In whatever way you want to soften, come out. That's how they do it. And what comes out of your body, will never make you sick. The things that we hold on to, the emotions we hold on to, that's what makes us sick. So, when you manage to let it go, and you let your body to release, it's good.

Crying is good. Yelling is good. Let the grief express itself, because then it will not make you sick. It will just be softer and softer, and you'll be managing it beautifully. Of course, there will be, you know, I'm sure you have times when it like, here it comes again, and two, three days you're like... And I'm like that too. It comes and goes. But I welcome it now. I'm like, okay, it's time.

Time to feel it. Time to bow my eyes. Time to do breath.

And then it goes again.

It’s not like you can just pick and choose who you're gonna be friends with, right? But I think there are probably a lot of opportunities out there. Many more than we think, you know?…And then it's kind of like, well, if someone is your friend and they wind up being sort of a passing silhouette that you don’t spend much time with, but for whatever reason they have some effect on you that you carry, then that's still worth it, you know? There are different gradations of closeness, relationships, friendships, all that stuff. And I mean, as much as I can be bummed out and hurt by folks, and probably bum people out and hurt folks, I'm very humanist and people are worth it. Even though they are they take so much effort, it's still really worth it.

I love Mike and I'm so happy that he was in my life and is still in my life in the way that he is. This is an opportunity for me to acknowledge it. I get to say I love you to Mike.

I have way more compassion for people….Because I know that everybody goes through something, or everyone may be dealing with something. And I think before, in a way, we’re kind of conditioned to judge people for how thy show up and how they behave, and this is bad, this is good. And although there’s bad behavior and good behavior, I don’t really think of people too much as being bad people or bad kids. I stopped believing in that, and I really start looking at what did this person experience in their life, and why are they behaving this way?So I think that definitely has changed for me, is the compassion and giving people grace.

And it’s no way by any means you treat me bad and I’m going to accept that. And to have boundaries is such a big thing. Everyone talks about boundaries but to have those boundaries when you need them. But instead of scolding someone or going off on someone or judging someone, all the things that’s so easy to do, it’s like, hmmm, I wonder what’s going on with that person that we don’t know about.

[Storytelling] is like personal cartography. It's like your own personal map making that you get to etch into your life. And then share with people, which is amazing to be able to not hold it all on your own, to be able to offer it to listeners and then get that sense of like, “oh wow, I am not alone in this”. Because so many people come up to you and tell you about their experiences and then my story isn't like of isolation and grief anymore. It's... I mean it is, but it's also this deep connection to other people who have had similar experiences, but without that space to share the story that connection isn't formed. I really don't know where I would be without my play, without having had the ability to share it and connect with other people. Because after my brother died, I had a really hard time. I didn't meet anybody else who had lost someone to an overdose or had lost a sibling. I felt very much alone. And in doing it for the first time, my play, I did it in a basement of the old Green Shirt space. It was very supportive friends and people in that community and it felt like it was like a coming out of sorts. It was like, “this is this big deep secret that I have that I need all of you to know because if you don't, I don't know how I'm going to be able to continue to exist in this community if you don't know all this about me.”

One of the things that I've learned and discovered is that the brain stores all memories holographically. So a memory may be stored, for example, the wedding that you went to when you were your sister's wedding, or something like that. It might be stored over here on this side with all weddings, and it also might be stored actually, on the left side more stored time-wise with respect to all weddings, and then it might be stored with all family. And so it's stored holographically. There's a full memory of it over here and a full memory over here, and a full memory. So that's what holographically means. So doesn't it make sense that the heart can also store? Because that's the first brain that forms in the fetus is the heart brain.

So doesn't it make sense that the heart could store holographically love, the relationship? So we can love wholly that person, and this person, and this person with our whole heart, because it's holographic.

