The Nuance Diaries

Alexa Juanita Jordan
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What sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. thenuancediaries.substack.com

  1. May 30

    I Don't Talk About My Book Enough

    Less than 0.1% of the global population will ever write a book. Not publish — write. Someone told me that statistic recently, at an event where I talked about my book. Around 0.0086% are published authors. Over 50% of U.S. writers are women, which is major, major progress. And when we filter by Black women? We make up 4% to 7% of published authors in America. Regardless of the exact stats, which are changing all the time and differ based on where you collect them — I’m in very rare company as a published author. And a self-published author at that. You know what’s wild, though? As I went to type ‘self-published’, what I first wrote was ‘selfish.’ And I can’t blame that on autocorrect. That was 100% my subconscious at work. Selfish. It’s a word that’s been viewed as ‘dirty’ and very much weaponized as an insult. It makes my skin crawl a little, as a recovering people pleaser. We’re all selfish to some extent, though, aren’t we? Or shouldn’t we be? I deserve to be proud of my book. I deserve to talk about my book without making excuses about what I would’ve done differently. It’s not about the number of copies I’ve sold or the money I’ve made. There is a book with my name on it, sitting on people’s bookshelves. A book I rarely talk about. People have said such beautiful, kind things about my book, The Start Of It All. Many people read it in a day. Someone in their seventies even loved it. Imagine that, a 70-something loving a book that I wrote for 20-somethings. And yet — I don’t really talk about it. Ever. I wrote it, published it, posted about it a few times, sold a hundred or so copies, and then…just stopped. It’s not intentional. I’m not trying to hide my book. Or maybe I am, subconsciously? The Start of It All is a book full of questions designed to help you get to know yourself better, paired with stories about my 20s. And that’s mostly true. But if we’re being specific… Those stories about my 20s? They’re about my messiest moments. When I hand my book to someone, it feels like I’m handing a part of myself over to them — because I am. I truly poured my entire being into this book. I always say that I want my vulnerability to be a permission slip for yours, and I mean that. I love handing out those permission slips left and right, here inside The Nuance Diaries each week. I talk about this Substack all the time. But not the book. Why don’t I talk about my book? I’ve already had more success as a writer than I ever could have dreamed of. I have an amazing playwriting agent. My work is featured in The Best Women’s Monologues of 2022; the same kind of anthology I used to look for monologues in high school. My plays have been performed across the country — most recently, at Notre Dame this Spring. The college senior directing it emailed me that they were rehearsing on the beach in Mexico on Spring Break. I’ve never been to Mexico. Or Notre Dame. But my words have. A play that I wrote on my couch in pajamas has literally been to a country that I myself have not. I’m pretty proud of that. So why not the book that I wrote in pajamas at my kitchen table? In the project proposal for my senior thesis, I told the committee that if just one person had a “me too” moment during my play, I’d be unimaginably happy and proud. I still feel that way about all of my work. If any contribution I’ve made to the world can help someone feel less alone, I’ve done my job. I know for a fact that The Start Of It All has helped many people feel not only less alone, but truly seen. The very thing I craved during my 20s — and still do now. In my 20s, I needed to know that I hadn’t screwed up my life entirely. I still need daily reminders of that. In my 20s, I needed to know that I still had time. I still feel like I’m running out of time, a la Hamilton. In my 20s, I needed to know that it was okay to have a lot of questions and no answers. These days, I’m smart enough to know that no one has the answers. In my 20s, I needed to know that ‘crushing my 20s’ wasn’t a prerequisite for a good life. I now know that anyone who says they crushed their 20s is lying to either you or themselves. Perhaps what I needed most of all in my 20s was for someone to tell me that no one knows more about me than I do. Because it’s true. No one knows more about me than me. Just like no one knows more about you than you. Having that kind of personal autonomy would have drastically changed my life at any point in my 20s. I have no idea how different my life might have been if I had started listening to my intuition over everyone else’s advice sooner. No regrets, though. I sincerely mean that. Some of the biggest, messiest moments from my 20s that I swore in the moment I would never tell anyone? They’re in the book. My messiest moments are now my best stories. I fully own my entire story, not only because I have compassion for myself, but because I want to extend as much compassion as I can to as many people as I can. I’m realizing that I can’t really extend the compassion without talking about my book. And also, that owning my story means celebrating my story. If in their lowest moment, someone thinks to themselves, “Alexa would never be as hard on me as I’m being on myself right now”, then I got one thing right. I want The Start Of It All to be a companion to you in those moments — just like Glennon Doyle was to me on the night I lost my mind, and found myself. (Well, her book was that companion to me, not actual living, breathing Glennon Doyle, although I really do think we’d make such great friends.) Glennon Doyle is truly my proof that you can embrace your mess, feel it all, pivot more than a few times, and still wind up with a beautiful, beautiful life. My life is proof of that, too. I actually think imperfect, messy women lead the best lives. Imperfect, messy women who aren’t entirely sure why they’re uncomfortable talking about their books, but are doing it anyway. An older version of me would have waited until I self-analyzed to death and figured out the precise reason why promoting my book feels so icky. I hate that it feels icky. I don’t want it to feel icky. But instead of trying and trying to figure out why that is, I’m going to just start running in the opposite direction of my discomfort, feel the fear, and talk about the book anyway. At that same event I mentioned in the beginning, an incredible woman said something I’ll never forget. While telling me about her new affirmation cards, Chantha Thach said, “They’re magic.” She kept talking about the deck with the group we were chatting with. I interrupted a few moments later. “Did you just call your cards magic?” She confirmed. She did. I told her how much I loved hearing a woman confidently describe her own creation that way. I told her that I wished I could be that confident about my book. I’m working on it. I’ll get there. For now, I’ll repeat that statistic to myself. For a Pisces, I actually really like data. Less than 0.1% of the global population will ever write a book. Not publish — write. I am part of that 0.1% I’m a published author. I wrote a goddamn book. And it’s high time I celebrate. PS It’s 22% until Sunday! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    14 min

