Maybe I feel like those ideas are for other people and not for me though. Because I do feel compelled to explain myself for some reason, like just wanting to take GLPs isn’t reason enough.

So, yes, it started because I was feeling tired and off and I’d lost 20 pounds in a month. But really, I was tired. Tired of practicing body neutrality, and not being able to buy clothes in boutique stores, and thinking about how I look eating the last bite of something in public. In the months before I started on Zepbound, I’d been going to the gym every day, I had a trainer, I was building muscle but my body wasn’t changing at all. I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t make progress. I was tired of seeing other people change their bodies when mine wasn’t changing at all.

So. I asked my doctor about starting on Zepbound. And she did. That was in August 2024, and I’ve lost about 60 pounds since then.

If you’ve made it this far and think you’re gonna get some GLP1 tips, I am not sure why you’re still here, go read some Reddit threads or something. This is about my own issues and psychology and guilt and pride about taking Zepbound. Obviously.

Zepbound works by both slowing down your digestion and quieting the food noise in your brain. For the first time in years, I find myself not thinking about food at all. I mean, I remember that food exists. And I still get hungry of course. But I’m not obsessed with it. I used to use food as a reward, and a way to cope with anxiety and frustration, and a something to do when I was bored, and something to do when I was busy. Bad meeting? Time for a snack. Good day? Victory dessert! Now, I eat…when I get hungry? Holy shit, is this what other people have felt like all this time? That food is just there to sustain us?

I can go hours without eating, sometimes even a full day. But that’s not really sustainable. So now, even if I’m not hungry, I try to have something midday, a protein bar or a smoothie. I’ve become someone who just has a smoothie all day until dinner. And I still eat less than I used to at dinner.

Because I eat so much less food, I find myself prioritizing delicious foods. I don’t like to fill up on free chips and dip, because I know I won’t have room for enchiladas. And I have ZERO guilt about the food I eat. I don’t actually have feelings at all about the food I eat. I finally am practicing what I’ve been preaching – to see food as not “good” or “bad” but just…food.

Wild! But also normal? Is this how you all have been all this time?

For probably about 9 months after I started taking Zepbound, I felt like my body looked the same, even though I’d lost 40 pounds. I wasn’t buying new clothes. But I hit some tipping points and now I see it. Maybe it’s because the weather turned cold and I was wearing pants and jeans again. And living in South Texas and working from home means I hadn’t worn jeans since February.

None of my jeans fit anymore. Many of my dresses and pants and shirts don’t fit either. I mean, they fit, they’re just way too big now, because I’m 3-4 sizes smaller now. I need new bras. Send me bra recs please for bras that 1/can handle a saggy National Geo-esque boob and 2/don’t cost more than $60 and 3/don’t contain underwire.  

This isn’t like when I lost weight in my 20s, when I was getting married. I’ve had 2 kids. The stretch marks are still there, just less taut. The skin is sagging. No matter how much protein I eat, how much water I drink, how much weight I lift, the body isn’t bouncing back like it did when I was 27. I’ve had an apron belly for years and I’ve still got one. It’s just smaller now. The body is the same one I had a year ago – just smaller now.

And it’s fine. I don’t love it, but, as much as I tried to love my body before, I didn’t. I don’t love my body now either. But I do like having my photo taken now, and I like people telling me I look good. I don’t always love people commenting on my body (we shouldn’t be commenting on bodies) but I still like the acknowledgement. And if someone doesn’t mention it, I wonder if it’s because they don’t notice it. Or maybe they notice but don’t want to comment on it.

But losing the weight, not being obsessed with food, is making me really just feel neutral about my body and the food I put in it. It makes me feel like I can skip workouts if I’m not feeling great, because I’m not trying to work off any food I eat.

Whenever someone comments on my weight loss, I feel compelled to mention Zepbound. It’s like I need people to know that I didn’t do the work on my own. I had help. Is it less impressive that I used Zepbound to do it? I still did the work obviously, but does it count because I used medication to help me?

We don’t feel this way about other medications. We don’t shame people with high blood pressure and tell them they should really eat less meat. (Ok maybe we do that sometimes) So why am I feeling so compelled to explain my weight loss as not something I did? Why do I feel guilty and like I took a shortcut?

