Content warning: This is about someone who died by suicide.
A few notes to go along with the audio.
Heather Armstrong died yesterday. I think that will mean something to some of you, and nothing to others. I was honestly surprised by what the news did to me, a person who hasn’t thought about her in any way, at all, for years and years.
I recorded this sitting in a car, that was sitting in a parking lot. The sound quality isn’t the best. And it’s a little rambling. But I don’t know. I wanted to process the news with people. And you’re people. And processing isn’t always neat. I know you get that.
After I got home, I googled Heather Armstrong. And it seems like there was even more going on in the years since I stopped following her than I’d realized. But that doesn't really change anything I felt or said.
As someone who didn’t know Heather, and didn’t really even know about her after 2012, I don’t really feel equipped to comment on her or her life. So in this audio letter I mostly talk about her impact on me.
Someday, I might write more fully about how radically important it was to me that she, and others like her, left the LDS church publicly, while also modeling the ability to - however messily - hold on to their still-LDS extended families. But for now, there’s this ten minutes of me in my car.
I reference a few things in here, that you may not know about, if you haven’t been here for long. So…
Here’s a newsletter about me leaving the LDS church. I talk a little about cosmic dawn in here too.
Here’s a newsletter about motherhood and online-ness being fairly fraught, especially in the early years of internet influence.
Here’s a newsletter, one of many, where I write a little about my PPD.
Here’s where I am with motherhood as an idea now.
10 minutes on Heather Armstrong