  2. May 20

    To The Class of 2026

    This is less of a speech, more of a pep talk, and really — just some reflections from someone coming up on their 10-year college reunion who feels like graduation was just yesterday. Instead of picturing me on a podium in regalia, let’s pretend I’m sitting next to you on the floor of your dorm as you pack up your things, or sitting across from you at brunch after graduation, or in the backseat of the car on your drive back home, or wherever life is taking you next post-college. To the Class of 2026, The day after I graduated from college, I didn’t get out of bed until 5 PM. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t watching TV. I barely texted anyone. I was just scrolling through my Instagram feed and well…lying there completely exhausted. The only reason I got up was to get dinner at a pizza place that no longer exists with a friend I stopped talking to a few years later. It would probably shock my 22-year-old self to read these words, about losing touch with that friend, not the pizza place closing. As a native New Yorker, I’m all too familiar with favorite restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores closing down. My favorite Barnes and Noble on 86th and Lex is now a Target. The benches by the magazine section where I spent countless hours pouring through glossy pages, have now been replaced with a homeware section. I once leafed through a magazine in that very Barnes and Noble, with a cover highlighting a Hollywood actress and her “hard-won happiness.” That phrase always stuck with me. At the time, I probably didn’t have the self-awareness to admit I was far from truly happy. I did know that I liked the idea of describing happiness as “hard-won.” Those two words made me feel instantly seen and validated, as someone who used to secretly roll her eyes when people talked about waking up happy in the morning, with an easy-breezy feeling that I was convinced only exists in fairy tales. The summer after graduation, I moved to Portland for an acting program, hated it, and came back to New York with no idea what I was going to do next. I eventually landed a role in an incredible new play at La MaMa, after originally inquiring about being the stage manager’s assistant. It was an amazing experience. I was featured in the New York Times. Everything was going according to plan. But it turns out, I didn’t love the life of a working actor as much as I thought I would. I started working as a temp receptionist at many Manhattan offices and ended up writing a play while at my desk. I wouldn’t realize that I wanted to be a playwright for a few more years, though. I spent too much money doing things I didn’t enjoy, with people I didn’t have a lot in common with, trying to keep up with the “New York scene.” I look back, and I really don’t like what those “friends” brought out in me, but if you’d asked me at the time, I would have told you that I had a great community. I constantly hustled for my self-worth, and was so busy trying to prove myself to everyone that I could barely enjoy success when it came. I co-directed the same play that I starred in as a fourth grader at my elementary school (Charlotte’s Web) and found more joy working with kids than I’d had in years - even though if I knew I wasn’t meant to be a teacher long-term. Those kids are now in high school, close to entering college themselves (which feels impossible, because they were 9 and learning how to spell just yesterday).(I’m 31, and I still feel like I’m learning how to spell.) We used to dance across the floor to this song called Shine during warm-ups, in a dance class I took in college. I’ve loved it ever since. It goes, Here's where you lose your mind The water here's divine You're doing just fine So, come on, darling Oh, don’t you want to shine? I’m not always sure of what it means to shine. These days, I’m less interested in sparkly, shiny perfection. I do love the heat of the lights in a theater. And the brilliance of the sun, when I’m on a walk listening to a podcast. The verb “shine” is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as “give out a bright light” or “direct (a flashlight or other light) somewhere to see something in the dark.” When I was in your position, I just wanted all the answers to everything. I was longing for someone farther along than me to pull me out of the darkness and guide me through the murkiness of adulthood, straight into the light. I wanted to shine, and I wanted someone to tell me exactly how to do so. I was adamantly convinced that someone could give me “all the answers.” It took me an entire decade of searching, but I now finally know that no one has those answers I once craved. No one knows everything. And most importantly — No one knows more about you than you. So while I certainly can’t give you any answers, what I will tell you is this — I still fall into the trap of thinking everyone is doing better than me. I literally sometimes walk down the street and make up stories about how complete strangers are happier than I am. I often wonder what strangers might think about me, as they pass me by or catch my gaze. Do they make up stories about why I’m happier than they are? Do they assume that I’m sad, because they’re sad? I wonder what version of me exists in their heads. I think about the version of me that exists in my head; how I somehow know myself best and still often assume the worst. I often contemplate how we can tell truer stories about ourselves, or at least re-examine the ones that we’re telling. Who do you say you are? Who do you think you are? Who are you really? I’m the lady waving at kids on the bus and petting dogs in the elevator. I’m the girl curled up in bed watching a bad TV show I can’t get enough of. It’s somehow the only thing that turns my brain off these days. I’m the girl who watched almost ten seasons of Grey’s Anatomy in one week in college when I skipped all of my classes because I was too depressed to get out of bed. I’m the girl who has a hard time relaxing and has convinced herself that all of her worth in this world is tied to what she can do for other people. I’m the girl who’s trying to unlearn that. I am convinced that tacos can solve anything and that you can’t be upset while watching Legally Blonde. I am convinced that I can do anything with enough coffee. I am convinced there are greater things ahead of me than behind me. I am convinced there are greater things ahead of you than behind you. I hope you know I’m rooting for you, even when you’re feeling lost or you think you’ve ruined everything. I’m especially on your side when it seems like everyone has it figured out except you. Whether you’re sad, anxious, excited, hopeful, or something in between as you enter “the real world” post-graduation, I have a feeling it’s all going to turn out quite differently than you can plan or expect. You never know what’s coming in the next chapter. Even when you’re convinced that you do. As Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote in Daisy Jones and The Six, “Don't count yourself out this early, Daisy. You're all sorts of things you don't even know yet.” You are all sorts of things you don’t even know yet. This is just the start. Congratulations. Go rest and celebrate. You deserve it! The above was adapted from the introduction to my book, The Start of It All. BUY MY BOOK SUBSCRIBE BOOK A SESSION LEAVE A TIP This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min

