My 2010 Funeral Plans Were Completely Unhinged
A journey through open-casket parties, video headstones, secret manuscripts, and the growing realization that I may be the common denominator in all my problems.
Readers, I had absolutely no clue this was going to turn into a series when I sat down to write about my dying wishes last week. Honestly, I thought it would be one post. Maybe two if I got particularly long-winded, because as we all know, I am nothing if not a woman of restraint.
Now why seventeen-year-old Sarah felt the need to write down her dying wishes is still a mystery to me. Truly. Who handed that girl a pen and let her start making funeral arrangements like she had a meeting with death and needed to provide an agenda? Why twenty-three-year-old Sarah did it, though? That one I understand.
A lot happened between 2004 and 2010.
I graduated high school. I moved to Tucson. I went to college. I earned a bachelor’s degree. I fell in love. I had my heart broken. I got engaged twice. I broke off two engagements. I spent my college years attached at the hip to Bestie. I met Craig. I moved back home. I reconnected with Robi and Tommy. And then I experienced the first real loss of my life when Robi died.
Six years. Looking back now, it feels like three different people lived them.
They were some of the hardest years of my life and somehow also some of the best. Which sounds completely insane when you know everything that happened during those years, but that has always been my problem. I can find nostalgia in almost anything. Even the chapters that nearly broke me.
As I was reading the 2010 versions of my Last Will and Testament, and yes Readers, versions plural because apparently one was not enough, I kept noticing something. So much changed between seventeen-year-old Sarah and twenty-three-year-old Sarah. The people changed. The relationships changed. The locations changed. And yet, underneath all of it, I was still unmistakably me.
Which brings me to the realization that has been haunting me through this entire exercise. I don’t think I ever learn. Here I am in 2026, thirty-nine years old, reading these old documents and trying to pretend I am some evolved, healed, emotionally mature woman with better judgment and a reasonable amount of self-preservation. But if we are being honest, what has actually changed?
I am still hanging around with Bestie.
I am still loving people I probably have no business loving.
I am still convincing myself that this time will be different.
Readers, I have a track record. There was Season 1. There was College Bestie. And before any of you start, yes, I know. You know. I know. The historical record knows. The walls know. I am and always will be a little bit in love with that man. Then there was my ex-husband. And now there is Craig.
I keep sitting myself down and giving the same speech.
No more.
No more gay men.
No more bisexual men.
No more impossible situations.
No more stories that require flowcharts, footnotes, emotional support beverages, and a legal department.
And then I promptly ignore myself with the confidence of a woman who has learned absolutely nothing and packed snacks for the consequences.
Now do I think Craig is different? Yes.
Do I think what Craig and I have is different? Also yes.
Do I think history is sitting in the corner laughing at me right now? Absolutely.
Because if history has taught me anything, it is that I have an extraordinary talent for loving people who come with warning labels, complicated backstories, and emotional terms and conditions. And if I am being completely honest, that little voice in the back of my mind is still there. The one asking what exactly I think I am doing. The one reminding me how these stories usually end. The one whispering that eventually Craig is going to break my heart worse than all the others combined.
I hear that voice. I just don’t know if I believe it. Or maybe I do believe it and I am doing this anyway. Maybe that is the lesson hidden in all of these old documents. Not that I never learn. Maybe it is that no matter how many times life hurts me, I never stop believing people are worth the risk.
Okay, enough emotional garbage. Let’s discuss the 2010 wills.
The first 2010 version was written sometime after Robi died, somewhere between April and June of that year. Cory is not mentioned anywhere in it, which means this had to be before I met him. So we are in a very specific little pocket of Sarah history here. Post-Robi. Pre-Cory. Still emotionally unstable, but now with a college degree and slightly better formatting.
And honestly? A lot of it stayed the same.
I still wanted my open-casket funeral in the Lake Havasu High School gym because apparently I had chosen a venue in 2004 and decided to make it my entire posthumous brand. I still wanted to be cremated. I still wanted an urn. I still wanted half of my ashes spread around Havasu.
Not just in the lake this time. Throughout Havasu. Because why haunt one body of water when you can become a full municipal presence? One of the specific locations listed was the J Hall stairs at Lake Havasu High School. I know, Readers. I am deeply unwell.
But also, in my defense, those stairs were part of the mythology. They were part of Season 1. They were part of the girl I had been, the girl I was still trying to understand, and the girl I clearly had not finished grieving yet. So yes, on the surface it is ridiculous. Ashes at the J Hall stairs? Absolutely deranged. Someone please take the pen away from this woman.
But underneath that, I can see what twenty-three-year-old me was trying to do. She was still trying to leave pieces of herself in the places that made her. Even the places that hurt her.
My urn, because of course there was an urn plan, was supposed to go to my first child. If I did not have a child yet, then Bestie and Craig were supposed to keep it safe until that child turned eighteen.
