Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

by Suleika Jaouad

Facing my mortality had stripped away any concerns about being cool, and it did not feel embarrassing or too earnest to say that I hoped to make a difference. I wanted, in my own way, however small, to contribute something to the world. To leave more than I took.

They say that in difficult times you find out who your friends are, but mostly I found out whom I wanted to befriend. Some people I thought I could count on disappeared, while others I barely knew did more than I ever expected.

instructions on how to get out of a funk: “1) Write a list of things you are grateful for 2) Get your head out of your ass and take a walk outside 3) If you don’t have an eating disorder, get some good fucking chocolate and a strong cup of coffee.”

When we travel, we actually take three trips. There’s the first trip of preparation and anticipation, packing and daydreaming. There’s the trip you’re actually on. And then, there’s the trip you remember. “The key is to try to keep all three as separate as possible,” he says. “The key is to be present wherever you are right now.”

I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.