situation. He was genuinely willing to look foolish and free. And it paid off.

The kicker is that this wasn’t born in the SNL writers’ room but from an original clown character Storrie created long before fame. On live television we got to see the value of getting out of your head and into your body, of ridiculousness and risk.

So, while it’s easy for me to identify what I revere in others, I couldn’t help but wonder how committed am I actually to this idea of freedom?

I like the idea of clowning if I’m good at clowning, but obviously I would probably be terrible at first. Could I let people watch me be that absurd and that bad at something? Or am I too tied up in that ever so powerful bondage of self?

Jet Eveleth, head of Clown Church and the Highland Park Clowns, describes clown as “a celebration of the physical and vulnerable side of the human experience.” When the performer embraces the “muchness” of life, she says, they serve as a mirror for the audience to see and laugh at themselves from a safe distance.

“So yes, clowning is often falling down, falling in love, or farting. But from a wider angle, clown is poking fun at the human condition,” Eveleth says.

Chad Damiani describes one of the discipline’s central goals as emphasizing failure: “The levels of absurdity that clowns aspire to often go further than other disciplines in comedy, demanding a level of commitment that sacrifices any notion of being explicitly clever or cool.”

This is the part that hits me the hardest. If only there were a way to feel more free and more visible without risking the things that get us there - the foolishness, the embarrassment, the humiliation, the judgment of others we pretend doesn’t exist.

It is, perhaps, a true fool’s journey: the transformation of self that comes from the willingness to do it scared.

I also wonder if this is why the idea of clown school keeps appearing in different conversations among people who, on paper, would never consider such a thing. It feels like everywhere I look there is some collective yearning for liberation — on both the micro and macro level. People are searching for ways to feel more alive, more expressive, more themselves, and longing for a world and systems that make that more possible. But liberation of any kind requires degrees of discomfort many of us aren’t willing to sit with. We long for something we may not actually be willing to pay the price for. Because the path toward that freedom still requires something most of us spend our lives trying to avoid: the possibility of looking ridiculous, of boldly trying, of risking being seen as foolish, naïve, or unrealistic in our hopes for what might be possible, and of being willing to fail.

Our brains want to feel safe and our souls want to feel free. And the distance between the two might be measured in our willingness to look foolish along the way.

Maybe this essay is a form of public accountability and I will indeed sign up for a clown class. There is a certain level of hubris to spending three pages writing about something I have never actually participated in. Or maybe I will simply keep finding other places in life to risk looking like a fool.

The more I try, the more respect and admiration I have for the humans who create and chase dreams every day. It has never been more obvious to me that the world needs more of us to be more of ourselves. To share our gifts and brilliance and help make this place a little better. To be scared, and do it anyway.

I can speak for myself, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, that feeling like it’s too late or too hard or not worth it is the story that often keeps me from doing all those things.

So… welcome to Late to the Party, a podcast for anyone who’s ever felt behind, anyone growing into something new, anyone who tries or wants to try, who changes their mind, who has dreams, who cares about the world. The first two episodes are officially out!! You can watch them on YouTube or listen on Apple or Spotify.

Every other week I sit down with thoughtful, funny, fascinating guests to talk about big life things - career pivots, dating later, grief, creativity, identity shifts, and the strange, meaningful process of figuring out who we are and how we want to live. Some conversations are about reinvention. Others zoom out to relationships, culture, and what it means to be a person trying their best. Mostly, it’s just honest conversations with cool people about being alive.

Gabbing with humans about being human is genuinely my favorite thing in the world to do, and I’m so excited to share these conversations with you. I hope you feel inspired to try and grow and change and risk, and that we all will feel a little less alone.

Yes, I just said risking embarrassment is cool. But alas, it would mean the most if you listened and liked and followed and shared and did all the things we all know how to do. Because supporting each other is also very, very cool (and it helps curb my vulnerability hangover).

There are so many people who made this possible, and I am forever grateful: my brilliant editor Nicki Stein, my cousin and honorary producer Nic Murphy, the most talented Lucy Andersen (also my cousin) for making my visual dreams come true, my dearest Olivia Pierce, for capturing the most stunning photos, with creative direction from Annie Steele, (who happens to be my sister in law). It’s a true friends and fam affair.

Our time is precious, so I never take for granted that you are reading this and now hopefully choosing to take time to listen. I’m so grateful.

Let’s partyyyyy 🎈

xx Soph

I imagine many of you haven’t watched the show, to which I’d say: of course, feel free to skip this. But I’d also argue that there’s a reason Heated Rivalry — a queer hockey romance adapted from a beloved book that has taken the world by storm — has become so compelling to so many people. I’m always fascinated when something captures this many people at once, and I’ve spent the last month trying to understand why.

I do think, ultimately, what we’ve gotten to witness in this show is goodness, and the best of humanity, at a time when we are starved for it. I cried through Episode 5, (which became the second highest rated episode of television on IMDb), and the thing I keep coming back to is this: every moment that could have gone south instead reveals tenderness. A conversation that could’ve been about fear or outing becomes about safety and permission. Two people in a hotel room choose to be slightly undefended. A love monologue spoken in Russian (give Connor Storrie all the awards) reminds us of the power of simply witnessing someone. And by the end, as the Wolf Parade lyrics “I deserve sunshine” play in a true ’90s romantic-comedy moment, we’re reminded of the ripple effect of courage: when one person is brave, others see what’s possible.

Watching Shane and Ilya’s faces in that moment onscreen, I couldn’t stop thinking about the humans on the other side of the screen — a closeted kid on a sports team, a grown man seeing his own experience mirrored back to him. Straight women make up a large part of the fandom, and I’ve paid close attention to what this has shifted in me too. Vulnerably, and without hyperbole, I’ve found myself reflecting deeply on how I have loved and how I want to love.

There’s an earnestness here that feels almost radical. I want what these characters have. I want to be so fully myself and loved for exactly who I am. I want that level of mutual respect. Playfulness. Heat. In a world of nonchalance, swiping, and defended hearts, I’ve felt a surprising amount of grief and longing watching a version of unashamed desire and earnest love (and the marriage of the two) unfold onscreen.

That this aspirational vision comes through queer love and vulnerable masculinity matters deeply.

Heated Rivalry has helped me reaffirm my love of men. Whether it’s the emotional honesty paired with genuine sex appeal onscreen, the playfulness between the actors offscreen, or the straight white dudes on a hockey podcast enthusiastically recapping every episode and, in their own way, healing the patriarchy.

I can only speak as a straight woman watching the show, but I saw something unmistakable in the eyes of tearful men at Hi Tops, a sports bar in Los Feliz, where I watched the finale with several hundred people spilling into the street. At a time of profound loneliness and isolation, I felt utterly part of a community. Joyful. Unselfconscious.

As Evan Ross Katz wrote:

“Somewhere along the way, blame it on cynicism perhaps, fandom became more innate than purposeful, and lost in that was how much joy I derived from both loving something and finding others who love the thing just as deeply or more deeply or differently deeply or all of the above. I’ve loved how much Heated Rivalry has made me (and I wager others) feel a part of something at a time when isolation and loneliness are so corrosive. It’s been fun to collectively freak out over things like tuna melts and cottages and loons and Feist and watching a young man put on a suit ahead of having his first hook-up with another guy. It’s been fun to love something unironically, unashamedly, and unpretentiously.”

This is a show made with limited resources, powered by belief, chemistry, and genuine talent, suddenly birthing stars and creating real community. With no real budget, you can tell it was created by people who deeply cared about telling this story. Both Hudson and Connor are excellent, but watching Connor Storrie feels like what it must have been like to see Heath Ledger onscreen for the first time. Offscreen and in interviews, there’s openness, risk, and genuine love between these actors and I feel so excited for the generation below me that these are the kind of men they get to have as role models. It’s proof that even now, in an industry that feels like it’s crumbling in real time, art made with sincerity can still cut through everything. Look at this wild, hopeful, horny and heartwarming thing happening over here. More of this, please.