  3. Apr 28

    You do not have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé

    Subscribe to The Nuance Diaries on Substack Buy my book Book a session + Check out client testimonials I’m going to list out some different kinds of people. I’ll tell you what they all have in common in a second— but you can guess first for fun if you want. * People with chronic illness * People with PTSD * People with Complex PTSD * Trauma Survivors of any kind * Disabled people (physical and/or mental) * Parents * Caregivers * People who are grieving * People who don’t have housekeepers * People who don’t have laundry in their building * Eating Disorder survivors who love or hate meal prep * People who commute * People who work from home * Astronauts * Oil pastel artists * Toddlers who are teething Did you guess? Ready to hear the answer? Time moves differently in each and every one of their lives. Someone doing a Broadway show has a different 24 hours in a day than someone working on a cruise. ER doctors have a different 24 hours than podiatrists. Our lives are all different. It may sound redundant, but it’s true. This simple fact bears repeating, every time a stranger tries to tell me I have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé. I do not have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé, and shedoes not have the same 24 hours as me! At no point during her 24 hours can she run to the corner and buy a banana on a crowded New York City block. At no point during my 24 hours can I outsource all the household tasks and life admin that take time away from my career. We have different privileges. Our lives are designed differently. I consider it a privilege to go wherever I want without paparazzi. Beyoncé gets the privilege of being Queen B and performing all of our favorite songs, running an empire, using her wealth for good, and being a goddess, diva, and cowgirl all in one. God, I love Beyoncé I digress. I do not have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé Neither do you. And that’s okay. Stop shaming yourself into accomplishing more or using your time more constructively, or whatever it is you’re doing to yourself when you tell the lie that you have the same 24 hours a day as everyone else. You’re not lazy. You’re not deficient. You’re doing your best with the resources available to you and the energy in your body. Maybe use a few minutes inside your 24 hours to remind yourself of that today. I myself am going to use a few minutes of my 24 hours to listen to some Beyoncé. Further Reading/Listening: My ancestor's wildest dream is me doing dishes listening to Beyoncé This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min

