Speaker 1: Wine Down with Janne Kramer and I Heart Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's funny about last week is
Speaker 1: that when I had posted about one of like someone
Speaker 1: leaving the Queendom, you guys immediately went to It was
Speaker 1: one of y'all, well, you said Kristen Brust and tagged
Speaker 1: me at Kristen dot Brust wants someone to leave the
Speaker 1: Queendom chat and I got sweaty. I'm like, there's no way.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had this like duped moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, did they edit something and it's going
Speaker 1: to make me sound like I'm breaking up. That's what
Speaker 1: I felt. I was here and I still was worried
Speaker 1: it was me. I wasn't sure. I don't even I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember the great news that person has exited the chat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exited the chat. She just not see No, no, I
Speaker 1: was totally exited. And it's really funny because funny Jewish guy.
Speaker 1: I was like, you should listen to the podcast because
Speaker 1: I kind of mentioned and he was like, I'm never
Speaker 1: listening to wind Down ever again because you talked about
Speaker 1: a dude for like the person another dude, because he
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, he goes um he said, because
Speaker 1: he's like I thought you were going to be like
Speaker 1: he was amazed, like I said, you were He's like
Speaker 1: all he said was like he's a cool dude. But
Speaker 1: the other guy and he goes So I have to
Speaker 1: be um, do I have to you know, play hard
Speaker 1: to get? But we had a conversation too, and that
Speaker 1: was a bummer because we we realized we're just going
Speaker 1: to be friends. It's funny Jewish guy, gonna listen to
Speaker 1: this one. Should we talk about him for a second
Speaker 1: so you can feel the love. Well, I mean now
Speaker 1: that we're just friends, because he's he still deserves now
Speaker 1: that we're just Yeah, so he's gone, all right by
Speaker 1: funny Jewish. It's too fast. It's hard. It's hard, but
Speaker 1: I really because it was one of those things where
Speaker 1: like we could be like he could have been that
Speaker 1: stayed along well for a very long time in a
Speaker 1: chap But the reality is he lives in l A
Speaker 1: And I'm not moving and he's not moving, and so
Speaker 1: there's no point. By your face, is it really over
Speaker 1: or do we just create some sort of boundary. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's like I have to like put up the
Speaker 1: like I even was like, hey, I have this great
Speaker 1: girl in l A. I'm going to set you up
Speaker 1: with because he's a great freaking guy. It's a very
Speaker 1: you have. It's interesting because we're from the same place,
Speaker 1: but you go very l A with that. Like the
Speaker 1: swapping of boyfriends and girlfriends is like so West Coast
Speaker 1: to me where I'm like like, I'm just like, no,
Speaker 1: that's girl coulde No, that's bro code And then I
Speaker 1: played together. We just mayed out. M M no, ma'am,
Speaker 1: you can't wait. I'm sorry in your thirties nearing forties,
Speaker 1: so like me, Caitlin and Elizabeth, and I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: just to you now to Kavin, now that you're part
Speaker 1: of the single crew. But like, for example, Eliza, because
Speaker 1: I'm the dating app that we're all on, She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went out with him. He's great. He's like really
Speaker 1: like dad, but he's all here is He's not my person.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, you sure, cool? So I heard him.
Speaker 1: I can't. This is like a fantasy and I can't.
Speaker 1: But why I just can't. I couldn't. But like even
Speaker 1: if like I mean Elizabeth, like I think they just
Speaker 1: kissed too, It's like it's not with my husband. Do
Speaker 1: we need to have a deep dive? Do we need
Speaker 1: to pause the recording? Maybe not in the queendom. Maybe
Speaker 1: we just wouldn't like sorry forgot your oh anyway, that's
Speaker 1: very West Coast to me. I'm just saying wouldn't. So,
Speaker 1: for example, this guy Adam said, that's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1: It's like he's cool, he deserves it. He got a name.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what, honey, Jewish guy, boring Jewish guy,
Speaker 1: never got his name mentioned you matters. But like he's
Speaker 1: a great guy. So I'm like I even DMed one
Speaker 1: of my girlfriends and was like, hey, um, you know
Speaker 1: this is a great guy. I would She said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you want to be with him? I was
Speaker 1: like I would in a heartbeat, But like he's got
Speaker 1: a daughter, he'll never leave, and I'm not gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to move either, because I'd be unfair
Speaker 1: for my co parenting situation and the kids and so
Speaker 1: and to the queendom and to the queendom. So I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, you should y'all shouldn't meet. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's weird because it's like yeah, because
Speaker 1: then when they get married. She you're going to be
Speaker 1: in the match. And I think that if you'll had
Speaker 1: like a serious relationship for a long time, that seems
Speaker 1: a little weirder. But not you've been on wet two
Speaker 1: dates with the guy. Yeah, I don't think it's that weird.
