Lya Badgley

This month, a friend shared a Substack post that shook me. I’m still shivering. She had been reading Stephanie Foo’s memoir, What My Bones Know, and wrote about how it reminded her that during the chaos of 2020, while others unraveled, she felt weirdly calm. In the book, Foo reflects on how the adaptations formed in response to trauma can feel like a disability in times of peace — but in crisis, they become a kind of superpower. A body that has been braced for the worst suddenly finds itself prepared. For someone shaped by trauma or chronic illness, ordinary life can feel off-kilter, slightly unbalanced. But when the world tilts into uncertainty — when disaster looms — the internal wiring finally makes sense.

I’ve felt this too. It explains why disaster movies calm me, why during the last earthquake I was grabbing my ‘go bag’ from the closet before it finished shaking, why in upheaval I finally feel… alive and okay. Awareness of this paradox is my Valentine’s gift to myself this year: a gentler understanding of how I’m wired, and the grace to love that part of me instead of fighting it.

If this reflection speaks to you, click on the photo to read Katherine’s full post.

And the memoir that sparked her insight is What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps love, at its most mature, is not about roses or romance, but about recognition — seeing clearly the patterns that shaped us and choosing tenderness anyway. This February, I’m thinking of love as self-knowledge, and the quiet relief of finally understanding why I like disaster movies so much.

It may also explain why I write the stories I do — Tales where the characters feel most alive when the ground shifts beneath them. Some of us were shaped by instability. We do not seek chaos, but we know how to survive it. And sometimes, that knowing becomes its own form of love.

And so this February, I’m thinking about love differently. Not as roses or perfection, but as understanding. As compassion for the ways we were shaped, even when those shapes feel painful or hard.

If you carry your own unlikely superpower, I hope you hold it with tenderness.

Happy Valentine’s Day, dear readers. Thanks for being here.