  4. Mar 30

    How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 4 of 4

    Have you read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3? If not, I recommend doing so! So, what does a girl do after the worst panic attack of her life leads to a broken mug, a surprising amount of clarity, and a new song? She stays up all night so that she won’t miss her early morning flight, and then takes her first flight in forever to Missouri, for her middle school bestie’s wedding. It was absolutely beautiful. I cried a lot. While I was on the trip, I got a lead on an even better opportunity than the new temporary job I was originally excited about back in Part 1. That fall, between the new gig(s) and some unexpected money, I was able to start paying off my credit card debt. Suddenly, I could afford to go to happy hour with my friends again. We came in second place at Broadway trivia. I had energy again. I started having fun again. I came super close to falling in love, but got my heart broken instead. I saw Dylan Mulvaney’s epic solo show three times. I told her about the guy who broke my heart. She said he sounded like a coward. I can’t help but agree. She also inspired the name, The Nuance Diaries, and I got to tell her about that, too. I went viral on Substack again, with another essay referencing - but not about - Taylor Swift. I developed a multi-step skin care routine, which I have now fallen off of (but I don’t feel too bad about it because the girls at Sephora are always gagged when I tell them I’m 31.) All the while, I kept the broken mug. To this day, I am still fascinated by it. It feels like a relic from the dark age I’d survived. And yet, when Lunar New Year came around, and I read that broken glass was bad luck, I knew that it was time to part with the broken mug for good. I took a few last pictures - and even traced the handle to make an abstract drawing. I also broke it even more before throwing it out — for catharsis. I couldn’t find my hammer, so I used the handle of a screwdriver 😂 Ironically, as I was finishing this piece, I came across even more broken glass; a container of leftovers slipped out of the refrigerator and onto the floor. The glass shards looked so much like ice, scattered among spaghetti noodles and marinara sauce. I was once again fascinated. I thought about taking a picture of the icy shards in the dustpan. I wondered what symbolism this moment might hold — another sign about the beauty of broken things? Maybe. Probably. Who am I to fight the alchemy? And then I thought, Is there such a thing as too much alchemy? I swept the glass away and threw it out. I used to listen to a song called Broken Glass all the time when I was living in Portland, Oregon. Another wild chapter. A story for another time. The first week or so I was there, I took this very dramatic walk over a highway every day, to get my coffee from a Starbucks inside a huge grocery store. Was there a closer coffee shop? Probably. Could I have found something similar to (or better than) my cinnamon dolce latte? Definitely. But that’s not the choice I made at 22 years old. I was living across the country by myself for the very first time. It somehow felt scarier than being in London by myself. I needed my familiar comforts — like cinnamon dolce lattes. (My therapist also totally validated this for me years later. I had a panic attack after Trader Joe’s was out of my favorite creamer for 3 days. She said it was because one of the few constants in my life was ripped away. Yes, I was going through it.) I feel like the universe sent me all kinds of signs through my favorite songs, inside that grocery store with the Starbucks. Whoever made those weekday morning playlists had excellent taste. But on the way to the grocery store, I was the DJ. And every morning, like clockwork, I played Broken Glass by Rachel Platten. There was something so 90s music video about crossing a highway while blasting the lyrics “I’m on a highway full of red lights.” But I feel it changing. I can taste it, I’m on the wave, I won’t waste it I have been patient, but I’m not waiting anymore I’m gonna dance on broken glass I’m gonna make that ceiling crack So what? still got knives in my back. So what? So I’m tied to the tracks I’m gonna dance on broken glass. Here I go, here I go You know what’s crazy? I have probably listened to that song over 100 times in the last decade, and it has only just now occurred to me that the broken glass is from the glass ceiling she’s going to crash. What other glass would she be referring to, Alexa?? I don’t know!!! I guess I was too stuck on the symbolism of dancing on broken glass to connect it to a literally cracked glass ceiling mentioned one line later. I was an A+ English nerd, but I was also 22. I think the broken mug marked the beginning of my dancing on broken glass era. After the hardest year of my life, I was remarkably broken and yet still intact. Both/and. I have come a damn long way, and I am unbelievably proud of how I carried myself through the last year — the last few years, honestly. And for the first time in maybe 17 months, I have enough white space in my brain and ground beneath my feet to think about what comes next. What do I want? What do I want to happen? Who do I want to be? What I’ve been through is part of my story, but not all of it. I’m ready to add some more notches to my belt, beyond damn tough survivor and broken glass dancer. There’s this invisible step at the end of the list, outside the traditional trajectory of healing. You get through the hard thing. You realize you’re a survivor. You get to breathe again. And then… You let yourself want things again. You do things for fun again. You dream big dreams again. You take risks again. You learn to trust yourself again. I’m doing all of that now. It feels like a reunion with myself. An unapologetic, wilder yet calmer version of myself. I’m not that 22-year-old girl walking across a highway in Northeast Portland. Nor am I the 29-year-old who spent one weekend in San Diego before uprooting her whole life to live by the beach. I’m not the 30-year-old woman who fought tooth and nail for her sanity (and often lost the battle) while making financial sacrifices she never thought she’d have to make. To the shock of the girls at Sephora who tell me I look much younger — I’m 31. And while my past selves will always be with me… It’s time to thank them and sweep up the broken glass they broke through to get me here. Cheers to beginning anew, entering the next chapter of my life, and finding out just how good it can get. Thank you so much for checking out this series! I hope you’ll hit subscribe, stick around, and stay tuned for what’s next. And if you yourself could use some support in figuring out what’s next, I’m always here to chat. SUBSCRIBE | BOOK A SESSION | BUY MY BOOK Here's a testimonial from one of my past clients: Prior to beginning life coaching with Alexa, I had a full-time job in healthcare IT where I experienced a lack of meaning in my interactions with clients. At that point, had been teaching yoga after work for several years, and found myself wanting to pursue it more seriously. This was right as I was beginning to experience a stronger desire to travel, something I had not done much of previously. By the time I completed my coaching with Alexa, we created a clear plan for leaving my IT job, combining yoga teaching and travel for the span of one year through work exchange programs at various resorts, and all the steps in between. As that year of travel has now come to a close, I realize I could not have done it without Alexa’s coaching. The year that we planned together was the best year of my life, and I am so grateful to have had the space to dream and plan it out. -Marc This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    11 min

