the utter

1 week ago | yrsadaleyward.substack.com | Yrsa Daley-Ward

I’m not going to lie. Or sugarcoat, or mask. Why would I? This is My Internet. Reader, if you’re having a Time Of It, you will understand. But I hope you aren’t. I am fine. You are fine. We are fine...right? In the way that you stare at nothing for forty minutes and then say, “Anyway.” I have been here before and will be again, I’m sure. Not in the same way. Not this exact mixture of loves, losses, longings and laments. But close, reader. Close. It’s easy to call it a flop era. I have called it that before.

2 weeks ago | yrsadaleyward.substack.com | Yrsa Daley-Ward

Growing up, and in my twenties, I used to think being agreeable was a huge flex / an Important Strength / would see me Very Far. I thought I'd be much more marketable, employable, and lovable if I only explained myself well enough, softened the truth out of the trickier things, and padded them with context. After years of working in publishing, film, TV and (some) fashion, I’m learning that agreeable can make you forgettable, can shave away some necessary edge. Pleasant doesn’t get you respected.

2 weeks ago | yrsadaleyward.substack.com | Yrsa Daley-Ward

This year, my great ambition is to make my brain a kinder place to be and reclaim the ability to sit inside a thought without feeling the need to escape. I’m trying to piece together a lot. You’re trying to make a few things work. Life keeps on coming at us, and for us, and for that we are grateful. I am grateful. It’s just the way things are right now. It’s a barrage of stuff, right? The news. All the news. All the suppressed horror and the politics. All the politics. The lonely. The angry.

3 weeks ago | yrsadaleyward.substack.com | Yrsa Daley-Ward

We weren’t born this way. There was a time we knew what we knew. This was in the old days, before we read or heard the opinions or hot takes of five different people or Googled the answer to the question before deciding on something. I knew what I wanted before it was advertised to me in six different colourways. Back then, I could imagine, for the most part, what I wanted my life to look like. I trusted my sudden no’s and full-body yeses. I didn’t have to doubt them much.

3 weeks ago | yrsadaleyward.substack.com | Yrsa Daley-Ward

Upgrade to paid to play voiceoverLet me start backwards. Usually, these would go at the end of the article, but I don't want to gatekeep these books on nervous system resets and the like under a paywall. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der KolkAnchored by Deb DanaWiden the Window by Elizabeth A. StanleyWhen the Body Says No by Gabor MatéThe Myth of Normal by Gabor MatéRest is Resistance by Tricia HerseySunday, 16.00. I’ve been feeling the need to walk (even more).