Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me, a podcast about the choices
Speaker 1: we make. So this week's guest is not only birdening
Speaker 1: a new book, she is also a brand new grandmother.
Speaker 1: But welcoming Weston Joseph is not her only new beginning.
Speaker 1: From the heartbreak of waking up to a marriage in
Speaker 1: crisis to the treacherous work of rebuilding a life, Jen
Speaker 1: Hatmaker has walked through fire and come out stronger, more vibrant,
Speaker 1: and wide awake. Join Jen and me as we laugh
Speaker 1: and cry through choosing ourselves the hard way and reaping
Speaker 1: the rewards that only come from fierce self awareness and
Speaker 1: uncomfortable healing. Oh I'm so excited to talk to you.
Speaker 1: You have no idea. Okay, first, all things aside, you
Speaker 1: are a hattie.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is the most important thing we
Speaker 2: could discuss.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I've heard women tell me in time, like lately more
Speaker 1: and more how becoming a grandmother has changed their life.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, how does that feel for you? It's
Speaker 2: so it's so insane. This is my oldest son and
Speaker 2: his wife. So this is first grandbaby and in our family.
Speaker 2: This is first kid, first son, first grandkid, first great grandkid,
Speaker 2: first nephew. Like he's doomed, Like he's absolutely doomed. And
Speaker 2: we have this massive family prepared to over respond, over
Speaker 2: attend to him. I mean they'll just I don't suspect
Speaker 2: we'll have any restraint at all. And it's perfect, which
Speaker 2: is great news for us. We got a perfect baby.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. We're dreamy over here.
Speaker 1: I bet West and Joseph.
Speaker 2: Western, Joseph, I mean, I can't handle it. Like, and
Speaker 2: these are new parents, if you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: Like they're the young version of parents. They're different than
Speaker 2: we were, and so they have a lot of boundaries
Speaker 2: and like rules and whatever. And I just keep thinking,
Speaker 2: that's fine. I want to be respectful. This is your kid,
Speaker 2: you're the parents. But I swear to God if you
Speaker 2: revoke my privileges in any way, I will mutiny. Mutiny.
Speaker 1: You have to. I mean, yeah, that's not going to
Speaker 1: be acceptable.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I want to just talk about your.
Speaker 2: Book, Okay.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I felt so connected to your story,
Speaker 1: even though it is not mine at all. There are
Speaker 1: similarities in situations, but your upbringing very different from mine
Speaker 1: and the way your early life. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: awake for you just from reading the book, because it
Speaker 1: is the ultimate story of like figuring out who the
Speaker 1: fuck you truly are, finally for yourself. Yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: I love how you start the book from the end
Speaker 1: and then you go back and give it all context
Speaker 1: and great storytelling. Well done, and clapping for you, I think.
Speaker 2: No, wonder, Oh god, what a nice thing to say.
Speaker 1: I mean it because I'm looking at a strong, vibrant woman,
Speaker 1: and before all this happened, you didn't even know how
Speaker 1: to pay your mortgage. You know, you were in a
Speaker 1: very different life than you are currently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so crazy to like say that. It's so
Speaker 2: crazy to hear it back because even you know, I
Speaker 2: lost my marriage five years ago after twenty six years
Speaker 2: of marriage. You know, I was a child bride. You
Speaker 2: were nineteen. It's insane. But even five years ago though,
Speaker 2: I still had like this kind of career and this
Speaker 2: this big life. But then when you strip away some
Speaker 2: of the crutches, the places that I had been phoning it,
Speaker 2: in the places where I had simply made assumptions of
Speaker 2: trustworthiness or competency inside the marriage, that goes away and
Speaker 2: I finally went shit, I don't know how much money
Speaker 2: I make in a year? What am I doing? What
Speaker 2: have I been doing? Like? What have I been doing?
Speaker 2: And so the process of it was so chaotic because
Speaker 2: on one hand, I am trying to simply get through
Speaker 2: the day because the marriage, the ending of our marriage
Speaker 2: was so disastrous and so traumatic and.
Speaker 1: So shock for the people that don't know, give us
Speaker 1: the tragic to the dates of the tragic.
Speaker 2: It just ended in an affair, but not the kind
Speaker 2: where I have something to tell you you I it
Speaker 2: was all shock and all accidental, just middle of the
Speaker 2: night discovery. Like everything, it's not original. It's not an
Speaker 2: original story, it really is. I am offering nothing new
Speaker 2: to the middle aged male lexicon here, but when it
Speaker 2: happens to you, it is so so disruptive. It is
Speaker 2: so tragic. And we have five kids, two of them
Speaker 2: were in high school at the time. You know, we're
Speaker 2: in it like we're in the thick of life.
Speaker 1: And you're in business together. You're you know, you're doing
Speaker 1: everything together as you were taught you should.
Speaker 2: We were in lockstap we were running a nonprofit together
Speaker 2: and previously had been in a ministry like that was
Speaker 2: sort of our come up and was this very specific subculture.