  5. Mar 23

    The horrors persist, and so do the emails.

    A week or so ago, a new subscriber told me that the following piece really resonated with them. The sentiment behind that piece has never felt truer, and these reflections came from the same chamber of my heart as that piece did. I saw the Wild Party on Sunday night. It was indeed a wild, wild party. It was so good and so intense. Earlier that day, I watched another intense performance — Hippolytus (in the arms of Aphrodite), an immersive augmented reality theatre experience. I’ve seen countless exceptional performances at CultureHub, where I’m on the board, and this one was no different. On the way home, when my Sunday of theater was over, I speed walked to my subway station in the rain, so I wouldn’t have to wait 15 more minutes for the next one. It was then that I realized how sore my ankles were after 2+ miles of walking all day + jump roping that morning. I got home, had some leftover macaroni and cheese, and fell asleep after watching 3 hours of Golden Girls. But not before reading about the plane that collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia upon landing. You think you’re about to be safe and sound, and then just like that, the ground is ripped out from beneath you. I woke up and stretched a little. I check the news and can’t stop myself from watching the video of a woman being detained by ICE at SFO. I learn that they’re apparently coming to New York, too. I start puttering around my house, washing my face, brushing my teeth, and making coffee. I feel off. I’m judging myself for that feeling of offness. Why do I feel so down, so lethargic? I have got to get it together. I’m reminded of how I kept on working when I heard about the January 6th insurrection. I was in a consultation when it happened. My phone was buzzing uncontrollably when I turned it back on. I turned on the news and watched in horror as I continued to send emails. Here I am, five years later, watching more horrors and sending more emails. I am not hopeless — but I also won’t pretend to have all the answers. What I do know is that I feel better when I feel less alone. Sitting with all of my feelings, and all of these atrocities, I was reminded of something that Andrea Gibson said on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. “I have spent my entire career encouraging people to have their feelings. Don’t push down your feelings. Open up to them all. That is where, in my experience, like I would have, if I would get depressed, I could, and I know this, and I don’t want to negate the fact of clinical depression and meds, all of that, I’m pro-meds. But I would get more depressed if there was something I wasn’t allowing myself to feel. And I thought, I am allowing myself to have all my feelings. Why aren’t I f*****g happy? And I realized that the feeling I was pushing down was joy. That I was afraid of that feeling. And there were a certain number of things that led to that. And some of it was how I was relating to our culture, how I was relating to activism, growing up in activist communities, and thinking that if you weren’t devastated, if you weren’t despairing, if you weren’t enraged, then there was something about you that was heartless. And some people respond to the world in really vibrant ways because they’re furious or because they’re grieving. For me, I am much better, and I have far more to offer the world when I am joyful.” Andrea Gibson I, too, hope to look back at my life and say I spent my entire career encouraging people to have their feelings. I am furious and heartbroken beyond measure for every single individual being affected by this monstrosity of an “administration.” Families crying both inside and outside these detention centers have been senselessly ripped apart. I finally started reading Kamala Harris’ memoir, 107 Days, yesterday at one of my favorite Italian restaurants, between plays. I want to be at an Italian restaurant in Italy. I want Kamala Harris to be the President. I want Donald Trump to go back to being a punchline in sitcoms. Lorelai: It’s the title search for the Rachel property. And guess who owns it! Sookie: Tell me it’s not that bastard Donald Trump. Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Episode 8, 2001. There’s no grand moral here. There never is. Tell someone how you’re feeling today. Share this piece. Leave a ‘like’ or comment for a stranger. Text a friend that you love them, and you’re thinking of them. Do as the incomparable Corinne Bailey Rae says, and ‘put your records on.’ Call your senators, and then order your favorite takeout. And maybe check out this song. It’s quickly become my anthem for these times. It truly feels like Elton and Brandi are singing directly to me every time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min

