Things I Know But Keep Forgetting

Advice I give freely and am still learning to take

I am typing this currently crying about Artemis II. Do you people still not believe in the moon landing? There are four extra cool humans aboard the Orion spacecraft doing the first crewed lunar flyby in over fifty years. This tik toker described my tears as Collective awe. I think that is my new kink. And today, while flying by the far side of the moon, the crew named two craters. One they called Integrity, for every person on the ground who made this possible. The other they called Carroll. After Commander Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020. Someone in the comments wrote sounds like Carroll was “loved to the moon and back.” UGH!!!! Love is so beautiful and so gutting. They return home Friday off the coast of San Diego and I have an urge to go greet them and thank them for this mission. Track the mission in real time here. It is better than Find My Friends and that is my favorite app.

@aditibussells2026 is the year of whimsy and collective effervescence. I’m calling it. #science #millennial #spacetok #hopecore #humanity

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I am writing this from my bed, recovering from a stomach bug I caught from one of my best friend’s kids at Passover. No one to blame. I knew she was sick. I also knew she needed love and maybe I did too! So I rolled the dice. No regrets.

A brief note before we begin. It is Passover. Which means the standard post stomach flu recovery protocol, bread, rice, toast, applesauce, is simply not available to me. The BRAT diet does not exist during the eight days. Matzah is not the same and I will not pretend otherwise. I cannot tell you how much I am thinking about bread right now. You do not realize how central bread is to every single meal until it is gone. Thursday night, when Passover ends, I am blessing a pizza and a bowl of pasta. I’m trying to tell you I’m a hero!

Also something I did not expect. The stomach bug forced me into silence. ME! Chatty ole me! And it turns out that silence is exactly what this moment calls for. It’s Spring but almost spring, it doesn’t feel spring forward vibes yet, it’s also the Jewish month Nissan which is connected to speech. Watching what we say, how we say it, and what we leave unsaid. I say things flippantly. I overshare when I am anxious. I fill silence like it is a problem to be solved. What makes you more quiet than a stomach bug. Nothing. Apparently I needed to learn this the hard way. The body knows.

I had a lot of time to think and it had me thinking of advice I give freely and receive reluctantly. I am very good at seeing other people’s situations clearly. My own FOGGY! Marine layer. Total marine layer. This is not unusual, just not ideal for someone who considers herself a seeker.

So here, from my bed, slightly post IV, is advice I have been given that I am still learning to take.

The Ralphs Test

A few years ago I was in a lawsuit over my company, had committed what I can only describe as the ultimate friendship crime, think Summer House level scandal and I was not Ciara ( I only know what that means from podcasts) and I was talking to my sister slash mentor Jenni Konner. Talking is generous. I was sobbing. She said tell me the worst thing that could happen. Say it out loud.

At the time the worst thing was that I would lose everything, have no friends, and have to work a Ralphs checkout. No offense to anyone working at Ralphs. I had an internet company and the idea of being on my feet all day genuinely terrified me. Her response is something I think about at least once a month, maybe weekly. She said okay, so you work at Ralphs with no friends and you make new ones. You are still okay.

It reframes fear. Stage fright exists for a reason. It means something is at stake. The Ralphs has since been updated. My current worst case scenario is that I will have to move to a kibbutz and work the land forever, alone, off the grid. The fear upgrades and maybe that sounds nice? I am still okay.

I played this game on myself this week. I woke up at 3am in a shame spiral about my life. Forty four, a career reboot, no partner, no kids. And I just let the worst case land. And when I did, I was okay. Not thrilled. But okay. You have to accept your life exactly as it is and find the joy in it. I love my friends, I love my family, I love my apartment, I love God, I guess that will have to be enough for now . DAYANU!

This too shall pass

This too shall pass. It appears in a ninth century Persian Sufi poem and in Jewish folklore. King Solomon himself asked his wise men for a phrase that could humble him in pride and comfort him in sorrow. TAKE THAT IN! They brought him a ring engraved with those four words.

This weekend I passed my first real test of it. In the thick of the stomach bug I did not panic. I did not call someone and ask is this forever in a way that was only ever partly about the nausea. I did not spiral. I rode it. I sat with it. I trusted, actually trusted , that it would pass. I am still riding it as I type this. And here is what I can tell you. It is passing. It always passes.This time I felt it in my body and I let it do its work.

Nothing solves anything like a good night’s sleep

I cannot stress this enough. A bad night’s sleep and I am a wash. A good night’s sleep and it is over for these hoes. That is simply the truth. Huberman bros are right!

No one is thinking about you as much as you are

This one hit me hard this week. I went to sleep panicked and woke up panicked, and thankfully had my best friend on NYC time to talk me down. Her reminder. No one is thinking about this more than you are.

She is right. I love my friends deeply. I believe in them and their timelines and I root for them constantly. But I am not sitting around cataloguing their perceived failures. I just love them. That is what most people are doing. They are just loving you, not auditing you.

Find the gratitude

True. Also sometimes terrible advice to receive. Do you know how hard it is to find an attitude of gratitude when you literally have an attitude. The other day all I could come up with was I am grateful for flowers. That was it. Flowers. Some days I cannot stop listing things. Other days, flowers.

In Ethics of Our Fathers it says you do not speak to someone in the middle of their anger. You cannot scream gratitude at someone who is not there yet. Sometimes the most loving thing is to meet people where they are. That is also advice.

Your thoughts create your reality

This one stresses me out. If that is true I am in serious trouble. My thoughts are all over the place and I guess so is my reality. All this manifestation talk makes me feel like I am one anxious thought away from summoning a disaster. Working on it. Slowly My new thought is I am hot and good person and I know I’m not a bad person because a bad person wouldn’t worry about being a good person, would they!