We’re both people that are taking creative pursuits that have a basis of loss coming from them. And I think that is part of the equation of like, it can feel selfish to profit off of it in any way. I don't mean profit financially, but just even profit, like in your life, like enriching it, like, “oh, I have this cool podcast”, or the book you're writing or the play I have. Because you know, sometimes it can feel bad to use any part of something terrible and do something good, like as if you're suddenly buying into the “everything happens for a reason,” which feels terrible. Not like you're buying into it, but like you're promoting it or endorsing it is the world, which doesn't feel good. Like, emotionally, logically, I think it's clear to see you're not – as long as you're being sensitive to the person. Logically, it's like, “oh, that's not a problem, right?”Like, that's the thing that happened and you're just picking up scraps. Like, I've talked a little bit about like, is there permission to use it in art or use the experience in any way?

One of the main questions I've been struggling with over the course of my grief is, was what we had real? Was the friendship that I had with her real, or was it all in my head, and that I made it more important after her death because of my grief? And it was like I was looking for proof. I was always looking for proof. And there was “proof” everywhere, but nothing was enough. At the funeral there were pictures of me with her. That wasn't enough proof. Lauren's mother gave me a hug and said, “Thank you for being so special to Lauren.” That wasn't enough proof. I was invited to their house and allowed to go into her bedroom and look through her stuff. That wasn't enough proof. Her parents welcomed me with open arms fully acknowledged our friendship. And that wasn't enough.

And it made me think, what is it that I'm looking for? And I think what I realized recently as I was writing was that the proof is just HER. The proof is her living and breathing. Because when she was alive it was a reciprocal relationship, right? Like, love went both ways…

Now I finally know the answer to what I've been searching for — which is her, I've been searching for her — and I can't find her living and breathing because she's dead. So I'm going to have to find another way to find peace with it. And I think that that's just going to continue to be a journey that I take.

I would define forgiveness as a letting go…If you have a story looping in your head, about something that happens or something you did, something someone else did, there’s a resentment or regret, something unresolved. It occupies your energy and a space in your mind. Forgiveness is like something that cuts the cord to that and can make that story disappear for you in a way that is from the energy of love. It transforms the energy, brings that energy that you’ve been wasting in your mind…So forgiveness is a powerful way to release the past. Get into the present moment. And now here in the present moment, you have an opportunity for something new.

So when someone is in that deepest, darkest hole, I want them to realize that the dark isn't necessarily something bad. Because I think that that's what we made it, and we've interpreted it to be someplace bad. But the dark can also be a place where we heal, because the dark is where we rest. Where we sleep, where we get to dream. And that's not so scary. So it's recognizing that even though you may feel like you're in that deep, dark hole, that you can still find hope there.

We’re Jewish, and they have a really beautiful tradition when you lose somebody. You wear a pin, a black little ribbon pin, but part of the ribbon’s torn and you wear it outside on your coat or your shirt depending on the weather and when people see it, they know that you're hurting so even if they don't know you, it's a visual sign that that person is grieving. And in the Jewish tradition, if you go to temple, they say the name of a loved one that you lost every year on that anniversary of their death. They say if anyone has lost somebody this week, please stand. If anyone's lost anybody in the last month, please stand…visually, you see everyone's losing people and that you're not alone.

I wasn't her best friend, right? I wasn't her boyfriend. I wasn't her sibling. You know, I was just barely becoming something important to her. So I've also struggled a lot with like, you know, it breaks my heart, but I am not—this is also a classic struggle for me—I'm not the primary site of trauma, and therefore my feelings are not worth discussing. And that's not, of course, true. Everyone's feelings are worth time and discussion and care, but I really struggle with seeing other people as sort of the primary hurt person. And so I need to kind of “put up and shut up” to take care of the primary hurt person or to not cause more pain to the primary hurt person. And so I really struggle with the idea of reaching out or something, because I'm sort of like, who the hell am I to be like, “can we talk” or whatever?