Speaker 1: But she kissed him passionately. Now your new friend's gonna
Speaker 1: listen to this episode and she's going to But again,
Speaker 1: it's he's not my person. So like, for example, if
Speaker 1: I meet someone, I'm like, oh, I think actually, like
Speaker 1: I know, I was just talking about this to one
Speaker 1: of my other girlfriends too. He where she was like,
Speaker 1: I don't think he's my person. Like if I see
Speaker 1: someone on on RYE or whatever, I'd be like, oh, Catherine, Like,
Speaker 1: I think he'd be a good match for you. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna send him Catherine's way. Even if no, I like
Speaker 1: the idea. I think I love what you're saying, and
Speaker 1: I like the vetting now, And I also think it
Speaker 1: takes a great deal maturity to know it's not your
Speaker 1: person and to go you'd be better suited with this person.
Speaker 1: The passionate makeout is where I'm like, well, maybe leave
Speaker 1: that part. Do you want to mention that Leo, your
Speaker 1: dog is here. It sounds like I just bet you.
Speaker 1: For those of them not watching, Yeah, no, Leo just
Speaker 1: totally bit me. Um okay, Leo's evidendency to do that.
Speaker 1: So this is where I go to um, which I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about another topic later, but I want
Speaker 1: to get to Catherine's topic about she wants to bring
Speaker 1: something up. Well, I have a question, okay, answer okay,
Speaker 1: And I legitimately want to know, commitate Leo over on
Speaker 1: that couch or he's going to have to go on
Speaker 1: his great because he's fighting the chords in this episode
Speaker 1: will un very surely if that keeps happening. Okay. If
Speaker 1: you have a problem with someone, okay, okay, someone, if
Speaker 1: the person is on this couch, we need to discontinue. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't worry, not even like a great not even a
Speaker 1: friend really, But if you have a problem with someone,
Speaker 1: do you address it, do you let it go, or
Speaker 1: do you let it fester? It depends on the depth
Speaker 1: of the relationship. Okay, not that deep. Can we go
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I'm gonna go mark here on here, Okay,
Speaker 1: can you give us a little more detail because I
Speaker 1: think that depends. I need more on what, So which
Speaker 1: one I would do? Okay? So not a friend, someone
Speaker 1: that came into your life in a situation that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have loved to have it have happened, but it did. Um,
Speaker 1: So you try to be the person's friend. You actually
Speaker 1: like the person, seems like a nice person, um, but
Speaker 1: you have a problem with something that that person has done. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm an eight, right, let me just let me
Speaker 1: answer my own question. Okay, let me answer. That's a
Speaker 1: very thing to do as a two. I want to
Speaker 1: hold you as an eight. You'd like to confront yourself.
Speaker 1: This seems a very unbrand Absolutely, Okay, I'm the person
Speaker 1: I like to confront it. Like, here's what you've done.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. Let's address it and theoretically move on. Okay,
Speaker 1: moving not part, It's part for person. No, it is.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm learning about me. So I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing. So like, so you let it faster and
Speaker 1: you don't move on? I do all three? Should I should?
