I’m overwhelmingly stressed and scared and the fatigue and physical response to that is… well, shocking and overwhelming in its own right.

For example, I’m saying this with complete sarcasm… if you want to drop an instant 10-15lbs, all you need to do is your immediate family suffer devastation and whelp, that’ll do it. (Obviously, I don’t recommend this but it is a true fact for me and a little perplexing)

Sorry, my humor these days is dark and my resting bitch face is ever-present.

I know that there is no check and balance system, but the way I am wired is that I have a brain that is always looking for balances. In some ways, it’s the whole ‘blessing-testing’ phenomenon that I have talked about before. The idea that when you receive a blessing, be wary that a test is coming. And vice versa that if you’re being tested, then there’s a blessing surely will follow.

I have a friend named Rob that believes in this theory so much that he will hear about struggles and say “I’ve got my popcorn ready”, which in Rob-speak means that he is excited to see the blessing(s) that are coming out of your struggle.

Let’s just say this: his tub of popcorn must be pretty damned big for this one.

It is not lost on me that just as soon as I finished my 72,000+ page first draft, everything else in my life started going haywire.

I keep thinking about the blessing/testing rule and that the devil must be scared to death of us and our Purpose for the Kingdom of God because he certainly keeps creating obstacles for us to overcome.

This year was supposed to be a redemption year. The Year of the Fire Horse. Instead, it has quickly become the worst year of our lives in this house, and that is really something for me to admit because Lord knows, I’ve been through some doozies before now.

If you’re the praying kind, please include my son and I in your prayers. I would be so grateful.

Love, Casey

Jeremiah 29:11

It’s life.

But I do find myself going to the gym to lift heavy weights as a way to endure the heavy lifting going on in my personal life.

Several months ago, I told my son that he should be grateful for boring days. Occasionally he would call me and complain that there was nothing to do, no one had any plans made, and everyone he hangs out with was busy doing other things.

He was bored.

I told him then, and I’m saying again now: be grateful for days when nothing exciting is happening because often times, excitement isn’t the joyous kind.

I’m reminded of that now. Enduring a really hard season. And I’m carrying a lot of heavy weight as a result.

And at times, it feels crippling.

Rachel and I talked at length about this season of closing loops. It feels like loops of our lives, things we might not have even realized were evolving, are now closing.

It’s interesting to see it happening and realize that while some loops begin to close and I have a tendency to look for -and hope for- simplicity, it just makes way for more loops to be invented and I begin down a new path.

The paths I’m on right now remind me of the slippery, unsupervised, unsafe and dangerous hiking of a waterfall in Mexico that I attempted and fell backwards and landed my tailbone squarely on a rock.

Paths I shouldn’t be on.

I’m not talking about trains. But this applies to myself right now more than ever.

As I continue trying to get off these wrong trains I’m on, I’m literally throwing out old baggage, boxes, memories, and things that don’t serve me to try to lighten the load and have less to carry for when I jump onto the right train.

This one grabbed hold of a Louisville Slugger and took a swing at my knees, crippling me and leaving me almost-permanently folded into the fetal position whether literally or mentally, in inexplicable anguish that doesn’t feel much like anything I will ever heal from.

It was a September of incredible pain.

The loops have been systematically closing, one after another. When I talk about loops, some seem obvious like a friend moves away or my favorite boss takes a new job. But there are other loops too that have been steady “looping” that I really had no conscious knowledge of until one day the loop just closed and completely changed my life.

It could be something as trivial as my favorite wine glass that tipped over and broke (true story) or as profound and life-altering as my dog having a massive stroke on an otherwise normal Sunday night together.

I remember laying in bed last February, turned on my side and staring at the wall like I had done so many times before, when suddenly I threw my legs over the side, launched myself out of bed and out here to my writing desk, where I sat down and poured out the Prologue of what would go on to become my first work of fiction.

I could never have known how that one act of follow-through, acting on my want to describe an event that I still believe was my bravest act of Self Love, would lead to seven months of me weaving together a story that was truly my bleeding on paper and simultaneously healing my broken soul.

Closing a loop.

I learned years ago about the idea of blessing and testing. It took a long time to condition myself to expect it, but it is true that when things are all going right (blessing), surely something will come along and challenge me (testing).

But the flipside is true as well. When I’m being tested, I have learned to quietly wait on the blessing because it’s coming.

This season, especially September, has certainly been a blessing-testing time in my life. I finished writing after seven months and produced over 74,000 words and 315 pages of my first draft. I was euphoric, proud, and in a certain amount of disbelief.

It was such a blessing.

And then the testings came. And rocked me to my core. One after another after another. And I am not okay. Far from it, actually.

Life as I knew it has changed fundamentally, and with the massive changes, I am learning how to be even stronger than I was before, if that’s possible? Sometimes I wonder why God continues to challenge me so, even now. Haven’t I endured enough?

Maybe it’s the circumstances, or maybe it’s that my estrogen production is waning, but my patience for everything and everyone that pisses me off, is completely gone.

That’s another loop closed I guess.