  6. Mar 22

    How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 3 of 4

    Have you listened to Part 1 and Part 2 yet? If not, start there! Broken things have long been romanticized in humanity’s search for renewal and redemption. The Japanese art of kintsugi is probably my favorite example. ""KINSUGI" literary means gold (金 KIN) stitching (つぎ TSUGI) in Japanese. It is a Japanese art form of mending broken porcelain with lacquer (URUSHI), dusted with gold, or silver. The broken object gets revived with gold patches. The broken part is truly accepted and cherished as a history of the object, a form of art, rather than getting disguised with immaculate repairing. With Kintsugi, the broken object gets transformed into a unique piece of art. It becomes more beautiful and more attractive than ever." - Azumi Uchitani Yet broken glass is also sharp. There are big shards that are easier to avoid getting scraped by. And there are also tiny little pieces that remain long after you’ve swept up a broken measuring cup or wine glass. You won’t realize the tiny little shards are there until you step on one a few days later, just when you thought the floor beneath you was clean and clear. Broken things can be beautiful. Perhaps the sharpness and messiness are part of that beauty. But first, there’s shock and blood. The pressing of a towel or paper towel or whatever is nearest, against your gaping new wound. The band-aid is tasked with keeping your flesh together as it heals. I’ve only had stitches once, and the scar is gone. I think the actual experience of riding to the hospital with a wad of paper towels against my hand was scarier than the ordeal of getting the stitches themselves. At least when I got the stitches, I knew that I was being mended. I was literally on my way to healing. And that’s where I found myself at the end of my panic attack, broken mug ordeal. After staring at the broken mug for quite a while, I got a latte from my neighborhood coffee shop and sat on a rock in Central Park. I hadn’t planned to — but I felt compelled to finish that song I started a day ago on the train home from Brooklyn (see pt. 1 if you forgot about that detail!) I do not think I have ever written a song that quickly in my life. It’s called The Waves Are Calling. And it is my *broken hallelujah. *For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it originates from the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” We sang it in my high school chorus, back when I was a far cry from a broken hallelujah myself. Many, many artists have covered it, using a different selection of verses from the original in their renditions. You might have first heard it in Shrek. I’ve always longed for someone to see me; to examine the mismatched pieces of my soul, hold them up in the light, and sing a broken hallelujah. I now realize that that day I became that person myself. I saw that broken mug, I saw its beauty. And I saw myself in the broken pieces, and realized that my brokenness might be beautiful too. Subscribe so that you don't miss the fourth and final part, where you'll find out what life has been like since the broken glass/ broken hallelujah era began. SUBSCRIBE HERE It’s not a cry that you hear at night It’s not somebody who’s seen the light It’s a cold, and it’s a broken hallelujah -Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  7. Mar 18