Speaker 2: And I just had never known as an independent adult
Speaker 2: minute in my life. Again, I was a nineteen year
Speaker 2: old bride, So we literally grew up together. We grew
Speaker 2: up together, and sometimes, like this isn't a prescription to
Speaker 2: say that never works. I've got plenty of friends who
Speaker 2: had young marriages and they grew together, and yes, I'm
Speaker 2: nice for them. How nice for them? We felt the
Speaker 2: tension of our connective threads frying for quite some time
Speaker 2: as we grew up and into sort of different spaces,
Speaker 2: and well, we just grew up. You know, I didn't
Speaker 2: know what kind of adult I was going to be
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager, and neither he didn't know
Speaker 2: what kind of adult he was going to be.
Speaker 1: You guys, had you had the dreams. Sure you thought
Speaker 1: you knew, and it seemed like you were so in
Speaker 1: it together from the beginning of creating this magical, harmonious,
Speaker 1: beautiful life that your parents lived and that the people
Speaker 1: around you and your community are living.
Speaker 2: And I was prepared because that structure works best when
Speaker 2: the woman has a degree of subservience, when she is
Speaker 2: saying you are kind of the leader of our marriage
Speaker 2: and of our family and home. Your job matters the most,
Speaker 2: your preferences. You're the tip of the spear, right and
Speaker 2: and the rest of us are kind of back here,
Speaker 2: just pushing you forward. And so, because that was the
Speaker 2: environment that I grew up in a faith world, I
Speaker 2: was prepared. I'm like, great, that's that's my gender limitation.
Speaker 2: Like that is that I'm in lockstep with that job description.
Speaker 2: And I will be a very good wing man, and
Speaker 2: he will always be a trustworthy leader. And thus we
Speaker 2: plugged ourselves into this outlet that promised a handful of
Speaker 2: guaranteed outcomes. You know, everybody play their part, and you
Speaker 2: do your thing, and you do yours, and you stay
Speaker 2: here and you come forward, and then you get a
Speaker 2: happy life. That's the transactional like structure. And so I
Speaker 2: believed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't I work for my parents? I saw it
Speaker 2: work elsewhere. I you know, I didn't come up in
Speaker 2: a generation where a ton of the women in my
Speaker 2: ecosystem were questioning any of that. They were the cogs
Speaker 2: in the machine. Of course, women are. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not as if the men are actually leading every system
Speaker 2: and structure that exists on earth with integrity and excellence.
Speaker 2: It's the women you know back there in the behind
Speaker 2: the curtain. But it was fraying already. It was fraying
Speaker 2: already and then disintegrating toward the end until it was
Speaker 2: a catastrophe.
Speaker 1: I have a certain level of respect for what you
Speaker 1: just said about that, you the cog in the wheel,
Speaker 1: like so many women feel. I have never felt that way.
Speaker 1: So that's how different our stories are, but also so parallel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I love I love hearing your story and hearing
Speaker 1: what a different version of this looks like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. Right when I talk
Speaker 2: about awake, I'm like, Okay, look, there's a small story
Speaker 2: in here, and the small story is the story of
Speaker 2: my divorce and recovery and rebuilding process. But there is
Speaker 2: it is nestled inside a larger story, which, on one
Speaker 2: level or another, virtually everybody in our generation and our
Speaker 2: age group would go, oh, same on that one, same
Speaker 2: on that one. We all grew up inside a patriarchal
Speaker 2: culture in various rooms that we all found ourselves playing in.
Speaker 2: There were some gender limitations, and they those existed in
Speaker 2: different ways and they manifested differently, but we know what
Speaker 2: they look like. We certainly got a story about our
Speaker 2: bodies from the time we were what four younger, and
Speaker 2: so that is ubiquitous for our age group. This story.
Speaker 2: We this is what your body should look like, This
Speaker 2: is what your body is good for, This is how
Speaker 2: your body can be used. This is who your body.
Speaker 1: Girl. Be a good girl, yep, make girl pleasant, smile.
Speaker 2: Walk into every room, read it and give it what
Speaker 2: it wants. And the problem is we're good at that.
Speaker 2: We're so socially and emotionally competent that most of the
Speaker 2: women I know do know how to walk in a room,
Speaker 2: gauge the temperature, and adjust accordingly. And so it's a
Speaker 2: skill set that can be used for our own empowerment,
Speaker 2: but we were taught to use it for the comfort
Speaker 2: of everyone around us.
Speaker 1: True, very true. Yeah, after I read what happened, where
Speaker 1: you came from, how it all transpired, I felt immediately
Speaker 1: excited for you, like genuinely excited for what is next
Speaker 1: for you, because yeah, it sucked, it hurt, it blew
Speaker 1: up your universe. But my excitement really comes from what
Speaker 1: is basically what it feels like your rebirth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for saying that. I
Speaker 2: love hearing that, and that that thought, that perspective comes
Speaker 2: from women who have already figured out how to live
Speaker 2: in their own freedom, in their own autonomy, in their
Speaker 2: own agency. And here's the good news about that that perspective.
Speaker 2: It's true. You're right, it is true. We are so
Speaker 2: interesting and capable and powerful. And I don't love the
Speaker 2: system that sometimes something has to die in order for
Speaker 2: that truth to live. But it is the truth. That
Speaker 2: is how it is sometimes. And had I been more
Speaker 2: honest back then, before I lost my marriage, I would
Speaker 2: have already known that. I've already said that, And if
Speaker 2: I would have been more courageous, I would have chosen
Speaker 2: that before all this trauma chose me. Ye, But I'll
Speaker 2: never know. I was too afraid to lose it all.