My ability to put up with people that waste my time, lie, have no moral compass, or that try to hide their hidden agendas, is non-existent. And that means that I’ve become argumentative, bold, and quite bitchy, all of which feels like new territory for me and I have to say: it’s empowering and I like it.

I guess the loop of being quiet and staying to myself has closed as a result.

I think a lot about how I got here to this place in my life. My parents both gone far too young, leaving behind their one and only child to somehow forge a life of meaning.

I think about them and wonder what they would think of this life of mine.

I hear them in my head, conversations and events of years past that come up to advise me to make wise choices as a mother, a trusted friend, a respected woman in business. As a writer.

I imagine my Mom’s voice saying “hi Honey!” in her sing-songy way that makes my heart melt, or my Dad giving me a bear hug making me feel safe and protected.

(You learn to self-soothe when you don’t have much to work with… in this case, my memories have to do a lot of heavy lifting.)

It’s October 3 as I write this. My Mom’s 77th birthday. She would hate being old and that makes me smirk as I type it because it’s the absolute truth.

The loop of a horrific September is now closed and I am praying this is when the story turns and becomes an October to remember fondly. Please God.

XX, C.

I created Lyanne. I brought her to life. She is not a real person though she feels real, and I’m sure that out there in the world there are people very much like Lyanne that do work similar to hers, that grow up as the middle child in a turbulent household, that make a living doing work that reflects their own underlying need to understand why.

It was my imagination that created Lyanne. She did not exist until my mind built her.

I needed to have a character that I could tell my story to, if that makes any sense at all? When I think back to the early days of writing the characters that would tell this story, it feels now very much like a chicken and egg scenario because I honestly don’t know which came first?

Lyanne’s name is very important, as are all the names in the book. The spelling, the pronunciation. How her name includes a ‘y’ and isn’t spelled Liane instead. Lyanne is pronounce “Lie-Anne” for obvious reasons (at least they are obvious to me).

In the very first couple of days ‘trying on’ her name, as I seem to do with each one (and this is just my weird quirky way of character development that I have had no training in but just do in the way that feels ‘right’ to me), I would correctly pronounce her name when talking about her to Rachel or writing her chapters, but occasionally her name would get mis-pronounced by someone I shared her with.

This didn’t upset me but I paid close attention to how Lyanne name evolved to become normal, how her name and her personality came to exist so effortlessly, and now how she is discussed and understood so fully by those that believe in her.

It feels like a testament to her name. In some strange way, I feel like a proud parent who painstakingly considered every baby name imaginable.

As Lyanne and her character developed, I wanted to play with her last name as well, drawing on the idea that everything in the book is a question about what looks real from what is implied. As I was walking my dog along a nature path one morning, I had this strong and overwhelming desire to have Lyanne’s last name sound like a mirror.

It’s funny to look back on this time and remember how I felt so strongly about the pronunciation of her last name sounding like “is a mirror” because the storyline itself, the mirroring, the ending, all of it was still to come. It had not been discovered yet or even thought of! Again it begs the question:

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

In this case, did Lyanne Isamyrr’s name influence the entire plot of the book?

At face value I would say no but I can’t fully dismiss the idea. The truth is that I entered into this entire writing project feeling more like a scribe and less like a creative. I know that it sounds outlandish and odd to say but I have said it now so many times:

I would have these crazy ideas pop into my head from somewhere, by Someone, and then I would weave them together and try to describe how it looked in my mind. And that is how the story unfolded.

I knew I wanted to write a book. I have known this for years. I have written so many things, been gently nudged to write, and told that I had many books within me just waiting to come out.

I just didn’t know how.

And I’m a major control freak, so when I don’t know how to do something, I can easily get caught up in not understanding a simple task, and it will render me completely incapacitated. To be completely honest, I would have assumed that would have happened here. The fact that it didn’t is mind boggling.

I don’t know anything about creative writing or writing fiction. I have never studied literature or have any working knowledge of pace, movement or plot development and structure. I just read a lot? I know what I like and what holds my attention. Armed with only that, I set out to write a fictional story, based largely on truth, in a way that felt honest, healing, and helpful (hopefully).

When I first met Rachel and told her I wanted to write a book, I had a strong desire to play with a timeline while telling a story. I remember saying constantly that I wanted to “jump back and forth through time” and “confuse the reader”.

That was one of the only requirements I held onto with this book. I wanted to provide confusion that eventually led to understanding.

The author and the reader are the only two people that know what is going on between the chapters. There are times we have flashed forward, flashed back, the perspectives change and the reader is shown everything. But is it all real?

And is what is reflected the truth?

Writing my first fiction has been a crazy experience that has changed me. Not into someone different, but back to myself. It was a very healing and therapeutic seven months of writing, an outlet for me to purge my rage and broken heart, and a vehicle to tell a story that I couldn’t otherwise reconcile.

And it began with the creation of a character that I could talk to like a therapist, the realization that writing fiction allowed me to weave truth together with fantasy, and the opportunity to build a story out of thin air where everything means something.

I took the lemons in my life and made them into lemonade. Thank you Lyanne.

XX, C.

