October is finally here. Here's a whopper of an episode with an interesting ending. You can expect far more for this month as well.
The episode (on my main site, complete with links to some other listening sites) is here.
My Mastodon account can be found here as well.
Would you like to support my friends?
Time to mention a German friend of mine. Her username online is groovygrumpyghoul, and her nickanme is Groovy. She makes amazing art, and she's a wonderful person. Here we have a piece from The Thick of It, featuring a young Malcolm Tucker and Jamie MacDonald. Check out her work on Tumblr, linked above.
Caption: longing for the days of no surrender, years ago
Another close friend, Rich Rubin, is working on a new book. However, all of his other novels are available on Amazon. Check him out, and you won't regret it. I'll leave you with this, a blurb for The Challenges Of Being Me (The Friend Group). If you have any questions at all, you can find Rich here on Mastodon. He's always helpful, always willing to answer questions about his work, and enjoys the conversations that come along with it. Join our writing community today, if you're interested.
Rich is more than happy to answer any questions you might have about his work. Send anything his way, please and thank you. If you'd rather send me any emails with questions for him, I'd be happy to read all of his answers during a little Q&A for this month in my coming episodes.
All I want is to be me. I want to be seen for who I am and my own accomplishments. I want to experience life on my terms. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
I’ve always been Lauren, that’s been the only constant in my life. I’m a daughter. I’m a younger sister who’s always tried to follow the path laid out by my older sister. I’ve spent my entire life following her playbook because that’s what I thought was expected from me. Now I’m about to graduate from college without a clue in the world as to who I’m supposed to be. The playbook goes like this:
Step one: Attend and graduate from the same college my parents did. Check. Both my older sister Jen and I did that.
Step two: Find someone during freshman year and start a relationship with them. My parents set the gold standard with this one. It’s no surprise that Jen found the man of her dreams the second she arrived on campus. As for me, I think I was supposed to have a boyfriend by now, but I never really wanted one.
Steph three: Fall in love. Not in my cards. I never even got to step two.
Step four: Get married and start a family. Can’t do this until I get to step three.
I’m about to throw in the towel about trying to find someone when I meet Claire two weeks before college graduation. For the first time in my life I’m feeling free to be me, no longer living with the weight of being Jen’s little sister. Things were going great until the day Claire hurt me more than anybody’s ever done before.
I want to run and hide, to pretend I never met her. But my friend Tyler needs me. We’ve been there for each other since the first day of freshman year. His girlfriend moved out without saying a word, I know he’s hurting. Once again I set my own needs to the side so I can support Tyler during his own time of heartbreak.
A funny thing happened. The more we hung out, the more he started seeming like his old self. I wasn’t just helping him move past this break up, I was also falling for him at the same time and starting to forget about my own pain.
Could he be the one? I’m starting to feel like I know who I am. Never in a million years would I think that would be possible. Yet, here I am. I’ve even worked up the courage to tell him how I feel, only for his ex to come back to town. I hate that for some people life looks so easy. I wish I knew their secret.
