You’re on your own now

“You’re on your own now” is the sentence Elfrieda Von Riesen speaks to Yolandi Von Riesen in a dream of the sisters together. Its force comes from the shift between their familiar intimacy and the abrupt solitude it names: the words are both a loss and, as Yolandi later understands them, part of learning how to survive.

The Dream Conversation

The dream places the sisters in Elfrieda Von Riesen’s yellow kitchen beside a giant picture window. They are talking and laughing, pleasantly absorbed in stories that do not matter much. Yolandi Von Riesen then tries to bring the conversation toward something urgent: her work, her fear of finishing her book, and anxiety about how it will be received.

Before Yolandi can speak, Elfrieda Von Riesen raises a hand to stop her. She takes Yolandi’s hand, looks closely at her, and leans nearer to make clear that she means what she is about to say. Yolandi expects reassurance. Instead, Elfrieda says, “Yoyo, you’re on your own now.” The interruption makes the line a boundary in the middle of a scene of closeness: the sisters are together in the dream, but the sentence marks what Yolandi must face without her.

Loss and Survival

Yolandi experiences the words as a sudden, permanent loss, likening the feeling to watching a neighbour’s video of a bird. In the dream’s final image, her sister becomes a dark blur moving toward a rectangle of light. The phrase is therefore not presented as an ordinary dismissal; its meaning is bound to the dream’s movement from shared laughter to separation.

The dream follows Yolandi’s account of her mother’s survival dreams, which seem to show her how to keep living. In that context, Yolandi reconsiders her own dream: it may not be a nightmare, but the beginning of her cure. She connects survival to first recognizing what must be survived. Elfrieda’s sentence remains painful, but Yolandi’s changed understanding gives it another function: it makes the reality of loss speakable and points toward a life she must continue on her own.