Trusting...

Hello from my sickbed 🤒

Yo. I got back from Portland/Seattle at midnight on Saturday and promptly became ill. Devastating for me + the multiple brunch plans I had this weekend! If I had to do it all over again, and knew that the week I spent in the PNW would culminate in being sick & miserable in bed…I would go because it was such a beautiful time with friends and I truly feel like a better, slightly-more-healed person since it ended. More on that later in this letter!

Hey, remember that time I spent a week at Lambda Literary’s virtual Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Writers? And it really made me feel so seen, so whole, as a queer woman and a writer? Well, the retreat is happening again next year (and all you queer writers who read this NEED TO APPLY), and Lambda is doing a fundraising campaign to lower the cost of tuition. I’ll tell you now that if tuition had been any higher than $1,100 this year I probably couldn’t have gone, and that week really and truly has altered my life in all the best ways. So if you’ve got anything to give, you can follow that link above!

From the heart 💗

I think I have a trust issue1.

Okay, fine, I know I have a trust issue. The issue is this: I don’t trust others when they say they love me; when they compliment me; when they are my friends.

I’d like to pull a 180 and say that it really all comes back to not trusting myself — to be worth loving, worth complimenting, worth befriending. And, frankly, for many years I have peddled the concept that my trust issues aren’t with my friends, they’re with myself.

I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, though.

The truth is — I am so terrified of being hurt that I have a hard time trusting anyone not to hurt me. Trusting them to mean it when they say they love me. Trusting them to stick around when they say they will. I fear not just the hurt but the shame that will come with having trusted and being failed.

I’m trying to protect myself, and in doing so, I think I’m the one who’s hurt the ones I love the most.

I realized this in Portland this past week, when I was talking to two friends on a couch about…something, I don’t remember what anymore…and I realized that no matter how much they repeated their love and care for me, I was spurning it. I was turning it away, convinced that either they were lying to me or lying to themselves and just, what, too dumb to realize they actually hate me?

How fucking condescending of me. How absolutely patronizing. Oh, you fool, you idiot, you sweet sweet summer child! You think you know your own heart & mind but obviously I know it better than you! It’s not like I’ve ever been wrong before2!

I need to trust people when they say they care for me. I need to trust that I am worth caring about. And I think part of my issue here is that…I am trying to EVERYTHING, all the time.

To further explain that, I want to talk about rizz3.

I was in the car this past week with the same two friends from the couch, and they were chatting about “rizz” and, like, who they know who has it and who doesn’t. And, to my shock, horror, despair, and absolute dismay…neither of them turned around and shouted, “KARIS HAS THE MOST RIZZ IN THE WORLD OF ALL OUR FRIENDS!!”

I know, so rude, right?4

And as I was just about to embark on a king-sized tantrum and spiral, I realized the following thing:

Yeah. It was the first time I realized that I’ve driven myself insane for 31 years believing that just because there exists a positive attribute, I need to have it6. If there’s such a thing as a funny person — I’ve gotta be funny! It’s why I also have so much angst about the fact that my face is so expressive. Because on the one hand, that’s a sometimes-charming, often-funny trait. But also being a mysterious enigma is cool, too! And I can only be one :(

But if it’s true that I don’t have to be everything — I just have to be me? That could change a lot.

And I think if I find peace in being me…then I’ll maybe find peace in trusting others when they REACT to me. I can see that being really healthy for my frienships, lol!

From the camera roll 📸

From the page ✍️

Hey, did you know I went on a writing retreat with some friends in Seabrook, WA, last week? Oh, you did? Because I talked about it nonstop? Well, good news: I’m going to talk about it some more!

This writing retreat was over a year in the making. Literally, the first email about it happened on Sept. 27, 2023, and it wasn’t until Oct. 10, 2024, that we all met up in-person to kick things off. I had been anticipating this trip for so long that I began to fear it was in my imagination; or that something dire would happen and I wouldn’t make it and I’d have to simply perish.

But! It did happen, it wasn’t in my imagination, and it was as glorious and wonderful as I never would have dared to dream it could be!

The truth is, I didn’t do that much writing on this trip. We spent a lot of time walking along the beach of the Pacific, eating good food, cuddling with the world’s most adorable puppy, and talking — about life, about craft, about publishing, about friendship.

The craft talks were extremely special. My friends are so brilliant, and every time I chat with them I feel like I learn more about writing. They’re friends I met at VCFA, which is a program I began so I could 1. make friends, 2. learn to think more deeply and intentionally about my writing, and 3. teach. Well, two out of three made it to fruition at the retreat!

My problem has always been, I fear, that I don’t think deeply enough. I can see the surface and it’s very hard for me to dig further, to think beyond the surface, to sink my claws in and rip until I’m staring at the beating heart of the thing. I’m learning how to do so better by observing my brilliant friends and modeling their ways of thinking.

We talked about publishing, and it was refreshing, to remember that we’re all in this together. We’re all in pretty different stages of the path to publication, which can be meaningful in its own way, and I loved getting excited for my friends who are revising, commiserating with those on sub, and celebrating with those whose books are going to come out soon. It was a beautiful reminder that this is one of those careers that takes a lot of time and it’ll go by so much easier, faster, and with less angst the more you surround yourself with others in the same boat.

So, yeah. The weekend in Seabrook? Beautiful. Delightful. Heart-warming. Emotional7. Everything I wanted it to be and more. I love you, friends <3

From the shelf 📚

In late August or early September, I finally finished this beautiful book. Rules for Ghosting8 is by a friend of mine, 9, and it’s the ghosty, gay love story of my dreams.

Ezra grew up in a funeral home able to see ghosts. He’s a trans Jewish man who learns during a family Passover seder that his mom is in love with the rabbi’s wife and from there, his family life just implodes. Also, he’s kind of got a thing for his hot neighbor Jonathan, except he keeps seeing his hot neighbor’s dead husband’s ghost, and also that ghost can talk to him, even though all the rules imply he shouldn’t be able to!

I adored this book. It’s a searing look at grief, has a delightful and delightfully queer found family element, a dog whom I adored, and a romance that made me swoon. The fact that it’s written by a friend? A bonus on top of bonuses! The writing is real and vivid, the characters jump off the page in livelihood, and it’s one of those books that takes you from giggling to crying and back again in just a few pages — my favorite type! Please please please10 check it out!

Alla prossima 👋

I love y’all. Thank you for being here with me.

If the genocide on Palestinians had been about Hamas, it would have ended by now, especially after the group’s leader was killed by Israel. But it’s not stopping. And we, the US, are doing…very little to stop it. Thirty days to reopen humanitarian aid? What a joke. People are being starved today.

I’m going to call my reps. I hope you’ll do the same.

— Karis xoxo