I can’t speak as someone who has ever been closeted, but I can speak as someone who has hidden parts of herself. Who has censored and edited. Who has been scared to desire unashamedly or love earnestly, afraid her needs might be impossible to meet. There’s something in this story that feels deeply relatable even when it isn’t literally mine. A friend said it beautifully while we were voice-noting about the finale: the scene between Shane and his mom is so moving because it reflects a conversation many of us have had in some form — revealing a part of ourselves to our parents we weren’t sure would be loved or accepted. Myself (and I imagine others) weren’t always held the way Yuna holds Shane’s vulnerability. Here, we get to witness the version of that conversation many of us hoped for.

And maybe that’s what I’m really writing about: the experience of being mirrored what is possible. Of hope. That things can work out. That love and goodness are still contagious. That we get to be our tender, weird, adorable selves and love and be loved. That we get to experience joy together. That we still get to see the best in one another.

While we live in a world bracing for disappointment and pain, showrunner Jacob Tierney gives us a happy ending that somehow feels grounded and earned, where we get to watch these men, whose intimacy we’ve seen built and fought for over six episodes, literally ride off into the sunset.

My DMs with friends are now just edits and videos sent back and forth. This morning a friend texted, “If this isn’t normal, I don’t want to be normal,” to which I replied (in my best Russian accent), “I don’t ever want this problem to ever go away.”

For me, personally, the overly saccharine holiday messages and Instagram graphics of “thinking of those who lost someone this season” don’t land. They feel patronizing. They feel like they were written by someone who hasn’t actually lost anyone, or what someone imagines a grieving person would want to hear. It’s like a bunch of white Gen X men trying to write a show for Gen Z, or when Joey in Friends auditions for an 18-year-old and decides to say, “sup with the whack PlayStation sup.” I digress. In any case, I have an aversion.

But the irritation is usually just the first layer: the protective guard over the full achyness of the soft and tender bits. And feeling misunderstood in my grief is a uniquely isolating experience.

Turns out, I can’t avoid that it’s December and a bunch of people I love have died. How that affects me looks different every year. Last year I felt mostly relief that the hard part was over. Everything felt lighter without the dying mom or the sick stepdad. Less obligation. More ease. This year, though, as life has settled more, and as I’m not craving that level of remission, I am overwhelmed with the awareness of the passing of time. I feel just how much has changed.

Thanksgiving was quite lovely this year. I spent it with my siblings, my sister-in-law’s family, and my dad, who I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with in almost twenty years. It was a sweet, blended success of delicious food and hilarious games. And it couldn’t have looked more different from how it used to be: my huge, dysfunctional family yelling over each other in my mom or grandma’s house. It’s possible this year was better in many ways, but as I sat around the table I realized how few people are left in my life who witnessed how it used to be. So now I hold so many memories by myself, so many inside jokes and rituals, the keeper of a life that feels further and further in the past, of moments fewer and fewer people share. Oh so very lonely.

Grieving isn’t just about the people who died. There can be solitude and loss in the way life simply reshapes itself. This year I have less on the social calendar - fewer holiday parties and dinners, more people I love have moved away, had babies, slipped into seasons that don’t overlap with mine as much anymore. It isn’t sad, exactly. It’s just different.

And everywhere I look, people are grieving different things - the humans (and animals) they’ve lost, the lives they’ve outgrown, the homes that no longer exist. Grief shows up everywhere.

So here we are, grieving over the holidays, but not in the way laid out in those awful posts. For me, just for today, it’s taking the shape of the loneliness of watching time shift, of holding memories by myself. The mourning of how it used to be, even if how it is now is genuinely lovely in its own way (sometimes, dare I say, nicer).

I’m honored that I’ve become someone people reach out to about their own grief and pain, and that my sharing and honesty about how it’s gone for me has felt helpful to some. I usually come back to some version of “let it suck,” “let yourself be annihilated.” But I also find myself sharing a few nuggets that have helped me the most. So instead of the Hallmark-y graphics that are about to consume our feeds, here are a few of my favorite things on grief - for always, but especially this particular time of year…

My #1 forever is from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. If you know me, there is a good chance I have texted you this photo:

I have watched this conversation between Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper in its entirety many times, but this clip of Colbert (my hero) on being grateful for the thing you wish most hadn’t happened is 2.5 of the more powerful minutes that exist IMHO:

I highly encourage everyone to read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. This passage always feels like a core of her message:

A few other faves scribbled in journals, underlined in books or saved in my notes app:

“Discovering joy does not, I’m sorry to say…save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet, as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear” - C.S. Lewis

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” - Mary Oliver

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes, to let it go.” - Mary Oliver (again)

This gorgeous passage from Bianca Sparancino:

And apparently I cannot write about grief without revealing my deep and abiding love and respect for Stephen Colbert (once again), but here are 3 of his interviews about death, grief and being alive:

Andrew Garfield and how “grief is unexpressed love”:

Molly Shannon: “you’re up to bat and you’re f*cking alive”:

Keanu Reeves on what happens when we die:

If your holiday grief doesn’t look like the kind in those pastel colored posts, or you too can’t avoid some inevitable moments of sadness this year, I won’t say “I’m thinking about you,” but I will say, “I’m right there with you.” Happy friggin’ holidays x

It’s been a minute. Or at least longer than I’d like between posting one of these. I keep oscillating between whether this should be a place to share when it feels right or a practice in putting things out consistently and imperfectly. I’ve decided weekly isn’t for me, but maybe monthly is. I’ll give it a whirl.

I’ve been thinking about what’s kept me from writing. Some of it is perfectionism (always). I start something thinking how fun this will be, and then once it exists, everything has to feel worthy. Is the idea good enough, thoughtful enough, profound enough to deserve my time and yours? Why am I even doing this? Who’s reading? Is this just a 2025 self-indulgent LiveJournal or a space for something more intentional?

It’s funny to have 100ish subscribers. On one hand, I giggle at myself for taking this so seriously when it’s mostly people I know who hear me gab IRL on a regular basis. On the other, I think, wow, a hundred whole humans care what I have to say. That’s almost an entire movie theater. Kind of a big deal.

So I guess I don’t know what purpose this serves, except that I love to write and share, and some of you seem to enjoy reading it. Maybe that’s enough.

Part of it is time. I have a lot of ideas and only so much creative juice in a day. Maybe it’s because I’ve been traveling, and sometimes to write we have to go live.

Or maybe it’s because so fucking much is happening in the world, and it all feels too big and existential to comment on. The world moves so quickly. I have a half-written piece about the week my timeline oscillated between The Summer I Turned Pretty and Jimmy Kimmel’s show shutdown, and how that strange digital whiplash somehow captured being alive in 2025. I abandoned it because I had so much to say and no way to land the plane. Perhaps observations and musings are enough. Possibly a simple substack doesn’t have to answer our most profound questions or offer an illustrious aha moment. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so goddamn meaningful.

Or maybe the procrastination is a lack of faith. When I was younger, I practiced a lot of things. I was always in a play, or dance class, or learning the violin and piano. I’d audition, learn my lines, show up to rehearsals, and it never occurred to me that a performance might not happen. It wasn’t a matter of if but when. The lights would come on, people would fill the seats, and the show would, in fact, go on.

Somewhere along the way, that faith cracked. The belief that participation and commitment actually move life forward. That the thing will happen. Lately I’ve been wondering: do I really believe that if I go on these dates, I’ll fall in love? That if I go to the gym and drink the water, I’ll feel better in my body? That if I write every day, the book will get published? Will the thing I’m trying to build, well…actually get built? True story, I’m not sure. Some days are better than others. The more you do something without results, the harder it is to believe. And yet, participation somehow is always the key.