Speaker 1: I rewrote us. Back to the last episode. We talked
Speaker 1: to Lisa in her book Forgiving what You Can't Forget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I ordered it, Okay, and realized I was already reading
Speaker 1: one of her books. Um, but this is this is
Speaker 1: the part that I struggle with. Okay, So I'm learning
Speaker 1: that this is one of the get biggest struggles, well
Speaker 1: all of it. So I think I think God's working
Speaker 1: on me a lot in a lot of ways. This
Speaker 1: is the one thing that's just like killing me lately. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it'll fester a lot. So then I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't address No, don't be an eight, don't do it,
Speaker 1: don't be an unhealthy, don't do it. And then I
Speaker 1: go and I attack you go hard? Yeah, I go
Speaker 1: hard and not very nice. I read the messages. You
Speaker 1: weren't not nice, you direct, very direct. I think it
Speaker 1: was an emotional situation that it was too premature for
Speaker 1: anybody to be a part of. Yes, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 1: And so your emotions were more heightened because of the
Speaker 1: situation that you were in, and it bothered you and
Speaker 1: your like your emotions were part of it. And that's okay.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that this is a situation you didn't
Speaker 1: you're you weren't asking to be a part was not
Speaker 1: asking to be a part of it, or wasn't aware
Speaker 1: you were a part of maybe even yeah, not at
Speaker 1: the beginning. Okay, So I try, but my emotions are
Speaker 1: all over the place. Okay, so again I try not
Speaker 1: to be the eight, but I did. I was here
Speaker 1: and there like I was mean and eight and whoever's
Speaker 1: just like super nice, We're awesome. I don't know what
Speaker 1: number that is, you know, just like a two that's you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know you go back and forth. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. So now I'm gonna point where I went
Speaker 1: after but also apologized. I'm very much an apologizer, like
Speaker 1: I'm a like, let's be direct, let's address it. I'll
Speaker 1: apologize for what I did wrong. You apologize for what
Speaker 1: you did wrong, and we can move on. Problem is
Speaker 1: is the other person was an eight and two eights
Speaker 1: going after each other didn't go very well. Um, and
Speaker 1: so now I'm in a situation I cannot let it go.
Speaker 1: She got unfollowed and blocked, blocked, unfollowed, all of the above. Now,
Speaker 1: I will be honest, I did block at some point too,
Speaker 1: but I am blocked, but I am forever blocked. You
Speaker 1: block someone and you're like, yes, kidding, that happened to
Speaker 1: me with actually a friend of ours that I was like,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm unblocking you. By the way I
Speaker 1: to top I'm blacky. I already had to do that once.
Speaker 1: So it's like, by the way, I blocked you and
Speaker 1: I'm blocking them now, I'm like forever blocked. So are we?
Speaker 1: I want to say one thing, please, I'm a I
Speaker 1: am a direct communicator, but I'm a soft communicator. Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like you should apologize ever, in part
Speaker 1: of that was me, not lea part of me. I really,
Speaker 1: I do strongly believe that when you're apologizing to someone,
Speaker 1: it needs to be for no other reason than to
Speaker 1: just clear your own air and not expect an apology
Speaker 1: and return. Oh so I know, and I know I
Speaker 1: knew it was going to hit somewhere with you because
Speaker 1: I you were like, so I apologize, and then I
Speaker 1: wanted her to apologize, and then we were just going
Speaker 1: to move forward. So I get stuck in this place
Speaker 1: that I feel like I apologize a lot. Well, you
Speaker 1: own things I do like I want. I love to
Speaker 1: own too. But what I've learned in all my ownership
Speaker 1: it is not everybody. Not everybody likes to own, and
Speaker 1: not everybody can own. They're on a different path they
Speaker 1: could be. It's not a lesser path or a shorter
Speaker 1: path or a slower path, which is different. And I
Speaker 1: think we cannot expect the ownership from the other person,
Speaker 1: and we can't apologize to have them own. We can
Speaker 1: only apologize to own and know that we've done what
Speaker 1: we can do in this situation. Yes, which in theory
Speaker 1: I agree with. I know and can know what we
Speaker 1: all say. I mean, listen, also me, I had similar
Speaker 1: situations where I'm like, okay, so I'm sorry, and then
Speaker 1: I just give that dramatic pause and tea up like no,
Speaker 1: go ahead, go ahead. I just feel like there was
Speaker 1: nothing that. The only thing that I will say to
Speaker 1: this is I didn't feel like you really truly had
Speaker 1: to apologize as many times as you did. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know I apologized a lot, like I think because my
Speaker 1: emotions were so up and down. That's why I felt
