Episodes 46 and 47 - Mapping Our Grief Through Storytelling

LISTEN TO PART 1 of the episode

LISTEN TO PART 2 of the episode

HANNAH: Yeah, so I've been thinking a lot about storytelling and how it’s kind of like acting but it’s sort of not, it’s kind of just telling the truth. [laughs]

JACK: Yeah, which depending on your view of acting it’s kind of the same in a big way. But like telling the truth as fully yourself and your own stories and your own words, versus telling the truth as a character. But yeah, I think I’ve gotten a lot better at acting through storytelling because I’ve exercised that impulse around being vulnerable in front of people. Or not that impulse, but muscle, that vulnerability muscle that actors need to have is something that I’ve definitely, it’s gotten stronger for me through storytelling.

HANNAH: Ohh, that’s so cool, because acting should be telling the truth, but you’re right it’s a conduit through a character. So I could totally see how that would help with that, yeah. That’s so cool. My friend Michele who I brought to your latest performance of your one-person show, she was like “oh my god that was so good!” and she and I met at a writing conference. So she approached storytelling through the writer’s angle, and I mentioned that you’re also an actor and she was like, “totally! That’s why it was so amazing!” She could tell you had the writing and acting experience. I don’t know, I love how storytelling is a combination of writing and acting. Because you also have to write it or create it.

JACK: Yeah, no definitely. You’re right, and that’s another muscle that has gotten stronger for me over the years, in like how do I want to express something in a way that is fun for me to tell and I think fun for the audience to listen, but I’m still getting my point across in what I want to say. I don’t know, I never have taken a writing class, I’ve never studied writing formally, but I think just by watching a lot of movies and tv and listening to podcasts, just that, what I like about writing has just kind of come up for me and it’s something I love to do. 

HANNAH: Yeah, yeah. And do you find like that through storytelling, both in the writing and the performing of it, that you're able to like make connections in your life that you wouldn't have made if you didn't do the storytelling?

Like, in your play, you weave together all these different, I would say scenes except, you know, they’re real life, and you make connections of different parts of your life in a really beautiful way. And it's like, if you hadn't like written that play, would you not have made those connections in the same way? Or I don't know how you see that.

JACK: Yeah, that is definitely a deep question. Because in my play, I write about losing my brother to an overdose. And I explore that experience through my relationship to caffeine and romance. And I think when I was writing it, I wasn't really thinking about it. It wasn't very self-reflective. It was more so just like, it was a need—I need to talk about this and I want to do it in an artistic format that I can share with other people. So when I was writing it, it was more just like, I got to get this out. I got to get this out. I got to get this out. Like an exorcism of sorts.

And looking back on it, I've definitely made more connections or have seen, maybe things that were true or things that I believed to be true then, that I don't think are true anymore. Like, storytelling I think has helped me learn about some truths in my life, but it's also helped me understand how my life has changed over time. Based off the stories I've written in the past, which is even more powerful for me, I think.

HANNAH: Yeah, I hadn't even thought of it like that. That totally makes sense. Like when you revisited your play, did you make changes to it based on that or did you kind of stay in that space?

JACK: Some. I mean, and it's also I'm playing in the play, I'm like playing versions of myself. So like in the play I'm playing my 16 year old self quite a bit and my 16 year old self is like seeking romantic relationships out of a, like filling a void, like wanting to feel love in a way that I wasn't experiencing love and other places in my life and I can play that 16 year old version of myself but know that that's not where I'm at today, that like I've done a lot of work in the last 15 years of my life to be able to not express love or not seek love like that. And I certainly could, you know, I have the like the capacity to do that but, like in and being that version of myself, it's cool to get to acknowledge like, oh, that's not who I am anymore. That's not behavior that I lean into anymore because of the ways I've been able to grow and change and the ways that I want to experience love today. And it's not like that.

HANNAH: Yeah.