Maybe it’s that existential so what? why? what’s the point? We’re inundated with opinions, hot takes, everyone rushing to join a conversation. What do I really have to contribute to a conversation? There’s less space for the slow burn, for a long, thoughtful pause.

My brain loves the binary between perfect or nothing, good enough or nonexistence. Ironically, indecision is a choice itself. A life consumed by “perfect or good enough” often means you’re choosing nothing. Worrying so much about whether something is worthy of writing means that you end up not writing anything at all.

And now, once again, I’m unsure how to land this plane. I want to perfectly capture thoughts on imperfection, to meaningfully tie up a questioning of how meaningful it all has to be, to make a piece about confusion arrive at some point of clarity. But I guess that’s sort of the point. I dunno [insert ‘good enough’ ending line here]. More (hopefully) sooner.

If you want my full manifesto on why I think all women should be reading rom-coms, read this first. But this list is for anyone who just wants to know what to read next.

For context, I’ve read over 100 romance novels and run a romance-only book club in LA called Kiss + Tell. I usually tailor my recs to the person: do you want golden retriever boyfriend energy or a grumpy/sunshine dynamic? Do you want zero spice or the kind of spice you cannot read in public? Sweeter and tender or darker and twistier?

There are a million ways to approach this genre, but I have some favorites. Here’s a very non-exhaustive starter pack, mostly broken down by author. ENJOY !!

Emily Henry (the Taylor Swift of romance)

Emily’s the obvious starting point and many people’s entryway into the genre (for good reason). She is the T Swift of romance, busting out thoughtful, funny, somehow both bingeable and meaningful love stories time and time again. I would read them all.

My personal faves: Funny Story, Beach Read, Book Lovers (I change my mind constantly on which one I like most).

Also worth reading: Happy Place, People We Meet on Vacation (read it before the movie comes out!), and Big Beautiful Life (her most recent). 

From a writing standpoint, she’s probably the “best” of the bunch. This is a loosely held opinion, so don’t come for me.

Abby Jimenez (my actual favorite?)

Honestly, Abby might actually be my favorite romance writer. Her characters are warm, funny, and layered, with just enough texture and soul to feel real. She grounds swoony, giddy romances in real-world issues like grief, chronic illness, infertility, money stress, and mental health. Bonus: many of her books swap POVs, so you get both sides of the love story.

Her books are often organized into mini-trilogies with overlapping friend groups and connected worlds. You can read them out of order, but you’ll catch way more easter eggs/extra context  if you don’t.

Where to start:

• The Part of Your World series is her most famous and my favorite. The first book (Part of Your World) is good but not my top pick. Either know the series gets stronger, or I sometimes tell people to start with Yours Truly to get hooked, then circle back before reading Just for the Summer.

• Her earlier Friend Zone trilogy is also great but slightly less polished. (Trigger warning: “The Happy Ever After Playlist” nearly broke me, proceed with caution.)

Carley Fortune (summer forever)

You’ve maybe seen the blue-and-yellow One Golden Summer cover all over your feed this summer. It’s the sequel to Every Summer After (both are being adapted into an Amazon Prime series!) and we loved them so much in book club that it was the first time we ever read two books by the same author back-to-back. It’s a series about a girl and two brothers (sound familiar?!?!), and Charlie Florek may actually be my favorite of all the book boyfriends.

Carley mostly writes about summers in Canada. Light spice, tender vibes, perfect for a summer vacation or day by the pool. Also loved This Summer Will Be Different.

Ali Hazelwood (STEM girls are sexyyyy)

Ali has basically built her own subgenre: smart, chaotic women in STEM with witty banter and big tension. Her books are pure dopamine hits

Favorites / where to start:

• The Love Hypothesis — Her most famous book, currently being adapted into a movie starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman. I liked it the first time, but we re-read it in book club recently and I loved it so much more the second time around. (ps you can thank the marketing for this movie for that viral trend of women being scooped into a man’s arms one-handed while Beyoncé plays in the background).

• Deep End — My personal favorite. Stanford Olympic swimmers + divers (who are, of course, also scientists). Easily her spiciest and kinkiest book.

• Problematic Summer Romance — Her newest release. Technically a sequel to Not in Love (which wasn’t my fave), but this one totally works as a standalone. A fun age gap romance.

• Love, Theoretically — Not my absolute favorite, but worth reading if you’re going all in. 

Some of her books exist in the same universe so you’ll catch little crossovers and Easter eggs, but you can read them as standalones.

Liz Tomforde’s Windy City Series — spicy sports

Okay… listen. I am feral for this series. We have now entered the full spice portion of this rec list. 

Five books, one friend group in Chicago, each man on a different pro sports team (hockey, basketball, baseball). The first book, Mile High, is… honestly pretty bad (and comes with some controversy if you want to Google), but the next four are PURE GOLD.

I’m still not sure which Rhodes brother I love more (probably Malakai), and Rio really surprises us in book 5. It’s full spice but also found family, deep friendship and absurd love energy. 10/10 would recommend this series.

Yulin Kuang’s How to End a Love Story

One of my favorite standalones, and Kuang’s debut novel. If you want romance but also want to feel like you’re reading a great novel, this is the one. The writing is sharp, the stakes are higher, and the characters are beautifully developed.

Kuang is also adapting Emily Henry’s books for the screen, which tells you everything you need to know about her talent. We read this for book club on Zoom, and I still think about revisiting in person. A gem.

Christina Lauren — co-writing besties

Imagine building an entire career writing love stories with your best friend. Christina Lauren is the pen name for Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings Luhrs, and together they’ve mastered mid-spice, high-swoon romance.

Favorites:

• The Soulmate Equation → The True Love Experiment (I like the second more, but both are great)

• The Paradise Problem

• Love and Other Words

Other Honorable Mentions

• The Seven Year Slip — Ashley Poston

• Not Another Love Song — Julie Soto

• The Ex Vows — Jessica Joyce

• Nora Goes Off Script — Annabel Monaghan

Some Tropes to Know Before You Choose

As you start reading more romance, you’ll start to notice which tropes you like more or less, the amount of spice that speaks to you, etc. For reference here are a few to look out for:

• golden retriever boyfriend

• grumpy / sunshine

• fake dating

• enemies to lovers

• friends to lovers

• second chance romance

• age gap

• sports romance

• only one bed

What else do you want to know? A spice cheat sheet? A list of raunchier reads? Recommendations for specific tropes? Other authors to explore? I’ll keep updating this, so use it, share it, and let me know what you think!

Happy reading 💌

x soph

That urgency becomes its own weapon. Self-punishment dressed up as growth. 

The judgmental tape runs: “JUST BE CONFIDENT! BE MORE FREE! MORE AUTHENTIC! BE CRINGIER! STOP CARING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK! WHY ARE YOU STILL SO FUCKING SCARED?! BE BRAVER, MORE COURAGEOUS! YOU KNOW BETTER, WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU?!”

The voice of self-acceptance may actually be the least accepting of them all. Harder, better, faster, stronger. More more more.

There is a real confusing middle to this shit. On one hand, I know myself better than I ever have. I’ve been risking more, showing up differently, participating in my own life in a whole new way. I’ve traveled alone, started chasing a whole new professional dream. I’ve been dating in new ways, speaking more honestly, letting myself risk more. The other day, a friend literally texted me “u are just rippin thru vulnerability thresholds like a hot knife thru butter!!!!!” And it’s true. It’s actually hilarious to think I’m not doing enough.

And therein lies the crux of my self-cruelty: I’m sitting so far outside of my comfort zone on a daily basis, and I’m angry with myself that I don’t feel more comfortable.

But my brain persists. I’m disappointed in myself all the time. When I fall short of some enlightened, perfect, impervious human, I’m furious. Mad at myself for wobbling through hard conversations. For spiraling getting dressed before going out, for still being critical of my body. For posting, deleting, and reposting. For replaying conversations in my head. For how clunky building something new feels. For struggling to self-promote. For not feeling sparkly. For suspecting people find me annoying. For not being excellent at something new. For not believing in myself enough.

