the short list that keeps you here

Most of my work happens after the worst thing has already happened. So people assume I spend my days thinking about endings. I don't. I spend them thinking about what keeps people here.

Here is what I have noticed from the chair across from more families than I can count. The people who make it through the hardest seasons are almost never the toughest ones in the room. They are the ones who can name their reasons. A face. A phone number. A person who would notice if they went quiet.

Most of us are carrying a short list, whether we ever say it out loud or not. The people we would call at 2am. The ones who are the reason we keep showing up on the mornings we would rather not. On the good days that list is just background noise. On the hard days it is the whole floor holding you up.

I used to think willpower was what pulled people through the worst of it. Sitting where I sit, I don't believe that anymore. It is rarely willpower. It is belonging. Someone to stay for, and someone who stays. That is the quiet thing doing the heavy lifting under almost every story I have watched a person survive.

So if you are reading this on a heavy morning, I want to say the obvious thing that nobody says enough. You are allowed to lean on your list. Being someone's reason is not a weight you drop on them. It is the most human job there is, and the people who love you are not tired of holding it. They would rather carry it than lose you.

And if your list feels short right now, please hear me. That is not a verdict on you. Lists get rebuilt. Sometimes they get rebuilt in a room full of people who started out as strangers and turned into the exact names you needed.

That is the room I try to keep open. We get on together on Tuesday nights. It is not therapy and it is not a fan club. It is a group of people who feel things too hard for a world that keeps telling everyone to move on, choosing to stay in the room for each other anyway. Some weeks are heavy. Some weeks are light. Both count. Neither one needs an explanation when you get there.

If you have been looking for a few more names for your list, there is a seat for you.

Join The Mortals

Tuesday nights, 8 PM Eastern. Come as you are. If it is not your room, you are free to leave, no hard feelings.

A lot of what I feel about all of this ends up in the music eventually. If a song says it better than a room does right now, that is there for you too. But tonight I would rather you just text one of your people.

P.S. Reply and tell me one name on your list. You do not have to say why. I only ask because I think some of us forget we have a list at all until somebody asks us to name it.

P.P.S. I wrote a song about all of this. It is called Names I'll Never Lose, and it comes out August 14. If you want it the moment it lands, you can save it early here: https://vyd.co/NamesIllNeverLose. No pressure. It came from the same place this letter did.