JACK: But there were definitely some themes around grief that I've had to change in my play. Like at the end of the play, I talk directly to my brother and I tell, in the first version, when I first wrote it, he died in 2015 and I wrote it like 2016, 2017. So pretty quickly after he died. And there was this big moment for me at the end of the play when I was first doing it where I say, like, “I don't know what to do with all the love that I have for you that I can't give to anybody else.” And that was where it stopped. It was just this huge moment where I was like, oh, I don't know what to do. But over the years of doing the play I've added to that moment. Because now I do know what to do with that love, or I have a better understanding of what to do with the love that I have for my brother to like, keep it alive. And I can continue to love him, but also having the capacity to love other people too that are present and here like on this plane in this universe. Cause I think the first version of the play was like, “I've got all this love I have for you. And I really, that's all I got. Like I can't, it's hard for me to like feel like I can love other people cause I'm so wrapped up in this love I have for you.”

But you know, with more time and therapy and all kinds of things that I've been able to work into my life, I've come to understand a different way of loving my brother while being able to love other people too. So that was a big part, that's like a big change for me that I've made to the show.

HANNAH: Is that when you said something along the lines of, “I can love someone with my full heart and love someone else and they're both true?”

JACK: Yeah, yeah, exactly. In the most recent version that you saw, I say something to the effect of, “It's like funny how over time I've learned that two things can be true at the same time, like how I love you, but I can also love other people with my whole heart.” Something like that. Yeah, I'd have to pull up the script [laughs. It’s not quite in my head in the way that uh, you know.

HANNAH: Yeah. Yeah, that part really stuck with me because it's, it must be like part of the journey. It's almost like I also came to the same realization separately, you know, like we're, you know, have two different experiences and I kind of reached a similar realization where I was like, oh, I don't have to like—and I don't even think, I didn't even think I was doing this consciously—but I was blocking people off.

JACK: Sure.

HANNAH: You know, kind of like holding tight, like “no, no, no,” like I can't let go like in order to like love her with my full heart, like I have to hold it tight and keep it locked, you know? And then similarly, I was like, “oh wait, the heart actually isn't a finite space that you fill, like a glass of water, like whoops, full, I can't add any more! Like, oh, that's not how it works.” So yeah, when you said that in your play, that really hit me hard because I also have learned that you can hold two things at once and both can be true. So yeah, that was super powerful. I didn't know that that was something you added. That's...wow.

JACK: Yeah, and definitely something that I needed all that time, like it'll be eight years this summer. So like, it's really powerful for me to reflect on that change. And notice that, yeah, there was a point where I was very protective of who I love, or like I felt…I think it's an abandonment thing, for me at least. Like a fear of like losing the people I love. Being, like open to that love and knowing… but yeah, you're right, I like the metaphor that you just offered—or maybe it was a simile, I don't remember but—

HANNAH: [laughs]

JACK: [laughs] The glass of water, like yeah, it's like I'm too full of love for this one person that isn't here anymore so I can't love anybody else. I think that is also, that was true for me too. I'm really grateful that time and all the things has helped allow me to understand that it's not my truth anymore.

HANNAH: I just think it's just so powerful that storytelling is kind of a way that you put a stake in the ground for like, this is how I feel right now. And because it was a piece of art that you created, like a tangible piece of art that you can revisit, then like, five, eight years down the road, you can look back at it and be like, “wow, like my stake has moved!” And it's also like a way to see your progress. I don't know if you're not writing it down, or, I don’t know it might be a little like harder to track. I don’t know if that makes sense.

JACK: Yes, you’re totally—it’s like personal cartography. It's like your own personal like 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, like I am not alone in this”. Because so many people come up to you and tell you about their experiences and then your story isn't one... I'm speaking for my own... 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 and then... Ouch. 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 was, and that was really like, it felt like it was like 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.

That was really amazing and then getting to then go out to different communities with my story that are connected to like the recovery or like connected to people who have lost loved ones to addiction. I was able to meet so many people with similar experiences and then I found myself feeling like I was a part of this larger group that I wasn't alone in my experience. So yeah not only storytelling has helped me understand where I've been and how far I've come. It's also helped connect me to people with similar stories, and that has helped me grow as well.

HANNAH: Wow. Yeah, and it's like, that's so powerful. And it just makes me think about how without that, without that conduit or whatever you wanna call it. Our society isn't set up for that kind of connection unless you create it yourself, you know?

JACK: Yeah, it's a flaw. It's a flaw, for sure.

HANNAH: [laughs] It's a societal flaw.

JACK: It's a society flaw, but it takes people like you doing this podcast and me telling my story. Like, I do think that it is, I don't know if I, I mean, a lot of people who want to find this sense of connection that makes it possible.