So I learned to turn myself down.
To take up less space.
Downplay my talents.
Love less loudly.
Want less fiercely.

But then I realized:
The ocean has never apologized for its depth.

Thunder has never worried about being too loud or scary.

The sun has never dimmed itself to make anyone more comfortable.

Maybe the problem was never that I was too much?
Maybe I just kept handing myself over to people who needed me to be less so they could feel like more. Keeping me just warm enough for their own comfort level.

They needed me to be lukewarm water.

But I’m fucking molten lava.

XX, C.
September 17, 2026

This common, covert narcissist tactic disguises a lack of accountability as empathy.

The narcissist is not sorry for what they did. They are sorry that you have feelings about it. Your feelings, your problem. And your feelings/problem to them is just wrong or excessive.

The phrase sounds like an apology but it isn’t. It is actually saying that your feelings are the issue, not the behavior that prompted them. It allows the narcissist to appear to care while accepting zero responsibility.

__

A double-bind is a situation that a covert narcissist puts you in that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

An example of a double-bind would be expressing your feelings = “you’re too emotional”, or not expressing your feelings at all = “you never communicate or tell me anything”.

Are you following? Here’s a real world example: When she was quiet, he complained that she never shared her feelings. When she expressed hurt about his behavior, he would get agitated and angry and say, “You’re being so emotional, I can’t even have a rational conversation with you.” She couldn’t win, any response to his double bind was used against her.

This isn’t the only example of a double-bind.

Double binds can show up in all sorts of ways. The narcissist may tell you that your body isn’t ideal and you should diet or stop drinking alcohol and then they will ply you with junk food and wine. As soon as you accept their offering and consume it, they turn it against you.

Talk about a minefield of confusion!

Another example of a double-bind:
”Just tell me what is wrong” / “You’re always complaining, you’re just a fun-sucker”

The double bind here should seem obvious but when you’re IN it, you’re so confused. When you’re asked to share your concerns but then get labeled as a complainer or an “energy vampire”; or you don’t share, and then they accuse you of stonewalling.

—

I think it’s super important to qualify that individual occurrences of these two examples of covert narcissism (and there are more but I just chose two) don’t automatically make someone a covert narcissist. It is a pattern that emerges over time with frequency. Examples of narcissism might emerge during conflicts but it’s when there’s a pattern that you have reason to be concerned.

For me, I think the hardest thing about recognizing the pattern becomes due to the gaslighting that occurs for so many in narcissist/empath relationships. The empath doesn’t realize what is truly occurring because they are continuously being gaslit to think they are misunderstanding the other/situation entirely.

Whether the gaslighting is overt or it is subtle criticism, the empath’s heightened sensitivity is on full alert and they are judging themselves and trusting the other more than they trust themselves. They are giving over control.

The underlying reason that these types of manipulation occur ultimately boils down to control. The covert narcissist uses control mechanisms to maintain the power in the relationship, to control outcomes to serve THEMSELVES.

And this is my absolute best advice after having dealt with the abuse myself for a total now of approximately 25 years before truly studying it and understanding what I endured:

A covert narcissist uses verbal manipulation and they sound so reasonable, so trustworthy. You become confused after conversations and it is not because you are inadequate or overly sensitive. This is the intended effect of a highly sophisticated covert narcissist to keep you off-balance, doubting yourself, and focused on you fixing yourself rather than realizing that they are systematically controlling you with their words.

Understanding that its happening to you is your first defense and your best protection. But discussing with them or trying to communicate about it will not fix this. The only thing that I believe that works to diffuse the power of the manipulation of a narcissist is to recognize that you are not inadequate in any way, you are not misunderstanding anything, and that your gut instinct that you are being controlled and manipulated is your life-vest to being saved.

Recognizing patterns is your first trip back to yourself and the realization that you were never a problem, never an energy vampire, never needed fixing, never had any underlying issue except the desire to love and be loved. The confusion that you felt was part of the narcissist’s design, they manufactured your self-doubt. Once you realize that and have clarity, then you are free.

______________________________________________________________________

XX

I write about truth, identity, relationships, and the patterns we learn to recognize only after we stop explaining them away. - Casey Roon

So, I learned to turn myself down. To take up less space. Downplay my talents. To love less loudly, appear to care less. To want less fiercely.

But the ocean has never apologized for its depth.
Thunder has never worried about being too loud.
The sun has never dimmed itself to make anyone more comfortable.

Maybe I just kept handing myself over to people who needed me to be less, so they could be more - keeping me just warm enough for their comfort.

Like lukewarm water.
And I am not fucking lukewarm water.

XX, C-

And it’s not because I’m a curmudgeon or that I’m salty, or that I’m angry about anything at all really.

It’s because of depth.

I like deep ends. Deep conversations. Deep tissue massages. I want to dive in deep and know the why behind everything, even if it takes several bottles of wine and endless hours to discover.

I didn’t function well in the shallow end. Too many “influencers” these days trying to tell me who to be, what to buy, and how to spend my precious time… What they all have in common is the shallow desire to make a buck or take advantage of me. There’s nothing deep about that at all except that it’s deeply disturbing.

