I never set out to become an artist, but I did set out to be a writer. The only reason I even started collaging—arguably the medium I do the most now—is because I wanted more color and texture behind the words I was writing for my Instagram aesthetic, which is ridiculous. I have taken exactly one art class since middle school after I graduated, but other than that, I have absolutely no real skills or techniques. It’s all feeling (you can probably tell) and it’s all in an effort to make meaning (I’ll let you know when I get there).

I have been keeping a consistent journal for 12+ years now, and hosting in-person collage + journal workshops every week for two years. one thing I have learned? People are either obsessed with journaling or deeply intimidated by the word/phrase/concept of journaling.

I don’t know if the fear is because of how aesthetic and beautiful some people’s journals are, whether they are worried about facing their own thoughts, or if they think there are rules to follow, but journaling intimidates people. Part of it is probably that I was using the wrong phrasing—I offered journal prompts for everyone to take home but we collaged the covers of blank journals, so we weren’t even journaling, really— but the end goal was the same: creating a space for your thoughts, dreams, documenting moments you didn’t want to forget.

I always get a lot of: “I’m not a writer” or “I’m not an artist.” But guess what! To journal, you don’t need to be either.

But all this to say, I understand the hesitation of not knowing what to put on the page or whether your dreams and words deserve to be on the page (they do!) I remember being very hesitant and unsure when I first started using a journal in high school. I didn’t know what to write, but I loved listening to music. So I wrote song lyrics. I remember it was when I was Super Depressed In High School and I remember writing lyrics from bands like The 1975 and The Front Bottoms as an angsty teen who lived on Tumblr and lived in Southern California does. I put their words on a page until a decade or so later when I found my own.

the DIY-ification of the world

You don’t need me to tell you in 2026 that the process has become just as valuable—if not, more valuable—than the product.

I learned this through collage. It wasn’t the end result that mattered to me, it was the act of creating and how ripping paper and rearranging it settled my nervous system instantly.

You also don’t need me to tell you in 2026 that it’s the year of creating analog. Market Research Future, a global market research company, projects the craft supplies market to steadily grow from $42.83 billion globally in 2025 to $64.95 billion by 2035 (It has never been trendier to analog collage. This is a win for the crafty girls)

This wasn’t what made me open up Unwind, a free craft cafe with a different workshop or activity every Wednesday in the back of said family store Rewind, but it did help assure me this was a step in the right direction. I found myself happiest when I was creating in flow state. I wanted to make a space that I could do that and encourage other people to join me: to create a space to unwind, unplug, decompress, and create with community. So far, we’ve hosted clay workshops, writing workshops, a workshop making your own herbal tea blend, vision boarding, love letter writing, and more. It’s funded by the nonprofit I created in memory of my sister, Cassidy, and building the bones of an entire new business, a nonprofit, while maintaining my own and a full time job has been nothing short of intense, but every time I walk in and see 10 people smiling and crafting and meeting new people, I remember why I’m doing this. I want you to find something you love.

real life reminders

I have been selling my cards, stickers, postcards, and DIY collage journal kits on Faire since early 2024.

At the end of last year, I looked at my lifetime analytics. My top selling product--shocker—is the DIY collage kit. Lifetime sales are 117. Last year? 105.

“Crafting is no longer just a hobby—it’s self care, a way to connect with friends, personalize your space, and even manifest change,” says Mandi Clark, the Director of Trend & Design at popular craft store Michaels. Online searches for guided craft kits increased by 69%, craft club searches up a whopping 850%, Personalized gift 719% increase, DIY decor 146% increase. 7 in 10 Gen-Z and Millennials prefer a craft night over dinner and drinks. When I saw this report, I actually felt relieved that I was not just assuming or centering myself and my own hobbies.

We don’t want a perfect finished product anymore. We want to do it ourselves; we want to feel proud.

This is why I am writing to you. Journaling—whatever combination of art, writing, and reflection that is going on here—has singlehandedly been the most important, sanity-saving, helpful coping skill I have ever learned. I actually think it has saved my life, which feels Extreme but so did the feelings that had no place to go when I was sixteen and so sad.

I’m going to include some prompts, pages, and journal spread ideas that I have loved throughout the years with hope this may inspire one (1) person to either try it or start again.

What you need to know:

Mindset and intention are critical to everything, and journaling is no different. This is a playground, not a masterpiece. It’s for you!!! My journals through the years are, truly, a disaster: I never finish them, I have anywhere from 2-6 different journals at all times (and not because I have a different journal for each category, because I start one, find a new one, and abandon the old) and they are a mix of personal, work, and school, somewhere in the middle of a diary, a junk journal, and a sketchbook. Most of the time, they do NOT look like the beautiful journal spreads by crafty girls on Pinterest and Instagram.

What you need to create:

1. Any journal, sketchbook, or vintage hardcover book (can be thrifted, can be new)

2. Acquire some kind of adhesive: a gluestick, tape, mod podge and a paintbrush

3. Permission to allow yourself to create something imperfect

Some things I would try if I was journaling for the first time:

1. Use multiple mediums! Something I always do when I don’t like how something looks is add more mediums. A little bit of collage paper on top of a watercolor painting (a little texture goes a LONG way)

2. Personalize it! Design the outside cover, the inside cover, the back cover. (One thing I love that people do in their journals is include a photo of themselves on the inside cover, and this is a relatively easy way to start because it takes up so much space. The best way is always a photobooth strip. If you live near the Hudson Valley, you can get all of your journal supplies from Rewind—my parents believed me that 2026 is the year of the analog and my family’s store Rewind Kingston acquired a photobooth. Write the year, where you live, get some mod podge or a gluestick and glue it down.

“What do I fill the pages with?”

1. Write one word about how you feel every day
   Warning: this can be jolting and sad to look at, or really rewarding if you had a better year than I did in 2017.

2. Collect stickers and put them all over. May I suggest some of these? Keep concert tickets, train tickets, souvenirs, cute napkins, fruit stickers. I recently realized you can “collage” with stickers by simply placing them in any random position. Very fun.

3. Lists of things you love (books, movies, people, words)

4. A dream board (vision boards are not just for January. What do you want for yourself this year? You can reevaluate any time)

DIY Collage Journal Kits are available for you to purchase for $10 here—for wholesale, here— and in my humble opinion, are a great entryway into journaling.

Join my monthly print club, reminders, for monthly reminders straight to your doorstep (or be a paid subscriber on substack and you also get a monthly kit in the mail from me)

The worst thing that can happen is that you hate it and never do it again (factually, this is not the worst thing that can happen). But the best thing that can happen? You discover something you love.

xoxo,

karlie

follow me on IG @reminderstomyfutureself and send me your journaling pics!!!!!!!! I will feature some in the next essay <3

I am walking through in the lower east side taking a photo of a neon heart when my friend erica says, “I love how you see the world and pay attention to details.” This statement shocked me, because I do not see myself as someone who pays attention to details. I see myself as someone who has lost both her keys and wallet, twice, in one week. Recently. But I do see myself as a constant observer. I didn’t realize I might be observing with intention until I saw a person walk by wearing a baseball hat that said “right where I am supposed to be,” took that as a sign that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I realize, of course: I am only observing so intently because I am constantly, desperately searching for signs. Will I ever not be?

