Hi angels! SORRY - you’re getting this a bit later this morning as your gal had ✨band practise✨ last night (resulting in a v sore mouth - worth it for our rendition of Good 4 U tho!!), and then an episode of The Shit Show to record at 6am, so I truly have just NOT had the time to sit here and write this thing for you!
But here I am, and lemme just say how much I am LOVING all of you chatting away in our lil substack chats - all the enneagram stuff? Fascinating (I’m an 8w7 btw.) Bel is gonna take the lead on this edish, continuing on with our heartbreak theme, and I know you’re gonna love it as much as I dooooooo 💘💘
Bel Chimes In: On healing out of heartbreak
An update on the earthquake in Indonesia
A Squish edish: Artemis finally got launched!!
I went on a cool podcast with some cool dudes
Turns out you SHOULD be washing your washing machine
🔔Bel Chimes In: On healing out of heartbreak🔔
This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. You should check out more of her beautiful words here.
Besties! How are you?! I’m coming to you hot on a subject I care A LOT about this week, and it’s all in the name of a gorge and essential upcoming SYSCA project on heartbreak! So if the below resonates, or even if it doesn’t, we’d love to hear your own stories!
As most of you know, I went through the eviscerating (LOL, literally learned this word only once I went through this hell - it means to be absolutely deprived or have the contents of something removed, in this case, my spirit I guess?) break up at the start of this year and I want to tell you a little about it here in a way that’s also respectful of love’s privacy and the other person, and give you hope for getting out the other side.
We were in love for two years until we weren’t, and in a jolting realisation, we didn’t want the same things for the future and probably never did. One minute we were living together, and the next, I was on the floor of our apartment drinking vermouth on ice and packing his stuff into banana boxes to stack at the door. My friend Vee came over, and we ate chips out of the bag for dinner, Farmer Wants A Wife played on tv in the background, and I remember turning to her and asking — when will I be ok again? She replied, properly? A year. Then I promise it will get good again.
And that’s where Phoenixing was born.
Things for a while were very bad. I remember waking up and thinking that I wouldn’t wish feeling that bad on anyone in the world except for, like, Trump or Putin. It sounds insane now, but at the worst of it, my friends had to come and deliver yoghurt and sit on the end of my bed and force me to eat it. They sent me playlists and knitting kits, washed my hair, bought me flowers, scooped me up, drove me to the beach, lit a cigarette and lay down beside me on a beach towel until I fell asleep in the sun. Over this time, we coined the term ‘The heart is heaven, the heart is hell,’ and we still use it and laugh about it now.
The year after heartbreak is hell and happiness. It's about healing, making your own secrets, and piecing yourself together again. It’s about grieving the vision for a future you dreamed about, grew attached to, and will no longer have. About having those moments that feel like the bad parts of a badly made rom-com. The physical pain. The gap in your life. A whole stretch of time that feels like your leg hovering over a step that isn’t there, and you coming down onto the landing in a shuddery thump.
Looking back on this now, heart all threaded back together again (in a way I truly didn’t think was possible in the heat of it all!!), the story here is not about who hurt me, how love failed us, or how we hurt each other. It’s about the true healing resurrection of time and, in many cases, the most romantic love of all: friendship. It is what brings you back to your body again. Keeps you on the earth. Reminds you who you are. Shows up in the rain, every time, no questions asked.
Everyone has a different definition of Good Love, but I can share with you my own, which I think about a lot when I'm at weddings (especially when I officiate them!):
It’s two parallel lines travelling in the same direction. Sometimes you move closer, and sometimes life pulls you apart a bit, but the gravity between you rides it out. It's not perfection. It's not that hot, dizzy fireworks-over-the-sky -soft pink-light-thrown-over-everything-feeling-that-you-hope-will-last-forever but doesn’t. Sure, there are those sugary moments that make you feel like the world’s tilted on its axis, and something just clicks into place, but there’s also a quietness to it — something that wraps around you at the end of the day when you’re Real Life Living, that holds the space, that traverses that gap between you both and makes you feel truly less alone in the world.
And if it’s not romantic love right now? I truly believe that friendship love can be just as deep
All of this is to say that I love you a lot and if you’re going through those heartbreak waves I’m ~ absolutely ~ here for you!! And if you're single, angel, the world is your fucking oyster with all this time you have. Let’s go out and see what we can do with it xx
An update on the earthquake in Indonesia
God, the more I read about the situation in Indonesia the more my goddamn heart is breaking. But, it’s my job to keep you updated, and I shall. At this stage there are 268 dead, many of them children, with 151 still missing and more than 1,000 injured. Most of the casualties are children because the quake hit at 1pm while they were at school.
The story that really got me was about 14-year-old Aprizal Mulyadi.
Aprizal Mulyadi. was at school when the quake hit, and was trapped after "the room collapsed". The 14-year-old said his "legs were buried under the rubble", but he was pulled to safety by his friend Zulfikar, who later died after himself becoming trapped.
Aftershocks, landslides, and the destruction of roads has made rescue efforts incredibly difficult, particularly to rural areas. More on this story here.
A Squish edish: Artemis finally got launched!!
This section was written by my brother Squish (who you all know better as co-host of The Shit Show!! Squish loves space, cycling, wine, and F1 💘💘)
NASA finally sent its next-generation rocket soaring into space for the first time on Wednesday!!! The Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, took off at 1:47AM ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, signalling the start of a brand new era for the US government’s space program.
The big ol rocket has been plagued by years of delays, development mishaps, and billions of dollars in budget overruns. During the past few months, both hurricanes and technical difficulties caused launch delays — including two aborts during the countdown. Then, on Wednesday last week, engineers managed to fix both a hydrogen leak on the launchpad and a “bad ethernet switch” in the hours just before launch.
So that’s pretty cool! But what is this rocket actually doing, you’re asking?
Well this one, in particular, is testing out the new NASA space capsule, which they are planning on returning astronauts to the moon with, in the next few years. So the capsule is going up, flying past the moon, going real close (like 400km close), and then using the moon’s gravity to fling it into deep space to do some tests, until it comes back to earth to land off of the coast of California on December the 11th.
Very cool stuff for a space lover like me!
I went on a cool podcast with some cool dudes
It’s called Between Two Beers and it’s right here if you wanna listen!!
Turns out you SHOULD be washing your washing machine
But only 38% of us are doing it. Here’s some REALLY good advice from newsy reader Maeve on how to do it:
I'm an avid Ann Russell fan on Tiktok (@annrussell03), she has been teaching me how to clean things that I didn't know I needed to clean for so long!
It's pretty much, empty and clean filter at the bottom, wipe the seal, clean the detergent tray (BUT CLEAN STUFF GO IN THERE WHY CLEAN?!?!) and then run a super hot wash without any washing, you can get a washing machine cleaner, or just a couple of cups of bleach. After you're done, leave the door open to air dry (you're meant to do this all the time to prevent mold buildup) and bobs ur uncle ur done!
My washing machine lets me know how often I'm meant to do it, but recommended I think is like every month (but I defo don't do it every month lol)
🌈THE MORE YOU KNOW🌈
And here’s a comment I liked on our Instagram post about it:
Ya’ll are funny and I love u.
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All I could think about with the washing-machine washing situation was Nick Miller on The New Girl, talking about how he doesn't wash his towel, his towel washes him!
getting a lil newsy feature for cleaning, very Virgo of me 😂 TANKS LUCE