It’s horrific. No matter what, it all seems to be my fault. Somehow, I am the reason I don’t have the love, the career, the life I want. The self-obsession is next level. I don’t want to accept that I may simply be someone who doesn’t always feel, to quote my new obsession, Audrey Hobert, “admired, hot and desired.”

There’s no gentle parent in my head saying, of course you’re scared, darling, of course you are. Only a sneering teenager rolling her eyes: You’re still scared? Grow up. Pathetic loser.

I’m ashamed of myself that I still care what people think. That I want validation. I grieve a version of myself I’ve never actually been: the girl who didn’t care, who felt cool and confident, who wasn’t desperate to be liked. I want to make up for her. For every time I didn’t speak up, every time I self-abandoned. Oh, the pressure!

I want to heal perfectly. I preach acceptance (lol, says the coach who can’t take her own medicine), but secretly, I want to improve my way into happiness. 

It all comes down to fear. I’m scared that I’m so scared. And I’m scared that being so scared will keep me out of my life. And, ironically, I’m obsessed with wanting to be in my life because I’m actually quite scared to die.

I have learned (and am still learning) that compassion is in the acceptance. The work simply may be to accept I have this brain, this death trap, this perfectionist hazard, that is always going to look for the thing to fix or do better. This, too, is part of who I am. If I’m gonna love myself, if I truly want to feel free, then baby, I better accept it alllllll (for my Bravo lovers, please read that in Dorinda’s voice: “mention it allllll”).

Unfortunately (and fortunately), I can’t bully myself into confidence. I can’t secretly tell parts of me to shut the fuck up and expect to feel whole.

That scared kid in me deserves to be seen for all that she is doing. How could she ever feel safe or confident without kindness, tenderness, and love? 

Maybe the work is meeting that critical, borderline abusive voice with a little more gentleness. A little more detachment. A little more, ahh, there you are again, my old tape.

Methinks I must love the part of me that is so utterly terrified. Methinks being terrified is, annoyingly, unoriginally, human.

And if the goal is to be in my life, I think the best way to do it is to embrace the most human parts of myself. Ugh. 

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a piece about my love of cringe / the death of the cool girl. I like what I wrote. I stand by it. I’m proud of the vulnerability I could share in that moment.

But now that I’ve officially staked my claim in the Cringe Universe™, I have some follow-up thoughts.

A friend I love and trust read it and said something that stuck with me: “I love the writing, but I want more of you in it.” And the honest truth? I shared some specifics of what I find cringey, but only some. Because I like talking about cringe. I like thinking about it. But my willingness to actually be cringey? Still only goes so far.

I want to be cringey if the moral of the story is I was cool all along.

I want to sound vulnerable without actually having to be vulnerable.

I want to share how I feel, as long as it comes out like a polished TED Talk.

I want to be seen, but only if I look good while you witness me.

I want to toe some invisible line of being cool-weird, not weird-weird.

But what if I’m just… cringey? What if I’m just weird? Annoying? Strange? When I was 11, I wore a pumpkin hat to school every day and belted show tunes at full volume with no shame. Do I think she’s cool now? Hell yes. Would I want to disappear if someone caught me being that expressive or unguarded today? Also yes. Do I want to find my way back to that? For sure.

I want the kind of freedom that comes from not giving a single shit what anyone thinks. But my nervous system… disagrees.

It still wants to hold on to some belief that the uncurated, eager, tender, sincere, effortful person won’t be someone you want around. I’ll have to sacrifice being liked (maybe loved) in order to be myself. And then I’ll be all alone.

So if I’m actually walking the walk of all the wise things I said in my last post (dusts off shoulders), then I have to be willing to get specific and accountable, to name the places where I’m still learning how to be seen in real time, trying a little awkwardly and imperfectly.

Here are a few things that have recently made me want to die:

• Asking newer friends “What are you up to this weekend?” I’m sorry, but I feel like I’m in high school in the most vulnerable way. Because then you’ll know I want to hang out with you. You’ll know I want to be included. You’ll know that, as a single person in my mid-30s, I’m craving more social activity and fun than I currently have. Wanting to be a part of things is so normal, and yet the sincerity of it feels mortifying.

• Telling a guy I like (ugh) how I feel and what I want. Doing it a little ungracefully and hesitantly. Feeling naked in the passenger seat of the car outside my house, like a kid on the playground holding a plastic bucket asking him to play with me. (For me, true earnestness and open hearted declarations in dating feel the most embarrassing). And in the 2% chance that person is reading this: I’m dying. But methinks that’s the point ??

• Filming something for the internet with my phone held up instead of discreetly angled down, because God forbid someone on the street sees me. Oh, the judgement! Oh, the eyerolls!

• Posting direct to camera on tiktok (frankly, just writing the word tiktok here) and feeling nervous / risking people thinking I’m a try-hard. (Yes, this is the second one about social media, but it feels like the great petri dish for cringe probably because it is an entire landscape about being perceived and people do indeed have a lot of thoughts about people trying!)

• Taking myself seriously. Naming big dreams. Letting people I really respect know I want more.

• Dancing down the street alone (did this yesterday).

• Writing this entire list and piece because it all feels so silly and embarrassing (no, like I almost didn’t post it)

Ironically, I think doing anything confidently makes it immediately less cringey. So nothing feels cringier than being honest when I don’t feel confident or polished. Which is probably why I’m writing this. It doesn’t feel particularly wise or well-crafted, but here we are.

For me, being cringey isn’t just about reclaiming what’s uncool. It’s about letting myself be seen when it’s still a little wobbly. When I don’t know if I’m being brave or just embarrassing. The moment I risk being witnessed looking a little stupid without knowing how it’ll land. TRYING SOMETHING. FUCKING RADICAL.

Here’s what I do know, and why I stay willing to be a little bit cringier every day: that moment is where connection happens. It’s the antidote to perfectionism. It’s where it all get more honest, more alive, and sometimes way more fun. It’s how we actually make the thing, start the thing, say the thing. A lot that used to feel vomit-inducing don’t anymore. The fear does indeed dissipate the more you do the scary thing. And, along with the vulnerability hangover, I do feel so much self-esteem once the dust settles.

And yes, the validation I not-so-secretly want may not be there on the other side. It is, objectively, risky. But I’ll get more information quickly. More clarity.  Who’s for me and who isn’t. What’s working and what isn’t. What I want more (or less) of. 

Some people may in fact, not like me. Some people may think this (read: me) is waaaayyy too much. Some people may roll their eyes.

I stand by everything I wrote before -

Cringe is a portal. It’s just a far more uncomfortable one than I want to admit.

I would love to be so obsessed with it that I never have to actually feel its true discomfort.