If I’m being honest, I started Zepbound because I was tired of my weight being A Thing, especially with doctors. When I had the medical situation, I asked my doctor what I could do to stop it. And she said that losing weight would help. And I lost it a little bit. Not outwardly. Outwardly, I was like, oh, losing weight would help? Tell me more, I have never heard this before. But inwardly, rage. Rage that another doctor is telling me to lose weight. So I wanted to lose the weight so we don’t have to talk about my fucking weight like it’s a problem that’s screwing up my life. So. Fuck it. Let’s do the drugs. I’ll inject myself and lose the weight for me and only me, but also so I don’t have to hear again from a doctor or man or myself that XYZ problem could be improved/obliterated by losing weight. My kingdom to never hear that bullshit again.

I think it was Lindy West who wrote about her body as the vehicle for her brain in Shrill (I could look this up but I won’t, let’s just assume she wrote that because I definitely didn’t and she deserves more bon mots attributed to her). And I love that. My brain is amazing and crazy and awesome in that it inspires fucking awe, even in myself. I am my own biggest fan. I laugh at my own jokes and if you’re in slapping distance, I will slap you on the arm to make sure you noticed how funny and smart I am. What I like about my body now is that it feels more like what my brain does. The picture in my head of myself, my full self, my brain and my hair and face and wit and wisdom and tears, they all match more now. And I love that.  

Are you looking for advice on whether you should start on Zepbound or other med? I’m not here to give you advice, I’m here to share my thoughts (ie. trauma dump) on you. But if you want to talk about it, get a therapist. JK. I mean, not just kidding about therapy, definitely get a therapist (maybe one who doesn’t live so close to you) but everyone needs therapy. I feel that viscerally, that we all need therapy. Do you know how liberating it is to have someone who is paid to listen to you and you don’t have to listen to them talk about their life? Incredible. They should bottle that feeling and sell it (spoiler alert: these are SSRIs).

So you voted to hear this story and now you’ve heard it. The next story I do want to tell you about it my thoughts on the lip balms I own and tbh I’m a little scared to even do this because it will reveal how many lip balms I own. It’s not a few. It’s a lot. Dozens probably. Maybe over 100? Not sure. But I have opinions on the 248 lip balms I won. I want more lip balms.  

That’s a future story.

My son was in a wax museum in school a couple years ago year. His entire class had to pick a historical figure and memorize a speech about them and get a costume and prop. Then, all of the 3rd graders had to stand in the cafeteria and you tapped them on the shoulder and they start their spiel. Is that how an actual wax museum works? I have no idea, I’ve never been.

So my son is George Washington and my husband and I are getting ready the morning of the wax museum and he gets a call from his mom. She’s slipped in the shower and needs to go to the hospital. Alarming! Turns out she pulled a muscle in her butt (ha) and just needed to rest it. The point is, I go to the wax museum alone.

Have you heard 150 third graders all monotonously reciting a 30 second speech? Because I have. It is pure chaos. Not only are there 150 kids, there are parents, there are other grades all wandering around. I see a lot of parents I know, which isn’t surprising. These kids have all been together since kinder at this point, so you get to know the parents.

I see one parent a couple times, a man I kind of recognize. And it’s driving me nuts because I can’t place him. Is he just another dad? Did we work together at some point? Did we go to college together? Does he go to my gym? This is kind of the problem with going to college in one town and never leaving – you know a lot of people with zero memory of how you know them, or what their name is.

And then, I see his name tag and I know who he is.

Reader. Are you sitting down.

It was my THERAPIST.

I started seeing him last year virtually. He’s in San Antonio, as am I, but I liked being able to see him on my schedule so I’ve never met him in person. I didn’t know where he lived. I knew he had kids, but not their ages. I don’t even know where his office is.

He turned and saw me as I was gaping at him. He saw me mouth “Oh fuck.” I walk up to him because at this point, how can I not say something? I tell him I’m Lauren, in case he didn’t recognize me out of context either. He says, “I know it’s you.”

He knew? HE KNEW?? Did he know our kids go to school together? Did he know our kids are IN THE SAME GRADE AT SAID SCHOOL? Yes, he knew, because I’d talked about the wax museum in our sessions.

And then, he asks which is my son and then HE WENT AND LISTENED TO MY SON’S GEORGE WASHINGTON SPEECH. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING.

Then we are talking about the wax museum and HE INTRODUCES ME TO HIS GIRLFRIEND.

I’d like to remind you now that I am solo at this wax museum and have no one to trauma dump this on to. I am panic! In the cafeteria.