So yeh, I want depth. Long conversations and real questions. People who actually mean what they say and say what they mean. That operate with integrity and probably limit the small talk as I do. Don’t get me wrong, small talk is fine when necessary, but to live there permanently is so superficial and exhausting.

This was the theme of my thinking this morning as I hand-walked my 13 year old dog, Whiskey. I’m not sure that you can really define it as a walk, but that’s what I’m choosing to call it since saying that I put him on a leash to stand next to him outside sounds weird.

Life changes so quickly that it would give me whiplash if I wasn’t already holding my head in my hands, wiping away tears throughout most of the day right now.

It was only a couple of months ago that we were walking a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening. It had slowed down some, which at that time, was the biggest change I had noticed. Whiskey went from jogging alongside a skateboard in the year prior, to walking a slow mile twice a day.

I called that slowing down, which it was, but I had no idea what we would be instore for in the months that followed.

Even last week, I sat proudly in a chair by the pool and watched him play around the the pool with my son who joked with him from the deep end, trying to coax him in. Whiskey was youthful, smiling, and surprisingly spry.

Until Sunday night when life changed.

Since Sunday, I see everything around me differently. The multilevel home I adore has become a maze that can’t be run anymore. The beautiful layout is now a nuisance and difficult for weak hearts and even weaker legs. Probably 80 % of my home now goes unused and uninhabited ever since my faithful companion’s age has finally caught up with him.

Life has a funny way of showing you what is truly important at the weirdest times and in ways that no one sees coming. One day I’m planning a trip to Miami and the next I’m vowing to never leave the house if it means leaving my elderly and sick dog at home alone.

Life. It is sure a roller coaster. And God I want the ride to slow down right now. I feel like I’m the one that needs a cardiologist.

I wish it were me and not him.

Old Money Luxury

The Tragic Double Life of Kate Spade's $124 Million Fashion Downfall

The first thing a Kansas City girl learns, if she grows up Catholic and middle-class and the fifth of six children, is that your name is the one thing nobody can take from you…

Read more

3 months ago · 1498 likes · 42 comments · Old Money Luxury

It might be a strange way to start an article on my own Substack, actually linking someone else’s, but this is how my Sunday morning started.

I sat down with my coffee, to flip through my Substack feed after having fed Whiskey his “morning snack” (eyeroll), and then cracked open a fresh can of cat food for Queen (since he gets a snack, she thinks she deserves one too), and then I delivered a dry scoop of food for King Butter who peers through the front door window and howls for food every day beginning at 6am.

These are my chores before my own coffee and reading.

This was what I began reading. Kate Spade. The insanely talented and creative reason that I ever wanted to become an accessories designer, why I went to Parsons, why I interviewed at Conde Nast for an assistant’s job at Vogue and landed it (but realized I couldn’t take it, crazy to think I would have held the job of Andy Sachs from The Devil Wears Prada), and why I was one of the earliest Kate Spade junkies who bought her first utilitarian, rectangular black kate spade new york handbag from Barneys in New York in 1995.

In 2018 when I learned that Kate had taken her life, I was sitting in my office at the museum, drinking coffee and scrolling. I didn’t believe the news at first, there had to be some mistake. I still recall the feeling in my throat like I might throw up.

Most people remember where they were the day the twin towers were hit (it was my first day at Lincare and I was sent home), or January 28, 1986 which was the day the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds after blast-off killing everyone on board including teacher Christa McAuliffe (I was in 6th grade sitting in Mrs. Stromstra’s class watching it on tv). Folded in a hope chest downstairs, I have the newspaper from November 22, 1963 evening edition which has plastered across the front page, the news of the Kennedy assassination.

My Mom and Dad talked all the time about what they were doing the moment they heard Kennedy was shot.

My Mom would burst out in tears and recall the day Elvis died.

And I felt that same gut punch, feeling of unease and emptiness, the mid-morning of June 5, 2018 when they announced that Kate Spade had been found dead by suicide.

The haunting part is that I totally get it.

More than I want to, more than I should.

I get the despair. The depression. The confusion. The conflicting thoughts that make no sense, yet they make total sense. The “why did I do that” questions. The answers.

Hindsight fucking sucks.

I know this sentiment all too well Kate. And you did too.

I have to say, your way of handling it has crept into my thoughts many, many times over the years, even before you succumbed to yours. I am not proud to admit that in 2000 I had been too cowardly to try something as messy as you did because I was living in Venezuela and fully consumed by:

¿Que dirán?
(What will people say/think?)

So I just insulated myself in the house, in my bed, stopped eating altogether, and just tried to sleep, sleep, sleep... And pray to never wake up.

It didn’t work and now, I’m glad. But I still remember the feeling of no-feeling. The numbness that is void of feeling yet it is wrought with feeling. I know that makes no sense, and that is the whole point, I guess. Nothing rationally makes sense when you feel this way. No one understands. No one gets it. No one knows the depths of your despair.

I remember that haunting feeling so well and I have often tried to explain it to other rational people who become exasperated with clinically depressed loved ones that don’t seek help.