But the truth is: there’s still a lot of things that make me want to die. Gonna try to do them anyway. (Vomit.)

but i have come to believe that cringe is the portal to freedom. to joy. the things we (me) are afraid to be — exposed, vulnerable, tender, earnest, annoying, embarrassing — are the very things that make us feel most alive.

for most of my life, i worked hard to curate the perfect version of myself. the cool girl. chill, low-maintenance, unbothered. i tried to pretend nothing ever hurt me, nothing moved me too much. especially not boys. definitely not dreams. i thought if i cared out loud, it would make people leave. but what actually kept me lonely wasn’t caring — it was pretending not to. it was denying things emotional space. not letting them matter, because if they mattered and didn’t work out, that would be too painful. but each time i denied that something mattered, i abandoned myself a little more.

cool was a way to care deeply while pretending not to. to want everything while claiming you want nothing. cool is control and hypervigilance in a cute outfit. it’s a refusal to risk. it’s the performance of indifference because secretly you care more than anything. if i can just control your perception of me, how you experience me, if i can manage the version of me you see — then maybe i’ll be safe. then maybe i won’t get hurt. maybe i’ll be accepted. then maybe my dreams will come true. maybe i’ll win. i became terrified of judgement. i learned to judge.

as fashion editor and writer Gabriella Karefa-Johnson wrote in i-D (about fashion, but it applies broadly):

"in its least stifling form, cool is a tool of control — a specter of unattainable effortlessness so far from reach that the desire to achieve it minimizes people’s desire to take risk."

maximum effort to appear effortless. what a trap.

cringe is what happens when you get caught trying. when you get caught caring. it’s what happens when you let yourself be seen, before you’re polished or perfect or certain. cringe is the only way to get better at anything. to grow. to move closer to the life you want. you cannot expand if you're unwilling to be witnessed in the messy middle.

a friend once said to me: “soph, some people are sitting on the bench waiting for the coach to put them in. then there are the people in the stands wishing they knew how to play the game. you’re outside the stadium dreaming of being the quarterback — but pretending you hate sports.” it hit. hard.

cool was the shield i used to avoid rejection, a deep protective skill to avoid disappointment at all costs. if you never show up for the thing you want, no one can tell you you’re not good enough. but it also means no one ever really sees you. it means you never really get in the game. cool keeps you in the stadium parking lot of your life.

i think so many women around my age (mid 30s) were raised on the wrong kind of stories. the “She’s All That” Laney Boggs era, where the biggest punchline is: you fool, you thought someone like him would like someone like you? it was a bet all along. the shame wasn’t just in being played — it was thinking you were worthy of your dreams, in daring to believe what you want is possible. 

that kind of shame doesn't just disappear, it shape shifts in sneaky ways. like how even as i write about being cringe, i want to avoid it. i don’t want to tell you i’m posting on tik tok for the first time in my life. that i get 6 or 7 likes on a post. the voices shout "lame!" "pathetic!" "RUN! you are far too exposed!". i don't want to call attention or be that honest because then you might go look and see me in all my cringey, deeply unpolished trying. i can feel the crunchiness in my body as i type — the stomach tightening, the throat closing, the shoulders scrunching, the desperate desire to crawl under the covers (and delete this entire paragraph). even now, i want to write about cringiness in a way that still makes me seem cool. (progress, not perfection babyyyy). but the truth is, i'm also having a fucking blast. hot tip: being silly and not giving a shit? really fucking fun.

cringe is existential. it's a betrayal to yourself not to share that thing or be a little bit more of who you actually are. you have to believe you are inherently enough — that there is no external validation to be gotten because there is no "there" there. nothing to control. cringe only exists when we are attached to how we are perceived, but if we can embrace it, we free ourselves to actually be who we are. we can say we are scared to be annoying, and someone can say “no one is thinking about you” or “what other people think about you is none of your business” (very true) — but maybe someone does think you're annoying. maybe your worst fear is true. embracing cringe means liking yourself enough to let that uncomfortable truth exist and realize you are still ok. you are still worthy. your life doesn’t crumble either way.

cringe can feel like secondhand shame and embarrassment about yourself, but embracing cringe is courageous. it's radical. cool limits your full expression and it robs the world of your magic.

more people are starting to talk about cringe - something i've been not so quietly obsessed with for months - but we still tend to keep the conversation fairly surface level. we joke about how gen z makes fun of millennials for wearing going-out tops or throwing up peace signs in photos, but i’m not talking about that kind of cringe. i’m talking about the skin-crawling, heart-racing, identity-shaking kind of cringe. the kind that feels a little bit like death. like when you try really hard — and no one responds. when you make something no one likes but you. cringe is the first episode of the podcast when you’ve never interviewed someone before and put it out anyway. it’s telling someone how you feel when you have no idea how they feel about you. it’s wearing a weird outfit while you figure out your true style. it’s liking music that isn’t popular. it’s cringe until it isn’t. that video is cringey until someone tells you it helped them. liking musicals (as an example that I just happen to identify with deeply) is cringey until the zeitgeist decides it’s "having a moment." dancing alone is cringey until someone joins you and feels more permission to be free.

cringe is the doorway. a portal. not just to creative freedom, but to self. once you move through the “i’m going to die, this is so embarrassing” wall, you find yourself on the other side. freedom. 

cool implies there’s a right and wrong way to be. that there’s a ladder and some people deserve to climb it more than others. cringe rejects that completely — it brings you back to your essence. your soul’s path. (and yes — even writing that sentence feels cringey. but i believe it.)

i’ve experienced a series of losses in the last four years. and it should be said — realizing you will die changes how you value being alive. it makes the fear of being cringey feel a little bit laughable. if aliveness is the goal, then you must be willing to be cringe. to look silly. to be seen wanting. to be alive is messy, enthusiastic, and at times, a little bit foolish.

i believe we’re here on purpose. that our dreams and creative visions are divine. and if we all followed them — even risked looking dumb while doing it — the world would be more compassionate, more kind, more honest, more fun, safer, more humane, more heartfelt. because the truth is: the people who change things? who light us up? who make us feel something? who had a vision for themselves and the world that didn’t exist yet? they all had to be a little bit cringey at first.

i admire effort. i admire people who give a shit. who want things and are vulnerable and courageous enough to move in the direction of their dreams. who are firmly planted in who they are whether or not anyone else gets it. who care, deeply. i do. i always have. and it’s so ironic because i probably never really fooled anyone. anyone who knows me finds out pretty quickly how much i actually care, how deeply i feel, how silly i am, how much i want things i’ve been too scared to say out loud.

i want to do the most, try the hardest, care a bunch. i pray for the willingness to be embarrassing. to want what i want and let it matter.

because hopefully you get to the point in your life where it becomes more painful to self-abandon than to stay small. the fear doesn’t disappear. it’s just not in the driver’s seat anymore.

so this is my love letter to cringe. our awkward, brave queen. turns out, i think she's pretty fucking cool.

Romance novels feel… horny. In the best way.

I think women should be walking around feeling a little bit horny in the world. A little more turned on to life.

Some context: I’ve always loved reading. I was an English major mainly because I just wanted to sit in coffee shops and read books. But as an adult, I wasn’t reading much at all. I had a growing list of books in my notes app and piled up by my bed, but I just wasn’t picking them up.

Romance novels? Not for me. I’d absorbed this quiet cultural judgment that they were silly. Embarrassing. Not important. Definitely not real literature.

Turns out, I was wrong. (And I’m learning to love being wrong.)

Since I started reading romance, these stories have reminded me that being in our bodies — in our desire, in our longing— is not something to suppress. It’s something to celebrate.

These books weren’t just about romance. They were about aliveness, and want, and pleasure. They made me feel like it was okay to be a woman who wants things. Big things. Physical things. Messy, complicated, beautiful things.

There’s a whole movement toward embodiment — a return to our bodies. Call it yin and yang, call it divine feminine and masculine, whatever language works. The truth is, so many women I talk to spend most of their days in their heads — in the energy of doing, fixing, optimizing, making shit happen.

We live in a society obsessed with productivity. We’re riddled with anxiety. Disconnected from our own knowing. Disconnected from our bodies.

The feminine is not about being soft and sweet. It’s about fierce love — of self and others. It’s about creativity and receptivity. It’s intuitive. Emotional. Relational. Sensual.

In Pleasure Activism, Adrienne Maree Brown writes:

“Horniness is the opposite of helplessness.”

“Pleasure is a measure of our freedom.”

“When we begin to take our pleasure seriously, we begin to dismantle the systems that benefit from our numbness.”

This is part of a bigger shift. A return to something ancient and instinctive. A return to the divine feminine — to feeling over performing. To intuition over optimization. To play, pleasure, tenderness, and truth.

These books give us permission to be in our bodies. In our want. In our messy, powerful, ever-evolving feminine selves. They help us soften the judgment around our own craving and delight.