    How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 2 of 4

    If you haven’t listened Part 1 yet, go ahead and do that first, HERE. ______________________________ While my memories from the night of the panic attack are sparse, the ones from the following morning are vividly clear. I woke up thinking I had Covid. I felt like I had been hit by a truck ten times over in my sleep. I tried to shake it off and get ready for work, but my body made it very clear that that wasn’t going to happen. Calling in sick felt humiliating and unprofessional (although it is neither of those things, and I would never make anyone else feel that way). But I did it. I relayed detailed notes for an important delivery that afternoon. I profusely apologized. I hung up the phone. Before going back to sleep, I stumbled to the kitchen to grab some water. Why I didn’t go to the bathroom like I often do, I don’t know. That day, my feet carried me to the kitchen. I thought about making coffee and then decided against it. I saw the dishes in my sink and decided to wash some. For what reason, I don’t know. While sorting through the sink to discern which dishes would go in the dishwasher and which would be hand-washed, I came across one of my favorite mugs. And I broke it. I somehow broke my mug while pulling it out of the sink. My perfect, “pretty girl avenue”, gorgeous glass mug with a bronze/gold Barbie dream house on the front, and a pink handle. The mug I drank out of nearly every day from my waterfront patio when I lived in San Diego. Broken. Gone. I love my mugs. They’re the first thing I unpacked in both my New York and San Diego apartments. I dream of displaying them on a big, elaborate shelf one day. I should have been devastated that this mug was broken. But I wasn’t, I was too tired to be devastated. I haphazardly placed the broken pieces of the mug on my counter and went back to bed. I woke up at noon feeling much better, even better than I felt the day before, pre - panic attack. In fact, I felt better than I’d felt in a long time. I felt so good that I now understood just how far down in the trenches I’d been. When I tried my first dose of Lexapro years prior, I remember saying to my psychiatrist, “Wow, I had no idea that everyone wasn’t miserable all the time! I thought everyone woke up feeling horrible and trying to get through the day, and just wanting to die inside all the time, and that no one talked about it. I thought that was normal. This is so great!” 10mg of Lexapro was all it took to realize just how depressed I was. (The psychiatrist upped my dose after that session, and then later added in my best buddy welbutrin. The golden trio was complete. Thank God for medicine.) When we think about feeling ‘better’, we often imagine a certain stillness; waves, sunsets, and the gentle breeze of it all. But sometimes when really good things happen, people get anxious – people like me. I’ll never know exactly what triggered that panic attack, but my working theory is that a lot of good things happened in a relatively short amount of time after a truly s****y year, and my brain couldn’t compute it all. It’s like my whole being literally short-circuited from the radical shift from A Series of Unfortunate Events to “girl who is going to be okay.” So there I am, feeling better, feeling rested. I get out of bed and decide to go for a walk. I walk out of my bedroom and immediately spot the broken mug. And now that I’m feeling better, I have the energy to be sad that it’s broken. I’m about to do what I usually do with broken glass, and put it in a plastic bag with a piece of paper taped on top that says “broken broken broken broken” so that no one gets hurt in my recycling room. But as I go to do that, I’m drawn in by how the mug has broken, and also not broken. It’s far easier to explain through the videos and photos I took that day. CLICK HERE to see! So it was just one layer. I thought it was just a thick piece of glass. But now that it broke, there’s this inner part that’s whole outside of the glass. And now it exists on its own, because it broke away from the outer shell part. How does something break so perfectly? That’s insane to me. It’s all still pretty insane to me. You have to remember that at the time that this is all happening, I don’t have the fifty-foot view. I don’t have the gifts of hindsight and a really wide lens. I’m just a girl marveling at her broken yet beautiful mug. In that moment, I was immediately reminded of the Japanese art of kintsugi, which involves repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer to highlight the cracks instead of hiding them. A week later, when I told my therapist about this whole ordeal, she asked if I had seen K-POP Demon Hunters, the widely acclaimed, academy award winning (!!!!!) animated feature film. I immediately responded, “We broke into a million pieces, and we can’t go back/ But now we’re seeing all the beauty in the broken glass?” She smiled and nodded. Here I was, literally seeing beauty in the broken glass. This precious thing I was trying to hold onto broke in an inexplicably beautiful way. It’s not what I planned. It’s not what I wanted. But here I was with my own tangible proof of the beauty in broken things, right when I needed it most. Right after the most painful chapters of my life so far. Here I was, on my way to my broken hallelujah. Wondering how we’re only halfway through? We’re on the way to the broken hallelujah, but not there just yet. Subscribe so that you don’t miss Part III! How To Connect With Me Book a Coaching Session Read my book The Start of It All Download my workbook, Authentic by Alexa License one of my plays How to Support My Work Become a Paid Subscriber | Leave A Tip This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min
  8. How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 1 of 4