Speaker 1: like I had to apologize. I mean enough. That person
Speaker 1: even said but that's the thing, and that's not fair
Speaker 1: because she's oversepped a boundary too. Yes, I mean, we
Speaker 1: both over stepped boundaries for sure, But like, you don't
Speaker 1: apologize for your emotions, like if I'm acting irrational, mean,
Speaker 1: bitchy whatever. I can say I'm sorry for that, but
Speaker 1: then don't apologize again and again to say I'm sorry again. True,
Speaker 1: But what happens is when the emotions are up and down,
Speaker 1: you go from yes, I agree with you. The problem
Speaker 1: is now is the last thing that I sent, which
Speaker 1: was nice, I was blocked. So it's like out there
Speaker 1: in the air with like the meanest things ending between
Speaker 1: both of us, and I cannot let it go because
Speaker 1: you okay, can you not let it go because some
Speaker 1: she doesn't like you now? Or do you feel like
Speaker 1: you did something wrong, or because you just like what
Speaker 1: what part of it? Do not? Can you not let
Speaker 1: go because for me, you like I don't I don't
Speaker 1: like to have Like I'm trying to think of a
Speaker 1: situation where it's like I don't like the energy and
Speaker 1: I don't like to know that, like I'm a the
Speaker 1: new but I'm not bad, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like I didn't I didn't do anything wrong, Like I apologize,
Speaker 1: like come on, let's all like it. So here's the
Speaker 1: other side of that. Like I live in a small town,
Speaker 1: the woman lives in my town. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of similar things that we do I have to see
Speaker 1: her so it is on let me devil's advocate for
Speaker 1: her for four seconds, even though I'm definitely on your team.
Speaker 1: That's fine, I'm here for that, I know, but you
Speaker 1: know I'm like a team team. I'm just wondering because
Speaker 1: I've gotten to a point before where sometimes the blocking
Speaker 1: is just a boundary of like, no more noise for
Speaker 1: a second. Why sort this out and take the pieces
Speaker 1: that I can take, own the pieces that I can take.
Speaker 1: So maybe the blocking and the un following is just
Speaker 1: her way of going. I just need like a four
Speaker 1: minute break. This has gotten heated and I want to
Speaker 1: be able to have a different conversation astion with you,
Speaker 1: but just not right now. Probably I could see that
Speaker 1: that's that's the healthy version of her, the other this person.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if she's healthy enough to healthy
Speaker 1: and unhealthy, But everything the unhealthy is because of who
Speaker 1: it's connected with. And I think again, I what I
Speaker 1: would love to see in this situation for you is
Speaker 1: for you to stand in your truth and go, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were emotional, you were a little up and down,
Speaker 1: but it was also a very unfair that happened to you,
Speaker 1: a very unfair thing that happened to you, the timing
Speaker 1: of it all, it was not cool. And then what
Speaker 1: she followed up with was not great. So the fact
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with that emotion on top of other
Speaker 1: emotional stuff you're going through in your life, like stand
Speaker 1: in your truth and go you know what, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not the bad person in this and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I owned you, already owned you owned your stuff. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: And now that's on her to not, you know, to
Speaker 1: to maybe do what Christ and saying, or she doesn't
Speaker 1: have the like too much for her emotionally too so
Speaker 1: once she may have to do the same thing. I
Speaker 1: get that, but God, that drives me crazy. I hate
Speaker 1: having Oh I hate I want to be very clear.
Speaker 1: I don't like the feeling you're having. And I know
Speaker 1: that we have a lot of mutual friends ish and
Speaker 1: it literally kills me. All I think about is like, well,
Speaker 1: what did she say to so and so? Because I
Speaker 1: know that she has said things not nice to pet,
Speaker 1: you know, and so it's like I probably have too though,
Speaker 1: you know. So It's just like that drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: You just have to let a little time, in a
Speaker 1: little space, in a little air I think, yeah, because
Speaker 1: something very similar, and what are you going to do
Speaker 1: with well today, y'all gonna make you shut out on
Speaker 1: that you did not email her? Well, I'm blocked, and
Speaker 1: she didn't need high stuff. All of the things I
Speaker 1: would have been by the way, all of them. I
Speaker 1: sent a little message. There was not an apology through
Speaker 1: a window. It was not an apology, but it was
Speaker 1: kind of wrapping it up in a bow like, look,
Speaker 1: we have to see each other kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: it was kind and it was ever. But I'm still blocked.