HANNAH: Yeah.

JACK: But you're right, there isn't, I don't know of a communal space set up by our larger entity, there's no government program to help people connect, not that I know of.

HANNAH: Yeah, yeah, totally. It's like just someone said this word once that there's little ecosystems rather than it being a large ecosystem. You got to go and find your little ecosystems, whether it's like, a community that you find or a podcast or like, whatever. And those little ecosystems are like, thank God we have them, right? Whether we create them or find them. There is something a little bit isolating to the larger society of only being able to connect in little separate ecosystems. I don't know, have you had that experience or am I making that up?

JACK: No, I think you're entirely right. And especially around this theme of grief and loss, especially even getting further into the subset of losing a friend or, from my experience, a sibling, because there isn't a whole lot of resources or no system set up to help you go into the next phase of your life, at least not that I was able to find.

HANNAH: That’s crazy.

JACK: I mean I still struggle. I'm a part of a grief group that meets once a week. I don't go every week, but honestly I don't go every week because it doesn't necessarily feel like it's for me. Like in this group it's for people who have lost loved ones to addiction, but it's all parents in this group almost exclusively. And obviously I'm happy that they have that resource, but there is a part of me that's like, “ this isn't quite for me.” So even in some of the searching and the digging that I've done for further connection in my experience, doing my play is the most success that I've found in creating this little ecosystem for myself in connecting with other people. Because I have, like through doing my play, I have met other people who have lost siblings to addiction. I have met people who are very much like me, but that's the only way. It's really, I haven't found it in any other capacity.

HANNAH: It just makes me so angry.

JACK: I know. Yeah, it sucks.

HANNAH: Like, what? Oh my god, like... What? I'm honestly like, I'm at lost for words. That is so infuriating that there's not something for you that you can find easily, right? Like, there's probably something out there somewhere, but like you haven't found it. Like, it's not easily accessible. That isn't there to like, catch you and hold you. You know like…Gosh, and you know, even though my experience is different, I can relate to what you said where like, you're like, “oh, this space isn't for me.” Cause like I tried one grief group and granted, of course, I could try more times than once, but I kind of didn't really feel like I belonged either, not by any fault of the people moderating or whatever, but it was just, by happenstance or whatever, the people that were there had lost partners and parents. And that was it. Like there was no other, like there was no sibling loss, there was no friend loss. And I just kind of felt like the odd duck out, like, I don't know, like, “oh, I'm gate-crashing this group.” I don't know. Like, sorry I'm here. I don't know.

JACK: Yeah, no, I do have the same feeling when I go to this group and they ask me how I'm doing and the first thing I think is like, “well, I'm not a parent who lost a kid,” which, you know, is such an awful thing.

HANNAH: Oh gosh, yeah.

JACK: Yeah, it's like a guilt just about taking up some of that space that could have been taken up by one of the parents who are there who are very much in a, you know, a bad bad place, a tough place.

HANNAH: And there's like, there is a sort of specific comfort that you get by being surrounded by people who have a similar loss, like immediately having a group of people who also lost a sibling. Like there's a specific comfort to that. And you can understand each other in a way that literally nobody else can.

JACK: Absolutely. And I think what, I mean for me, and I go through phases of this too, and my play is a really great mechanism for me in this way too in telling my story where you know, I'll go a while not thinking about it or not…Trying to let it be something that's hidden, but then but then I have to go do this show, and tell people about it, which really does make me... yeah, it does create this space where I have to intermingle with it. Whereas, I think plenty of people, and I'm including myself in this, again, will go a long time trying to not think about it or not letting the grief be an aspect of their life. So I think that there are a lot of people out there like me who don't have the mechanism of doing this play to make themselves…so I’m really grateful for that. I'm really grateful that I get to have that check-in with myself whenever, and I've, you know, over the last…it comes and goes. I mean the show that you saw, I had not done it in public for like a couple years. So leading up to that show, I felt a lot more for my brother, you know, I was thinking a lot more about him. I was reworking aspects of the script. There was just a lot going on for me that I know that if I did not have to prepare for the show, I probably wouldn't be putting myself through that. It would be more comfortable not to.

