# How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 1 of 4 Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-nuance-diaries-7119430/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah-pt-1-of-4 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-nuance-diaries-7119430/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah-pt-1-of-4.md Podcast: [The Nuance Diaries](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-nuance-diaries-7119430) Published: 2026-03-15T21:40:50+00:00 Episode link: https://thenuancediaries.substack.com/p/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/190864134/9aef358b87d9ed56fd3f0b7db1ce41f2.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-nuance-diaries-7119430/episodes/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah-pt-1-of-4 Duration seconds: 590 ## Resource 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 ris… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-nuance-diaries-7119430/episodes/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah-pt-1-of-4/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-nuance-diaries-7119430/how-i-found-my-broken-hallelujah-pt-1-of-4.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.