I am in a salvage shop in Williamsburg, and surely anyone looking at me would think I were looking for something specific.

I suppose I was.

Everything pulses with purpose in a realm I can’t comprehend. My eye goes from rose to rose to rose to rose. You’d scoff and tell me I was looking for it, I already know. But I don’t care what you think anymore, I know what I’m shown. It happened over and over—so many times that it felt like a joke.

The objects sing in a language only you and I understand.

They don’t have to get it.

They don’t have to know.

It’s been five years now—somehow half a decade of quiet mornings has slipped by—and the only place to find you now is hidden in shelves and inside jokes. Everyone else is moving on and getting married—their lives didn’t end like mine. How lucky am I to have loved someone so much, I think about them every morning I open my eyes?

This rational only works sometimes.

I am thrifting with vigor with my mother and sister, on a cold and gloomy day that we all needed the extra dopamine. Of course, I have always believed that everything that comes my way was meant for me to find, but it’s moments like the the rapid succession of specific references to my sister that make me feel like she is close: the tshirt with the logo of her favorite drink, the memorabilia from a national park we went to when we were teens, the college she pretended to be interested in just because she wanted to see it. By the end of it, I was looking up like I was in on it all.

All things that, yes, could easily be coincidences. But all of them in a row?

Give me the probability.

I was putting together collage kits for my NYE vision board kits (as god intended for me) when I saw my sister’s name peeking out from one of the ripped pages. I looked around and saw her everywhere: on the walls of my house, in the lyrics of the song my friend Ginger made for her, her face on the cover of a local magazine I guest edited, her name on the folder of documents on my desk detailing the nonprofit I created for her.

I quietly realized I have done what I said I would five years ago. I followed through on the albeit blood oath I swore to myself the day we lost her: that the world would know her name, and that her death would not be in vain. She is everywhere and she is nowhere.

Someone told me recently that everything that has ever existed in the universe still exists. Nothing is ever destroyed because energy cannot be created or destroyed—it can only be changed from one form to another. It’s simply repurposed into something else. I said, “That kind of makes me want to cry.”

And in my final act of love, I will let myself see you wherever I want, all the time.

thank you for being here<3 happy new year. ins and outs + 2025 recap coming later this week, so stay tuned—she’s writing the newsletter a little more consistently in 2026.

all my love,

I want to write to you in scraps, because it feels most accurate to where my brain is at.

first things first:

analog is the #1 trend for 2025 and I don’t want to post on Instagram. I want to make you things!!!! IRL!!!! and send them to you in the mail!!!!!

so, you can now sign up for a substack subscription for $5 a month (if you live in the US) and I will send you a monthly collage kit every month (yes even if you only subscribe for one month). every collage kit comes with a prompt card and a surprise vinyl sticker <3 (you can opt out of physical mail if you hate mail, which I learned recently that some people do?) I will be launching this as a monthly mail club as a part of rewind for $10 a month so if you are a paid substack subscriber, you get it half off ;)

every month you will get something new! it’s called reminders (duh!)

things I have made lately

it’s november again and worse, an anniversary of substance: 5 years since losing my younger sister cass. you can try to convince me otherwise, but I am pretty sure the world ended then? I never looked at the world the same way ever again.

-I made this for my best friend meghan’s BEAUTIFUL new house. I ripped it out so I need to find a new background for it. I was thinking vintage life mag (obvs)

-I started a nonprofit in memory of my sister called lovecass to fund free mental health workshops, events, and education in our community. five years later! now I am the CEO of two companies, which is epic. send prayers for tax season.

-you look like you’re looking for something, my debut book, is still 95% completed and I still have yet to Lock In and Just Finish It (I’ve changed the year on the first page for 3 years now) but I’m speaking it into existence now: it will exist in the world before summer of 2026.

-I wrote this cover story for Hudson Valley One about Lost Leaders! I got to interview Byron, who plays with the Lumineers, and I felt like a Real Music Journalist. The first sentence was supposed to be the subheading but I’m trying a new thing called Letting Little Things Go. you can read the whole thing here. I also wrote an article about music and mental health, which you can read here.

-I started a card drive for a woman I met named katherine who founded a nonprofit called psych ward greeting cards. she created this program after being in the hospital and felt like some hope, positivity, and support from kind strangers could go a long way. now she is partnered with 10 hospitals—one the hospital cass was at—sending messages of hope without waiting for the medical field to incorporate it into their programs. I think there is a lot of power and beauty in that. anyways, she didn’t have enough cards. I MAKE cards!

Here is me painting greeting cards at my local print shop department of things

-this sticker for psych ward greeting cards! I gave them some stickers to use for cards and she ended up buying 1,000 of them to give out with the cards when she hands them out. I am most excited about this because they say lovecass on it.

-here is a free pdf of the zine I made with syd, mia, and lily for heart of midtown. We just met with the local high school and will be printing as many as we are allowed for the kids to have.

3rd Annual Heart Of Midtown Zine

60.5MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

in the meantime, I am doing what I can. I am trying to rest more and say no more. The season of yes led to many, many, many beautiful things but it is time to hibernate.

things I am looking forward to!

-I’m guest editing the december edition of with my dear friend , which I am very excited about.

-I’m doing 2 more boats and crafts workshops, aka painting watercolors on my favorite little boat Kingston Boat Co. on Nov. 23 and Dec. 14!

-I also will be having my annual fancy black tie holiday party because I love a dress up holiday party.

that’s all<3

karlie

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I have always looked at the world as a glass half full, so I believed you when you said “I love you and I always will.” You never took the time to make sure I knew it; I spent all of my time trying to show you enough love that you would have no choice but to return it.

My body burns as I wonder how much more might have been enough, but the professionals tell me there’s nothing I could have done: “It’s on him if he blocks out the sun.” They say no one notices sadness until it turns to anger and then it’s you who is the problem, you who is the instigator. You put a bandaid over the wound, swore it would heal, and then ripped it off when I was not looking. But you left the infection—you tried to cover it up, never got to the root, and blamed me when it reddened.

I want to feel lucky I realized it sooner than later but I just feel sad—for all of those years that I gave, again, to someone who did not know how to love what he had.

So I wrote it all down because I have to get it out somehow. I decide to keep what I would say to you dated on letters like a lost lover; how the main characters do in the movies when the world is peaceful and it always feels like summer. You didn’t want the warmth–not badly enough to make it work. I knew it at the time. I looked away.

There is a restless tension and a drop of pain when I remember you never read my writing, anyways. But I know now that I do not want someone who gives up when the going gets tough.

I am no longer interested in a lukewarm love.