Speaker 1: Where did you send it? I texted her and it's great,
Speaker 1: it's still blocked. Oh she didn't get it? Can friend? Well,
Speaker 1: here's can't you just do it at one of the
Speaker 1: kids practices that you might be at? Yeah, nothing like
Speaker 1: a juice box of soccer practice and confrontation, which is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, so yeah, I might have to do
Speaker 1: in person. I don't know. I haven't decided. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to put a pin in this conversation, okay,
Speaker 1: because I think we need to sit with it for
Speaker 1: a hot minute. I'm going to block it and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna follow it, and I'm gonna childish we've all done it.
Speaker 1: We've all done it. I can't even echo enough how
Speaker 1: I've had this exact the very similar situation. It's like
Speaker 1: one of my friends was like, I can't believe she
Speaker 1: blocked it, and followed I was like, well, I kind
Speaker 1: of did it first. I don't think that's childish that
Speaker 1: were all done it. We get emotional, we get that's
Speaker 1: the first reaction, be like I'm I'm blocking you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like I'm blocking them. It's like it's
Speaker 1: the first emotional reaction that we have, and it's really
Speaker 1: our first line of defense in the social media and
Speaker 1: life we live in to get this person like out
Speaker 1: of your orbit for a minute, right, I mean it
Speaker 1: is a boundary, Like I get that, Like I did
Speaker 1: it so I don't have to see her stuff, right right, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put a little pin in it and we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna come back because and talk about that.
Speaker 1: But first we're gonna get an incredible guest on. Her
Speaker 1: name is Rebecca Wolf and she actually um, she's a
Speaker 1: freelance writer, UM since she was sixteen. She actually helped
Speaker 1: write some of the Chicken Suit for The Teenage Soul,
Speaker 1: which if you're our age, I know, it was like
Speaker 1: one of the iconic, iconic. Um. She's got a new
Speaker 1: memoir out right now. It's called All of This, a
Speaker 1: Memoir of Death and Desire um, and it's basically about well,
Speaker 1: we'll have her talk about it. But she she asked
Speaker 1: for a divorce and then her then her husband got
Speaker 1: pancreatic stage four cancer, so she end up staying with them.
Speaker 1: And anyways, we're gonna get her on blizz first, let's
Speaker 1: take a break. So, Rebecca, we are so excited to
Speaker 1: have you on Wine Down. UM. I mean the girls were, um,
Speaker 1: just kind of debriefing before we started recording. And first
Speaker 1: of all, the soup books, Oh my goodness, I mean
Speaker 1: that was like our childhood. Yes, I love that. I
Speaker 1: like literally iconic pieces of literature of them at home,
Speaker 1: and I like them like so many copies for the teacher, Soul,
Speaker 1: for my heart, soul, for my soul soul. I was like,
Speaker 1: sup me up, animal vegetarian, very ironic. Yeah, same same. Um.
Speaker 1: How did you start writing on those books? Um? I
Speaker 1: So when the first book came out, which I believe
Speaker 1: was like around nine four, I was in middle school.
