Milestones and Motherships
Yesterday unfolded as one of those rare days where accomplishment, grief, revision, and absurd humor all found a way to coexist within the same stretch of hours.
At 4:00 p.m., I republished my newest book, Grief First Aid Kit — not just as a launch, but as a refinement. I had released an earlier version, then went back in to expand a section that matters deeply to me: the creation of new neural pathways.
My stance on neuroplasticity is strong. The brain is not fixed. Even after loss, even after trauma, we are capable of building new routes for thought, emotion, and healing. I wanted the book to reflect that more clearly, so I revised it and released the final version the same day, along with a cover change from white to black.
That change wasn’t cosmetic.
In Western cultures, black has long been considered a respectful color for death — a symbol of mourning, solemnity, and grief, with traditions dating back to Roman times. It represents a quiet, non-flashy way to pay respects to the deceased and helps create a somber atmosphere for reflection. Black carries the symbolism of absence and the void left behind when someone is gone.
At the same time, in many Eastern cultures, white is traditionally worn to symbolize purity and rebirth. Both perspectives hold meaning. The final black cover felt aligned with the tone of the book and the cultural language of mourning I grew up understanding.
The roots of the Grief First Aid Kit trace back to a small grief booklet I stumbled across years ago on a free-book shelf — one of those quiet finds you almost overlook. It sat with me for a long time.
It wasn’t until after my mother passed that I truly opened it and leaned on it in a real way. Sitting with those pages during my own grief made something clear: resources like that matter. They offer a handhold when everything else feels unstable.
Over time, I felt compelled to build something more complete — a guide that speaks to healing the spirit, mind, and body, and offers practical steps people can return to when they’re trying to find their footing again.
The project waited patiently while I finished the other ten books I published in January. Once those were complete, I could finally give this one my full attention.
Bringing it into the world — and then refining it — felt personal. Less like launching a product and more like extending something I once needed myself.
By 6:20 p.m., another notification came through: The Book of Carlos audiobook had gone live on Audible.
Two milestones landed on the same day — one centered on healing and refinement, the other marking another step in a long creative journey.
Earlier, the day had actually begun on a surreal footnote.
After working into the early morning hours the night before to finish the manuscript, I eventually took Zolpidem (commonly known as Ambien) to sleep.
For awareness: this medication is known to cause sleepwalking and other complex behaviors in some people. There are documented cases of people shopping, driving, and carrying out full activities with no memory of it. I can now confirm those warnings are very real.
Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I apparently became a very serious humanoid researcher in my own kitchen.
I vaguely remember fragments, but my father filled in the rest. I was standing in front of the refrigerator announcing, with total confidence, “I’m extracting data.”
A moment later, while yanking the wall-mounted container that held our recycled grocery bags clean off the wall, I insisted “Something was wrong… I need to extract more information.”
The whole scene played out like a low-budget alien investigation.
Toward the end of this mission, after staring back into the refrigerator like a scientist reviewing results, I calmly concluded, “Everything looks good now.”
As I said those words, my father gently guided me while I stumbled from the kitchen all the way back to my bed — a quiet, grounding moment that contrasted sharply with whatever interstellar operation I thought I had just completed.
It felt like something straight out of Third Rock from the Sun, that old show my father and I always enjoyed — aliens trying to understand Earth through completely bizarre methods.
In that moment, I might as well have been one of them, communicating with a mothership through milk cartons and orange juice. Maybe I was uploading information. Maybe downloading.
Either way, it was absurd enough to be funny once I was fully awake. I’m just glad I woke up in time for work with fifteen minutes to spare down the hallway to my remote job.
There’s something fitting about how those events shared the same day.
On one side: refining and publishing a book meant to help people navigate grief, grounded in the science of neuroplasticity and the belief that new paths can be built after devastation.
On the other: me, half asleep, conducting refrigerator research like a sitcom alien. Life rarely separates the profound from the ridiculous. It places them side by side and asks us to carry both.
The truth underneath the humor is simple: grief is real, healing (stabilization) is possible, and being human is messy.
Sometimes it looks like revising a book because you believe deeply in the brain’s ability to change.
Sometimes it looks like sleepwalking into your kitchen and briefly auditioning for a sci-fi comedy.
And sometimes it looks like being quietly guided back to bed by someone who cares about you while you drift between worlds.
Both milestones are live now:
The Book of Carlos audiobook:
Grief First Aid Kit:
If this book reaches even one person at the exact moment they need it, then the long night, the revisions, the strange episode, and the entire path that led here were worth it.
We keep building, rewiring, and learning — sometimes through grief, sometimes through humor, and occasionally with a refrigerator full of imaginary alien data.
That was the day. And somehow, it all fits.
Music credit;
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