After months of trying to cancel the subscription through Nightmare AI Chatbots; dozens of messages passed back and forth between me, Roku customer service agents, and representatives from Peacock all trying to figure out where my subscription was coming from, I was officially losing my mind about it. I checked every email with my account on both networks. Both reported that I had no open subscriptions. It wasn’t on Roku, the Firestick, or Peacock. It wasn’t through iCloud, either.

A couple weeks ago, I finally found where it was coming from.

My heart dropped when I saw the first 3 letters that was quickly followed by a dry, sarcastic laugh. Of course! Of course, I had to be fiscally penalized in addition to universally penalized for losing her and wondered how I didn’t guess it sooner. But what do you know? The subscription was coming from where all things have come from since 2001, but more prevalently, after I lost her in 2020: my sister Cassidy.

Now, I am very aware that I am not the first to be charged for a subscription I am no longer using. I know for a fact that many app users waste thousands and thousands of dollars on subscriptions they didn’t realize they had or thought they cancelled.

My problem is the length of time; the waste of money; the aching groan when I realize how many years it’s been. I mean, the latest this account could have existed was the end of 2020. I look at the calendar and confirm, that yes, it’s been nearly half a decade. What does it say about me that it took me so many years to notice it? It says that I have either hardly watched any television (true) or have been saturated in a grief that blankets my life, breaks my heart and raids my dreams; that I don’t care about money or degrees or ceremonies (also true). None of them matter because how could they matter? Arbitrary substitutions and salves only work until you lose something you can’t replace. And once you do, you’ll feel the absence like a plague.

I am ruminating on how much money I have wasted (and I beg you not to tell me) but then I think about how she would think this was the funniest thing, would burst out laughing at me while saying sorry even though I know she wasn’t and it hurts a little less.

I see signs in everything, everyone, every piece of clothing I find that makes me think of her. The name of the customer service agent helping me: March, the month of her birthday. I am walking through LES taking a photo of a neon heart when my friend erica says, “I love how you see the world and pay attention to details.” This statement shocked me, because I do not see myself as someone who pays attention to details. I see myself as someone who has been getting charged for a subscription she doesn’t use for years; as someone who lost both her keys and wallet, twice, in one week. Recently. But I have always seen myself as a constant observer. I didn’t realize I might be observing with intention until I saw a girl walk by wearing a baseball hat that said “right where I am supposed to be,” took that as a sign that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and realized, of course. Of course, I am observing because I am looking for signs. Will I ever not be?

I am thrifting with vigor with my mother and brother on a cold February day that we all needed the extra dopamine. Of course, I have always believed that everything that comes my way was meant for me to find, but it’s the unexpected moments I feel especially close to her— like the rapid succession of clothing I find of inside jokes and specific references to my sister—that make me feel like she is still here, somewhere in the universe, sending me messages. The tee shirt with the logo of my her favorite drink and flavor; memorbilia from a national park we went to when we were teens; a shirt that says don’t stop the fight raising awareness for mental health. I remember looking for them like a treasure hunt, knowing with certainty that what is meant to find me will find me; that it’s the gods throwing me a bone. They feel like reminders that I am going in the right direction: cosmic coincidences that beg for redemption.

They say signs are what you make of them, so I let them exist as they are. I reject coincidences and assign meaning to them even if the evidence is hollow. Grief settled into every component of my life, dissolving into places I would never suspect: reoccurring Roku subscriptions and grocery aisles and too-tight corsets. And I think about grief, and how lucky I was to love her to be forced to miss her so much my life is divided into two (in my head, I call them B.C and A.C.: Before Cass and After Cass). I think of Gigi Perez’s Sugar Water, a song about childhood innocence and wanting it back.“The texture of our Barbiе's hair / The trampolines we flew mid-air / And Father scared me with a mask / I laid with you in the biggest grass /That stretched so far out, we could see / The sky was blue, our favorite tree.” I think of Ginger Winn’s Freezing and her relentless pleading to whoever is running this whole thing: “They all told me / Haunts me in all I see / I need to freeze the frame.”

I do not wish for it to end, but I do wonder sometimes if the heaviness will ever lessen.

I have been writing and rewriting this essay SINCE MARCH. Whether it’s perfectionism or grief anniversaries making it impossible to complete, I find myself adding more every time I come back to it. It gets longer, I cut what I had before, and continue circling in a never-ending, infuriatingly addictive cycle. I told myself last week that this is the week. But something happened Wednesday night that made me realize “there was a reason I was waiting to send this.” You can make anything an excuse if you believe it hard enough.

I was at a networking event and had a friend tell me that I should talk with a person that was sitting across the table talking to a man. He said she was cool and he thought I would like her. We both half-attempted to make eye contact with her, failed, laughed awkwardly and parted ways. Walking up to a stranger with no objective is a nightmare for me.

A little while later, she was getting up right as I was leaving and I said to myself, “maybe I should just talk to her.”

We talk, find out we are both writers, and she asks to exchange information.

She hands me a card with the name Cassandra Mary. I read it again and laugh. She asks, “what?” I say It’s just funny, “My sister’s who I lost in 2020, her name is Cass. And my aunt who also passed away and was a big part of my life’s name is Mary. Just weird those are your first and middle name.”

Within seconds, she is digging into her bag, shuffling as if she were looking furiously for something. I watched her cautiously.

She then hands me a white card that says Cass with angel wings above it. The back of it says “I see you.” She tells me she lost her brother and had a near death experience where she heard him tell her that her purpose is to tell others she sees them and they are not alone—that they are never alone. She tells me that she only usually gives out the black card with her name on it but something told her to bring the white card that said Cass with her so she grabbed it at the last second.

I looked at her with desperation and eyes full of question, and a certainty that I had never felt before that, somehow, someway, Cass was here, through this person who somehow ended up crossing paths with me. I knew it would never be able to be explained—the timing being moments after I had been crying while Ginger was singing the song me and my sister wrote with her about my sister Everytime it Rains to over a hundred people (which I usually don’t do).

Later, my friend tells me he had never met that women in his life and she had just minutes before introduced herself to him. He just had a feeling it was important for me to talk to her.

I always “joke” we are living in the Bad Place (aka hell, according to the critically acclaimed NBC series and my favorite show of all time, The Good Place starring K Bell and Ted Danson) but I look around me on a summer day where the birds are singing through my window—I hear it like a song—and the trees are a shade of green I always forget exists in the winter. I’ve gotten so used to the dullness; to the ache of absence.

It’s starting to feel bright again.

sending love and light wherever you are,

karlie

you may have noticed I am not so active on here but I AM active on my instagram @reminderstomyfutureself

you can shop collage kits, journals, stickers, and prints at www.karlieflood.com

near the hudson valley? visit my family’s thrift store, Rewind Kingston, and find affordable thrift and vintage, merch, upcycled pieces, and our line lovecass in memory of my sister. 10% of all proceeds donated to local mental health organizations in the hudson valley <3

check out the free zine and blog I co-created with my job, keep good company records and rewind featuring nourishing content from creatives we love at www.howdoyounourish.com.