Speaker 2: I couldn't. I didn't have vision for what it might
Speaker 2: look like on the other side of that. The disruption
Speaker 2: of it was such a deterrent that I was willing
Speaker 2: to sit in my own unhappiness, in my own misalignment.
Speaker 2: I guess forever, I think I would have stayed. I
Speaker 2: think I would have stayed, So.
Speaker 1: I feel exactly the same again. Completely different situation and circumstances,
Speaker 1: but I hear you. I felt the same, like I
Speaker 1: am supposed to keep this family together. I am supposed
Speaker 1: to be the glue, you know, and if i am not,
Speaker 1: then I'm a failure and I'm ashamed and all the
Speaker 1: things we do to ourselves.
Speaker 2: Totally totally and then even lacking the imagination for what
Speaker 2: my kids, how resilient they are, I felt also in
Speaker 2: a codependent way, responsible for their life experience, which meant,
Speaker 2: if I'm a good mom, i am absolutely shielding them
Speaker 2: from pain, from disruption, from loss. I'm certainly not going
Speaker 2: to choose it for them. I you know, that is
Speaker 2: such a ridiculous way to live and not true, not
Speaker 2: true at all. But also so that kept me from
Speaker 2: thinking with a clear head, what was the right thing
Speaker 2: to do, what was the next best thing in my
Speaker 2: life because I had this overdeveloped sense of responsibility for
Speaker 2: literally everybody else in my life except myself.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is where it gets good, because it wasn't
Speaker 1: until your rebirth, I like to call it that that
Speaker 1: you started to live in a completely different way, and
Speaker 1: this is where choosing yourself really started to happen for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean At first it was so terrifying. I
Speaker 2: felt like I was in a constant free fall where
Speaker 2: I was so used to my safety nets. I had
Speaker 2: always had a partner, another person. I'd always had these
Speaker 2: institutions that I had a lot of traditional success inside,
Speaker 2: which looked like marriage and to some degree like the
Speaker 2: institution of church or faith or however you want to
Speaker 2: put that. And I had so I had these like
Speaker 2: big systems as my scaffolding, and so having like fail
Speaker 2: fail on both of those, having lost a partner. So
Speaker 2: now I'm all by myself in my upper forties trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to pay my taxes. So at
Speaker 2: first it was just like a tailspin. Every single thing
Speaker 2: was new, like everything, and everything was sort of consequential.
Speaker 2: I mean, these weren't small things. But once I figured
Speaker 2: out pretty quick, oh my god, I'm good at all this.
Speaker 2: I'm smart, I'm super capable in my story, and this
Speaker 2: is what mattered to me the most. I am trustworthy,
Speaker 2: like I do not have to outsource my will being
Speaker 2: to another person who is not safe ever again, ever again,
Speaker 2: and hope that they treat hope that they have integrity,
Speaker 2: and hope that they I will never do that again,
Speaker 2: and I don't have to do it again because I'm
Speaker 2: good enough for all of this, Like because you don't.
Speaker 1: You never know when you put that kind of like
Speaker 1: faith or responsibility or whatever it is that on someone else,
Speaker 1: the good in you wants to think, if I have
Speaker 1: faith in this person and I just believe it will
Speaker 1: be so and they will take care of their end
Speaker 1: of the responsibilities and treat me with respect and grow
Speaker 1: old with me. But that doesn't do it.
Speaker 2: It doesn't. And I had that story for a really
Speaker 2: long time. You know, I didn't have twenty six years
Speaker 2: of a tragic marriage, right, you know, I a lot
Speaker 2: of that muscle memory was built in in a genuine
Speaker 2: way where we were partnered and we were in the
Speaker 2: same boat, growing in the same direction, and those were
Speaker 2: like really lovely years and really beautiful years. And I
Speaker 2: don't have regret. I don't know how to. I don't
Speaker 2: know that regard wrehat has a place in anyone's story.
Speaker 2: If I regret my whole marriage, I would have to
Speaker 2: regret my whole life.
Speaker 1: And all the good things that you learned.
Speaker 2: That's right, and the children, that's right, the all of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that isn't I can't. That doesn't actually make sense to me.
Speaker 2: But I think integrity would have been way more honest
Speaker 2: when the train was beginning to leave the tracks, And
Speaker 2: hindsight shows me I knew my body, knew my wisdom,
Speaker 2: knew my intuition, knew my body was raising the flares
Speaker 2: yep and going listen. We got some alarm bells, and
Speaker 2: we would like you to pay attention.