So I guess that's another aspect of all of this that I want to acknowledge is that it makes sense why sometimes there isn't communities for people like us because the people who experience it, sometimes it's just easier to not think about it. I don't know, I'm not saying that's healthy or that's good, I just, I think that is a part of the conversation that we're having.

HANNAH: Totally, totally. And it's so hard to know, especially since the more I talk about this and the more people I talk to and the more research I do, I'm learning how our society is not educated on how to deal with it in a healthy way. And I think in some ways we don't know, which way is the most “healthy”. Cause in some ways there's no like, there's no one way. Like there's no right answer. And I do think that like, I don't know, from my experience too sometimes you do have to kind of put blinders up and put it aside for a bit. But I think putting it aside permanently, at least in my opinion, that's not healthy. At least for me.

And revisiting it is uncomfortable but important for healing because yeah, like I don't know, I can also relate to what you said earlier where it was like you were carrying this big secret and doing the show is like “you guys need to know this, otherwise I'm carrying this really heavy secret burden and I just need to get it out like I need to tell you.” I felt that so extremely the first times I did my show as well. And it was, it was a conduit that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And the people who saw my show were family and friends and it was over Zoom because it was during the pandemic. And I didn't realize this till afterwards, but it was just a really efficient way to just unburden myself in front of my entire family. [laughs]

JACK: Yep.

HANNAH: Like, okay, watch this one hour show and then like now you know how I'm feeling. [laughs]

JACK: What did that give you? What did that help you with?

HANNAH: It was like more effective than five years of therapy. I'm not kidding, like obviously I needed that therapy, but as far as like how I felt before and after, it was literally like a 10,000 pound burden was lifted. I felt like a different person. Almost immediately. And that's, yeah, it was like... I didn't even know that's what I needed. I didn't know like, “oh, in order to get past that first of probably many many many humps in this horrible grief journey, the first hump is to open myself wide and just like share my ‘secret’.” Cause it shouldn't be a secret! Like that's such a heavy burden, it's poison! It is poison!

JACK: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think... Well, I think that's awesome that you felt that way, that it was like something that you were able to go of.

[Beginning of Part 2]

JACK: Social media, I feel like, is a way that we have found in our society today to release some of that burden and to make these announcements and to express our grief. And I think that that is helpful. But it does lack the deep, nuanced quality of really being able to connect with someone about what's going on with you in so many ways. And... It's also funny to me that I've been paying more attention to different kinds of therapies that use mushrooms and MDMA. All these trip therapies, which I think probably help a lot of people and that’s really awesome and this what you just described to me in doing your show kind of sounded like that. Like you did this thing and you were immediately changed. Like you immediately felt different, you immediately felt like a weight was lifted. Have you had the impulse to want to do it again for that same level of letting go?

HANNAH: Yeah, yeah, and I know we've chatted about it. I would like to do it this year. I think I’ll probably have to, similar to you, make some changes to the script. I think it'll be very emotional to revisit it, like you were saying, to put yourself back into that headspace. But I do want to, I feel like I'll probably unearth even more layers of just how I'm feeling and my emotions. And yeah, a lot of my beliefs have fundamentally changed since then, I think. But yeah, I definitely do want to revisit it. I think that it would probably reveal something.

It's funny that you mentioned the, like the trip therapy. Or, you know, is it like mushrooms or something?

JACK: Yeah. The psychedelic assisted therapy.

HANNAH: Yeah, yeah. Because I've actually recently been really intrigued by it, and I want to try it, like microdosing. I remember reading several years ago, like “microdosing makes you really happy, awake, and creative.” And I'm like, “well, great! Like, let's do it!” [laughs] Like, what's stopping us? I would love to feel awake and happy. Yeah, have you ever tried it before?

JACK: Oh yeah, a couple of times. And it has been extremely therapeutic and made me really connect with my grief and loss in a way that I never had before, which was amazing. Yeah, just a couple of mushroom trips that I've gotten to go on with friends. Last year, I just got to do it twice. And that was the first two times that I've done it. And yeah, it was amazing to feel really connected to a larger universe and also to spend some time with my deeper thoughts that I don't typically allow to surface.

HANNAH: Was it micro dosing or was it regular dosing? [laughs]

JACK: It was regular. It was, yea, both times, a healthy dose of the drug to go on a larger trip. It really changed something about my—I mean, not everything about me, but I think something really healthy shifted once I was able to connect with myself in that way for sure. So if you want to try it, if you feel ready.