You don’t want help. You don’t want anything. You just want the painful numbness of a series of bad decisions, to stop gut punching you.

I understand Kate. Too well, in fact, and that’s a hard fact to admit. Like you, I have an unusually sharp eye for details that others overlook, so I see too much, feel too much, think too much… and it’s all so suffocating, isn’t it?

____________

Two weeks ago, I decided to start writing a memoir about grief. I stepped out of the shower and grabbed for my phone to leave Rachel a 19 minute voice note about my idea.

First, people can’t handle grief well and no one wants to face it head-on. Of course not, it hurts like hell. Society associates grief with death, but grief is so much more than just the death of a loved one.

Grief is the death of a relationship. I know this oh-so well.
Grief is the loss of a friendship.
Grief is a pink slip.
Grief is your car engine dying on the freeway.
Grief is the lack of relationship with your parent or child.
Grief is the loss of youth. Estrogen. Memory. Vitality.
Grief is divorce. Break-up. Death. Resignation. Abandonment. Disownment. PTSD.

Kate’s grief was in losing the ownership of her own name (among other things a mid-fifties woman deals with)…

Sitting here with my second cup of peppermint mocha with a splash of coffee, I get it Kate. All too well, I get it.

I am about to close up my laptop and slide it into my utilitarian work bag that is inspired by you, and go force out the voices that haunt me too. I’m sorry you were so alone in your grief, and thank you for the reminder that I need not be alone in my own.

XX, C-

“Your anxiety is a lying hoe.”

It is my constant reminder that it doesn’t matter. That the petty shit that I stress over just.doesn’t.matter. At ALL.

Do I really care what you think about anything I do? Only if it pays my bills, if you are carrying my DNA in your bones, or if your friendship has ever saved me from myself.

So on days when I am desperately contemplating “burning the boats” on my old life, anything that anyone else thinks about it is not a reason for me to reconsider any decision I might be within one hiccup of making.

I’ve never been quiet about how I detest trading my time for money. If I’m honest, it completely destroys my spirit, but I haven’t ever had an opportunity to do anything differently.

Is that about to change?

I have always traded long hours for someone else’s massive gain while collecting a penance to keep me going. It’s sad, I’ve missed my son’s high school baseball career, missed friend’s weddings and graduations and just plain fun. I’ve been anchored close to home due to a work schedule that makes my desire to see the world a tragic, lost dream.

I have had to wake up to an alarm clock squawking long before dawn for decades. I do not know what it feels like to not have to work every weekend as a requirement. My nervous system has NO IDEA what time freedom and financial peace even mean.

Because basically, I never relax. And it sucks. Big time.

There are tons of people that might do “cringy” things to make a living, but I have to say that I have so much respect for anyone that has figured out a formula that makes them money on their own time.

It has always been my distant goal to do the same, but of course, I’m mentally exhausted at the end of each work day and I rarely have the energy, stamina, or ambition by that time to do much of anything so I succumb to the fucking hamster wheel again.

It’s not a secret that we are all getting older and time is ticking. The past two years have aged me considerably and I attribute it to massive stress and upheavel. There’s never down time. There’s always bills. Always stress. And that’s fine, I understand that the management of stress is not its elimination, that’s not feasible.

But maybe it’s time to be ‘cringe’ myself and just fucking go for it. Truth is, looking back, I’ve done FAR cringy-ier things before this. And I did them, or allowed them around me, when I was far less confident about myself than I am now.

Let’s do this, Casey. If not now, when?

First of all, welcome to my Substack that serves as a place where I write a lot of things that knock around in my head. Not ALL things mind you, there’s some depravity that I can’t fathom letting anyone read, and the few times that I have written unhinged things I have had an instant phone call or screaming text (which means all caps, obvi) by someone who thinks that policing and censoring me is their prerogative.

Most of the time now I don’t do that, so now I just write here when something keeps nagging at my brain that wants to be spit out on paper. And so here we are. Welcome to my circus.

I brought you here because, my dear friend, you and I share a memory and a mark that I have wrestled with for most of my adult life if I’m honest. Do you remember getting drunk in our dorm room, probably on Strawberry Hill Boone’s Farm, and then heading in your white Toyota Corolla to Westheimer, where we marched right into the “best” (I say this VERY loosely) looking tattoo parlor, and demanded to get tattoos?

In that drunken few moments that I barely remember (but seeing some chinese words that we thought were cool), we both made a profound decision that now I realize, has shaped my whole life, everything I believe in, everything I am.

You: Strength of Heart
Me: Truth

I knew instantly that your tattoo represented you 100%. You have always had the strongest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. I know that you don’t always believe that about yourself, but I know the truth down to my very soul.

And at the time, I had the same desire to be so wholly represented by one word “truth” but how, seriously HOW, could an immature, homesick, sore, drunk girl of just 18 really KNOW that the word she was choosing to permanently mark her body with would be the absolute definition of her life?

I’m giggling because we were always up to something. I was forever making you pull over so I could bring traffic cones or street signs home, or grabbing a map (yes, this was before cellphones with screens and maps) to set out for mystical, far away places like Lake Conroe to play drinking games with Rice basketball players (oh Lord).

