Everything is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss

by Stephanie Wittels Wach

Change and movement is inevitable. Unstoppable. And tragedy can function like fuel. After surviving The Tragedy, I realized I didn’t give a shit about outcomes in the same way I used to give a shit about outcomes. Because when someone you love with all your being suddenly drops dead, it’s a reminder of a few things: 1. We aren’t in control. 2. Time is running out. 3. Nothing matters. At first, the nothing matters was a sinking ship or a mound of quicksand or a pile of rubble where I sat, paralyzed, for months and months. There wasn’t much to do during that time except for the Irish keening and the crying and the occasional pounding of my fists on the floor. You read the book. But after 365 days of grief, my tears dried up long enough to lift my head and survey the damage, and I realized, I don’t have to sit here forever. It’s uncomfortable—even painful—to live on a pile of rubble. Not sustainable. Unsafe. Devoid of plumbing and pillows. And since nothing mattered anymore (see above), the stakes felt lower in a way. Like I could do anything I wanted to do and be anything I wanted to be. I could revise the script. I had to. Because I was no longer myself. My debilitating sadness started morphing into something empowering. Positive. A freedom and a courage that I’d never really felt to make the most of the time I do have. I started to look at all the things that were weighing me down even before Harris died, the stuff I’d shoved into overstuffed drawers and hidden in the part...