And that part is very 2010. The egg situation was in full swing. Bestie and Craig were planning a baby, and in our minds, Lambert was the one. That was the baby. That was the plan. That was the future we thought we were stepping into. Fast-forward several seasons later and, as we know, Lambert did not make it. Jenny came later. Life, as usual, refused to follow the script Sarah had lovingly written in dramatic font.
But 2010 us did not know that yet. We were so young. So naive. So wildly convinced we understood how life worked. Adorable, really. Someone should have patted us on the head and handed us snacks.
Now, back to the open-casket high school gym funeral situation, because somehow it gets more Sarah. By 2010, I wanted an open bar. Yes, Readers. My funeral bar idea did not start in 2026. It started in 2010. Granted, I had not yet been introduced to the beautiful, questionable, chaos-filled BuzzBall spheres that now define part of my funeral vision, but the foundation was already there. In 2004, we had Diet Coke and tea. By 2010, we had upgraded to a full bar.
Growth. Character development. A concerning escalation, but still.
2010 is also where the video headstone makes its first appearance. Yes, Readers. Long before social media became what it is today, I had already decided that a normal headstone was simply not enough. I wanted a video headstone so I could continue speaking to people after I died. Because apparently death was not going to stop me from having opinions. Honestly, not much has changed.
The idea was that someone could walk up to my grave, push a button, and suddenly be greeted by me. Not a quote. Not a Bible verse. Not some carefully curated summary of my life. Me. Talking. Because if there is one thing every version of Sarah has had in common, it is the belief that she has one more thing to say.
Looking back, I should probably be embarrassed by this. Instead, I think it is hilarious. And if the technology ever becomes affordable, I am not ruling it out. Imagine wandering through a cemetery, minding your own business, and suddenly hearing, “Readers, gather around. I have thoughts.” Absolutely terrifying. Exactly the energy I am going for.
The biggest difference between the two 2010 versions, however, was Cory. In the first version, my urn was supposed to go to Bestie and Craig. In the second version, it went to Cory. Unless Cory died before me, in which case it went back to Bestie and Craig.
The general idea though of both was that people would gather in the Lake Havasu High School gym, look at my open casket, drink, party, and then, because apparently my funeral needed a publishing schedule, Brooke was supposed to read Part One of Affair of the Mind to everyone.
That was not even the end of Brooke’s responsibilities. By 2010, my writings no longer lived in boxes and notebooks. They lived on my website behind a password-protected section. If I died, Brooke was instructed to remove the password and release everything.
Everything.
Because twenty-three-year-old Sarah was still deeply committed to the historical record. In fact, one version of the will went a step further and instructed Brooke to leak Part One of Affair of the Mind on Facebook and Twitter.
Readers, I was determined.
And that is where this stops being funny again in the way old Sarah documents usually are.
Because yes, the open-casket party in a high school gym is ridiculous. Brooke being handed a posthumous book launch is also ridiculous. But underneath all of that was still the same girl from 2004 trying desperately to make sure her story survived her.
By twenty-three, I had left Lake Havasu for a time. I had gone to college. I had lived enough life to know the world was more complicated than seventeen-year-old me believed it was. But I was still carrying Season 1. I was still carrying the belief that if people could just see the entire story, they would finally understand. That if the record was complete enough, detailed enough, documented enough, then eventually the truth would speak for itself.
What I did not understand then, and only partly understand now, is that truth and healing are not the same thing. Being heard is not the same thing as being healed. And sometimes preserving the record is less about proving something to everyone else and more about convincing yourself that what happened was real.
Looking back now, I do not think twenty-three-year-old Sarah wanted those writings released because she was trying to hurt anyone. Okay, she was probably trying to make a few people uncomfortable. But mostly, I think she was afraid of being forgotten. Afraid of being misunderstood. Afraid that if she was not around to tell the story herself, somebody else would tell it for her. And if there is one thing every version of Sarah has hated, it is somebody else controlling the narrative.
I have spent most of my life writing. Journals. Stories. Blog posts. Unfinished manuscripts. Half-finished manuscripts. Angry manuscripts. Manuscripts that probably should never see the light of day. I have documented so much of my life that future historians could probably build an entire exhibit called “Sarah Had Thoughts.”
And for a very long time, I believed all of it should survive. I thought preserving the record meant preserving everything. What I understand now is that not every story is meant for public consumption. Not every wound needs an audience. Not every thought deserves publication simply because it existed.
That is probably the biggest difference between twenty-three-year-old Sarah and thirty-nine-year-old Sarah. I still believe in the record. I still believe in telling the truth. I still believe my writing is the most valuable thing I own. But now I understand that preserving something and publishing something are not the same thing.
Some stories belong to the world. Some stories belong to the people who lived them. And some stories belong only to the writer.
Learning the difference took me a very long time, but I think I am finally starting to understand it.