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

by Stephanie Wittels Wach

Joan Didion said it better: “Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”

You hear about anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance, but never about the crippling anxiety.

This variety of internet hatred lodges itself so deeply under my skin, like a parasite. How can fellow human beings hate-post so casually about things that seem unfuckwithable?

Maybe people are just shitty. Or maybe it’s the internet’s fault. Or maybe people are just shitty and it’s the internet’s fault.

When you lose a sibling, you lose a huge piece of your identity. Your history. Your context. It’s the loneliest feeling.

‘Let’s stop finding a new witch of the week and burning them at the stake. We are all horrible and wonderful and figuring it out.’”

In this way, toddlers are an ideal distraction from grief. Everything revolves around them, and everything must be done right now.

people are fucking idiots.” “Yeah, but they mean well. They’re just trying to connect with you and understand it—they just don’t know what to say. No one ever knows what to say about anything.”

Siblings know you from the beginning. They know how you react to pain, setbacks, disappointment, hurt, and sadness. They know how to say the thing that will cut right through all the bullshit and diffuse the situation. Or, conversely, the thing that will exacerbate the situation, if that’s the goal.

think about the day a person dies, how the morning is just a morning, a meal is just a meal, a song is just a song. It’s not the last morning, or the last meal, or the last song. It’s all very ordinary, and then it’s all very over. The space between life and death is a moment.

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.

What’s the worst thing that happens? It fails? So what. That’s not the worst thing that could happen. I survived the worst thing that could happen. I can survive anything. I’m a fucking champion.

people are flawed, and addiction is ugly, unflattering, and unapologetic.