But that night? That night that we got tattoos?

We did some epic shit.

The “truth” is? I hate tattoos. I have been very vocal about it over the years and I have even contemplated mine and prayed about removing it for decades. But I didn’t. And for a long, long time I didn’t remove it because of you and that night. Our friendship, our amazing friendship kept that black mark on my hip through gaining 100lbs when I was pregnant and distorting its design, through ridicule by my ex-husband and his family, through… well, everything.

So I kept it because I knew you kept yours. And then, it started to take on a life of its own. Everything started pointing back to my own honesty, my own belief in telling the truth, my strong desire to hunt down the truth in every situation, every relationship, every transaction.

I started to realize that the little chinese word etched into my hip bone while I was numb with cheap gas-station wine, had become my mantra, my north star, the foundation for all I believe in.

Imagine my surprise when I was dating Tima decades later and having this deep conversation about my dislike of tattoos (he has many) but that it might seem hypocritical that I have one on my hip that is the word “truth”, and I saw all of the color drain from his face as he turned over his wrist and also has the word “Truth” etched in Hebrew. It was one of the craziest God Winks of my life to realize in that moment that our drunk night on Westheimer might have been in purpose all along.

It was all in purpose. All of it. Our tattoos were just a small nod of recognition that we were indeed on the right path, even though we were too young, too drunk, too immature, and too lost to have any idea of it whatsoever. How did we make such a good decision that night? God only knows.

I’m so grateful for you, and for that little one inch word on my left hip.

And that’s the truth.
XX, C-

Instead, big sweeping changes seem to almost arrive in whispers, maybe in conversations you later forget entirely, photographs that you shove into a drawer because they bring you too much pain to look at.

And then, by the time that your life actually raises its voice loud enough for you to hear it calling, you realize that the change has already taken place. You’re no longer the person that cries herself to sleep with her head buried in the fur of an old dog’s shoulder or that holds her breath as she comes around the corner to see the driveway still… empty.

You have moved on.

I have spent the last two years wondering why some moments stay with me so strongly while others disappear completely from my thoughts. I systematically had to change rigid patterns and beliefs that were not mine but ones I had adopted as givens for the life I used to share. I had selflessly shared my whole life with someone I loved blindly, and that produced a lot more pain and struggle for me than any good that you could try to see from it.

I had to find ways to rewire simple tasks so they didn’t leave me in a puddle on aisle 6 in front of the Haribo gummy bears each time I went to the grocery store.

I had to replace pain with joy. And that felt like a daunting, impossible task for someone grieving a loss that felt worse than a death. And trust me, I know death… all too well.

But, time.

They say that time heals all wounds, and it does seem to have some truth to it. The simple act of just having to put one foot in front of the other and repair everything broken was such a massive undertaking, it consumed most of my energy for a long, long time. And boy did it make me angry. It still does if I’m honest, so I don’t go back there very much. My peace is more important to me.

Truth is, I am more important to me than any memory that comes to the surface and ruins my mood. I spent far too long giving myself over to someone else instead of focusing on ME, and after realizing that it was a pattern I have done since childhood, it has taken quite awhile for me to even understand how to put myself first. But little by little, I have steered my own attention from external factors and examined myself. My true self. Not the girl who everyone loves, not the girl who is so kind and selfless. Certainly not the girl that put everyone first and herself last.

Whew. When I say I have had to really apologize to myself and make a strong stand that I would not betray myself anymore, well, that’s finally when I figured this out:

The moments that truly change us are almost never the ones we expect. And God willing, I hope they continue to surprise and heal me when I least expect it.

And I fucking HATE Haribo Gummy Bears.

XX, C-

A man approaches, he looks older than me not just by the gray hair, but also by the fact that he is ‘working out’ (I use that term very loosely here) in a collared, polo shirt and long shorts and he is wearing black socks with taupe colored walking shoes.

There are probably 8 other treadmills empty as he passes them all and climbs onto the treadmill RIGHT NEXT TO ME, smiling ear to ear. I am only paying attention because I am hyper alert and observant about things around me. I have headphones on and I’m watching Netflix as I do my cardio.

But this is uncomfortable AF. I can feel his head turn in my direction not once, not twice, but several times as if he’s either trying to get my attention or trying to watch my screen.

Either way, I’m out. Get the fuck away from me. You had 8 other treadmills to choose and instead, you chose to climb onto the one RIGHT NEXT TO ME and make me uncomfortable?

This is what men do. It’s uncomfortable and unwelcome.

I have stopped wondering if they are clueless. They are not. They are bold, feel entitled, have a warped belief that somehow being attracted or interested in a woman gives them opportunity, access, or consideration. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

I could give you a zillion examples from my own life, but instead, I’m going to take some from other women:

“I’m on a train with about 100 seats empty. A man my age sits opposite my seat. I immediately moved. Why are men?”

“I posted Monday about same issue at the library. The setup has between 20-25 tables and computer, it was a ghost town. Old man but younger than me sits RIGHT NEXT TO ME, smiling like un pendejo. Two long rows of empty seats and he sits NEXT TO ME. Incredible. Go away.”