    Mar 15

    How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 1 of 4

    On the eve of the lunar new year, three days before my birthday, I finally threw out the jagged glass pieces of a mug that I had broken six months ago. I never thought it would take me six months to throw out a reminder of one of the worst nights of my life, but here I was. I held it in my hands one last time. I took a few pictures (even though I already had plenty.) I outlined the pink handle and some of the remaining pieces that were still intact with a charcoal pencil on my tracing pad, in case I wanted to create an art project later. (I’ve been super into Oil Pastels lately.) I carefully put the broken pieces in a plastic bag. I broke the mug even further — deliberately this time, for catharsis. And then I let every last piece go. I can tell you why that broken mug was one of my favorites in one sentence — Because it’s perfect. It’s the definition of “pretty girl avenue”: a gorgeous glass mug with a bronze/gold Barbie dream house on the front, and a perfect pink handle. I drank out of it nearly every day from my waterfront patio in San Diego. It also came in a set of two. I still have the other, identical, unbroken mug. So why keep the broken one for six months? Because of how it broke. Here are a few things that happened in the 24 - 48 hours before the broken mug incident. Taylor Swift got engaged, and my corner of the internet exploded. I somehow managed to not to scream at the reception desk I was temping at, when my best friend’s sister texted me the news. It was the biggest explosion of girlhood. My fifteen-year-old self was bursting at the seams. I wrote a spontaneous Substack piece about Taylor’s engagement, which went kind of viral thanks to threads. It was easily my most successful post in over a year. (You can read it here.) I landed on the Substack rising bestseller list. I welcomed many new followers on Threads and Substack. My phone was buzzing nonstop with comments from people resonating with what I wrote + general excitement. I was offered a new temp job that had serious potential to lead to something long-term. It ended up not working out, which is fine because I didn’t really want the actual job— I wanted the consistent income. But the possibility of it at the time was very exciting. (Want to hear something even more exciting? I ended up getting multiple gigs that I liked more, that paid even MORE than the temp gig.) My middle school bestie’s wedding was days away. I was excited, and perhaps a little anxious. I was staying with an incredibly generous friend of hers, whom I had never met before. I knew that I likely wouldn’t know a lot of people there. I also hadn’t been out of New York since last December, after a year of whirlwind travel to and from California. I had a bit of breathing room, financially, after being strapped for almost a year. Most of that money came from selling Hollywood Bowl tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar. I was absolutely heartbroken, and I knew it was the right call. The tickets sold at the last minute, at a profit. I made my money back and then some. It was the biggest win I’d had in a pretty long time. So, that’s what was happening on the surface. Under the surface, though? The hardest summer of my life was finally coming to an end. The summer I accepted money from a friend to afford my antidepressant medications. The summer I paid for my groceries with $6 worth of quarters, from the AMC Elphaba Popcorn bucket where I stored tips from a toxic service job that I quit in the Spring. The summer I had some of the worst depression I hope I’ll ever have to endure. And after all that, here I was jumping up and down over Taylor Swift’s engagement, with money in my bank account, and tangible success to point to in my writing career when people asked the inevitable “so what do you do?” at the wedding. With all of these good things circling me, I think my nervous system got the memo that I could finally breathe. Enter: Panic Attack. Center Stage. Like always — everything was fine until it wasn’t. I spent the day manning the receptionist desk of a very cool, creative ad agency in Brooklyn, where I had been working for the last two-ish weeks. It was the kind of place where I might have an insanely busy hour or two, but most of the day was pretty chill. It was August in New York City, after all; the entire office was empty half the week. I do remember being pretty overstimulated the afternoon before this panic attack. It was one of those days where everyone seemed to be congregating in the kitchen and its surrounding areas (my ‘deskspace’) nonstop. Think three conversations happening at once, lots of footsteps from the hardwood floor above, the sporadic ding-dong chime of the intercom to alert me of deliveries, and of course — someone telling me that the music in the bathroom was a spidge too loud. Side note — I’ve learned from temping a lot that every office has its thing; that unexplainable thing that no one questions because it’s just part of the culture, even though that ‘thing’ makes no sense to an outsider. Sometimes it’s a very specific ratio of snacks, or the volume of music in the bathroom, or the kind of music in the bathroom, or the way they greet visitors. Other times, it’s the extra set of copies that one particular gift officer needs for the donations she’s processing, even though no one else wants their own personal set of copies. True story. I’m sure this lovely woman had her reasons for having her personal set of copies. She was actually a staff member in an office I worked in for a whole month. I wrote her a thank-you note when I left, because she and her team were so nice to me. I can’t pinpoint overstimulation as the reason for my panic attack, though — as a New Yorker, I’m likely to be overstimulated once a day, even from my own apartment. I remember being tired on the way home from the office. I remember pulling out my phone as the train crossed the water from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I wrote the following lyrics. They kind of came out of thin air. Who I had to be to be with you Is who I am no longer We had some good times, but now it’s time I start running further You and I were standing still The water’s fine and even still The waves are calling, so I won’t be calling you anymore By the time I got home, I was still tired but now also deeply uneasy. All I wanted to do was shower, get horizontal, and watch The Summer I Turned Pretty. I didn’t feel better after my shower, or even after lying down in the dark and listening to ASMR. I somehow felt worse. I didn’t immediately realize I was having a panic attack. As is the case with all of my panic attacks, my first thought was “I’m gonna die.” Not a single thing I did helped. It felt like my apartment had turned into an endlessly rocking ship that I couldn’t steer to shore. I couldn’t get steady no matter what I tried. My legs felt so shaky — my feet in particular. I would’ve sworn that they were vibrating. I sat, paced, and at times even shook. I lay on the floor with my legs against the wall. I took another shower, I think, and drank a lot of water. I couldn’t get myself to eat a full meal. Eventually, I curled up in my weighted blanket and finally, finally fell asleep. I don’t fully remember every detail of that harrowing night, but my memories from the following morning are vividly clear. That’s when the mug broke. Subscribe so that you don’t miss Part II! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com/subscribe

    10 min
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About

What sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. thenuancediaries.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Alexa Juanita Jordan
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    56
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Alexa Juanita Jordan
  • Show Website
    The Nuance Diaries