As I leave, I call a friend, who sees the same therapist, and I tell her what’s just happened. We are gobsmacked. I tell her he was wearing cargo shorts and flip flops. I SAW HIS TOES. HOW COULD HE HAVE ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN. YOU SHOULDN’T SEE YOUR THERAPIST’S TOES. I am not here to learn one damn thing about my therapist. I didn’t know to know he had legs. Frankly, I knew he had a torso already from our sessions, and that’s too much info for me.

You’re probably wondering if I talked to him about this. No, of course not, because I got a second therapist to unpack my feelings about seeing my first therapist IRL. JK, I did not do that, that’s ridiculous and also I don’t have a job at the moment so financially irresponsible to have 2 therapists. But I did think about it.

We did talk about my son in our next session, because he’s going to take an accelerated math class next year and I’m figuring out how to help him through that. My therapist shared that his daughter will be in that math class too.

AWESOME TO HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON WITH YOUR THERAPIST.

This is not unlike when you were a kid and you’d see your teacher at Albertsons and you’d be like, what??? How dare you give me evidence that you are a person too and not just an authority figure who dissolves into vapors at night. How dare you have a life.

Why is it so discomfiting to know this much about my therapist? To know who his daughter is, that he lives somewhere around me, to know what his toes look like? Before, I had no evidence that he even had legs, because I only saw him virtually. Now I know he has legs and is not just a torso. Why am I disturbed by knowing he has legs.

Who knows why. It’s not something I’m gonna talk to him about, that’s for sure. If he weren’t such a good therapist, I’d switch to a new one.

This week has not gone as I’d hoped it would. I’m pretty bummed about it. Like many others, I’ve cried, I’ve hugged, I’ve despaired.

And I’ve been asked, why are you doing these things?

I finally figured out why – I thought, as a country, we valued equality, and treating everyone the same. I thought we valued the rights of women and minorities. I thought we valued those who’ve served. I thought we all thought that women shouldn’t be harassed or violated. I thought this was a nation built on accepting others. I thought this was a nation built by underdogs, for underdogs.

But what I didn’t consider is that, while most of us value these things, some hold other values higher. Those who’ve been hit by the recession and never recovered. Those who are paying high prices for things like healthcare. Those who’ve felt disenfranchised.

I didn’t think about that. And that’s on me, and only me.

But by electing Trump, those who wanted change have endorsed something else – they’ve endorsed a bully. They elected a man who, time after time, denigrated women, minorities, gay people, those with disabilities.

Some of you weren’t voting for those qualities. But by voting for the man, we’ve endorsed those qualities. And this isn’t just a vague feeling I have about his character – he’s said all of those things during his campaign. That’s undeniable.

So what’s happening now?

Racism. Harassment. Hate.

I’ve been told that to get through this, I need to understand the other side. So I’m trying to do that. But it’s become hard for me to do, because I’m mad.

No, I’m really mad. Strike that – I’m fucking pissed.

I’m pissed that the world thinks we’re a joke and we’re run by a reality star. I’m pissed that equal rights lost, and bullies won. I’m pissed that – even though the majority of voting Americans didn’t choose Trump – he gets the job of leading our awesome country.

Am I going to lead an uprising, a revolt, a riot? No. According to our laws, Trump won. He is President-elect. I don’t like it, but that’s how it shakes out.

But boy am I pissed.

So I’m channeling that anger into action. I’m giving money to groups that help those who need it right now. I’m going to volunteer. I’m going to call my representatives. I’m going to make sure we have more Democrats, more women, more minorities on the ticket next time. I will join groups and show support, and I will make it more than lip service.

I will be an ally. I will love more fiercely and fight more brutally than I ever have before. I will examine my own privilege, and try to use it to make the world better. And boy, do I have a lot of privilege. So much. And when I think about my own biases and privilege, I know I have to know it, learn from it, and use it.

I will, more than ever before, be a nasty woman.

I will speak up when something is wrong. I will get involved when I see someone being harassed or hurt. I will be uncomfortable sometimes, but I will get over it. I will be scared sometimes, even online, because being a woman on the internet can be scary. I will read those stories of how other people are hurting, because it will keep reminding me of what is at stake.

President-elect Trump wants to close our borders and stay inside ourselves. I will reach outside of myself and help those who need it now.

If you thought I was outspoken and loud before, brace yourself.

I’m about to be a real nasty woman.

And I am not alone.

Baby, you sleep so much! But when you are awake, you are very awake. You alertness is apparent. You punch and kick different parts of my body constantly. I can see my stomach pop out and jump with your movements. Sometimes, I picture you beating the walls of my uterus in boredom. Sometimes, I think you’re pounding your way out in frustration, just dying to get out.