Do you want to know how me and Karlie met? Because we’re kind of dying to tell you. It’s actually one of my favourite friendship stories, because it involves our favourite muses.

Let’s travel back to October of 2021.

Do you remember part of the story I told in we are breathless, but we love the days? I had just met up with OFM to tell him that I wanted to move to Italy, and he took this as reason #2817 of why we wouldn’t work out that year. And I remember this conversation taking place on the couch at the King Eddy.

“Well. Now you don’t know where you want to live.”

Two nights after that night (which followed the same script: I miss you, I still think about you, I still <3 you, let’s hook up even though we both know how this will end) I found myself in the back of an Uber, shedding a few tears, on my way to meet my best friend - about to debrief our annual OFM encounter.

The problem was/is - I knew these were all excuses. We could lie to ourselves and to each other, and list out the logistical reasons as to why we would never be together. Relocation, out of a relationship, bad timing, disastrous timing. But regardless of what we were telling and trying to convince ourselves - it was hard to ignore the feelings. The chemistry, the immediate grab of each other’s hands from across the table, no matter how long it had been. The feelings that started all the way back in 2017, and the feelings that never left either of us.

My mind and my heart were always battling it out, and that’s how and why I found myself in tears that night. I wanted to move to Rome. I wanted nothing more than to escape Toronto, to try something new. To be in a place where I could feel the most myself, the least misunderstood, and the most free. But there was a part of me that hated that I wanted to leave. And there was also a part of me that hated that he didn’t try to convince me to stay.

Anyways, as I sat in the back of the Uber, dabbing away tiny tears (nothing has changed) and doing my usual IG explore page scroll, the following words in black and white jumped out at me.

“If we love in a language, you love through pretty words and quick glances; direct eye contact and second chances. You can be a muse not a lover, and still be right for eachother.”

I immediately added these words to an IG carousel. A mirror selfie, an empty bar, and a photograph of shot glasses. Caption: “a weekend.”

She understands. I remember thinking to myself. I didn’t know who this stranger was, but I knew one thing - she understands.

To love someone who cannot love themselves is a kind of hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. These words that led me to a beautiful, transcontinental friendship were written in defeat–and a reluctant (yet admirable!) effort to convince myself that just because our love didn’t look like others doesn’t mean it wasn’t love (this logic did not hold up, but it was a beautiful fantasy while it lasted) Your love doesn’t have to look like the movies, but it does have to be real. It has to exist. It has to be certain.

The truth is, that some people were simply not born to be lovers, no matter how hard you try to make them and only have the mental capacity to be a muse. Naturally, this changes the way they love others–and what they think love is. If only they could see themselves the way we see them. Because as lovely as those pretty words and quick glances are in the moment, they are not sustainable to create a life. And isn’t that what we are all looking for: to build a life of people we love?

“The right words will come to you at the right time,” Emily says to me as we are discussing the chances that she happened to be on Instagram at the time my post showed up on her explore page. Whether we ever would have met had I not posted those words, had she not experienced the heartbreak she did that led her to connect with those words.

When you have experienced loss in the way we have, witnessing this kind of serendipity and momentary harmony is not only what makes life so beautiful, but also what makes life bearable. It’s why I must see meaning in the mundane: to see the charms my mom orders from Etsy that happen to come with a letter C (my late sister’s first initial), a cross, and a heart that she didn’t order as a sign, never an accident. The two separate occasions that my brother found roses in the ocean while he was surfing in California.

Her sitting next to me while we type poems for strangers–an idea we dreamed of late one night that manifested into reality—is evidence of the magic of connection. A friendship born from the choice to write through our deep pain and feel the feelings we didn’t know what to do with instead of sinking into them; the mutual heartbreak we both felt after falling in love with potential and leaving an empty vacancy that no one ever filled.

Emily is writing a poem for a stranger as I type her words on the typewriter. Most of these poems wrote themselves–as if the words knew they were always going to end up here; as if they fell into her lap and just appeared.

She has the entirety of the poem written except for the last line when she asks me if I have any ideas. I read the poem out loud–repeating it over and over again until I think of something that fits. I am on the fifth repeat and finding no luck when she says “I feel like Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift writing Getaway Car.” There are very few people in my life IRL who know the infamous video of Jack and Taylor writing the bridge to Getaway Car in under 30 seconds. And I can’t think of anything more beautiful right now than the moment we said at the same time: “you put the money in the bag–” “put the money in the bag and stole the keys, that was the last time you ever saw me!” and soon after discovered the perfect line.

Harmony.

“My love for you is steadfast. Unwavering.

I’ll twirl you around, I’ll write you a poem.

But my love for you doesn’t change.

It’ll always stay the same.”

–written for a 70 year old man who, on his second marriage, realized that love is stability (he also gave her the line “I’ll twirl you around”)

“Right person, wrong time

That’s what I thought back then

But I am thankful that

Our story never ended

You were always the right person

And now is the right time.”

–written for another 70 year old man who found the one, each went on to live separate lives, and they found eachother again AND got married at Burning Man

“New love, but it doesn’t feel like it

Does it?

To more music,

And to losing ourselves in more memories.”

-written for a couple who was honouring their first date at a concert by the same artist they were seeing that evening

Do you ever wonder why it’s hard to maintain friendships with people that you’ve known since childhood? I’m convinced this is because they will always see you as who you once were, and not who you now are. And friendships are interesting. They can be indicative of the times, indicative of what you’re prioritizing at that moment in life. Work friends, social friends. Friends that linger in the periphery. People who might meet you where you are, and they’ll provide you with something that you might need in that moment. Maybe they’re a body to share a bottle of wine with, and complain about the throes of being single. Then time moves, the universe does its thing, and you never see them again.

“Well. That was fun.” A sentence to describe those brief encounters.

But then there are others. Those angels in the form of strangers. What bonds you is something deeper. It’s not that you sit beside each other at your 9-5, or the fact that your families were friends since you were little. It’s something a lot deeper. It’s a shared loss, a similar pain, a familiar heartbreak. It’s the way you both see the world, and how you allow yourselves to feel through it.

We write letters for lovers we will never see again–with words that linger and words that were left unsaid. We remember what it was like when we were living in the potential, the idea of it all. We put these feelings into everything, and in return, everything comes back to us. We speak dreams and lovers into existence.

I think of this poem Emily wrote for a stranger who asked for a poem to honor the anniversary of a loved one’s passing.

“Remembering.

This is where we live now

You’ve never left.

You’re always here, always home.

I love you.”

And so we remember.

I would say I grew up creative with a lot of hobbies, the most consistent being reading. making friendship bracelets is the other one that sticks out the most, because I decided in middle school that I should start a business selling bracelets and doing birthday parties at my local pool, which, looking back, is literally ridiculous (and absolutely capitalism’s fault. In my defense, I really wanted a computer and lemonade stands were losing their charm).