They are, I realized, about funny, flawed, whip-smart women figuring out what they wanted. They were in their bodies. They had big feelings. They flirted. They failed. They fell in love.

There’s a reason Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star in the world and is so beloved — she writes about love and girlhood and emotions and feminine rage. What society has told us is frivolous, she asserts is of the greatest importance. Because it is.

Romance novels echo the same thing.

I’d also argue they offer something else: gentleness. Playfulness. A way to soften when life feels heavy.

My experience is that in grief — in the hardest moments — I have to slow down, to surrender to the season. As my mom was dying and shortly after, I just felt such a need for lightness. Life felt hard, sad, and serious, and at the end of a long day, I found myself binge-watching Bridgerton, or rewatching Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City. My screen time was up, my sleep score was down, and my imagination felt practically nonexistent. I yearned for a respite from all the intensity. Instead of judging that desire, I gave myself permission to lean into that longing.(Not judging what I want is something reading romance novels has reaffirmed.)

I decided to dive into a rom-com — and plot twist: I loved it. I devoured the first book, then the second, then the fifth. (At the time of writing this,  I have read upwards of 70 romance novels.) I barely turned on my TV.

My heart expanded as I read about fully developed, interesting, complicated, messy characters working through their desires and fears. I fell in love with the wit of the flirting and the charm of the banter. I was inspired by the bravery, tenderness, tenacity, and joy that comes with the most human experience of falling in love.

George Bernard Shaw said:

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”

These books felt playful. (Yes, I’m aware of the absurdity of quoting Shaw to justify reading romance — but honestly, it works.)

This past November — a time it felt like everyone could experience a bit more joy — I sent an email to about 30 women in my life.It said, in short:

“I'm starting a book club for cool girls (you!) who love rom-coms. If this isn’t your thing, feel free to stop reading now. But if you’re intrigued, read on.”

“These books helped me laugh and feel hopeful during one of the hardest times in my life. And now, I want to offer that same lightness to the people I love. So I’m inviting you to celebrate girlhood, love stories, and everything society deems ‘frivolous.’”

Within a day, I had a flood of replies. Women saying:“I’m in.”“I need this.”“I’ve been looking for something like this.”

Since November, we’ve met every month — sometimes fifteen of us, sometimes just five. It’s casual. No pressure. But the energy is always the same: warm, giggly, thoughtful, real.

The smartest, most badass women you know giggling about books and love and sex. Fucking powerful.

We end up talking about intimacy. About fear. About worth. About how a character learning to communicate made someone feel less alone in their dating life. About how reading one woman’s preferences helped another woman name her own.

And now? I have this conversation everywhere I go. At weddings. In DMs. In bookstores. In bars. I was in Paris this spring telling women they needed to read Abby Jimenez. I will absolutely match who you are with what you should read — just try me. Are you a slow-burn girly? Secret pining? Enemies to lovers? I’ve got you.

Romance novels remind us that joy and pleasure and connection aren’t trivial — they’re sacred. That flirtation is an art form. That softness is not weakness. That we don’t have to apologize for wanting more — more intimacy, more beauty, more aliveness.

So no, rom-coms aren’t just fluff. And I think every woman should be reading them.

P.S. If you’ve read a rom-com you loved recently, please *comment below*. I want to hear about it

after a few years of relentless loss—my mom, my stepdad, my dog, my grandma, and a boyfriend’s catastrophic stroke—i felt like a completely different person. and with that came the unfurling, the reorientation, the re-meeting of self, the faint pull toward something more true. i’d changed and my life needed to catch up with me. so i let go of my clients, said “no” to basically everything, and decided to take a real break.

on a call with my aunt she asked me, “what are some ‘if only i could’ experiences you want to have? go do some of them.” extended time in paris was at the top of the list, despite never having visited. something had always pulled me there and i like settling into places for longer stretches of time. blame my cancer sun, but nothing is better than when somewhere feels like home. my uncle (unrelated to the aforementioned aunt), who lives there half of the year, offered his apartment in the spring while he and his wife were away. the ease was baffling.

at the beginning of my trip i booked a reservation for a restaurant i wanted to go to. the first rez available was for my last week, april 22nd at 8pm. i booked it not for one. not for two, but for four people. at the time i barely knew anyone in paris. this same week i had called a friend on a friday night on the verge of tears.

that first friday night i walked into a wine bar near my apartment – it was standing room only, no corner for me and my protective book. just a room full of the hottest french people who all seemed to know each other, speaking a language i didn’t.

“wtf am i doing here?” what if i meet no one and have no fun and came all this way for nothing magical to happen? to sit alone watching the world go by around me. what if this outsider feeling is the one i’ve spent my life avoiding? i pride myself on being good at being alone — but i’m starting to wonder if i’m full of shit. i love solitude when i choose it. but when i’m relegated to it, i just feel like a loser. i’ve always been good at making friends. maybe too good. what if that skill — and the full, glittering life that came with it — was just insulation from this exact ache? what if i’m still the sad middle school girl who didn’t get invited to the party, just better dressed and slightly less awkward now? a loser on a friday night with no one to laugh with. destined to be alone — definitely not by choice.

i sit and journal the next morning. i surrender the outcome of my trip. to what – god? the universe? the eiffel tower? that tree outside? all i know is i decided it’s not my responsibility to decide how the trip is supposed to go or what i’m supposed to get out of it. maybe i’ll just have a lot of weird days. maybe i’ll get better at being alone. maybe i’ll just get even better at disappointment. let the day be weird – the weirdest it can be!

dear god, whatever, amen. the magical act of letting go.

a friend reminds me, “what if all you do in a day is buy a baguette? how awesome for life to feel so simple.” and she’s right. as the world feels increasingly uncertain and like it’s crumbling around me, can i relish in the easiness of the day – how little there is to do, how much (uncomfortable) space there is. i let go a hundred times after that – of tangible plans, of fantasies of how i think it all should go, of ideas i held with such certainty about myself and others.

and i start to notice what happens in the space. i sort of know one person when i get to paris – a woman who i share two best friends with – we go to lunch (our first, but not last meal together) and it feels like we’ve known each other forever. she invites me to a cheese party (truly the greatest theme of a party imaginable). i meet a ton of amazing women. someone puts me on a text with another friend. she texts me the morning after my mini breakdown and asks me if i want to get a croissant at place des vosges. we meet and instantly connect. we listen to a band play in the park. they consecutively perform the song she shares with her dad and one of the many songs that reminds me of my mom. we send our mutual friend a selfie, hug and plan to spend time again very soon. i walk out of the park amazed by how fast something unexpected happened after i let go. i recommit to the rest of the day feeling “weird and whatever.” seconds later i bump into the woman who hosted the cheese party. she tells me she’s meeting someone for lunch and i should join. the three of us have a conversation about fun and shame and dating and control and writing. i hear my inner thoughts come out of other women’s mouths, like we are so on the same page it’s almost freaky. i spend the rest of the day strolling with one of them. we get dinner. i somehow end up at a late-night club. so much for the loneliness and disappointment i was so certain was in my future. magic.

i bump into an old friend from another lifetime in la. his family apartment is around the corner from my uncle’s. we meet for breakfast at café de la mairie down the street. his favorite café, he tells me. it becomes my spot—i end up sitting and writing and reading there several days a week. it’s where i wrote most of this. magic.

i stumble down a side street to a jazz band playing. a man and woman dancing freely holding beers. her outfit becomes the cover photo for my irl vision board. i must buy a pair of chunky heeled boots (i have since bought and returned multiple pairs convinced that while she looked chic, i in fact look like i'm cosplaying a go-go dancer). i do however pull out a scrunchie and start wearing my hair "half up half down." i hear my mother's loving and critical voice telling 12-year-old sophie in the same hairstyle that it suits my face, that it "gives me more bone structure than i actually have." i laugh now thinking about her backhanded compliments instead of getting angry. more magic.