You know the feeling on a roller coaster, when it drops? That’s what it feels like sometimes, except I’m not moving. In those moments, I picture you doing flips inside of me. You’re still so small and agile – I imagine you diving and pinballing around in me. I think you do this in moments of joy, like when I eat ice cream or cry from peals of laughter.

In the mornings, I walk, while the sun rises and the deer are jumping and the bunnies are hopping. I walk on the trail and try to enjoy the little bit of cool temperatures, the not-heat of the morning. You aren’t very active when I walk, baby, not for hours. I picture you being rocked back and forth with my steps, lulled into sleep. I imagine it’s like being on a cruise ship, with gentle rocking and the faint sound of water.

I talk to you sometimes. Can you hear me? Do you recognize that it’s me? Your dad likes to talk to my belly button, which is connected to your belly button. I imagine you feeling buzzing and tickling through it when he talks to you, making you laugh maybe. He reads you baby books, or parenting books that we need to read anyway. So we’re all learning how to be parents to you, including you. I sing in the car, not very well, and your dad whistles a lot. Can you hear us in there?

I imagine it’s like being in the belly of a whale, where you are. I got a massage the other day, and you kicked and kicked. The massive amount of fluid in my body was redistributed with that massage – I imagine it whooshing and sloshing around you, maybe surprising you. Were you scrambling to get out of the way? Were you scared?

My favorite dress these days is a green knit. It occurred to me when I wear it, I’m like the Hulk – I grow bigger, I have fits of rage, and I’m green. I wear dresses every day. I haven’t worn pants in months. It’s just too hot for them. And I am hot all of the time, physically and emotionally. I can’t remember being cold anymore, and I am easily angered. I sweat constantly. I’m covered in the oily residue of dried sweat, always.

These days, my eyes tear up easily. Sometimes with sadness, from a cheesy movie. But most often, it’s from laughter. I find so many things funny these days, and I often laugh until I can’t make sounds. I cry my eye makeup off and sweat a little bit. Sometimes I can’t stop laughing at all. I laugh at my own jokes, then I laugh when other people laugh. It’s an endless cycle of laughter. And sometimes I cry when I think about you. The hormones you have put into my body make me sentimental. We took a tour of the hospital where you will be born, and it occurred to me that you might be born in the room I was standing in, and I almost lost it, right in the middle of the tour. Such is my life these days.

I picture you like a lump of clay, a solid mass. I imagine that with everything I do, every plan I make, every piece of furniture I buy, I’m shaping you a little bit, making you into the person you will become. And your father too. And when you’re born, you’ll take shape even more. And eventually, you’ll push our hands away and start shaping yourself.

Morning and night, I slather my belly with lotions and creams and oils, yet it does no good. The purple and red tiger stripes race across my skin, etching creeping. Sometimes I fret over them, sometimes I just shrug and accept it. These are the marks of you on me.

I’m constantly astounded by how big I am in one section. If this were my foot or hand expanding over nine months, I would be concerned. But no one is concerned when it’s a baby. A baby is at once the most banal thing, and the most amazing thing in the world. That there’s a person growing inside of me, and it happens to women all of the time. Bizarre.

Sometimes, I cannot wait for you to get out, to be born. There are many things I won’t miss about being pregnant. The aches and pains, the constant swelling, the restrictions. The public nature of being pregnant, of having other people constantly question and judge me for my choices. I will be somewhat relieved when this is over. But other times, I want you to stay in here for a while longer. Now is the only time where I know where you are, all the time. Once you are born, I’ll never be certain of what’s happening with you. I won’t always be certain that you’re safe and happy. I’ll have to let you be unhappy, because I won’t always be able to control the world for you. Someday, you’ll grow up and there will be so much I won’t know about your life. But right now, I know everything about you.

Someday, you will come out and be your own person. But for now, I am your house and your home. I am where you live and breathe and sleep and eat. And even when you are born, I will still be your home.

Welcome home, baby.

“Mother, you need more hobbies. You like Percy Sledge, can I say you’re a Motown fan?”

Cathy was always the formal one. I don’t know when it happened, this Mother business. She called me Mommy and Momma when she was little, like all kids, but at some point, Mother reared her head. It feels so serious, and so mocking, like she’s saying I’m not really her mother at all. Or that all I am to her is the person who birthed her. Mom and Momma feel like terms of endearment. Sally and Irene never seem snide when they call me Mom. But then again, they don’t call me much.

“I guess so. Your father was the one who loved Motown so much, not me.”