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here is what I do remember. I remember being in studio art (an advanced art class) in 8th grade, creating our own sketchbooks, and cherishing mine. I remember getting a collaged mirror as a Christmas present from my aunt, and the next year taking the cardstock out of a large blank frame and collaging on it for my room. I remember drawing as a kid and making cards everytime the fundraiser happened at our school. but after I graduated from middle school, my family moved from upstate new york to orange county, california and art was not mandatory to the high school curriculum like it was in new york. our district had to pick between art and gym—you can take a guess at which one they picked. I only took one art class my freshman year in high school and I don’t think I created art again until scrapbooking photos of my senior year with one of my best friends (at my core, I am a sentimental girly, and I always will be)

I went back to new york for college, and once again, wasn’t required to take any art classes for my english degree, so I didn’t. the next thing I would make would be mod podging autumn leaves I collected that fall onto a canvas because I could not believe how vibrant they were and wanted to preserve them. dear reader, they dried up and crumbled, but they got me back into creating.

I had always loved reading, and in high school in college, genuinely enjoyed writing essays and articles—hence the english degree—but I didn’t start writing creatively until after I graduated college and too many months trying to gather the strength to leave my 4 year relationship. I wrote my first poem late at night, lying next to him, about how I knew in my bones that it wasn’t right. And then I never stopped.

Something changed in me the summer I left him. I kept writing. Covid had started a couple months later, and I began anonymously posting my writing to an Instagram page called @reminderstomyfutureself to create a digital archive of my feelings. I remember writing in my bio: “I want to remember how it all felt.”

But everything changed for me when I lost her. My 19-year-old sister and best friend Cassidy passed away 8 months into the pandemic. If you scroll back far enough on my Instagram, you’ll see my worst fears written with a shaking hand, how scared I was of her struggling, and how I knew—in my gut—that something bad was going to happen.

Let’s skip through the worst year of my life, and fast-forward to my mom deciding to organize a cold plunge on what would be my sister’s 21st birthday a year and a half later. If you’re wondering what it’s like to grieve a loved one, think of the worst pain you’ve ever felt and multiply it by 500. We were all grieving and in so much pain and wanted to do something positive for her, so our family decided to do a cold plunge because it was something she would have done without a second thought. We didn’t intend for it to be the event it became, but it created a life of its own when hundreds of our friends, family, and community gathered to run into the Hudson River in the dead of winter. The energy was contagious, renewing, and the best we had felt since her loss. We called it Go All in For Mental Health.

A year prior, my parents had purchased my great aunt’s used bookstore after she passed away. My mom had been selling some of my aunt’s lifetime collection of thousands and thousands of books, collectibles, and antiques on the internet to pay for the many expenses of buying a building. My mom wanted to keep the energy we created at the plunge going, and all of a sudden she realized we had a space for it.

In 2022, my family re-opened the bookstore as Rewind Kingston, an affordable thrift-vintage-book-art-gift store located in Midtown Kingston. What was intended to be a place where people could shop without paying a fraction of their rent became a space where people would talk openly about mental health and community—made possible by my mom’s openness and how easy it was to both talk to and love her. My mom had wanted to initially start a nonprofit to make a difference in our mental health community. Everyday we were learning about different organizations people had created or knew about that would have been so helpful for my sister. A community was forming before we even realized what was happening. And then we realized how many of them already existed, and how many of them we had no idea about. That’s how we decided to create Heart of Midtown: a mental health street and music festival on the dead-end street next to Rewind that would include all of the things that helped our mental health (music, art workshops, crafts, etc) but make it free so people would come. We would bring in mental health nonprofits and organizations we learned about at Rewind to table and meet the community. We got a grant from the city to fund the festival, and although interrupted by a hurricane the first year, it was a dream.

When we went to organize the festival this year, we didn’t get the grant I had been hoping for. I decided I was going to get sponsors. We got a record label (Keep Good Company Records) a local nonprofit (United We Om) and our local radio station (Radio Kingston) to co-present the festival with us, which absolutely changed everything. The record label of our headliner Ginger Winn not only offered to pay for the production of a merch line: after learning that we were writers, they pitched the idea of having their artist Ginger to use mine and my sister Syd’s writing for a song about my sister that would be premiered at the festival and the proceeds would be donated back to the festival forever. As both a writer and a music lover, this was something I would not have dared dream. I still am absolutely sure that I manifested it.

I made banners and signs with my art on it. I designed tote bags with Tina Baione, one of the founders of KGCR and we ordered 300 of them to be screen-printed with the lyrics on them. We made the totes free, and added mental health zines, positive postcards, and community resources and called them “self care kits.” She got red Heart of Midtown x Ginger Winn Sharpies.

We basically made our dream festival: we got free ice cream donated from Jane’s Ice Cream. Free flower bouquets from Adelaar Farms. Free tea samples from an herbalist (my aunt Jen<3). We had free games and theatre workshops and mixed media journaling and rock painting and screenprinting. A “draw your feelings” workshop where you created a map of your feelings by one of my favorite artists Dana Variano of Felt Tip Feelings. Free pickleball lessons. A VR Gaming Truck. Gardening seed kits.

We had 10 of my favorite local artists performed, including the debut performance of one of my best friend’s band (snelby) and my dear friend , who read some of his beautiful poetry. my brilliant friend even got a rewind TATTOO.

I hired a light projection artist and she projected my art onto the brick wall alongside the dead-end street (put me in charge of a budget and you’re getting a light show). I realized dreams of mine were coming true that I didn’t even know I had, like getting offered a job working for the above mentioned record label after the festival ended. It rained two years in a row, but this year we got a double rainbow right as Ginger came on and sang the song me and syd wrote that she produced into a song and it didn’t even feel like real life.

I call myself an artist; a writer; a creative, a festival organizer—and I don’t feel the imposter syndrome I once did.

I feel electric—

because I turn 27 on thursday and everything feels exciting and even though there is so much loss, there. is. so. much. love.

lyrics from every time it rains

produced + created by ginger winn

written by me and syd!!!!!!

Not here but still around 

Beating strong down in midtown 

How do you survive if you cannot live? 

How do you love if you cannot forgive?