“This happens to me all the time on the bus. Then they start trying to talk to me.”

“This happened to me in the mall at the food court. A sea of empty tables and chairs, as I ate a quick meal. This random man puts his tray of food ON MY TABLE and sits directly facing me. EXCUSE ME? Obviously I got up and left.”

“At the dentist last week in the waiting room all by myself. Tons of empty seats. A man walks up to desk, checks in, turns to sit in waiting room and walks straight at me and sits DIRECTLY NEXT TO ME and puts his arm on the armrest and grazes my arm. I said “oh hell no” and walked right up to reception and said “call me on my cell phone when you’re ready for me, I’ll be waiting elsewhere”.

Endless examples.

It’s not just in real life, it’s online too. I do not understand how or why men follow, like, and comment incessantly on women’s posts when they are complete strangers. I think something about hiding behind their screens makes them bold and social media has given people a bird’s eye view into what they ‘think’ is someone’s life and so they think they somehow KNOW you.

Uh, you don’t know me. And you never will.

Go away.

The cat stretches lazily next to me as we watch passersby through the flowers that line that street and provide a natural screen of privacy.

I hit submit on my article, and open a chapter that needs revision before I send it in to my script writer. It’s wild to see my story become a series, and that I’m paid to consult? They’re paying me to make my book a Netflix show?

I shake my head in disbelief that this is my life.

I wandered down to watch the surfers this morning, wondering if a friend’s son was among them. I took the dog and my coffee. Sat in the sand and marveled at the level of peace my nervous system has attained since being here.

I’ll probably call Silvi later and meet her for a late lunch. She might suggest Gjelina because she knows I love a simple market salad, but I will push for Great White because I like the simplicity of their patio and the proximity to the beach.

I am thinking that afterwards I will wander over to the Louver gallery and see who they are promoting on their walls. Let the art inspire and fill me up. Maybe Silvi will come with me?

I’ll wander down the boardwalk afterwards, something I realize now has become a daily act of meditation, and I will breathe deeply and sort out my next chapter as the surf and the architecture around inspires me.

I’ve always lived here in my mind. I’ve always known it was home. Since my first trips to Venice, I have felt a grounding here that I have never felt anywhere else. The light shines brighter here in my eyes. There is a clarity and creativity here I don’t experience anywhere else in the world.

And I can’t forget to acknowledge the weather and how much it settles my soul.

My phone chimes with a new ringtone that doesn’t bring PTSD and I smile looking down at the voice-note from Rachel, who is now just 25 minutes away tucked into the Hollywood Hills.

We have plans this Saturday to do the farmer’s market in Santa Monica and a couple of estate sales which will probably end in us giggling over wine on a patio somewhere. I smile remembering the days when I would send restaurant recommendations from Houston, always studying the best patios and most beautifully decorated venues in LA and dreaming about visiting them.

And now, the dream is my life. And it’s better than I had even imagined.

Thank you God for using EVERYTHING for my good.

XX,C

I found myself grinning like a goofball alone in the dark, hearing Rachel tell me that she “is scheduled to read my novel on the plane to New York”.

The words must have had the same effect on her that they had on me, because she stopped and said with a smile (I can hear her smiling), “oh my God how cool does that sound Case? You wrote a fucking novel.”

Yes I did.

I sat with that for a long time last night before I sent her my reply, just reveling in the meaning of those exact words.

I wrote a novel.

I created something out of thin air that didn’t exist before. I gave birth to Myles Bos (among others) and created her story like a recipe that includes ingredients that when blended together, rise up and become something wholly unexpected.

I didn’t expect it either, I have to say, the whole process of writing fiction was foreign, scary, and unchartered territory and I had no map. But the weirdest things were happening, (like when I bolted awake in the middle of the night thinking about mythological goddesses who walk with lions or the creation of a PhD candidate) that pointed to this project being less about me writing what I know and more about letting God show me what to do.

Without any previous experience and absolutely no knowledge how, I started laying down a layered storyline complete with sophisticated use of pace and time, creating characters with individual nuances and style, dropping hints and later closing loops, and all the while being conscious that one of the main characters is the reader. It has all been by design and as we get to the end of the first write, I can sit back in this chair and stare at the screen and just smile with something I can’t quite believe I’m going to say:

Gratitude.

I am grateful. Holy shit, I said it. I am grateful for everything that brought us here. I say ‘we’ and ‘us’ because I have to include Rachel because she has been on the other end of my brainchild project for this and operates as my stern editor, sometimes my cheerleader and therapist, always my best friend.

It’s true that without darkness, there can’t be light. And I’ve had my fair share of darkness.

Somehow though, with maybe only an itty-bitty, faint, almost burnt-out flicker of light, I stumbled my way through the heavy darkness that I was enveloped in and that I thought might take me out, and I found my way through it to the other (better) side.

And here I am! Sitting here, marveling that last week after not drinking for over 50 days, I got drunk on rose at Postino with my son, and came home trashed to write the hardest chapter of my whole book and I did it in one pass! I did it and read it on voice notes to Rachel, who replied sobbing that she didn’t know how I had pulled that off!