HANNAH: Yeah, I do. I think I... Just from what I've heard about it, it sounds like it helps you to make connections that you wouldn't normally make, because it kind of pulls you out of your regular, like, well-worn track in your brain. Am I just making stuff up or is that how it works? [laughs]

JACK: No, I think you're totally right. And honestly, not to force a connection, but it does kind of in a way remind me of storytelling because in our storytelling, we're trying to reassess our existence and put more of a perspective on it that allows us to... I don't know if “move on” is the right term, but I think in telling a story you are trying to... frame it, frame an aspect of your life that I think helps you. It’s not always happy, but I think in the way that we want to tell our stories, it's just helpful in this therapeutic way. And I think in a way, the psychedelics that I have tried, it's like you're rewriting a certain story about yourself and about the way that you connect with the world. And I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what...I don't know if it's for everybody, but in the couple times that I've tried it, it definitely has helped me see myself in the way that I connect with the world in a much more positive way.

HANNAH: Mmm, that's so cool. And I've been learning a lot recently about stories that we have running in the back of our head. And they use the word “story”. And I think there's lots of different words you could use for it, but like, kind of connections that you make, like a way that your brain makes sense of something. And a lot of our stories are really negative and distorted. And a lot of them come from an uncomfortable or traumatic experience, like a story will pop up and then that'll be running in your subconscious without you even realizing. A very extreme example is like a story that's, “I am unlovable”. And maybe a bad experience happened and then to make sense of it, you thought, “oh I guess I'm unlovable”. And then that just was running in the back of your head. And yeah, I've been trying to un-pack some of the stories I tell myself, and I don't know where they came from, I could try to source them back to a memory, maybe. And if I were to go, what's the story beneath that? What's the story beneath that? What's the story beneath that? Because I think you can go down, down, down, down, down, until you find the core one.

One of my core ones, and it's going to sound really melodramatic and make no sense, but is, “no one likes me”. I don't really mean that literally, but that is kind of like a story that I had in the back of my head for a while that maybe is also connected to a fear of abandonment, which I know you mentioned earlier about abandonment stuff. But yeah, I think through storytelling you also find common threads that might be a story that you're telling yourself like “oh wow all the stories I feel compelled to tell are about being afraid no one likes me” or whatever it is.

Because that was another thing that I thought was really cool in your classes um and through telling little stories and then maybe weaving them together in the end, that really helped make connections where I'm like, “oh, like, I never would have thought these connect, but they do.” They're part of a bigger story that I'm telling about myself. I don't know, I'm getting really, like, meta here, but it's... I just love thinking about this kind of stuff.

JACK: Yeah, no, I think you're pulling a really powerful thread in saying that when we tell our stories subconsciously, perhaps there is a bigger, deeper thing that we're trying to express that we may not even know, even though we're the one telling the stories. But as we continue to tell our stories and we see these patterns about the stories that we're telling, it does illuminate an aspect of ourselves of like, “oh, yes, like here is something about me.” Which I mean, I think this you asked when we started, but like “what did storytelling help me understand about myself?” Whereas yeah, definitely like in writing stories about my brother, I started to write all these stories about romance I experienced in high school. And I was like, why is my experience with romance so connected to my brother? Like, “oh, well, like he taught me what a relationship looks like. And I modeled how I wanted to treat women or girls like in the way that he did. And in trying to go after all these relationships, I was trying to fix something about my relationship to love that I wasn't experiencing with my brother.”

And I think that's a really complicated, deep aspect of myself that I've like continued to understand over time. But in getting to tell my story, I don't know if that's something that I would have recognized about myself If I hadn't told so many of the stories that I get to tell in my play or like written and work through it in that way. And I think it helped me reassess my relationship to love in my current day, and like asking myself as I was writing the play “okay well, why am I trying to date this person?” And I mean, my wife, who I got married to not even a year ago, she and I were dating when I did the play, I did my first run of it. So not the basement show, but I got to do like 10 shows at a little theater here in Chicago. She and I had just started dating. We had been dating for like two months when I did that run. So it was a lot for her to have to step into. I guess it didn't scare her away because now we're married.

