I’m Sorry I Couldn’t Stay Earthside for the Joy, Too
A piece about trying to come home to myself the best way I know how—by talking to Waffle
Good morning, beautiful human,
I was absolutely flattened this week. The events of the week prior completely took it out of me. I slept for two whole days—almost straight. Clearly, it was what I needed.
I hope you’ve been listening to what you need, too—whatever that is. I know it can feel impossible in this current state of the world, but if we don’t care for ourselves, we can’t show up for ourselves or others. And holy heck, that is what we need more than ever.
This week, I’m going to run an experiment. I’m going to share a letter I wrote to Waffle.
I call her Bunny. Dave and I do. We actually have called her Bunny since the very first day she came home because—but, of course—she hopped like a bunny rabbit.
Here is the video of her very first hops—back when she was still afraid of snow and hadn’t even made it inside our cabin yet.
I’ve been writing these letters to Waffle almost every day since she took her last breath. They hold so much power for me. They keep her close and in endless conversation—just like when she was breathing beside me. After writing them for almost eight months now, I realize that these letters are the purest written form of me there is. When I write to Bunny, I am my whole self. And when I write to her, no part of me is ever unmentionable.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live my truth out loud—to be my full, zesty being in colorful, chaotic evolution. I have wanted people like me—the people in the messy trenches of serious mental illness and disability—to be free and safe to be fully ourselves, at the very least, on the page.
When Waffle came home and made us a family, I finally learned how to do it.
Waffle was just so damn herself. I couldn’t help but learn from her. She never silenced a sassy bark or shrank a stride of swagger. And oh, yes oh, would she paw you for a cookie.
She was just herself—purely, absolutely, completely herself. No apologies whatsoever.
Over the first few years of our life together, she taught me how to be my full self in life and on the internet. Many of you saw it. I shared my suicide attempt and survival. I shared my depression selfies and weeping videos of snuggles on the floor. And I shared the joy too—so, so much joy—the dork dancing and mountaintop hollering and the absolutely ridiculous glee that comes with knowing you survived and found freedom after almost losing both for life.
And then, the trolls found me.
First, they came for my tears. Then, they came for my body. And then, after joining The Dogist, they came for my girl.
I’ve never really talked about it—about how many cruel emails I received. About how Waffle was supposedly a fraud and I was an “ableist POS” for “slapping a vest” on my “fancy pet Bernese mountain dog” for my “BS mild white girl anxiety.”
I tried to block it out. I tried to block it all out. There are always going to be haters, after all. But it’s hard when they find every inbox you have.
It’s really, really hard.
And then Waffle got sick. And Elias restructured The Dogist. And when your lifeline is dying while your supposed best friend is laying off your whole team, how exactly are you supposed to trust the world with your whole truth?
I couldn’t. And so, I didn’t. At least, not the way Waffle taught me to.
I shrank and hid and censored and tidied myself into a job at Harvard.
But that isn’t what Waffle taught me. That isn’t what Waffle taught me at all.
Waffle taught me to be fully me.
She taught me to be brave enough—bold enough—gosh darn terrified enough—to walk out the door and do it anyway because, no matter what anyone says, we are not unmentionable.
Waffle is not walking beside me anymore.
She’s not here barking me through the tears streaming down my face and saying, Hell yeah, Mom. Cry it out. It hurts. It hurts a whole lot. But don’t ever forget—afterward, we’re still gonna take on the world.
There is not a day that goes by when I don’t wish she was still with me. I don’t think there ever will be. And so, I write these letters. I write my truths to my girl.
And today, for her and for me, I’m going to share one.
Because no matter the hate and heartache, no matter the slander and stigma, we are not unmentionable. And neither is my grief.
December 23, 2025 2:11pm — two days without my best girl
Dear Bunny,
I’m so tired. I miss you so much and I am being really strong but I am so so tired.
I wish you were here to nap with me in our room. I don’t know how I am supposed to do this. I don’t know at all.
You’d be proud of me though — I ate protein and went for a walk with Gogo and Daddy. Your dad is truly the best. He taught us all about the trees. The hemlock and the ash. The pine and the apparently rotting-from-the-inside birch. I wish I could have been more engaged but I just missed you so much it hurt too much.
I hope you know that all I ever wanted was for you to be happy and pain free. I’m so sorry if our adventures made it painful later. I also hope you know I wasn’t trying to prolong your suffering by not understanding your collapses. I didn’t know. The vets didn’t know. I guess no one did. I just miss you so much big sug. So so much.
I’m nervous that I will only remember the pain you felt in your later years and not all the joy from our beginning when I was so dissociated. Why did I have to dissociate through the best years of our lives together? Why did my mind steal me from you? Doesn’t that seem like the cruelest part of all? That I couldn’t even get to live that joy with you.
I just wish I could feel all of that just like I feel the end. I wish I could feel the good stuff just like I feel all the hurt. I wish my brain wasn’t this way. Or is it my mind? I have no idea any more. I just know that something steals me from the world and from you. And it stole so much. It stole so so much. It’s like my dissociated mind can only click on when its excruciating. It’s like it can only remember the memories that broke me in two.
I’m so sorry my girl. I’m so sorry I couldn’t stay earthside for the joy too. I just hope you know I am in you. I am in you. So if you were looking for me, I was in you.
And if you miss me like I miss you, just look in you. I am there. I am always there. Like you will always be in me too.
Me and my undying love.
Yours, forever.
Your momma.