Speaker 1: And that always happens, but we don't. We either ignore
Speaker 1: it or we pretend that it's not happening and we
Speaker 1: just shove it aside because it's real inconvenient.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's so inconvenient. And you know, I've
Speaker 2: had some folks ask me, do you feel like you
Speaker 2: ignored your own red flags, your own sense of knowing
Speaker 2: that things were absolutely going wrong because of optics? Because
Speaker 2: you have this public life and you had a public marriage,
Speaker 2: and you want you wanted people to think of you
Speaker 2: in a certain way. And I would never be like
Speaker 2: so unself aware to say that had No, that's a
Speaker 2: non factor. But I feel like I can say, truthfully,
Speaker 2: it's less that I wanted to appear a certain way
Speaker 2: to other people and more that I actually wanted my
Speaker 2: marriage to work. I just didn't want to face what
Speaker 2: I knew I needed to face. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: look directly at all these red flags waving in front
Speaker 2: of my face because I did not want them to
Speaker 2: be true. It's not that I didn't want to I
Speaker 2: just didn't want it to be true. I'm like, I know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to find our way through this.
Speaker 1: Yes, you want that picket fence life, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're building it and you seem to have and you
Speaker 1: don't want to break it down.
Speaker 2: No, And I even though I knew things were going
Speaker 2: so wrong and we were so sideways and something at
Speaker 2: the time, I couldn't exactly say what it was. Now,
Speaker 2: of course I know, but something was very, very, very wrong.
Speaker 2: But my little brain of denial just kept going, we'll
Speaker 2: get through. We'll get there. I don't know how, but
Speaker 2: he will get over this. He will come back to himself,
Speaker 2: and then he will come back to me and this marriage,
Speaker 2: and this will be a rough bump on the road,
Speaker 2: but we will get over it. And I just told
Speaker 2: myself that over and over, but without the necessary subsequent
Speaker 2: steps of actually engaging everything that was wrong. It's like
Speaker 2: I just kind of closed my eyes hence the title
Speaker 2: of the book, awake and just went maybe this will
Speaker 2: just work itself out while I'm not looking at it
Speaker 2: seems like a great approach, like what could go wrong?
Speaker 2: Why didn't that solve problems?
Speaker 1: One of the things that I admire about women and
Speaker 1: about you in situations like this, and I honestly admired
Speaker 1: about myself. I spent a good amount of time and
Speaker 1: blame and pointing the finger and being the victim. But
Speaker 1: there comes a point when you have to stop pointing
Speaker 1: the finger and start pulling the thumb and you have
Speaker 1: to look at your pardon things. Yeah, and that's when
Speaker 1: real change starts to happen.
Speaker 2: Undoubtedly, I am so glad I did not write this
Speaker 2: book three years ago. I was still living inside a
Speaker 2: bit more of a trope of victim, villain, good, bad, guilty,
Speaker 2: innocent that the earliest version of the story, which maybe
Speaker 2: even has its place. Yep, I'm not even I'm not
Speaker 2: even judging us for sitting in that place of just
Speaker 2: absolute like betrayal and tragedy and loss to just go well,
Speaker 2: just you know, fuck that guy. There's a place for that.
Speaker 2: But to your point, that runs out of fuel. And
Speaker 2: if we do not look at that differently and began
Speaker 2: to go, all right, what's my part here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What? What? What did I bring to this table? Where
Speaker 2: was I complicit? And what did I sign on for?
Speaker 2: Then we will just become this miserable, resentful victim. And
Speaker 2: like my counselor told me a billion times when she
Speaker 2: was working with me on all those codependent behaviors that
Speaker 2: apparently I had deeply exhibited my entire marriage. She's like, look,
Speaker 2: this is your problem. She's look at your problem where
Speaker 2: you either deal with it? But yeah, I was like,
Speaker 2: that's so, don't pay you to be mean to me,
Speaker 2: Like I came here for you to tell me this
Speaker 2: is his fault and poor me. But she's like, you'll
Speaker 2: just walk these habits and these patterns right into your
Speaker 2: next relationship. You will keep them up with your kids
Speaker 2: where you're already exhibiting it. And I'm like, yeah, so
Speaker 2: you're right.
Speaker 1: And that's when you ask yourself, is that the life
Speaker 1: I want? Is that the woman I want to be?
Speaker 2: That's right? Is that the rooleman I want to be?
Speaker 2: And I had nobody else left to take the blame.
Speaker 2: And so part of independence includes being responsible for yourself
Speaker 2: and your garbage and your dysfunctions. And that is where
Speaker 2: I finally found myself after I got through the just
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean season of grief where everything
Speaker 2: is just chaos. By the time I kicked to the
Speaker 2: surface and had some fresh air again, I went right,
Speaker 2: what's my deal? And I hope that that comes through
Speaker 2: in the book. I hope that I was at least
Speaker 2: self aware enough to go, Here's where I made our
Speaker 2: marriage harder, worse, more difficult, and more unlikely to heal.
Speaker 2: And I can see that now with much clearer eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it happens for so many of us,
Speaker 1: because living in codependency or living in that world where
Speaker 1: you are catering to someone or supporting your husband, your kids,
Speaker 1: your household, you get so lost in it, and it's
Speaker 1: really easy to not look in the mirror, to not
Speaker 1: face the reality of your part in how things got
Speaker 1: to where they are. And that is hard work.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's horrible. It's so horrible, and that is the
Speaker 2: crucible for everyone who struggles with dependency because, by definition,
Speaker 2: like our approach to all the people around us, the
Speaker 2: ones that we married, the ones that we birthed, the
Speaker 2: ones that we came from the friends that we've chosen.
