CREATIVE MEMOIR - IN PROGRESS
Unfortunately, Yes.
After cancer, betrayal, and enough plot twists to make a soap opera seem subtle, one woman discovers that life is rarely graceful—and often completely absurd.
A creative memoir about finding humour in the chaos, with occasional commentary from a caffeine-addicted talking bear.
ABOUT THE BOOK
When Plan A has very clearly left the building.
Unfortunately, Yes. is a creative memoir about what happens when the life you thought you were building falls spectacularly off-script.
Moving through cancer, marriage, betrayal, divorce, single motherhood, and the deeply unglamorous business of starting over, it explores the moments that break us, reshape us, and occasionally become funny once enough time has passed.
Told with vulnerability, dry humour, and a healthy appreciation for the absurd, this is a story about rebuilding a life when the old blueprint no longer applies—and discovering that starting over may be less about becoming someone new than finally becoming yourself.
MEET BEAR
Every memoir needs supervision
Bear is the caffeine-addicted, occasionally judgmental voice who appears throughout the memoir to offer commentary, unsolicited opinions, and the kind of perspective that usually arrives approximately six years too late.
He would like it noted that he is the reasonable one.
FROM THE BOOK
Read an excerpt
Neither of us spoke. The receipt sat between us, a tiny, crumpled monument to human absurdity.
By that point, collecting them wasn’t about proving a point to anyone else. It was about proving to myself that I hadn’t imagined the past several years. When enough implausible things happen to one person, you eventually stop wondering whether other people believe you. You stop caring about outside validation altogether. Instead, you start wondering whether you even believe yourself. You look in the mirror at the person you barely recognize anymore and try to calculate if this next bizarre plot twist will be the exact one to finally break your mind.
Finally, Bear let out a long, exasperated sigh that seemed to vibrate even the floorboards.
“Start from the beginning.”
I took a careful sip of coffee, hot steam spilling over my upper lip, warming a body that had felt perpetually numb for years.
“Okay,” I said, setting the mug down. “So first, you need to understand that the serial killer wasn’t actually real. Well, he was real, but that’s a different book entirely.”
Bear closed his eyes, his fuzzy brow furrowed.
“I already hate this story.”
“It gets worse,” I warned. “I have spreadsheets.”
“Of course you do.”
WHAT'S IT REALLY ABOUT
Yes, there's cancer.
Yes, there's betrayal.
Yes, there's divorce.
But this isn't really a book about any of those things.
It's about identity. Motherhood. The stories we tell ourselves about safety. Learning to trust your own voice again. Finding humour in places it probably has no business being—and figuring out who you are when the life you carefully constructed disappears.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Why I started writing it
Somewhere between surviving the things I never expected to survive and trying to build whatever came next, I started writing.
Not because I had figured everything out. Quite the opposite. Unfortunately, Yes grew out of trying to make sense of the ridiculous, painful, funny, deeply human moments that don't fit neatly into the inspirational version of starting over.