Beating yourself up is very normal. That's where forgiveness comes in. I lost an uncle when I was 16. And he was actually more a best friend than an uncle. And he got very sick with terrible disease. And I didn't go see him. I couldn't see him in that condition. And for years and years, I beat up on myself that I hadn’t seen him, and oh how terrible it was. That doesn't serve them and it doesn't serve you. So speaking to your audience: It's really important to grieve however you need to grieve. When you’re ready to forgive, remember to forgive yourself and them. Because there's always stuff that gets left undone.

I think we live in this world now where we don't talk about this stuff. Like I can tell you that 100% that there are people, more than we think, who are lonely as shit, and have nobody and are so confused and are like isolating, and isolating, and that breaks my heart. And whenever I moved to a new country…And then there was a new kid, I would always invite that kid…Because they would sit alone, and I could see it…Because that's an awful experience. Being like, “Where do I sit?” Like that's real. But it is important to talk about feeling like you don't have a friend or feeling like you don't have someone who you can start building something off with. It is sad. Of course it's sad. You know, I wish more people had more friends.

Prison just strips you bare to just the inner part of who you really are. That's all you have left when you're in prison. And if you're lucky enough, you can focus on that and find ways that you can bring that forth when you get out of prison because, going back to superficial relationships and casual relationships, it just never did work for me after prison because those things are not important. So I have a few people in my life that I have these really deep, deep relationships with. And if you're not a person that I can be deep with then, you know, I just don't take the time because I've learned what you can receive from an investment that's so much deeper and casual friendships just really don't have value to me anymore.

And it was kind of a union that was just supposed to be from that point forward. Like we took all our classes together. We worked together, we studied together, and she was just, I mean, the yin to my Yang, in so many beautiful ways. She made me feel like I belonged in a time that I never really felt like I did. And so that partnership, just that that ability to feel like I was forging into this impossible future doing this impossible thing. It just felt not lonely and it felt doable. And it was just the coolest way to meet somebody. And then to know that that type of just casual interaction turned into one of the most profound and deepest, closest friendships that I have.

But then when you're in a situation where you actually are grieving a friend, who isn't a family member, who was such an integral part of your life, like your actually daily life…And not to say that your parent isn't a part of your daily life, I just lost my dad so I can tell you that that's hard. But when you lose a friend, it's completely different because those are the people that you laugh with. Those are the people you're silly with. Those are the people that you make memories with, when you are at the pinnacle of your life…going out to dinner, having a lot of fun sharing your family and their family and having dinners together because you choose to…

My brother had a theory about what it takes to process grief... And his idea was that once you're able to integrate that event as a part of the story of your life, then you're able to move forward…unresolved trauma, things that keep us stuck in certain places, are situations where we're unable to integrate an event with our story or our idea of what our life is.

And I think specifically with friends that is harder because of what we talked about, like “whose story is it?”, it feels sometimes inappropriate to think about things in that way. And it also sometimes is hard to come away with a clear story, like who “was I to this person?”, “they were someone to me but was that truly who they were because other people see them different”. I think it can cause more reason to be stuck…you have more of an inability to integrate that story because the pieces don't come together as easily…

…grief is universal and highly personal. And we all go through grieving, but rarely are we doing it at the same time. And even if you and I both lose someone equally important to us, we each had individual relationships. And so it's still going to be a personal response and reaction. And that can be really difficult for other people to swallow. It can be even harder for other people to hold. And it I think it's sort of like a balance between you know, “I'm grieving. I don't need you to hold my grief. But I do need you to hold space for my grief.” There's a difference and I think a lot of people feel like it's one in the same. Like, “if you're sad, I have to be sad.”

I like to describe grief as like a ball and your brain is a box. And in the beginning, your brain is quite small, the box is quite small and the ball is quite big, and it keeps bumping around and every time it bumps a surface. Every time it bumps the inside of the box you're hurting, and you're back in that in that very first deep, deep, sorrowful pain. But as time goes on the box around the ball grows, and it hits the sides less and less often. It's never gonna stop hitting the sides of that box. You're always gonna have moments where you go back to that place and you're hurting and you're in pain. But it will happen less and less often. And you'll have time to grow around it and learn how to deal with it.