Where Is This Going?
The "muse"-letter, and other things
The short answer: LedaCunningham.com. The longer answer . . .
Six months ago I sent Greetings into the world like a kite, tossing it up to the internet sky and watching the wind take it for a spin.
I felt grounded by self-knowledge and confidence, having stepped off my career path temporarily to reconsider its destination and focus on raising my kids.
When Storm Season blew in I had to sit down. Writing publicly about my experience as a suicide widow, even using that term, was, briefly, almost as intense as living it.
At some point in the last eighteen months, I realized I’d been leading a double life for years. By day I was a resourceful single mom striving my way into nonprofit leadership positions while keeping kids on task. By night, a struggling survivor processing delayed grief, confusion, and paperwork while cleaning the kitchen and packing school lunches for the next day.
Sometimes night and day traded places. A good day meant I didn’t cry in public.
Seeing the two selves I’d become strained my peripheral vision to the point of exhaustion. When I finally put words to paper, just for myself at first, writing helped me pull the flickering images into focus and get them moving forward as one. Good days began to include growth, not just the absence of pain. Oh, but it felt good to feel good again!
I felt bigger and more whole, pulled by a new calling that I would tell others about when I was ready. Thus, Love Story.
Then Roundup, Baklava and Baby Birds, and Peace by Piece helped me practice not only creative writing, but receiving feedback and refining new work with a balance of self and audience in mind.
But where’s all this headed? a friend wondered in email. Can you keep it up? Will anyone pay for it? (Such kind candor is in short supply yet sorely needed everywhere IMO.)
Well . . . okay, I could see his point. It’s not that there wasn’t a plan for a new work path, it’s that the plan was creating itself day by day. Harold and the Purple Crayon-style, guided by a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility to my kids, our community, and the world I want to live in.
What wasn’t creating itself was a new source of income. Harold did his best with what he had, bless his bald little 1950’s heart, but he wasn’t staring down American higher ed costs or a new HVAC unit due to recent snowstorms.
I dusted off a few planning exercises that I’d developed for organizations, and set to work. Values must be defined, goals must be SMART, strategies SWOT-analyzed, vision statements visionary. The same basic resources—time, money, people, information—must be managed for mission-driven organizations, programs, and projects. It stood to reason that I could employ similar methods for planning my family’s future as I’d used with colleagues and clients.
After all, what is a parent if not the head of a small nonprofit adapting to change?
It felt wonderful to apply structure and strategy to decisions that had mostly been making themselves because of circumstances, inertia, or exhaustion. A sense of agency filled me with hope that I could create order in my life, and perhaps some good in the world, after years of responding to the next thing in front of me. Survival is, of course, necessary. But it isn’t the purpose of a human life.
Fast-forward to a new work-life orientation that merges my former double life into one. It builds on what I’ve learned about leadership, taking care of the natural environment, and loving my family out of crisis. It’s likely to evolve, as all plans do, but will always focus on care.
I envision a world in which people impacted by suicide loss have comfort, information, and connection to one another for as long as they need it. My mission is to help people rebuild their lives through writing, sharing resources, and creating community. These activities will be conducted through a blend of nonprofit and business initiatives that fill research gaps, create and distribute educational materials, contribute to on-the-ground support for families, and amplify stories of lived experience as mutual care for suicide loss survivors.
That’s it.
That’s where a year of midlife sabbatical and six months of writing for joy landed. I call it Navel-gazing for Pragmatists. Dibs on the copyright.
What’s in it for you, dear reader? Everything and nothing. If you like where this is going, here are three ways to help shift the winds in our favor:
1. Visit and share my website, LedaCunningham.com, as widely as you feel comfortable.
2. Share this post around social media platforms beyond Substack.
3. Subscribe to this newsletter if you haven’t already.
If you just want to watch our collective kites twirl and tangle and nosedive and try again, that’s fine too. Make some popcorn. The default, “do nothing” alternative here is simply to continue reading and (hopefully) enjoy the show.
As I left a meeting at school last night, someone I’d just met asked me what I do. My usual answer is a long explanation of environmental science, policy, campaigning, and advocacy.
“Nonprofit management and suicide loss support,” I heard myself say.
“You work for the county?” She asked.
“No, I’m independent. I went through it myself and now I want to help others.”
She nodded, thoughtful. I inhaled deeply, discreetly. Did something big just happen in that small moment? We resumed our conversation about fundraising for the tennis team.
“We should start small,” I offered, “and build out depending on what the team needs.”
Than you for sharing Leda. With much admiration, Beth D 🌻