But yeah, even in that relationship, I kind of got to recognize in doing the show like, “oh, where is all this coming from and why am I engaging with her in this way?” And it definitely helped with moving forward in my romantic life, getting to do this show. Because it helped me recognize some patterns that I did not think were serving me. And try to come at love from a different place that maybe I had not for the majority of my active romantic years as a human.

HANNAH: That's so incredible. And I feel like that is in a lot of ways a very universal experience where we play out patterns a lot of times in romance, like patterns that are unhealthier that aren't serving us. And we're like, “why do I keep dating people who do X, Y, Z? Like, I don't understand why I can't break this pattern!” But I do feel like it's like that's just seems so common just based on what I've seen. And it's like, wow this storytelling and your play kind of helps you break free from that in a way. Is that the case?

JACK: I think so. In a way, I think it can help. And also, you get to explore your patterns and your past in this very creative way. And within that creativity, there's all this possibility for play and for fun, and then also getting to create your own outlook on yourself. So I do think that helps you grow. You're literally creating your own narrative, and that's such a powerful thing for someone to be able to do. I think in a big way, we all want to own our own story. We all want to be able to express who we are and know who we are. Through storytelling I've been able to do that in a way that has allowed me to grow as a person and I don't know how else I would have done that. Without using my creative energy, I don't know how else I would have been able to bone these aspects of myself.

HANNAH: Yeah, and it's probably one of the most primal instincts, I don't know if primal is the right word, but primal instincts for humans, like that it just isn't as embedded in our society as a whole anymore. I am not a historian, so this is probably going to be a very simplified version of history, but I feel like we lived in smaller villages, everyone knew everyone, again I'm not a historian, and like…[laughs]

JACK: I think you're right, I think this is correct though.

HANNAH: I'm like, oh my god am I making this up? And you know, like maybe we'd even commune together at night, like share their day, but like, I have realized this a lot over the past several years, especially as I go through states of extreme loneliness. I look around and I'm like, “why are we all living in separate boxes? Like, why do I not know the person who lives in that box right next to my box? And why are we all then just sitting in our own boxes, feeling sorry for ourselves and watching a glowing box?” The TV [laughs].

JACK: Yeah.

HANNAH: I'm like, wait, this doesn't make any sense. And then even though it might seem simple to just walk over to the next-door box and be like, “hi, I live in that box.” It's so much harder to do than you would think. And then it still takes effort and it's not the standard way that it just happens.

And I've been reading a book, actually I highly recommend this book, it's called Platonic. And it talks a lot about friendship and also about how as a society we put it on a lower tier than romance, which I think is another reason why a lot of people use romance to fill voids. And the author is talking about how, basically the conclusion I came up with on my own, she backed up with science and I was like, “I feel so validated. Like I'm not crazy. Like this is a real thing that's happening!” That the automobile industry actually really weirdly, that was a big reason why we're now so segregated because cities are built for cars, which keeps us literally further apart. I don't know. I could talk about it forever. It's fascinating to me and I'm also like “how do I break this divide? I don't know!” [laughs]

JACK: Podcasts!

HANNAH: [laughs]

JACK: Well, I know I'm being silly, but I do think that is really one way of being able to bring people together as like us, you know, doing this right now. Like we're having a really great conversation and I think I love, you know, hosting events here at Green Shirt Studio where people get to come together and share their stories and be in space together rather than, like you mentioned, in their own little boxes watching a glowing box, which is such an aspect of who we are today and it sucks. I mean every now and then it's pretty great because there's some really great stuff on that glowing box.

HANNAH: Yeah there’s a lot of great stuff on that box. [laughs]

JACK: You know, there is some really fun stuff, but…last night I was trying to find something on Netflix and I did not want to watch anything and I turned something on and I got like 30% of my attention and 70% of my attention was just like “ugh, this sucks”. You know, like I didn't like it. I wasn't having fun. But yeah, that is just like a part of who we are today for some reason.

HANNAH: There's this joke that's like, “Netflix think I liked this show just cause I watched 25 hours of it.”

JACK: Yeah, right, like, nah.

HANNAH: It's like I didn't like it, Netflix.

JACK: Right, I didn't enjoy myself while I was watching that. But I watched all of it.