Don’t you wanna see

The corners of my mind

Walk around my brain until you

Hate what you find

Stuck in a labyrinth 

Of things I’ve never said

I love you, I hate you,

And all my loose ends

Sometimes it’s hard to not 

Let your head wander

When you do all you can

You still fall under 

And as I get older

I still throw a fit

Realizing all the things 

You made me miss

I used to look at you

And think of all that I have

Now I look at you

And see all that was in my hands 

When I am lucky I see you in signs 

Chance happenings that don’t make sense otherwise 

But in the end I suppose everything goes back

To all that was and all that could have been 

I tell myself you are still here in the end 

I don’t care if it’s pretend 

I used to look at you

And think of all that I have

Now I look at you

And see all that was in my hands 

My heart is full of graves

And ode to those I couldn’t save

I still see your reflection 

In the pavement every time it rains

I still see your face

Every time it rains 

I can’t get rid of any trace of you

There was so much that I never knew

I read your old diaries, I studied your dreams

Don’t think I’ll ever accept this

So in twenty years, when i have kids

That want cool vintage clothes

I’ll give them yours 

Pass them off as my own

I used to look at you

And think of all that I have

Now I look at you

And see all that was in my hands 

My heart is full of graves

And ode to those I couldn’t save

I still see your reflection 

In the pavement every time it rains

I still see your face

Every time it rains 

it will be available to stream soon!!!!!!!

you can learn more about rewind + heart of midtown on our website www.rewindkingston.com, our instagram, @rewindkingston, or visit us IRL at 612 broadway in kingston, new york :)

love,

karlie

Devyn was my sister cassidy’s best friend, and she is so much like her in so many ways—more than we ever resembled each other, probably. She has the same energy that lights up every single room you are in; the type of person who makes running errands fun. We had just walked into the main office of the resort we were staying at in Sedona to get our keys and check in. Next to us, a mother and a daughter were also checking in at the same time. It had to be 30 seconds of being in the building when I hear the receptionist ask for their last name and I hear the woman speak for the first time. “Cassidy with a K,” she tells the receptionist. My head flips to the woman’s; then it flips to Devyn’s as her’s flips to mine.

It’s almost too obvious, sometimes, these coincidental happenings. According to a questionable website on google, "if you manage to meet 100,000 people in your life, chances are that 9 of them will have Cassidy as their last name.” How many you think of those 9 are spelt with a k, the same letter my name is spelt with? DEFINITELY less.

I am aware of coincidences, but I don’t really believe in them. Everytime something like this happens to me, I take it as a sign I am going in the right direction: like when my sister and I debate going to one more store, and right when we walk in, two of Cass’ favorite songs play back to back. When I say to myself, “Karlie you’re being stupid, this is a 2000’s pop radio,” and then you get home to sit on your deck and a pure white butterfly that decides to sit less than an inch from your shoe for at least 20 minutes.

The litter of kittens you find in your garden on the day your family cat dies.

I take these little victories and hold them.

I let everyone know they are not enough.

She is leading a trail and I am following, though I am not sure if it’s her trail at all. But I don’t have anything to lose by convincing myself that it is.

love,

me

I visited the land of tim horton and hockey this past weekend for the first time (although I had been to montreal)

here are some things I loved in toronto:

-going somewhere new with 2 of my best friends :)))

-walking around a new city by myself with headphones

-feist!!!!!! my friend shelby said this show would blow my mind and she was right. we saw her at massey hall downtown (this was also the reason we went to toronto)

-the anndore house, a lovely boutique contemporary hotel off yonge street downtown. there is nothing like vibing in a hotel lobby. it had a coffee shop and a BARBER shop.

-drawing this after the feist show in the restaurant constantine eating a continental breakfast. this is one of my favorite feist lyrics: “they all know about me” gives me chills.

-kensington market

-meeting ryan’s friends (gabby, frannie, and kanchana!!!!)

-the birds in the pond sitting in the sun 

-lake ontario beach winter art installments

-the basket outside a restaurant that said “take if you need” stacked deep with fruits and veggies

-korean bbq. god bless .

here are some things I read/wrote/listened to in toronto:

-I read ’s memoir “you could make this place beautiful” and it’s just so good. if you take nothing else from this little newsletter, please take this recommendation <3

-lol this is from my notes app

MUSIC:

-austin by dasha. I love this song with my soul.

-mudroom by tiny habits ***perfect song*****

-I don’t wanna dance by charlotte lawrence

-habit by kimberly townsend (I’m currently making the music video for this!!!!!!)

not in toronto but albums released in proximity:

-bleachers self titled

-eternal sunshine by ariana grande

hotel beds spent

thinking about

words never said.

did you mean it,

when you told me

it was all in my head? 

to come home;

to be known;

I loved you, toronto!!!

do something nice for yourself this weekend<3

all my love,

karlie

instagram: @reminderstomyfutureself

my website: www.karlieflood.com

rewind kingston: www.rewindkingston.com

since I last wrote earlier this month, morning brew added my list of 23 things I learned in 2023 to their list of 2023 which is the most ridiculous thing because 2023 was a Rough Year For Me but seeing that on christmas eve (eve) felt fake and was the most imposter syndrome I have felt in quite some time. my IMMEDIATE reaction was to take it down because I hadn’t put much thought into it and did not expect more than like, 5 people to read it. I don’t write on substack much so I don’t know how morning brew even FOUND it. the only reason I wrote it was as an exercise for a collaboration my friend emily asked me to do (you can read her substack every little thing here). timing is so funny because my past couple weeks have been absolute CHAOS with my cat in the hospital for a week (we are $6,000 down and counting) and then this newsletter with 4 million subscribers casually used something I WROTE in their learning category:

LIKE WHAT? It’s just absolutely mindboggling to me that 23 things Karlie Flood learned in 2023 is a sentence in one of the most popular newsletters on the planet on their BEST OF 2023 LIST. like literally, that post is just nonsense spewing from my mouth.

but according to my substack statistics, that post got almost 4,000 more views than the previous post, so I wanted to say hello to any new subscribers and thank you for wanting to read more of my words?!!!?? here is a little reintroduction:

my name is karlie and I am 26 years old. I live in kingston, ny where my family runs a thrift/book/art/vinyl/vintage/gift store called rewind kingston. I lost my nineteen year old sister in 2020: it still feels strange to include this in a description of myself, but it has become the core of my identity, so I will include it. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in english and communications but I didn’t start writing or creating until the pandemic hit in 2020 when it felt like I was dying of boredom. at first, it was mostly for fun, but when my sister passed, it became a lifeline. I’m currently in the editing stage of my first book of poetry and prose called you look like you’re looking for something. I am hoping to release it this spring. it is a love letter to my sister, but also for anyone working through any kind of love or loss. in the meantime, I post my writing, art, and poetry on an instagram called reminders to my future self.

my sister’s name was cassidy. she was my very best friend. anyways, I rarely see or hear her name because it’s not the most common name, but my friend who first sent me the morning brew newsletter last week told me to look at the name of the writers of the newsletter.

the day before, I called a random vet I picked from a list of about a dozen, and the person answered the phone with “this is cassidy.”

there are signs if you look for them.

wishing you the best 2024.

love,

me

1. do what feels right, as often as you can

2. reading books remains the best dissociation tool I got. my recs: happy place, daisy jones & the six (there are four books in this universe and you should read them all) lessons in chemistry + the show with the perfect brie larson. fantasy is a great escape—I loved fourth wing throne of glass series could go on but I won’t

3. no is a full sentence (and you actually can say it whenever you want and you don’t have to explain yourself! thanks to my therapist claire)

4. traveling to new places is one of the most beautiful things we can do as human beings and it doesn’t have to be unreasonably expensive!!!!

5. the artist’s way by julia cameron and the morning pages WILL cure your writer’s block, despite your doubt.

6. supporting your local businesses is free and easy.