How had I written the IMPOSSIBLE CHAPTER? And how had I done it and made it SO BELIEVABLE? How had I relived that pain?

It’s all been God. I don’t know any other way to explain where the idea for the book came from, where the characters came from, where the intricate plot and twists came from, or where the sheer endurance I’ve had to see it through, came from.

It had to be from God alone.

I seem strangely confident about all of this, which is wild for me, but yet I have this intense knowing that again, I think is God. I know the strength of this book like I know my own name. It is woven into the fabric of who I was, who I am now, and who I will become.

And that is what is so crazy! I created this out of thin air. A whole novel was born from my brain and it is now a tangible thing made from nothing, something we discuss as my “novel” and talk about characters like they are real people out in the world.

Absolutely thrilling, fun, and still shocking!

XX, C-

1. Three shower heads and steam shower. Really need to use this more.

2. The massage feature in my bathtub.

3. Backyard pool and oasis.

4. The singing birds and wildlife that have become trusted friends.

5. 24 hour access to a small boutique gym.

6. Meals prepped and macros, hit just grabbing in the fridge.

7. Freshly washed sheets on a beautifully made bed.

8. A gorgeous closet makeover with accent lighting, rugs, and more.

9. The outline of my abs. Hello long lost friend.

10. Bills paid

11. Air conditioning

12. Sound of water through the fountains, this is so good for my anxiety.

13. A cat sleeping on my lap.

14. Books to finish.

15. Voice notes.

This is an ongoing list I will come back to often.

XX, C.

My shadow follows me with perfect loyalty, mimicking every movement I make, yet it has no way of understanding me, the being that cast her.

My shadow can trace the outline of my hand, but it can never know my hand itself. It can flatten my depth into a shape, my motion into my silhouette, mystery into something that only appears complete.

Imagine, for a moment, that people are no different.

We move through our lives convinced that we are the whole story. We measure our existence in the dimensions available to us which are: forward and backward, left and right, up and down. We call that reality because it is all we know.

But what if we are merely the outline?

What if everything we believe to be our full existence is only a projection of something larger, something occurring beyond the limits of our perception?

The way a shadow is cast by a body it cannot comprehend, perhaps we are cast by a self we cannot see?

A higher version. A deeper version. A version moving through directions for which we have no language and no understanding.

Maybe what feels random from where we stand is part of a pattern visible only from above?

And maybe the most humbling possibility of all is that we are not the thing creating the shape.

We are the shape, we are the shadow.

XX-C.
6/19/26

I am a woman of extraordinary sensitivity.

The slightest touch is a wound, mere sound a thunderclap.

I move through the world both highly observant and concealed.

I accept true conversation only face to face, as I read you in subtleties.

I am withdrawn into my own mysterious life and reveal my true self very little.

Charm, wit, and knowing are revealed only in rare, irrepressible moments as my sensitivity is both my wound-

and my instrument.

XX-C.
5/29/26

I really should have written it down.

Last night’s dream had something to do with my screaming at someone about how “everything could be the opposite of what it is, this fast” and then I snapped my fingers, and everything was the opposite.

But of course now when I describe that, it means nothing and I don’t have the right words to be able to describe what any of it looked like in my dream. I can still see a part of it, and I don’t know what that means, but the colors and the way they blend together and how I’m talking loudly to someone I can’t quite see looks something sort of like being immersed in a Basquiat painting, but not really. There’s a sense of weightlessness and floating that I also feel in the memory of this dream and that is hard to describe too.

The night before last I had a 33 on my Oura sleep score, which is the lowest since I found myself spending large parts of my nights debating jumping into the black pool during the time of my life last year that I’ll just call the Black Period. Thankfully I am out of the Black Period, but the 33 sleep score says otherwise. There was a thunderstorm however, and maybe that had something to do with it? All I know is that I felt someone tapping my hands, and I opened my eyes to see Whiskey pawing me during the storm. I’m not sure if he was doing that for his own need to be consoled, or mine.

And what I mean by that is this:

Three times now in the last two weeks, I have heard something loudly happening and it has awoken me each time in a panic. When I wake, I am sitting up in bed SCREAMING into the dark.

I’m pausing right now as I type this, to let you sit with that and imagine what it must be like to awaken from a dead sleep by the sound of yourself screaming in a dark room all alone.

It is terrifying. And I am disturbed.

I check my Oura ring each morning and find spikes in my heart rate at the moment these things happen, and then relative normalcy restores itself afterward and it appears that I go right back to sleep without too much fanfare. I do remember waking up screaming, but I don’t know what was happening in my dreams to cause each occurrence of this, or how to make it stop.

Someone recently told me that taking magnesium before bed can cause erratic dreams, so I stopped to experiment with it. The weird night life continues with or without magnesium.

I have tried to wear myself out physically and mentally so that I sleep like a rock. Nope. That doesn’t seem to have an effect on this screaming thing, nor does a relaxing bath and reading.

Whatever is attacking me doesn’t give a flying F about my night rituals. So what is it?