More about me…
In 2015, my best friend Lauren passed away suddenly. She is one of the closest friends I’ve had in this life. She was so smart, and talented, and so freaking hilarious. The hardest I’ve ever laughed was with her. I think about her and miss her every single day.
Especially in those initial days, weeks, and months of my grief, I really really needed a community — but I couldn’t find any friend-loss grief groups and had no idea how to find others who’d also lost a friend. And so I had no solid place to land.
I had many many grief dreams during this time — dreams where I wept as I lost her again and again and again, and then woke up weeping. And then I had a dream that really stuck with me: I was sitting on the front steps of a building, resting my forehead on my knees. As everyone raced past me in double-speed, not giving me a second glance, someone finally approached and sat down next to me. They didn’t say anything, but I could tell they were in my time-speed — the slower one — and I rested my head on their shoulder.
I wanted to create that kind of supportive space for others, so in 2023, I started the podcast Friends Missing Friends. It’s a podcast, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a community. It’s a place where we can come together, and lean our head on each other’s shoulders.
Because yes, grief can be lonely. But that doesn’t mean we should have to do it alone.
Storytelling and grief…
I was drawn to podcasting because it’s all about storytelling — sharing our stories heals us. It makes us feel lesson alone. But I think it also does more than that. Telling our stories helps us to track our inner journey, like a personal cartography: if you want to hear more thoughts on this, check out episodes 46 and 47 (“Mapping our Grief through Storytelling”).
One of the most healing moments in my grief journey was writing and performing a one-person show in 2020. First, I joke that it’s a very efficient way to do a deep confessional to ALL your friends and family at once. Like, they have to come to your one-person show, right?! It was an immense unburdening — I’m not exaggerating when I say I felt like a new person after the first performance. I felt the weight lift from my body.
I’m not saying I’m all healed now or anything, but that was a very essential step for me to move FORWARD in my grief. I no longer felt like I was carrying around a big “secret”, which let’s face it, is really really heavy. We shouldn’t have to carry that pain alone.
Anyway, I could talk about storytelling forever. I’m a huge fan. If you want to get an idea of what a one-person show about grief can look like, feel free to check out the recording of my show “42 Days of Summer”. It’s raw, y’all.