7. keeping your space clean makes you feel better (who would have thought?????)

8. therapy is as necessary as coffee (maybe even more so!)

9. there are signs from the universe if you look for them

10. don’t measure your success in money. of course, our capitalist society demands we do, but how you feel, your relationships, and how much time you spend doing what you love matter so much more.

11. your wildest dreams will only come true if you believe they will. say them out loud and write them down, and ignore anyone who looks at you like you are crazy when you tell them.

12. documenting your life is the best gift you can give your loved ones, future self, your future family, and the world.

13. it is very difficult to make a living as an artist, a writer, or a creator. but it is rewarding and fulfilling and sometimes exhausting.

14. there are so many free classes and workshops and events at your local libraries.

15. procreate is life-changing

16. using layers on procreate is life-changing

17. taylor swift will continue to outdo herself with every single thing she releases, and everytime I think she can’t, she proves me wrong

18. go outside as much as you can. sit by the creek down the road from your office, even if it’s just for a few minutes. nature=best way to combat a depressive episode

19. balance is the key to life

20. never underestimate the power of a kind gesture, a compliment, a huge smile at a stranger for no reason—and give them as often as you can.

21. cats are medicine. everyone should have a cat (two if possible)

22. getting older is not a Death Sentence.

23. if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

you have 22 days left of 2023. what are you going to do with them?

xoxo,

karlie

instagram: @reminderstomyfutureself

my family’s thrift store in kingston, ny:

www.rewindkingston.com

I’ve been continuing to work on my book with my editor and dear friend brenna, who is the best and helping me stop rushing for no reason and reconstruct this book into something I like better that is lovingly named:

I am currently doing the artist’s way course by julia cameron and it has been helping me get out of this never ending writer’s block. I *highly* recommend for anyone who is a creative/ open to being creative and feeling stuck. it’s pretty much just reading a chapter a week and writing morning pages every morning (which are just three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing) and taking yourself on little creativity dates. how can sitting down to write be the hardest part?

this is the front of my apartment right now and one of those moments in life where you think, no way can this life be real.

$5 collage packs have arrived to rewind and they come with a little blank lined journal that you can design the cover of with some mod podge, the collage pieces, and a paint brush. I will even ship to you via usps for $2 because I want everyone to collage their own little journal because it’s so fun :)))) re: rewind, we are having our first events this month!!!! an open mic on thurs 11/2 before the john mulaney show at upac and leo lovechild and addy idol on 11/18 in the store for our first songwriter sessions.

this next photo was taken DOWN THE HILL FROM MY HOUSE and I had no idea this place existed until last week????????

can’t stop thinking + listening to the 1989 taylor’s version bonus tracks especially now that we don’t talk and the lyric “being this young is art.” taylor is always on time.

that’s all for now.

love,

me

I am deep in the editing stage of you look like you’re looking for something and it feels like this book is NEVER going to come out. I know it will but it is so daunting and seems so far away that it is stressing me out so I am, naturally, pretending that it’s not happening. luckily I hired an editor that is saving my life, brenna croker, and she is helping me figure out how this thing is going to come together. the content is there but the order is definitely not. this seems to be a reoccuring theme in my life, no?

sometimes you just need to make or write something and then not look at it for 5 months, you know? that time is essential: you come back to that piece as a different person. revision has always, always, always been the most important part of the writing process for me. I will work on a painting for a year and revisit it every month or so. unfortunately, I am in the stage of this book that I want nothing to do with it and I don’t want to look at it so I am going to move on but just know it is *in the works.*

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I moved to a different apartment a few months ago and I FINALLY got to hanging up all this art I made with some of my friends and I am so happy with how it came out.

other things to note:

-rewind kingston, my family’s thrift/vintage/used book/art/gift store in kingston, ny has been getting alot of my time. it’s been so fun creating a brand from start to finish and all of the social media and marketing I’ve been doing for it has been so fun.

-I am illustrating a children’s book for a friend.

-doing logos for a local publication and local farm

-working my day job.

-making my website (www.karlieflood.com)

-making prints and greeting cards and journals and always something random and ridiculous. It is so HARD to make enough money to survive through freelance work—they weren’t kidding about the starving artist thing—but I have to believe it will be work it. I am not bored (but at what cost?????!!!)

anyways, rewind is having a barbie party. here is the flyer I made:

I stumbled upon the piece below while updating my website. I made this awhile ago as 1/4 of a series commission for a family friend. she wanted something that illustrated overcoming adversities and I drew this girly. I’ve always loved drawing but it scares me because it’s so obvious if you’re not good at it. my art is so messy and chaotic and imperfect that it frees me from criticism because it’s art, it’s supposed to be like that and you can’t tell me otherwise. drawing always feels like there is a clear “good” and “bad,” so I mostly stayed away. illustrating this book has been a very good exercise for me in realizing there is no good or bad: there is just art.

rewind kingston logo:

I’ll write something purposeful later, but in the meantime, you can find me on instagram here and here, my website, or rewind’s website.

been lagging on my instagram because it’s always the last thing I get to now, but thank you for sticking around. it will one day be as active as I want it to be.

lovelovelove,

karlie

here is a little piece I wrote about spring last year.

the trees are budding and if you blink you’ll miss them. I notice differences and splintered innocence and I said it didn’t matter but it’s making my head spin—so much for being indifferent. but like the flowers I grew back and filled into every quality that I lacked. how come we never question whether the flowers will come back? spring comes through and they just do: to perceive ourselves any differently would be a bold move. the trees are budding and if you blink you’ll miss them, and in this moment we are a magnolia tree about to bloom. magenta burns; perspectives turn, and as quick as you twisted the knife, barren trees become full of life.

the first forsythias

I read something last week about how it’s impossible to eliminate things you don’t want to do from your life, but you can try to eliminate doing things that you dread, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. you can not want to do something, and you likely will have to, but you shouldn’t be dreading having to do anything in your life unless it’s absolutely necessary. but if it’s not, how can you change your schedule to filter out the things you dread?

I was talking about this in therapy last week, and while my to-do list is overwhelming and feels never-ending, I found solace in the fact that most of the list did not include tasks I was dreading.

do whatever you can to live dread-free.

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last thing: my friend always makes us play this game called high-low when we are out. I genuinely don’t know if it’s a thing or if her and her friends just made it up, but each person says the high of their day and the low of their day, so let’s start this month with some high-lows of last month:

highs!

-I FINISHED MY BOOK! she is currently being edited and absolutely wrecked with a red pen but she is a complete, whole book.

-I am going to make an accompanying short film with my friend shelby to release with the book

-the cold water cleanse we did in honor of my sister. we had almost 200 people show up and it was so beautiful seeing how many lives she touched

-I am being interviewed for a podcast for the first time tomorrow (!!!!!)

-RECIEVED MY FIRST PACKAGE IN EXCHANGE FOR POSTING ON INSTAGRAM (CALL ME AN INFLUENCER?) AND IT WAS A FUZZY PAJAMA SET.

