Kristen Acocella

     I was born with a rare genetic condition that killed my entire paternal family, and tried pretty hard to kill me as well, many times. For years, I tried to deny how sick I was, but by the time I graduated college, it finally caught up to me. In school, I got excellent grades and won awards and grants; I was the president of an honor society (and, lest you think I was a boring nerd—I kinda was—I also partied a lot)! With all my various extra-curriculars, I didn't sleep much and certainly was not taking care of my body as I relied on the metabolism of someone in their 20s. Four years of getting by on vodka, ramen, and approximately three hours of sleep nightly, finally caught up to me. Just a few months after I graduated magna cum laude, I had to have my first brain surgery…followed closely by another one. That second one had far more complications and side effects, part of my cerebellum was removed, and my life very nearly imploded.

​

     If I hadn't met my husband when I did, I more than likely wouldn't be here writing this. I met Harrison when I had just relearned how to walk and talk; our first date was actually on the day I finished occupational therapy; the day it was deemed safe, by a professional, that it was okay for me to hold a pair of sharp scissors again. Harrison actually made my life feel like it had some value. My newly relearned deftness with scissors aside, my hopes of going into academia were shattered. In case you were curious about what it feels like to lose a piece of brain tissue, you may recover your physicality to some degree, but your thought processes will never feel the same again. There is a saying ‘once air hits the brain, you’re never the same,’ well, like five or six brain surgeries in, I can confirm.

 

     I thought my bright future had been snapped away in a puff of bloody pink mist. Not only was my self-worth low because of that, but I had watched my whole family die horribly from a condition that I also have, and I watched those traumatic deaths when I was only a teenager. My emotional scars were deep! I didn’t realize that my psyche had been smashed long before there was ever a scalpel inside my skull. I had no idea that finding love would actually bring me into a much brighter future than I could have ever imagined for myself.

 

     Sometimes I wonder about that girl and the various futures she had; the alternate mes with alternate lives. What would have become of my life if I never got sick and did go into academia as I had planned. I think she probably would have lived in the library, writing the essays and professional papers that I loved so deeply at the time. Maybe she would have more financial success than a disabled, chronically ill struggling author, ultimately I don't think she would be happy though. I know that Harrison is my match, he’s my best friend and gives me the unconditional love and acceptance that it took to write this series. The version of me in academia would never have met him, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the psychological struggles and growth it took to realize I loved him. The alternate me that did get sick but didn't happen to meet Harrison, would have almost certainly killed herself long ago… (yes, I’ve been in weekly therapy for over a decade, I’m emotionally fine with making that glibly blunt mental health semi-joke).

 

     Part of my personality and life experiences live within each of my main characters. Writing the Healing Season began as a psychological exercise, in which I could help myself to learn to love and appreciate the disparate pieces of my own character. Although, to be perfectly honest, it developed into that over time. Originally, the inspiration behind actually writing down my ideas for this project began as a roundabout recommendation from my psychologist. As I mentioned, I was having an anxiety-riddled 2020 because of my chronic illness and having a husband in nursing with a global pandemic unfolding all around me, so she was trying to find ways to help me sleep more consistently at night. One of the ways my psychologist recommended, because she knows how much I enjoy storytelling, was to tell myself bedtime stories in my head. The story of Zoey (who is based on a 23-year-old me, who was shattered by loss and drowning in a sea of vices) and Finn (who was based on a 28-year-old me, who was healing and learning to love again) began as one of those bedtime stories.

​

     What started off as a method to help me sleep, soon became something I would stay up at night and think about constantly. Eventually it developed into just a few short stories, because each character had his or her origin as a one-dimensional token—just a fragment of my own loves, fears, and neuroses. As the characters grew into themselves, so too did this project grow. But the main element will always be there. As the characters come to love each other, the underlying philosophy is about self-love: learning to love who you are inside, learning to help yourself see your own flaws, and grow from them so you can heal.