Speaker 2: Is this sense of responsibility for them, how they feel,
Speaker 2: what they think, how they're behaving, how they are responding,
Speaker 2: what is their environment? Is there any way we can
Speaker 2: control the outcomes of their choices, because I'll sure try.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also want to make sure that everybody sees
Speaker 1: them in their in their best light.
Speaker 2: God, I know you, you know.
Speaker 1: I read that in your book. That takes a lot
Speaker 1: of energy.
Speaker 2: Well, and back to your point, I don't have time
Speaker 2: to look in the mirror. I'm too busy looking at
Speaker 2: everyone else's mirrors. I'm making sure their mirrors are all
Speaker 2: shined up for the world and for themselves, and I
Speaker 2: am taking on responsibilities that should be theirs. And so
Speaker 2: that's at least with my care I robbed them of
Speaker 2: a lot of independence because I came in with too
Speaker 2: much control, which, by the way, isn't even true. You
Speaker 2: were never in control of somebody else. That is a lie.
Speaker 2: That's an absolute lie. That's what you learn. It's an illusion.
Speaker 1: It's more fun to live in that illusion, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's just so much easier. I have so many ideas
Speaker 2: about how everybody else should live. I mean and they're
Speaker 2: such good ideas. If they would all just listen to me.
Speaker 2: I have a vision for your behavior, and I just
Speaker 2: if you'll sit down and listen for thirty five minutes,
Speaker 2: I will give it to you. But it doesn't work
Speaker 2: that way. That only creates resentment, that deteriorates relationships, It
Speaker 2: steals autonomy from everybody around you. It's that is a
Speaker 2: sinking ship.
Speaker 1: For sure. Okay, So speaking of your children, you said
Speaker 1: that two of them were in high school when this
Speaker 1: all went down, but they had grown up in that house.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: They were suffering the dysfunction in their own ways, but
Speaker 1: probably oblivious also because that was just their life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did they take the news initially? And how are
Speaker 1: they doing now?
Speaker 2: That first year when I was so afraid of their
Speaker 2: own of their pain, I was just so afraid of it.
Speaker 2: I remember one day my daughter Sydney, who at the
Speaker 2: time was twenty, and we were in the living room.
Speaker 2: I remember where I was standing when she was talking
Speaker 2: about how she was feeling and what felt sad and
Speaker 2: what felt hard and what still felt really confusing. And
Speaker 2: I was so committed, I was so uncomfortable with her
Speaker 2: pain that I did what I do what codependents do,
Speaker 2: which is try to huh somebody else through their actual
Speaker 2: experience to get to the ending I want for them.
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm ten miles down the road trying to
Speaker 2: protect her future relationship with her dad, her future wholeness
Speaker 2: and wellness. I have this thing that I want her
Speaker 2: to get to, like down the street, and so I'm
Speaker 2: shoving her that direction with you know, don't forget, and
Speaker 2: I'm massaging the truth. Well, you know one thing that
Speaker 2: you know, I hope you can understand, was And finally
Speaker 2: she just stopped me and she said, Mom, when you
Speaker 2: do this, when you do what you're doing right now,
Speaker 2: you are making me feel so lonely, like I am
Speaker 2: the only person still sitting here in this room, sad, hurt, confused.
Speaker 2: You are making me feel all alone in my pain,
Speaker 2: like you are well past it, and you are dragging
Speaker 2: me try to get past it, and it's making it work.
Speaker 2: And I was like, holy shit, wow. And I took
Speaker 2: that to my therapist of course that week and told
Speaker 2: her all this and she goes, all right, Jen, here's
Speaker 2: what you need to know, especially the ages of your
Speaker 2: kids period. And this is probably a rule for me
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. She's like, at this point,
Speaker 2: you need to prioritize comfort over coaching. And she's like,
Speaker 2: if you reach for coaching first, you isolate your kids
Speaker 2: and you make them feel alone.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you're right, so true. I can relate
Speaker 1: to that as well. Trying to fix it for them,
Speaker 1: trying to give them the tools that you know they're
Speaker 1: going to need, help them get to where they can
Speaker 1: be healthy again and not be saddled. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it's so true. And all you need to do is
Speaker 1: just hug them and just let them have their feelings because.
Speaker 2: They're going to have them. It doesn't matter what we
Speaker 2: do or don't you do, they're going to have them.
Speaker 2: So we might as well get in there with them,
Speaker 2: hold their little hands and say I cannot fix this.
Speaker 2: You're going to have to just feel this and experience it.
Speaker 2: But I at least will never leave you alone in it.
Speaker 2: I'm right next to you.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I learned in therapy
Speaker 1: was because I want to fix things too, I so
Speaker 1: badly want to make everybody feel better and know that
Speaker 1: you're going to end up okay. Yeah, But I learned
Speaker 1: a saying that I've used many, many times with my
Speaker 1: girls throughout the many years that we've gone through this.
Speaker 1: I say I wish I had a magic wand and
Speaker 1: I could change things h or make everything better perfect,
Speaker 1: but I won't have that. And it kind of gave
Speaker 1: them a new way of understanding and also me that
Speaker 1: like realization that I can't fix it.