Speaker 1: I submitted a story to the like you could submit
Speaker 1: them in those days. So I submitted a story that
Speaker 1: I wrote like in my ninth grade English class to
Speaker 1: the second Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Too, and
Speaker 1: it was published and then the woman who ran it
Speaker 1: kind of reached out to me and she's like, do
Speaker 1: you have anything else? And I was like, are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? I'd like, you know, I've been writing my whole,
Speaker 1: you know, fourteen years of being a person. So I
Speaker 1: sent like a bunch of other stories and poems and
Speaker 1: she ended up hiring me. So I wrote. I wrote
Speaker 1: for the book series through high school and then I
Speaker 1: didn't even go to college. I went straight to work
Speaker 1: for the book and then I toured on Their Behalf
Speaker 1: and like spoke about writing through trauma like two teens,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, it's kind of like a spokesperson
Speaker 1: for the for the Teenage Soul books and the Team
Speaker 1: Love series books which came out afterwards. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just like kind of a flukey thing, like I
Speaker 1: submitted a story for extra credit and it turned into
Speaker 1: like a career. I deferred my college admission and never
Speaker 1: went to college. Very fulfilling, though it has to be right.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm assuming that's not just normal work, that's
Speaker 1: really powerful work. Yeah. And I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: was eighteen, so I had like an adult job at eighteen,
Speaker 1: Like I went to work every day in an office
Speaker 1: and I edited. I I also go strow and edited too,
Speaker 1: So I was doing way more than just you know,
Speaker 1: writing you know, a few stories, like I was actually
Speaker 1: working full time. Um, and then I and then I
Speaker 1: went from there into freelancing. And I moved to London
Speaker 1: for a year and wrote wrote you know, travel stuff
Speaker 1: and music stuff, and I just sort of kept going. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I've been I've been writing about my
Speaker 1: life for you know, twenty five years, and now you
Speaker 1: have your new memoir out, which that out in August,
Speaker 1: and um it's called All of This And was that
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, I'm so excited to get
Speaker 1: that book because I just I love, um the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, you were speaking in your life and
Speaker 1: you're being vulnerable and and is the book mostly like
Speaker 1: give me like the elevator pitch of the book for sure? Um.
Speaker 1: So I have been I've been writing on the internet
Speaker 1: my whole through my whole twenties. I had a blog
Speaker 1: called Girls Gun Child that I started in two thousand
Speaker 1: five when I had my first child, a son, UM.
Speaker 1: I got pregnant with him really young, didn't have a community,
Speaker 1: so I started writing about it online. And this was
Speaker 1: like in the beginning, I was like sort of an
Speaker 1: early one of the early mommy bloggers. UM and I
Speaker 1: did that forever for years, For over ten years, I
Speaker 1: wrote about my experience as a mother. UM found an
Speaker 1: incredible community online. Have been writing ever since. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, had had been writing, had had written about
Speaker 1: my marriage. But you know, I I wrote mainly metaphorically,
Speaker 1: so if something massive happened to us, I would write,
Speaker 1: you know, about it more in it, you know, symbolically
Speaker 1: that I would you know, really detail and flesh out
Speaker 1: the issues that we're having in our marriage, because we
Speaker 1: really from the beginning struggled our marriage. You know, we
Speaker 1: were barely we barely need each other when I married him, UM,
Speaker 1: I got pregnant, we looped to Vegas. We sort of
Speaker 1: like tried to make it work, kept trying to make
Speaker 1: it work. Had you know, good moments and good years,
Speaker 1: well good months, good weeks, UM, but it was mainly,
Speaker 1: you know, it was mainly a pretty tumultuous, toxic marriage
Speaker 1: that just got worse and worse as the years went on.