a friend is up at 2am in los angeles with insomnia. she calls me as i'm leaving morning yoga. another early-rising la friend and i fall into a routine of talking when she wakes up, usually as i transition from my solo day into social evening plans. we chat most days across the world. magic.

i eat a croissant almost every day. i drink hot chocolate at café de flore and have a glass of gamay or brouilly most days at lunch. i don't feel guilty. i only look in the mirror to check if my tummy looks bigger a couple of times. i go to my first ballet class in a decade with all the tiny french girls. i still buy some tighter dresses and tops because i'm trying to hide less in every area of my life. i buy new lingerie and perfume. i even like my body some days. now this, dear reader, is a fucking miracle.

i read in the garden. i fall in love with terrace culture. i walk almost 20k steps a day. i find a yoga studio and get the closest to doing a handstand i’ve been since i was 10. i discover that no matter where i am i want to be by the largest body of water and spend many sunsets by the seine.

this matters zero to the arc of this piece, but one night by the canal, a 20-something stopped me to tell me how great my outfit was. a deeply superficial moment of external validation i will treasure forever – and needed to enshrine somewhere, so here it is.

i admire expat culture – like a little village where everyone contributes to the community, a rotation of hosting and plans. i love how old the city feels – in a moment when society feels like it’s crumbling, i’m reminded how many civilizations and eras and empires and humans have come and gone.

it's my last week and all i want is time alone, to do nothing, to wander and observe. an elegant full circle from where i started. truly magic.

of course some things don't happen—i don't have a weeks-long love affair with a charming french man. in fact, i learn that the crisis of dating is in fact an international one. i'm put on a single girls group chat. i hear horror stories. one night a guy unmatches me midway through telling me where to meet him for our date an hour later. (i should mention i did have some late night make outs, one with a sweet former french pastry chef, so i'll let that count for my emily in paris fantasy).

if you follow me on instagram, you know i became a full-blown story whore in paris—spamming y’all with little moments like it was my job. it has felt like creative expression simply for expressions sake (cue my continued evangelizing of the artist’s way) and also a way to honor the part of me that just wants to be witnessed. man, i’m scared of being annoying. of being too much. of people thinking i want attention—which, by the way, i do. i think that’s deeply human and universal. i used to think that was something to pray away. some defect to fix. but now i try to tend to that part of me instead of shame her. i love to share. i love when people share with me. i think sharing is generous. it’s connective. it’s human. so here i am—letting myself be seen, even if it means risking the cringe. hence, the stories. enjoy. or unfollow. who cares (i mean, i’ll care—but i’m working on that too).

can i fall in love with cringe and slowly let go of the performative, never-quite-mastered “cool” i tried on in an effort to feel loved and accepted (just another tool of attempted control). for me, that act of letting myself be witnessed honestly is magic itself. the vulnerability of being seen, of getting caught caring.

how much can i soften, how much can i receive, how much can i trust, how little can i do? can i make room for magic? can i believe magic is possible?

people do talk about the magic of paris, and you know what—fully bought in. but i also think it's about making room for it. making space for things you didn't expect. if i planned every moment, if i willed the trip to be a certain way, go a certain way, sure i would have seen the things and checked the boxes, but there would have been no room for the random run-ins or the experience of discovering how i want to spend my time or the vulnerability of being alone and letting people get to know me.

magic, i’ve discovered, isn’t luck or fate alone—sometimes it comes from hard work, sometimes from a willingness to be vulnerable and exposed. sometimes it is learning to be still. sometimes it is the simple (and most difficult) act of letting go. god is in the pause.

for so long, and fairly so, i was so scared that if i didn't force good things to happen or will them to be so, nothing ever would. cue my obsessive planning, my anxiety about logistics. my fear of picking wrong, choosing wrong, a sliding doors life of potential disappointment where it was up to me to make sure nothing went wrong, that i could strong-arm my way into a good life. but some deep core belief remained, without my attempt to control it all—disaster. unloved, unwanted, alone. people will leave, die, plans will get canceled. the act of making space and doing nothing requires faith.

that doesn't mean disappointment isn't there—did i get the sickest i've been in years in paris? yup. did i get another cold a week later? you bet. did i maybe ruin my favorite jacket in an attempt to clean it with a tide pen? sure did. (update: my beloved cleaners did in fact save said jacket but they did not save me from an anxiety spiral for the ages). plans got cancelled, things didn't work out, fantasies of how i wanted it all to go simply didn't.

life isn't a fantasy. but the willingness to risk, to slow down enough, to release the death-grip white-knuckle on life just enough to make room for all the little miraculous moments, i think might be the point.

what if i put my body into the world and see what happens. sure, that might mean more heartbreak (probably, definitely, it will). but it also might mean more joy, more connection, more possibility. the aperture of life gets wider, the feelings deeper and more expansive. isn’t that what we’re here to do? before we shuffle off this mortal coil?

heart opening. guards lowering. cringe levels rising. a season of softening.

it's now the 22nd and i'm sitting at a table with three women i've met being here. i'm laughing so hard i almost can't breathe. inside jokes have been made, group chats have been formed. we couldn't be more silly and yet we're talking about love and embarrassment and what we hope for in our lives. i spend my last weekend singing karaoke and sitting by the seine with them and others (it really was end-of-camp vibes). i also walk around for hours by myself, stunned by how in my own life i feel—by what risk and vulnerability (and my old nemesis, letting go) can actually give you, if you let them.

i tried not to cry. failed, obviously.

fucking magic.

i’ve never been the kind of person to live my life a month at a time. (well, technically, that’s what we’re all always doing, but i’ve never done it intentionally).

selling my mom’s house was brutal, so many things went wrong. and while i don’t believe—actually, i feel strongly against the idea—that every hard thing needs to be wrapped up in a lesson or some toxically positive silver lining, i do know this: it forced me to fully feel my exhaustion. the deep, existential exhaustion of the last five years, maybe longer. the nervous system burnout from living in a constant state of crisis. a cycle of annihilation and expansion, over and over again—becoming a more honest version of myself, one death at a time.

so that fall, i decided to take time off. i called it a sabbatical because that was the easiest way to explain it—a clean, digestible way to tell people i was stepping away from work. (while i love to share, i don’t need to overshare the deepest parts of my soul with every stranger i meet.) so i wrapped up my work with my philanthropic clients, closing out a meaningful professional chapter at the end of 2024. whether i’ll return to that work at all is still an open question—it feels harder and harder to believe in that world, but that’s a substack for another day.

what i really needed was space. time to figure out what i want the next chapter of my life to look like. for the first time since 2017, my life isn’t centered around taking care of other people or grieving a massive loss. and yet, the more i return to myself, the louder the nudges become—the ones telling me i wasn’t living my purpose, that i had taken the path of least resistance, the path that let me avoid risk, that let me avoid fear, that kept me adjacent to the things i really want—*the shadow artist*, as julia cameron writes in the artist’s way.

this time feels like one part eat, pray, love, one part research and development, and really, a moment to commit to my own self-expression, to my creativity, to curiosity. to let myself want what i want, to realize i know what that is more than i initially thought, to let myself share things that feel true and authentic to me, to see what happens when i trust myself.

we use cheesy lines about “finding ourselves” as if it’s an external pursuit. but in truth, it’s the deep inner work of excavating the parts that have been buried—not out there, but inside, tucked away for safekeeping.

for the first time in a long time, i’m untethered. so let this be a moment to be untethered. one of the many someday, if only i could, in another lifetime dreams has been an extended stay in paris—to roam and get lost and sit in coffee shops and write and read and people-watch (my favorite activity). so i decided to do it. the plan unfolded with extraordinary ease—my uncle offered me his apartment in paris while he’s away in april.