Speaker 2: That's right, but it's such a nice thing to say,
Speaker 2: I wish I could. I do not wish this pain
Speaker 2: for you. I do not wish this suffering. I can't,
Speaker 2: but I wish. Yep. It's such a lovely that's sitting
Speaker 2: next to them saying I'm at least here, I'll feel
Speaker 2: it with you. I can't change it, but you at
Speaker 2: least will not be alone in it. I think that's everything.
Speaker 2: I think our kids are just going to have to
Speaker 2: live a real life like we did. It's unfortunate. I
Speaker 2: really wanted to work around Yeah, it's inevitable.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Okay, so let's widen out for a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: life exploded, hard work, self awareness. Now you're on what
Speaker 1: you rightly call a midlife renaissance. In this stage of life,
Speaker 1: you know you are reconnecting with yourself how are you
Speaker 1: doing that? And are you intentionally choosing how you want
Speaker 1: your life to look more moving forward?
Speaker 2: Some of the some of the bones of that new
Speaker 2: person came from necessity, because I had to learn how
Speaker 2: to become just a functional, daily independent person for all.
Speaker 2: And I have a big life, just like we have
Speaker 2: big lives. They have a lot of moving parts, we
Speaker 2: have a lot of people in them. Work is big.
Speaker 2: I have a big family, like nothing as small in
Speaker 2: my whole life. And so some of just the functionality
Speaker 2: of all right, here's all my own, here's my own
Speaker 2: retirement plan, here's I drafted a will like boring life adulting,
Speaker 2: which I had to do and had a incredible It
Speaker 2: was an accelerant to this deep, new growing sense of
Speaker 2: pride like I can not only can I do all this,
Speaker 2: I've done it, I learned it, I tackled it. I'm
Speaker 2: better at it than even my partner was. I'm more responsible,
Speaker 2: I'm more trustworthy, I am in charge of my own future. Period.
Speaker 2: I do not have a plan.
Speaker 1: B You abolt to identify in that stage a newfound
Speaker 1: love for yourself.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, every day felt kick ass for a while.
Speaker 2: Every day was just like I'm doing it. I am
Speaker 2: making so awesome. I'm so awesome, Like I've done so
Speaker 2: many hard things while by the way, we're all trying
Speaker 2: to recover emotionally and like psychologically, and then there's all
Speaker 2: these logistical things that just happen. So all of that together,
Speaker 2: I think coming to terms. And this is for anybody
Speaker 2: with what we are actually capable of is pretty incredible
Speaker 2: to bear witness to. And so some of that was
Speaker 2: just by nature of doing which I don't need a
Speaker 2: parade because I had to. So it's not even like
Speaker 2: I like, I'm going to choose to figure out how
Speaker 2: to pay my quarterly taxes, you know, had Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had to. I had to. But then I did it,
Speaker 2: and then I was like, oh, wow, what else can
Speaker 2: I do? I guess I can do anything. I guess
Speaker 2: I can do anything.
Speaker 1: And so that when you survive something like what you
Speaker 1: went through, what we go through, when these things happen, yeah,
Speaker 1: you realize like there is nothing I can't handle.
Speaker 2: I kind of that is true, and this is a
Speaker 2: dark version of what you just said. But also it
Speaker 2: built something else strong in me, which was now I'm
Speaker 2: not there's nothing else I can lose like I lost
Speaker 2: what was so precious, what felt so important to me
Speaker 2: and so valuable that I didn't even have a vision
Speaker 2: for my life without my marriage, like without my intact
Speaker 2: family in the way that I had always known it
Speaker 2: and built it, And so having lost it, I also
Speaker 2: ended up going well, I'm way less afraid to lose
Speaker 2: anything else at this point. I feel like I am
Speaker 2: less risk averse. I'm less attached to what anybody literally
Speaker 2: in the world thinks of me, or their assessment of me,
Speaker 2: or whether they understand me or they're misinterpreting me. I'm
Speaker 2: just less connected to it. I feel like I've already
Speaker 2: done my losing at such a high level, and I'd
Speaker 2: already lost a version of my career before, right, So
Speaker 2: I'm like, what else? What else? I those external factors
Speaker 2: now have less power over me because I lost them
Speaker 2: and lived, And so I like this version of me
Speaker 2: on the on the downslope of suffering because I go, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: I don't have to make decisions just based on fear anymore,
Speaker 2: because I'm too afraid to lose something. I I think
Speaker 2: I can make decisions more out of integrity, more out
Speaker 2: of alignment, And that goes into a lot of categories,
Speaker 2: and so that was a really unusual and surprising outcome
Speaker 2: to loss.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, it's the best outcome. Okay, So a little
Speaker 1: bit of a fast forward. I adore what you found
Speaker 1: your met Camp. Oh, I know, I love it so much.
Speaker 1: It like rings all my bells. Tell our listeners about that,
Speaker 1: because it's wow, what a thing you found for yourself
Speaker 1: that helped you through such a difficult time.
Speaker 2: That was my favorite entry to write in the whole book,
Speaker 2: by the way. I loved it. And you know that
Speaker 2: the book is set up just in it's not in chapters,
Speaker 2: it's just in vignettes, and so there's just three sections,
Speaker 2: the end, the middle, and in the beginning, and met
Speaker 2: Camp is the first entry in the beginning. It's that
Speaker 2: back third of the story where the sun rose again,
Speaker 2: where the sun came out. And I'm like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to make it. I I'm not just gonna make it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be happy again. I wasn't sure about
Speaker 2: that my first year. I'm going to be happy again.
