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Have you been flummoxed that Lyle displayed emotion eyes recently, despite over twenty years of never doing that? In this candid and unprecedented interview, Lyle bares all! It turns out he has had some major personal breakthroughs, but not on purpose, and not with the kind of therapist who can bill to insurance. These sizzling details are to you by the wily mind of R. Beef Kazenzakis, discussant extraordinaire.

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lake

Wow. So much here to love. I was telling a friend the other day I think Achewood is some of the best writing of the century, and this confirms that.

EndgamerAzari

Goddammit, Onstad. That hurt, but hell if it wasn't a hurt that needed hurtin'.

Mina Roller

I never thought it could happen

Vincent Verweij

When are you going to start selling Darlene hats, Chris?

Amy Lewis

The Chaturbate Flex is the name of my Prince cover band.

Vijnananath

Holy shit and also damn and some hell but I never saw a drunken stuffed tiger written so real.

Johnny Deans

Damn, dude… that is McCarthy level heavy, and I ain’t talking about Kevin. Kudos, sir.

Gurglepot

Now *I’m* displaying emotion eyes.

RJ Carmine

I was laughing at the vivid picture Onstad painted of the therapy office. I could picture a wan spider plant, the hum of the fluorescent lighting, midcentury office park with bland art on the walls and a little white noise machine parked outside the clinician's door. I caught my breath when Lyle described avoiding the calendar, because just by the season he could tell it would be down to the very week when he first met Darlene all those years ago. For over a decade I've struggled with seasonal changes like that. My chest tightened when Lyle started talking about the layers of heartbreak that grief deals us. Speaking aloud and breathing life into the absurd dream of the eternally hopeful child that the loved one will once again live and breathe, walking towards you in the sunlight just like in those vanishingly infrequent dreams where you wake up clutching your chest and dry-heaving with sobs. The dreams that you've never spoken about, to anyone before, that you cherish and loathe with confusingly equal measure. Or like when I was coming out of anesthesia, I was asking for someone who isn't here anymore. We build a life with someone, and we just take the future for granted. After all, it is the natural outgrowth from that all of this foundation and scaffolding and infrastructure that has been forged will someday support. I never knew how many times my heart could break. In grief, then your heart breaks a thousand, a million more times. The theft of your loved one, of the comfort and companionship that was once woven into every fiber of your being, the theft of the future you were expecting to live, the consolation prize you got instead where you're walking around with a giant hole in your heart and time marches on. I don't know how Onstad was able to kintsugi these deep lessons about grief and loss, but I appreciate how the on-brand and atypical path for Lyle to open up to someone about his grief process provided some much-needed levity and balance for a very weighty topic.

Achewood

Damn, sounds like *you* could write some Lyle & Darlene. Nice one.

Jacquelyn R Walters

Lyle has been a favourite of mine ever since his blog revealed hidden depths. Great catching up with him and learning that he's grown, even though in a lot of ways, he's still the same old Lyle.

Mustafa Beg

Long-time reader, first-time weeper. Hi.

Jay Williams

“Rebuild from the one sliver ‘a life you had left that wasn’t a hundred percent … infused … with her.” Jesus What-is-the-H-for Christ, Onstad. I didn’t sign up for this to start thinking about her again (no, not Darlene). Fuck. Good stuff, though. It seems that the intervening years have been tough on old Lyle. As they have for us all…

homunculus

I've got nothing to say except a profound and sincere thank you for writing this. Thank you Chris, thank you Lyle, thank you Beef, and thank you Rita. Seeing Lyle talk about killing that private little fantasy you have that the dead will walk the earth again simply because you want them to was like seeing my own brain on the page.

elton mesquita

watch me whiplash inside the Baja Bug of Lyle's emotions

J. R. Ramsdell

This one was a masterpiece. Thanks, Chris. So glad you're back.