i have a love affair with new york—i come as often as i can, usually for a week at a time. my last trip lit me up and reignited that little flame of wonder: am i destined for another new york chapter? should i move? i have no idea.

but i decided to spend march in new york, and then paris in april. planning my life one month at a time and having no idea what happens after that. a whole lot of unknown—lots of space to discover what feels good and to see where i end up. to see what happens when i stop planning so much and let go.

that little kid in me, the one who feels safe when planning and controlling, has had several meltdowns so far—packing and prepping for two months was one of them (how can i possibly know what i’ll want or need?!), and then, in these first few days in new york, actually stepping into the reality of the thing i’d been fantasizing about. the emotional comedown from all the planning. finally arriving at the big thing and realizing, i’m still me, and it’s still just a (insert the day of the week i end up publishing this). feeling the weight of the expectations and hope for a good trip, the fear of potential disappointment.

it’s a privilege to have this space, and i don’t take it for granted. it’s at the top of my gratitude list every day. and also—this kind of freedom is terrifying. i’m watching, in real time, how my relationship to freedom is changing. how often i catch myself searching for ways to stay busy, to keep myself from fully feeling it. how waking up every day and asking, what do i want to do today? requires me to be connected to my actual wants, my actual desires—to let myself want what i want without judgment or shame.

so here we go, who the fuck knows what will happen. but how cool to *try* and to be witnessed trying and living and taking risks and feeling the side by side feelings of excited and nervous, courageous and scared. what a friggin’ gift.

to be transparent, i went on an ayahuasca retreat. i hadn’t planned on sharing that either, but again—who the fuck cares at this point? the judgements or opinions of others matter a whole lot less when the world is literally burning.

for the first time in years, i turned off my phone, locking it away in a safe as i headed into the jungle. that week held some of the most intense, transformative nights of my life. annihilation and initiation. i walked out tender and raw, my edges softened, my perspective cracked open.

and then, on january 9, i turned my phone back on.

one hundred and nineteen text messages greeted me. in ten minutes, i learned about the fires in los angeles—my home, the place i grew up. i learned the scale of the devastation, of the obliteration. i learned that some of the people i love most had lost everything.

two truths were now in my hands. i didn’t shrink from either. both were real. both mattered. i had just emerged from a week that was equal parts sacred and shattering. i still had two weeks ahead in santa teresa, a place that brought me so much comfort last year when i needed it most. and at the same time, my home would never be the same.

for the next two weeks i swam in the ocean and grieved. i got back on a surfboard and doom-scrolled. i spent hours on the beach with nothing but a journal and a book, and i called friends to check in. i finished a project i’d been working on for a year and a half, and i donated to gofundmes. i laughed at dinners and cried on walks alone on the beach. i felt deep gratitude and profound anger. i felt the privilege of my own safety and the acute pain of being far from people i loved who were suffering. i tried to balance the intensity of it all with the lightness of having fun—and to feel gratitude for that, instead of guilt.

i don’t know any other way anymore than to feel all of it: to work with the dark and the light, to honor what has been lost while holding hope for the new to emerge. to not spiritually bypass the fullness of the experience. to simply be with all of it, all at once. i didn’t abandon the time i’d carved out for myself, and i didn’t shut out what was happening back home.

^ some magic from santa teresa

perspective is a funny thing. i thought about the months i spent cleaning out my mom’s house, agonizing over what to save and what to let go of. at the time, i felt trapped in a life that wasn’t mine. now i realize it was a luxury i didn’t know i had. i thought about how my friends lost everything in an instant—how they didn’t get to choose.

grief teaches us to make room for contradictions. the more i zoom out, the clearer it becomes: endless experiences unfold at the same time. joy and pain. ease and devastation. connection and loneliness. for so long, i thought emotions had to compete for space—that suffering was comparative, that joy could only exist after pain, that peace couldn’t coexist with devastation so close by. but life doesn’t work that way.

i’m learning to resist jumping to the lesson of things. before silver linings or growth opportunities, we need to feel the pain. to be with the loss. to sit with the hurt and anger. there is no shortcut. we cannot simply be phoenixes rising from the ashes and make it all ok. and yet, annihilation is also initiation -- to be unraveled, unfurled, taken apart, shattered, to fully face the death of someone, something, a way of being transforms us into something new, something unrecognizable. the painful process of becoming. the unknown is terrifying and full of grace.

while i personally entered the end of one cycle, i felt the beginning of another.

it was hard to be away. an old version of me might have gotten on a plane and rushed home. but i stayed. i honored the gift i gave myself—time, space—because i needed it after years of grieving, loss, and death.

ironically, i think i was more helpful because i stayed. friends (who are more like family) who lost everything found refuge in my home.

for so long, i thought i had to earn rest, justify joy, and prove my worth through suffering. but life isn’t either/or; it’s both/and. grief and joy. pain and beauty. sorrow and love. death and rebirth. we don’t have to let go of one truth to hold another. the more truths i hold, the more i can be with, the more human i become.

ps. in the words of the great randy newman, i love LA

Subscribe now

it feels like a scary truth to say out loud, but life has gotten easier since she died. to clarify, it got harder before it got easier. there’s been a year’s worth of stuff, a year’s worth of work, a year’s worth of feelings, a year’s worth of healing. like some sort of purgatory — my mom died, but life didn’t stop being about her. sitting in the aftermath can be so much harder than the crisis. it’s over and it’s far from over.

and yet, the other day, i put on music. a song came on, and i burst into tears. it was a song that reminded me so deeply of her, a song we put on a playlist the week she was dying. (because, of course, nothing is more her than curating a playlist for her own death.) i was instantly transported back to that room last year, during the strangest holiday season of my life.

christmas last year meant sitting alone at the dining room table, watching gilmore girls on my phone while she faded in the next room. the world outside kept turning. people bought gifts, went to parties, celebrated. meanwhile, my family spent 11 long days leading up to december 29 sitting vigil, wondering if today was the day she’d go. the playlist played in the background, like some surreal soundtrack.

this is the strange dance of grief i don’t hear people talk about much. the truth is, i feel so much lighter this holiday season than i did last year. last year (well, the last few years) was the hard one. this year, i get to cook thanksgiving dinner with my brother and relax. i got to go to yoga on christmas eve morning with a friend, giggle that evening with more friends, and spend christmas day watching movies and eating chinese food with the same person who came and sat with me alone at the dining room table the year before. instead of sitting alone watching it on my phone, i had the silliest day dancing around a recreated stars hollow on the wb lot. compared to last year, this year feels lovely and light.

but i can’t listen to music with her anymore. listening to that song, i was flooded with memories of singing with her in the studio, sharing songs. and now, no more. grief is funny like that. i don’t feel the longing to have her here now. but i do feel the longing to be with her then. just relive one memory. just one song. just one day.

still, i feel the weight of everything this past year has held. there was the endless paperwork and phone calls (or as i like to call it, “death admin”), the memorial in the rainstorm, cleaning out the house, selling the house. my brother and i were left holding most of the bag, surrounded by well-meaning people who couldn’t quite help. i surrendered to the season, just as i did when she was dying, just as i did when david died.

but the season is changing now. the house is sold. the admin is (almost) done. my focus is shifting toward what’s next - toward a life that finally feels like it gets to be mine. saying that out loud feels a little insane, but it’s true. on the anniversary of my mom’s death, i mostly feel relieved that the “mom is dying/mom died” chapter is closing. there’s a lightness. there’s ease. and that’s okay.

then, the song comes on, and i’m crying, because amid all that relief is the reality that she‘s gone. she feels further and further away. i yearn to remember her spirit before she got sick. i miss her.

grief is strange. lightness and longing coexist. and maybe that’s the point. to let the memories sit beside the relief, to feel them both without needing one to cancel the other. to wish for one more day while being excited for all the new ones that get to come. to carry what remains, not as a burden, but as something that shapes what comes next.