-I started an art, writing, and meditation wellness workshop in my community

-BOOKED A TRIP TO ITALY AND GREECE?????

-moved into my new apartment

lows

-spring is here (but you are not)

-the entire day that you would have turned 22

-the ratio of how little money I have vs how much I am working

this is your sign to write a high-low list. you might surprise yourself with more highs than you would think. going into this month on a positive note: the next newsletter will be from europe (!!!!!!!) see you then. <3

hope spring brings you peace

and the april sun heals winter’s beast

lovelovelove,

karlie

I also need book reccs.

when my little sister—nineteen and eternally braver than I am—decided she was going to Italy and Greece at the end of April, I decided to go with her and bought a one-way ticket before I had even requested the time off work. it is one of, if not, the most impulsive thing I have ever done. unfortunately, I am terrible at saving my money, and they didn’t coin the term “starving artist” for nothing. quitting a stable 9-5 job to pursue a career in writing and art is no easy feat. I am barely able to pay my bills each month, and make just enough money to cover them. do I have any right to be going across the country on a 2 week vacation to Europe? absolutely not. am I working part time in an administrative job thus not making me eligible for paid time off? correct. am I unsure how I am going to pull this off? very. do I have a flight home? unfortunately not. BUT AM I GOING TO THE AMALFI COAST WITH MY BEST FRIEND? YOU BET I AM. I’ve decided to pretend the trip is a writing retreat, and my job is to observe and document and people watch and eavesdrop on conversations strangers are having on their phones. I hope it inspires me. I hope it doesn’t make me feel more alone.

in other news, writer’s block has been k i l l i n g me. I try to follow the advice a writer I admire once gave me: read when you need inspiration, write when you have too much on your mind. I both need inspiration and have too much on my mind, and still can’t write a freaking word. but as writers, we all go through it, and we all get past it. I am going to start a new book tonight and hope it will do the trick. I did write a few lines in my journal, though, on the topic of traveling and bills that felt like a good fit for this newsletter:

I am drowning in bills,

you wouldn’t believe the cost of staying alive

I am thinking about selling everything I own

just to get by

maybe I should sell my car and start a new life—

I don’t live in a big city

there’s no subway in sight

but I think I’ll be alright

last night, my little sister’s friend was complaining about her parents not letting her go on vacation with her boyfriend. I remembered the feeling like it was hiding in plain sight. I told her to give it time, because one day, she is going to be 25 years old and be able to book a flight to anywhere in the world with hardly any money, and no one will be able to stop her. the decisions—although questionable—will be hers to make.

and one day, she will be in control of her whole life, and she will swear she has never, ever, felt more alive.

talk soon,

karlie

I’ve always loved writing, but in the technical, thesis-driven, argumental way. I primarily wrote essays throughout high school and college. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in English and Communications. I worked at my college’s Writing Center as a tutor. I planned to work in PR or Publishing. I took a single creative writing course my freshman year, loved it, but never came back to it until after I graduated. Why? I could not tell you. Maybe it was the fear and intimidation of creating my own stories. Peers of mine had been writing stories their whole lives: creative writing was for them, not me. It wasn’t until I was grappling with leaving a three-year-relationship that the words started to come to me. I remember writing them late at night in my notes app and hiding the screen. When I left the relationship, which is an underrated very-hard-thing-to-do that took months to find the courage, I felt empowered in a way I had never felt before. The words were spilling out of me. I was writing more than I ever had in my life.

This was just six months before Covid hit in March of 2020, and you can guess what happens next: the words kept coming. I was bored, I was scared, and I had nothing better to do. I created my Instagram page @reminderstomyfutureself and began posting my writing. I began creating collages to use as backgrounds for my poems so they didn’t look so plain—this was something I loved doing since I was young—and it provided a kind of therapy I didn’t know was available to me. As my writing evolved, my art evolved. The page was anonymous, and I can still remember the fear I felt whenever I showed someone for the first time. It was a hobby until it was a lifeline.

My 19-year-old sister Cassidy died 8 months into Covid. The brightest, boldest, most beautiful girl in the room was anxious, depressed, and losing hope that life would ever get better. Being sent home from college, stuck inside our parents’ house, and the dooming fate of the world did not help. She was in and out of treatment centers that terrified her, attending partial programs while balancing her sophomore year of college, and coming out of a relationship that she was both dependent on and consumed by. My sister talked about wanting to die bluntly and openly since she was in her early teens, but always played it off in the way Gen-Z tends to do when it feels like the entire population is depressed. “I’m not serious.” “I wouldn’t ever actually do that.” I never thought it was funny. It fucking terrified me. It didn’t help that she was the most melodramatic person I had ever met in my life. She was funny and sharp, always lighting up the room she was in and the people in it. She gave money to every homeless person she could afford to (she never could afford to). She was kind. She was stubborn. She once drove 30 minutes to meet me on a hike because she didn’t want me to go alone. It was genuinely hard not to like her. You want to know one of the worst parts? I think the only person who didn’t like her was her.

I would list reason after reason she couldn’t leave, call my parents whenever her boyfriend called in a panic that he was scared. This went on for months: months of going to sleep and praying she would wake up; months of trying to fix someone else; months of learning the hard way that you can’t. Dozens of therapists, medications, hypnotizing, crystals—she tried everything.

We lost her the morning of November 29, 2020. We were supposed to meet at a coffee shop that morning to have an intervention I had planned with a family friend. It was 11 a.m. and she never slept that late. Her roommates video called me over Instagram while I was making turkey soup from Thanksgiving leftovers. I handed the phone to my mom to answer. I couldn’t do it. I just knew.

My forecoming book “You Look Like You’re Looking For Something” is a love letter to Cassidy and a love letter to anyone grieving the loss of someone they love; it is evidence that I survived the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Writing stopped being a hobby a long time ago, and now I am going to make it my career. As soon as I’m done editing (which will surely be the death of me!), it will be available to pre-order on Amazon as an e-book and as soon as I figure out how, a hardcover. it’s full of poetry, prose, and art. it is how I got through the past two years of my life. it is a story of love, perseverance, and loyalty.

and it’s all for her.

thank you for being here.

karlie

you can find me on instagram here and here, my website, or rewind’s website.

Today, I have woken up 719 times in a world without my best friend; my favorite person; my angelic baby sister. Sometimes I wake up and forget. For a long time, I counted the minutes it took for me to remember. This was not supposed to be my life. I still cannot believe this is my life.

a “positive” of grief: you can finally understand how much everyone fucking loves you.

one of the endless negatives of grief: we all have understand how much we fucking love you. it makes me wish sometimes that I never got to have it, but how ridiculous does that sound? we all crave that kind of love, right? I lost it, but I still had it. even if it wasn’t long enough, I still had it.

If the only constant in life is change, then the only constant in my life is that I will miss you: forever, intensely, entirely, no matter what. I will never lose that.

but I’ll never have you again, either.

to my future self, reading this next month or years later:

hope ur ok

xoxo,

karlie

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