A love story
“Till we have loved we have not imagined the heights of love.”
Week 1 of Walden Mode, as I’m calling it, is coming to an end. I worried I’d find this experience too hard - too much isolation, too much pressure, too much change - but I quickly realized that this concentrated effort to write this book is exactly what I’m meant to be doing, even if it is hard.
On the first day of Week 1 I got right into the nitty gritty. I revisited my archives of emails, text messages, and photos from May - June of 2020.
To bring you up to speed, May 1st 2020 marks the day of discovery...Stephanie, you’re the surprise 34-year-old daughter of 83-year-old Robert Drakulic. Is he alive? Who knows. What does this mean? Go find out.
He was alive, and it meant a lot, I’d quickly realize. I hadn’t revisited these emails, text messages, or photos since they happened. I’m so grateful I have these records - nothing conjures up the feelings and motivation to write this book better than re-immersing myself into the whirlwind of correspondence that followed that inescapable impulse to go find out.
The point of all this, my message this week, is simple - this book I’m writing is a love story. Discovering I was Bobby’s daughter meant also that I was Joe & George’s niece. Revisiting the archives from May - June 2020 reduced my motivation down to this: the Drakulic love that I found myself immediately surrounded in supported me through the shock of discovery, the sting of what could have been, and the shift into finding my new place in this world - I was no longer the guarded warrior, setting out to defy odds and prove my worth - but I am this gentle, feeling creature blessed with the task of adjusting to absolute belonging. This may be inherent for some, but for me, it was a brand new feeling. And I need to write about it.
So, to celebrate the closing of week 1, I will share with you the first ever communications between myself and my dad Bobby (“drak1”), my uncle George, and my uncle Joe:
He called me “Honey” 🥹
He called himself “Surprised Uncle George”🥹
He “loved me already”🥹
I may be absurdly biased, but no three brothers in history deserve a book inspired by and dedicated to them more than Robert, Joseph and George Drakulic, and I’m so damn excited to be the one to write it.
Until next Sunday…
The luckiest Drakulic of them all,
Stephanie