HANNAH: Yeah, but I watched everything. Yeah, I feel everything you were saying. I love that Green Shirt has that community where you literally come together in this space and you bridge that divide. Thank God we have stuff like that, right? I don't know, I just want more of it or I want it to be more integrated or easier to find. I don't know. It's hard.

JACK: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's why people love summer camp and college so much.

HANNAH: Yes!

JACK: In so many ways, right? It's because you have this like built-in all the time community. I mean, Allison, my wife, she travels and performs at Renaissance fairs, which is just another integrated community where they literally sit around a fire every night after their shows and talk and hang out. Like, yeah, and she loves it.

HANNAH: Wow.

JACK: She gets so much energy from it. And that is something that I do really believe in too and that I'm grateful that I get to be a part of an organization that strives to create that place for people to get to come together. At first it was it was hard because I was self-conscious because I think that's a pretty, that can be like a marketing thing, you know, like “community”. “We’re building a community”. But I really do mean it, you know?

HANNAH: But it's true, yeah.

JACK: It's true, like it is something that I put a lot of effort and time into and just strongly believe in.

HANNAH: When you were talking about romance and you were like, “why do I keep writing about my high school romances? Like, I don't understand.” I'm having the same experience right now. In writing my book, which I've revised so many times I don’t even know what it is anymore. It feels like this jumble of disjointed stories. I'm kind of going through like a, “oh my God!” phase. I'm like, “what even is this?” But through the process of writing it, I keep coming back to stories of failed romance and crushes. It feels like it's separate and I keep cutting it out. But then I'm like, but I wanna put it in. And I think it's because there's connections there that are percolating but just the idea of like… basically what I said earlier where like our society is like “romance is the big thing” like that is the big connection you'll make, your heart is not complete until you find it and then it will solve everything and then you will be a complete person and you just need to find your other half and that is through romance.

And it is like drilled into our heads like from a kid, like Disney movies. Even when I'm like five years old the whole the plot climaxes when they get married. So from a young age I'm like, I got to find that and if I don't find it I'm garbage, you know I'm garbage until I find it. It's kind of like the story that was in the back of my head. Sometimes hilariously disastrous it is and how this boy or this man that I'm idolizing or have a crush on I don't even know who he is, he's like a specter of my imagination. And then it's like meanwhile I'm having this actually really deep real platonic friendship that I'm not even really aware of and that just happens easily while I'm trying to force the romance things that aren't happening easily and that are being forced. And they're happening in parallel. So it's like I do kind of feel like I have to tell one to tell the other, to show these different ways that I'm striving for connection.

JACK: That makes sense to me.

HANNAH: Yeah, okay. And one connection that I made, which was that, you know, my friend and I met at a summer camp, and the big play of the summer, like the theater department who would do one big musical and then one big play. The big play was Romeo and Juliet.

And I just remember Lauren and I, my friend and I, like lost our minds. The play was so well done. And I don't think we'd ever seen the play before, period, or even just like done well. I had just read it in English class and been like, “well this is garbage.” Like, I just like, I hated the play before I saw it. I was like, “this is stupid. They're 13. How could they possibly know that they love each other?” But then you see it. And you're just like, in its spell, right? It's like, “oh my god, this is the most romantic thing I've ever seen.” And we totally lost our minds, especially at the scene where Romeo snuck into her room in the middle of the night, and it was raining and storming and it was dark. And I think it ended up being the last time they saw each other before they died.

And then that kind of very weirdly similar scene happened with me and Lauren. Because the last day of camp she snuck into my cabin which is not allowed in the middle of the night, it was raining. It was like super hard rain, like pounding on the roof, like thunder. She woke me up. Like she was just dark figure. I was like, “what?” I woke up. She was there and she came to say goodbye and we were sobbing and hugging and saying goodbye. And it was this weird parallel of that scene in Romeo and Juliet, but with platonic love instead of romantic love. I don't know, and I would not have made that connection if I hadn't written about it, you know.

JACK: What did that connection help you see or feel?

HANNAH: I think the trouble I'm having is that I can't quite articulate it. It's like I know it's significant, but I don't know how to like explain its significance, you know what I mean?