What you eat, watch, and do matters

I hate that this one works. Take the walk. Eat the protein. Put down the phone. The week I do all of it I feel like a person. The week I do none of it I feel like a throw pillow thrown around. So yes. Fine. It matters.

You have to laugh about your life

This one comes from my friend Erin. When I first met her she brought photos of herself from boarding school and said I did not always look like this. I was not in the market for a pretty blonde friend and she made me laugh immediately. She could laugh at herself and that changed my life.

So now when something horrible happens, you have to laugh maybe not right away but real soon! You genuinely have to. So much of life is actually very funny if you are willing to see it that way. The boarding school photos were the proof of concept.

One small step splits the sea

It is Passover, which means we are in the season of leaving Egypt. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means narrowness. The narrowness of our minds. The places we keep ourselves small and stuck and afraid. And the sea did not split on its own. It split when Nachshon walked into the water up to his nose. One person. One step. Then the miracle.

Last week, sick and scared and a little bit embarrassed about where I am in my life, I took a step. I posted my podcast. That was my action. That was my water. I do not know yet what splits. But something always does.

Thank you for listening or watching. It was hard to be vulnerable but I needed to do it. You can find it here on my Spotify I was so rushed to post it that I linked it to my personal account, but what is personal anymore. Listen here.

Who should I interview next on God Girl? Leave it in the comments. I am genuinely asking.

Maybe the practice is not the arrival. Maybe it is just the returning. Over and over, to yourself, to the quiet, to the thing you already know and keep forgetting. It passes. It always passes. I am still here and I am still ok and as best friend tracy says at 3am “you are safe and you are loved.” And if you are in a season where you need to hear that, I will be happy to give you that advice, while I learn to receive it!

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Other Things On My Mind

This lip balm. Best friend Tracy Dubb makes it. And separate from her excellent friendship I love this product. It actually shocked me, I didnt want to be rude and my shock, but I have never connected to a lip product the way I connect to this one. It feels like someone injected electrolytes directly into my lips, which, given that I just had an actual IV, I say with full authority. The brand is Isla. She made sure to tell me it is a balm, not a gloss. Got it.

This essay. Lindsey Hall writes one of the best Substacks going and this piece, about stumbling onto her boyfriend’s ChatGPT and what she found there, is haunting because it’s the new snooping. She did not want to spend her life beside someone who had to talk himself into her. Also if my ChatGPT were ever revealed I would be exposed as a hypochondriac with an eating disorder who is anxiously attached. But if I saw what someone actually thought about me. No thank you. Hard pass. Read it here.

I also have been thinking of this advice by author OTTESSA MOSHFEGH from her substack

is it more important to be fair or right? Probably right, but we’ve all have failed and landed at fair, haven’t we?

This Substack news. My friend Blair sent me this and I am excited about it. Substack just launched a recording studio built right into the platform, desktop only for now, where you can pre record a show with up to two guests, get auto generated clips and thumbnails, add your publication branding, and publish when you are ready. No separate tools. No stitching anything together. For those of us doing a podcast on here, this is a big deal. A fun fact I do not love. When you post a podcast or a song to Stories, Spotify sends it as a DM to your followers. Sneaky. I am noting the bug. Read about it here.

Zofran, and my theory about women. I have never been on How Long Gone podcast but they have a segment where they ask guests their favorite prescription drugs. Mine is Zofran first, Xanax second, and the order matters. I have a theory that women are two types. Tummy ache girls and headache girls. I am a tummy ache girl, pre and post GLP 1’s. Zofran, for the uninitiated, is an anti nausea medication, the thing that keeps tummy ache girls vertical. I did literally mainline it this weekend via IV. Shoutout to my friend Emily for the Modwella rec, and a special shoutout to technician Omar, who saw me in a dark place and good spirits.

This shirt, and what pointelle is. My friend Babs told me about this H&M white pointelle knit t shirt and then had to explain what pointelle even is. A delicate knit with small intentional holes that give it a lacy, textured look. It reads elevated. It costs nothing. My friend Simone also posted this Gap button down as a wardrobe staple in her Substack about uniforms, the concept of just deciding what you wear and being done with it. Her piece is worth reading if you have ever wanted to stop thinking about getting dressed. I want that constantly.

What I am currently putting in my body, supplement edition. My friend Lydia has been working on her ferritin numbers and shared what has been moving them. Optiferin C, an iron supplement with vitamin C built in for absorption. Her protocol is three to four times a week on an empty stomach, waiting ninety minutes before coffee, with steak added to her diet. Filing this immediately. My ferritin and I have been in a long negotiation and I welcome all intelligence from the field. I am also trying something the influencers have been doing. A creatine and electrolyte combo packet from Create. The promise is muscle support and hydration in one shot. It feels like saving money and time. We shall see.

This book, which is about to become my whole personality. My friend Chana Arnold texted me from her Passover program that Byron Katie’s Loving What Is was becoming her whole personality, so naturally I ordered it immediately because that is how I operate. Four questions that are supposed to change your life. and since Passover is about four questions it felt kismet. And if you have not gotten the general idea from this essay, I need to change my life. Or at least how I relate to it. Same thing maybe. Will report back

What I am listening to. Tara Brach podcasts. Abraham Hicks podcasts. I also recently discovered GiggleSquad and that is new. I do not believe falling asleep to podcasts is healthy. I believe it is a cry for help. But that is where I am this week and I am reporting it honestly.

Watch this space. And literally, go watch space.