Speaker 2: I my life is in front of me. But me
Speaker 2: Camp was an accidental life changer. I we had come
Speaker 2: up on the first summer, so I was right at
Speaker 2: the one year mark, and my youngest was going to
Speaker 2: a month of camp, of summer camp, and she needed it.
Speaker 2: We were both broken. Our bodies were broken, our brains
Speaker 2: were broken, our hearts were broken. So she's going to
Speaker 2: this pure, wholesome, beautiful camp in Maine. I had never
Speaker 2: been to Maine in my life, but I know that's
Speaker 2: the right response for anybody who's ever been to Maine.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh Maine. Yeah, so dreamy, so dreamy. But
Speaker 2: she's going to Maine. But she was still pretty fragile,
Speaker 2: and so, in an absolute spontaneous blaze of glory, I
Speaker 2: tell her, honey, how about this. This is three weeks
Speaker 2: before camp starts and I had just signed her up.
Speaker 2: We were just in crisis. That's a whole different story.
Speaker 2: I'm like, if I come to Maine the whole time
Speaker 2: that you're at camp, so that if you need me
Speaker 2: for any reason, I can be there in two hours.
Speaker 2: I just felt like I needed to put this emotional
Speaker 2: safety net under her. Well, how am I saying?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What am I even talking about? I've never even been
Speaker 2: to Maine. I don't even know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been gone on a trip by yourself.
Speaker 2: I've never even been in the movies by myself. Like,
Speaker 2: what am I doing?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And so in like a minute, I had to figure
Speaker 2: out what am I. I guess I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to figure out a town in Maine and then maybe
Speaker 2: a house. I don't know. So fast forward, I end
Speaker 2: up renting this house in Bar Harbor for the duration
Speaker 2: of her camp, this entire camp, and it changed my life.
Speaker 2: I know that that sounds hyperbolic, but here I am
Speaker 2: traveling by myself for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2: I'm forty seven years old, I old independent, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: paying for it myself. I'm on my own dime. I'm
Speaker 2: in this beautiful, idealic Hallmark movie of a town. I
Speaker 2: am delighted beyond anything I can ever explain.
Speaker 1: Everything is like fresh and new.
Speaker 2: I'm in a movie. I'm in a movie. Every store,
Speaker 2: every dog, every sweatshirt. It was cool and beautiful. I
Speaker 2: just could not and all of a sudden I realized,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I'm good company. I like me. I
Speaker 2: choose me if you will, and I it changed me
Speaker 2: so much that independent joy. It wasn't just independent. I've
Speaker 2: been independent for a year, but it was that independent
Speaker 2: delight to be able to just absolutely delight in life
Speaker 2: again on my own, not because somebody, because I got
Speaker 2: a new boyfriend, or you know, some some external thing
Speaker 2: came into my life to bring me joy. Agan, it
Speaker 2: was just just me, just me being happy by myself
Speaker 2: and so delightful that I have repeated I called it
Speaker 2: me Camp and I didn't mean. I didn't mean to
Speaker 2: brand it, but remy my daughter was at camp and
Speaker 2: I was like, well she's at camp. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: at camp. I'm at me Camp, and I just branded
Speaker 2: it on the spot. I have now done it five
Speaker 2: summers in a row. So now every single July, I
Speaker 2: travel by myself one small little town somewhere. I've never
Speaker 2: been on the water somewhere, and it is maybe the greatest,
Speaker 2: most outrageous thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1: I need to go to Mee Camp so bad right now,
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds just so good.
Speaker 2: Go. I know so many women since I I've done
Speaker 2: me Camps now for five summers do him. And so
Speaker 2: every summer, like my community starts going off on their
Speaker 2: meat camp plans. I just nothing can make me happier
Speaker 2: in life. And seeing all these women and some of
Speaker 2: them are perfectly happily married. You don't have to have
Speaker 2: your life fall apart to do this. But they're just
Speaker 2: like and who travels for a month? I understand that's insane,
Speaker 2: But a lot of them will be like, I'm going
Speaker 2: for four days by myself.
Speaker 1: I'm like, off, you go, there you go.
Speaker 2: You're a good company, you don't need anybody, but you
Speaker 2: go do it.
Speaker 1: Isn't it the best feeling to be able to take
Speaker 1: tragedy in your life and turn it not only into
Speaker 1: something that changes your life for the better, but also
Speaker 1: you're able to change other people's lives because of it. Oh,
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like, it doesn't get me better than that.