“Well, you need to say something else. What about sewing, you used to sew stuff for us.”

Sewing? A hobby? When the girls were little, sewing was a necessity. A hem here, ripped pants there. I had to make the clothes last through three girls. I had to make sure they put in five years of wear and tear. In front of me right now, hanging in my closet, are two Halloween costumes I sewed over the years – a mouse and a pumpkin. They’re made of cheap, scratchy felt, the kind that makes you sweat even when it’s frosty outside.

“You could say that, I guess.”

“What, Mother? I can’t hear you when you’re talking to your clothes.”

I turn my head to talk to Cathy, and she’s not there. Her laptop is open and glowing. I walk to the bed. She’s not in the room at all.

“Cathy? Where’d you go?”

Her voice floats in from the bathroom, muffled through the door. “I’m just using the bathroom, relax. You don’t have to keep an eye on me all the time you know.”

That’s just it though – I don’t know that. The other women from my walking group talk about letting go of their kids. About how their kids tell them about people they date, staying out all night, even people they have sex with and drugs they ingest.

My kids will always be my kids. Every time I call them and they don’t call back, I check the news for crime reports. I can’t help it. A part of me knows I’m always responsible for them. I brought them here, and I have to make sure they stay here.

For some reason, I crave Cathy’s approval. The more she doesn’t give it to me, the more she snorts, mocks me, and declares my life pathetic, the more I want her to see that I’m a rational, viable adult. I don’t know why. Sally and Irene both treat me like a regular mom, and I never feel like I’m performing for them. It’s only Cathy. She makes me tear my hair out and scream and yet, she’s the one I call when I need help. Because she’ll be brutally honest with me, which is what I need right now.

So she lounges on my bed, the bed that I shared not that long ago with her father. She types out my online dating profile. She’s making me better, she says. She takes my occasional hikes in the park and turns it into a love of nature, my one remaining loner cat into a caring pet owner. As much as she acts like she pities me, Cathy makes me sound like a kind, warm woman, capable of loving and being loved. Which I suppose I am.

“Come the weekend, you can usually find me relaxing with a cup of green tea at my local coffee shop. I like to support local stores when I can…”

Hearing her read my airbrushed life makes me uncomfortable. I sit at my dressing table and start organizing the atomizers. Not a one has any perfume left in it. They’re relics of my past. I can chart my whole life since marrying Herb by these bottles. The Chanel he bought me for our third anniversary, the Clinique Happy Cathy and Irene wrapped in old comic books for my 43rd birthday. Without these bottles to mark the events in my life, would my life cease to keep going, I wonder. Morbid thought.

“DTF? What does that mean?”

Cathy smirked at the laptop screen.
“It means ‘Down to Fuck.’ Are you, Mother? Down to fuck?”

Wincing, I turned to hide my face in the closet. A burning blush started at my neck and traveled up.

“Don’t be so crass, Cathy.”

“Mother, if you’re going to do online dating, you need to know the acronyms. Otherwise, you’ll be meeting a guy for what you think is a date, but is actually threesome.”

For the fourteenth time in three minutes, I regretted asking my daughter for help. I always regret asking her for help, but this time it seemed like a pretty good idea. I’ve never done this online dating and Cathy has. Since Herb died, I hadn’t thought about dating at all. I was too wrapped up in mourning him and thinking about him. But ever since I turned 60, I’ve been thinking it’d be nice to have someone in my life, to share things with.

When I called her yesterday, Cathy made me beg her for help, first laughing at me for wanting to date, then whining that she didn’t have enough time to come over and “make her mother sound like someone you’d want to take on a date.”

I know you’re supposed to love your children, but you don’t always have to like them.

I woke up in the bottom of the well. No other place I’d rather be.

Billy knew already about the text messages. But did he know what they said?

“I’m 58, I’m not dead yet,” I said, slipping a tank top over my pink bra.

Molly saw two things when she opened her eyes: Leonard had come back, and he’d brought company.

“If you don’t put the dishes in the dishwasher, I will murder you with my hands.”

One minute, you’re going on a third date and sharing dessert. The next, you’re interviewing young women for a threesome.

The last thing I remember is a pair of eyes in the garage. Just floating there, looking at me.

I opened the door, and the Three Tenors were standing my closet, which had somehow turned into my high school gym.

Never again, I thought as I shoveled earth into the hole.

Of all the clothes I could have forgotten today, why did I forget my bra?

I’ve thought a lot about what to do with this blog. I spend a great deal of time every day writing and thinking about writing. Planning writing. Finding things to write about. And friends, I am burnt out.