JACK: Is it like... The weight of Romeo and Juliet's goodbye was like mirrored in the weight of your goodbye with Lauren? But then it also is completely different based off the style of love that transpires and just like, noticing the difference between romantic and platonic but also the platonic being so powerful for you.

HANNAH: Yeah, that's exactly what I think…the weight of it. And the weight of it was only significant, really, in hindsight, where I was like, “oh, that was our big goodbye.”

JACK: Cause you didn’t know.

HANNAH: We didn't know. Like, we thought we wouldn't see each other for a couple of years, and that was enough to make us bawl our eyes out. That was, like, devastating that we wouldn't see each other for even a couple of years. But it ended up being like... Yeah, an even more significant goodbye than we could have possibly known.

JACK: And I think that's another example of storytelling helping you create the narrative of your life. Where it's like, “oh, wow, that was such an incredibly significant moment for me.” That you get to write that story, you get to acknowledge the significance of that moment in this very specific and particular way. And how amazing is that to be able to acknowledge the significant moments of our life? To have that, to be able to illuminate that, is really important. Because if we don't, how do we know who we are, like what's important to us? At least that's how I feel for me. I don't know where I would be at if I didn't get to acknowledge what's important to me through the stories I get to tell.

HANNAH: Yeah, and have other people acknowledge it too, to see it and acknowledge it. It's almost like we need to reflect it off other people too. Like, it'd be one thing if I just wrote the play, but if I didn't get to share it, it wouldn't have had the same effect.

JACK: 100%. You get to feel like, “oh, I'm not crazy, or there's nothing wrong with what's significant to me.” Like people recognize it within themselves too. And how amazing is that to not feel alone in what's significant to you.

Well one thing did hit me. This is like a, I don't know if you want to include this or not, but it is just like one more thing that your first question about like “what did telling your story help you realize?” And my brother was 18 months older than me and he got pretty heavy into alcohol and drugs when he was like 12 or 13 and I was like 10 or 11. So it... And then he died when he was 23 so it was a pretty long saga if you will, at least from my perspective, because I was his younger brother and I just watched my parents go through all these difficult times with him and a lot of just like trouble at the time it was like “oh he's just like a partier or whatever” and then obviously in hindsight I was like “oh no he was struggling with addiction.” And in doing my play I got to understand how much growing up I actually admired my brother even though there was all of this difficulty within our relationship and the way that he was living. It created a lot of tension in our house. And there was all that but in doing my play and writing all these stories there was this real thread that I discovered around him being somebody I wanted to be, like I just like really looked up to him. And that has been really helpful too in processing my grief and continuing to have a relationship with my brother, especially within the context of how he died, I think being able to admire him has been really important to me. And I don't know if that would have happened… I don't know if it would be so real for me, if I wasn't able to make my story or express myself around the love that I have for him.

It’s something that was important to me to say before we get off this call or stop this conversation because I don't know, it's like I talk about storytelling, I talk about losing him and all that, but underneath all that too is this great like admiration and love. So yeah it's just something I wanted to acknowledge too.

HANNAH: Yeah, absolutely. And that's such a huge thing to... not that you like realized it, I don't know if realized it's the right word, but…

JACK: No I think it is in a way, because in losing a sibling to addiction and how long his struggle was, there was so much like, like, “why are you doing that? Like what's wrong with you?” And then getting to get some distance from that and understand it in a larger context is like, “oh wow, that was really hard for you.” And I really, there was a lot of me that just wanted to be like you too, and was really frustrated by this disconnect between wanting to be like you, but then also you doing these things that was not serving the family or you. That was just such a, getting like ripped in half almost as a younger sibling. And that's something that I don't know if I would…like it's something that I do express through my show. I was doing it for a few years before I really noticed some of the lines I put in there. I was like, “oh, is that what I mean by that?” There's a few lines around wanting to be the person I've always wanted to be. I was like, oh, I'm talking about my brother. Oh, okay. I guess if there is this part of me that as a kid, wanted to be like him so badly. And in acknowledging that, I think has been like a big part of healing our relationship.

HANNAH: That’s really really powerful. And that also really stuck with me in your play too, when you talked about how much you admired him. And there was the line of like, “I will never stop being your little brother.” It's like, oh my God. Yeah.

JACK: Yeah, it's a funny thing about grief, is it like crystallizes things in time in some ways like it some things will never change, but then things do change.