Speaker 2: It's everything. It's absolutely everything. I The joy and the
Speaker 2: loyalty and the support and the encouragement that I have
Speaker 2: received from my community just living the story in front
Speaker 2: of them for the last five years is it is unmatched.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to I actually don't know
Speaker 2: how to describe it. But it's like we take turns,
Speaker 2: we take turns, going Okay, I have an idea. It's
Speaker 2: called me camp, y'all go, And then they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: we have an idea. How about you do this. It's
Speaker 2: just beautiful. Women are the best. Women are literally the best.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that until I found my community, and yep,
Speaker 1: it was on social like finding women that were in
Speaker 1: similar situations, are going through the same life phases. And
Speaker 1: I never knew how much comfort I could feel from
Speaker 1: that support and then in turn the just absolute joy
Speaker 1: of being able to help somebody else get there.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Jenny, it's the truth, and we're all
Speaker 2: just doing that for each other. I was just writing
Speaker 2: this to my community and telling them that because people
Speaker 2: ask me a lot, and this is a very fair question,
Speaker 2: why would you want to write such a personal memoir?
Speaker 2: Like it's it's in there, man, like it is very vulnerable,
Speaker 2: it is, and I put things in there that I
Speaker 2: don't know, and they're like, why would you want to
Speaker 2: do this? And when it all fell apart in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and I have such a public facing life and
Speaker 2: I have this huge community of women, and also I
Speaker 2: don't have I honestly do not have the gear to
Speaker 2: carry on as usual when something is tragic. So I
Speaker 2: just went radio silent. I just completely went offline. I
Speaker 2: canceled everything in my life, pulled out of everything on
Speaker 2: my calendar and went off social media entirely. So since
Speaker 2: my community is located there, that's noticed. So everybody's like,
Speaker 2: what is what is going on? And so when I
Speaker 2: finally had to come and tell my community that this
Speaker 2: marriage that I have been putting in front of them
Speaker 2: for almost twenty years was destroyed, and I was so
Speaker 2: afraid had I blown my credibility?
Speaker 1: Like had I had you let people down?
Speaker 2: Had I let them down? I talked about marriage and
Speaker 2: family for so long, like I just had no idea.
Speaker 2: I just didn't even know. But the amount of love
Speaker 2: and encouragement that I got back of women saying endless,
Speaker 2: women less, I'll never get to the bottom, of them
Speaker 2: saying we've been there, We've already walked that road. You're
Speaker 2: gonna be okay, keep going, keep walking, keep coming. I
Speaker 2: promise you your life is not over. And at the
Speaker 2: time it fell over. So I thought this, I don't
Speaker 2: know this truth yet, but I told them that for
Speaker 2: me felt like all these women holding up these lanterns
Speaker 2: from further and down the path, when at the time
Speaker 2: I could not see two inches in front of my face.
Speaker 2: Everything was I was in a dark night of the soul,
Speaker 2: and here's all these women holding up their lanterns going
Speaker 2: you're gonna be okay, keep going, we promise was so
Speaker 2: meaningful and important to my recovery process, and so thus
Speaker 2: to me, I feel like awake is my lantern. It's
Speaker 2: my turn. It's my turn to hold up my lantern
Speaker 2: and to tell women keep going, keep coming. The second
Speaker 2: half of our lives, I suspect, are our best days,
Speaker 2: no matter what, no matter what we've lost, no matter
Speaker 2: what's changing, no matter what we're transitioning into or out of.
Speaker 2: This is my lantern to say, keep walking and you
Speaker 2: can do it. I believe it, I really believe it.
Speaker 2: Live my story is not special. Yeah, and I'm not special.
Speaker 2: I'm not. Nothing about my story is special and I'm
Speaker 2: not so if I have lived it, anyone can period.
Speaker 1: Yep. Oh it's the best, the best, the best message. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've had what sounds like just a season of choosing yourself,
Speaker 1: which brah bah. But before I let you go, yeah,
Speaker 1: jin hatmaker, I want to ask you what was your
Speaker 1: last I choose me moment?
Speaker 2: M As you know, because you know this well, this
Speaker 2: is a real busy season, like anytime you're putting a
Speaker 2: book out. It is it is a it is a marathon,
Speaker 2: and it is on the gas at all times, so
Speaker 2: this is not a good time to take time off. However,
Speaker 2: my three best friends all live right here. One of
Speaker 2: them lives right across the street.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Two of them live on the street over, so we
Speaker 2: are point zero two miles from each other. And in
Speaker 2: case that's too far, we have a golf cart so
Speaker 2: that we don't have to walk that far. And two
Speaker 2: of us have August birthdays, and so the other two
Speaker 2: planned this whole surprise three day birthday weekend. They didn't
Speaker 2: We did not know where we were going. We did
Speaker 2: not know what we were doing. They just told us
Speaker 2: what to pack, and this was not a great time
Speaker 2: to do it. I had I have enough work now
Speaker 2: to last twenty days a week. And I just told
Speaker 2: everybody in my whole team, I'm like, these days are
Speaker 2: blocked completely. And they're like, oh wow, oh we hate
Speaker 2: that for us. Yeah, I'm like, I ain't going for you,
Speaker 2: but I know. And so I spent three days on
Speaker 2: the lake with my girlfriends, acting insane and being idiots
Speaker 2: and wearing matching pajamas they had made for us and
Speaker 2: eating food and playing games and drinking wine and laying
Speaker 2: by the pool, and it was just marvelous. That sounds
Speaker 2: so nice, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: God, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The book, you guys, is called Awake, a Memoir, and
Speaker 1: it is out now. Be sure to get it because
Speaker 1: you are gonna love it.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jenny, thank you.