Just a warning - things are about to get weird.
It's not like an oversharing weird or "Oh, here's a photo of my mole" weird.
But I'm tweaking the "cut and dried—here's the science" approach my writing seems to have taken in this blog.
You see, I have a lot of stories written about the complete insanity of the past 11 years. Well, almost 20 years, really.
Stories such as:
I Really Need to Stop Dating My Dead Husband's Friends
No, You're Not in My Memoir
That Time I Drove My Husband's Ashes to Bingo
Is That an Extra Leg, or Are You Just Happy to See Me
The Fake Bait Heiress and Her Northwoods Widow's Dowry
Why Does My Car Smell Like Herring
But I digress.
In 2020, I dropped everything, moved to Fargo, and started a writing job at a BANK of all places (no wonder my mother was speechless when I told her). It made my brain go a little corporate, which is so foreign to my very inner being that my decision to do that still baffles me… and yes, it was, by far, the most nightmarey type scenario job that an outdoors woman like me could find herself in. It was full of all the corporate bad guys girls that you see in TikTok videos about coworkers from hell. It was indeed that bad. I should have quit when they were mad when I took more time off than they thought I should for my mastectomy, but instead, I quit because they no longer wanted to use the Oxford comma. I have standards, people. #teamoxfordcomma
That job warped me a bit mentally because it also happened to be when, as I alluded to above, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The things that happened to me emotionally and creatively in that time of my life seem to have made me *publish* things that are a little dry. Not everything, obviously; I mean, I AM a medium, but even with mediumship, I'm like, "Here's the science. You'd better believe me." Because GOD FORBID, someone does not believe me….
Basically, I have felt like I need to behave or write in a way that attracts a certain type of clientele for seminars, keynotes, or whatever (aka The Things That Pay Me).
This is what my brain has had to say about it:
Me: I want to write about that one time I drove Jim's ashes around in my car so I could take him to bingo.
Brain: But grief is serious; be serious. They won't respect your knowledge if you aren't serious….
Me: OK, fine, but I will feel unfulfilled and not publish so many things that might make people laugh and feel less alone.
Brain: Good, because if you write funny things, you won't make enough money to feed your dogs the *good* cheese.
Me: damnit
It has been a weird disconnect because irreverence is my thing in all other aspects of my life - except here. I don't want to hurt someone or get them to unsubscribe or *something else that might make me feel unworthy*, so I take lots of my own personality out of my writing. I’m stopping that.
I will still be writing about the science and why of grief, trauma, intuition, change, etc., but I will also include stories about how I came to know and experience these things. Those stories are key to many of the more significant concepts I discuss, such as Continuing Bonds.
That brings me to my point. I'll be adding personal essays to what I have been writing for this platform, and I'd love to keep all of these articles available for free for those who need them.
If you would like to support my writing with a yearly paid Substack subscription, you will also get a copy of my anthology of grief writing, coming out in late summer 2024.
I’m excitedly working through all the essays I have for it, and it’s heading an editor soon.
So thank you for being here - as always!
Hannah
The dogs are always worth the “good cheese” ❤️