What I am writing, some of the time, is fiction. Some of it is lines that I’ve mulled over, or turns of phrase. Some of it is short plots. Some of it is humorous, McSweeney’s type lists. It’s all over the place.

And you will get to see some of it. I’m not asking for feedback on any of it. It just that I’m finding my brain escaping to and exploring fictional worlds sometimes, to get away from the real things that I write about every day. I am going to give you a peak into some of these worlds.

Some of these worlds are the size of a sardine tin. Some of them are the size of a high school gym. What I’m saying is, some of these worlds are more realized than others.

When I write things like this, I see the first sentence or thought as about a cubic inch of space. The more I follow that thought, the bigger it becomes. It’s often in a room, and then the room has doors, and then other rooms. The more I write, the more details I see in that space. The more props I give the characters to use, the more they do with them.  The more they turn into real people. At first, when I start writing, things look hazy, like I’m seeing through smudgy glasses or fog. The more I write, the clearer things become. One of the stories I’m working on starts in a house. I’m making the characters walk through different parts of the house so I can see what it looks like and get a feel for the layout.

It’s different. I’ve taken fiction courses before (what writer hasn’t) and I’m not always comfortable in this space. But I find myself turning to it as an outlet recently.

So this blog might turn into a fiction space for a bit. Try not to confuse these stories with my real life. They are not my life.

But, just like lies, stories feel stronger when there’s a thread of truth in them.

It’s a terrible event, all the more terrible because I don’t understand. I don’t understand what happened, I don’t understand why he died, I don’t understand anything that’s happening.

I just joined this team a couple months ago. I didn’t know much about John’s life, but I did know that he was a warm, genuine person. He smiled often and got irritated seldom. He was always interested to learn more about people, and never used those personal facts to talk about himself, like many of us do. He loved to tease his friends, because he knew that gentle teasing was a way to tell his friends, “Hey, I know you. I know your quirks and weird tendencies, and I love you for them anyway.” He liked to be teased too, for the same reason.

On my team, we all have different tasks and different areas we report to. I didn’t work with John much, but I liked him a lot. He was the one I turned to to try new foods with me, and to rally everyone to go out together. I didn’t know much about John’s life, but I know he valued harmony with others. He wanted everyone to get along. I liked him so much because he so much wanted all of us to be a team. He was always my ally when I wanted to go to lunch, because he loved to just spend time with his coworkers in a non work context. He liked to be friends with the people he worked with.

I didn’t know John that well, which is why it feels somewhat wrong to be so broken up by his death. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a part of my day. He sat near me, and I talked to him a lot. I didn’t know him well, but he was a part of my life that’s no longer there.

John was there one day, and then he just…wasn’t. I keep expecting him to show up again. I never got to say goodbye to him, none of us did. I keep thinking that he’s just on vacation, or at a meeting. Because he was there and then he wasn’t, the fact that he’s not anywhere anymore doesn’t feel real. Yet it is.

Not knowing what happened breaks my heart. I want to know what really happened, but I also know that it’s my desire to have facts is just my way of doing something. In times like this, it’s easier to do something than it is to just grieve. It’s easier to organize a memorial, to point fingers, than it is to just be. I’m not good at just being.

John had a lot of empathy for others. I think it’s why I never saw him really get mad – he always considered someone else’s background, point of view when he judged them. And in that way, he never really judged them. I think if he were here now, he would tell me not to get too mad at the people I feel have been grossly insensitive and callous in the wake of his death. He’d maybe say that we don’t know where they’re coming from, maybe they’re stressed, maybe they’re being pressured. He’d help me not be so mad at others, to not be so sad and heartbroken about his death.

I hope that John’s death wasn’t long or painful. I hope he didn’t suffer. I wonder if he knew that he was dying. I hope he knew that he was a good friend. I hope he knew how valuable he was. I hope he knew he was loved, and that he will be missed.

I use #yolo (you only live once) a lot, mostly tongue-in-cheek, to talk about why I ate a whole muffin or didn’t do my laundry. But if there’s anything that I’m striving to learn from this terrible thing, it’s that no matter what your religious beliefs are, we are here on this planet with each other for so little time. We need to enjoy each other, to spend time with each other, to joke around and tease each other. I wish I had done more of that John. I hope he knows he was my friend.

My friend John died this week. I knew John, his quirks and weird tendencies, and I loved him anyway. I’m sad that it took his death to make me realize that.

Bye John. I hope you’re creating harmony, wherever you are.