Speaker 1: And when I was finally and I finally said to him,
Speaker 1: I want to divorce. I don't love you anymore. I
Speaker 1: can't be in this marriage anymore. It's it's killing me,
Speaker 1: Like I I felt that way. I was at the
Speaker 1: point where I was like, if I don't get out
Speaker 1: of this marriage, like something happened to me, because it
Speaker 1: was it was it was miserable. How many years at
Speaker 1: that point. We we've been married for over thirteen years
Speaker 1: at that point, yeah, yeah, so and we had four children, UM,
Speaker 1: the oldest being thirteen, right, because I was pregnant when
Speaker 1: I married him. Um, And he was like okay, And
Speaker 1: so I was actively looking into, you know, getting another
Speaker 1: place and doing all the things that you do when
Speaker 1: you're separating. When he suddenly had horrible stomach ache, horrible
Speaker 1: like keeled over, needed to go to the hospital. Went
Speaker 1: to the hospital. Um, they diagnosed him in the e
Speaker 1: r with stage four pancreatic cancer that had already metastasized
Speaker 1: into his liver and lymp notes. So he was it
Speaker 1: was at the point of no return, like it was
Speaker 1: a terminal diagnosis. Um. And we weren't even speaking when
Speaker 1: he was in the hospital, like we hadn't we hadn't
Speaker 1: been speaking the entire week. UM. So you can imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, being a situation wanting desperately to get out
Speaker 1: of your marriage finally saying I'm done, I'm out, actively
Speaker 1: pursuing divorce, and your husband is suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Speaker 1: So UM, that phone call. All the feelings that I felt,
Speaker 1: you know, when he called me from the hospital obviously
Speaker 1: were very complicated. UM. And I, you know, my parents
Speaker 1: came up. I went straight to the hospital as soon
Speaker 1: as I could, and I essentially stayed with him too,
Speaker 1: care of him for his his the four months that
Speaker 1: he between diagnosis and death. It was four months, and
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I was with him the whole time,
Speaker 1: took care of him. UM. Navigating that as somebody who
Speaker 1: wanted to leave him was UM, you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was a lot. It was trying to find closure.
Speaker 1: It was trying to trying to you know, kind of
Speaker 1: go back and and create as loving and supportive and
Speaker 1: ending as I could give him. Um. Obviously there was
Speaker 1: a lot of unresolved anger and and there were feelings
Speaker 1: of relief knowing that he wasn't going to be in
Speaker 1: my life anymore. Um, you know, which took me years
Speaker 1: to feel like I could say out loud, because you know,
Speaker 1: when someone dies, you're not supposed to feel relieved. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to be, you know, feel deep grief, which is
Speaker 1: which is what I felt too. And obviously, I, you know,
Speaker 1: wanted my children no longer have a father, and I
Speaker 1: would think it was my grief was there was a
Speaker 1: lot of my grief was was you know, was for them,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to be with him anymore. I
Speaker 1: didn't want him to die, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be with him anymore. So a lot of my experience,
Speaker 1: what my experience was after his death was similar to
Speaker 1: what you know, a woman coming out of a divorce
Speaker 1: might feel, which is I'm free, Oh my god. Like
Speaker 1: I got married at twenty three years old, right like
Speaker 1: I had four kids by the time I was thirty.
Speaker 1: I was thirty seven year old widow, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I have a body and this is I won life.
Speaker 1: And I know how fast a person can go from
Speaker 1: me healthy to dead? And what am I doing? How
Speaker 1: what am I? What do I want? This is like, so, I,
Speaker 1: you know, my experience after he died was really sort
Speaker 1: of in midlife you know, midlife midlife adjacent um, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of catharsis and awakening um that I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have had if he died. I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have had even necessarily if we just divorced.
Speaker 1: I think it was really a combination of feeling free
Speaker 1: and alive. Right, Um, So that's what my books about.
Speaker 1: My book is about my experience navigating his death, our marriage,
Speaker 1: and my life after he died. Morning losses in all
Speaker 1: the ways, Yeah, and just all the different ways. Grief
Speaker 1: is so complicated, and we don't talk about that. We
Speaker 1: don't talk about the relief elements. We don't talk about
Speaker 1: you know, sex after death and like how the two
Speaker 1: are connected. Um, you know, we don't. We don't. There's
Speaker 1: so many things that we're not supposed to talk about,
Speaker 1: specifically as women and mothers. Right, Like, you're a mother
Speaker 1: and you're supposed to be You're supposed to be the harbor,
Speaker 1: not the ship. You're supposed to be the safe place.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to explore. You're not supposed to talk
Speaker 1: about your complicated feelings. You're supposed to make sure that
Speaker 1: everyone else feels held and taken care of, and you're
Speaker 1: supposed to put yourself last. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I spent my marriage and my you know, the last
Speaker 1: however many years of my life doing that, And you know,
Speaker 1: I think for me, I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I there has to be a way for me to
Speaker 1: be able to have to feel like I'm alive in
Speaker 1: my own life too. Um So that's also, you know,
Speaker 1: been the journey. I'm probably gonna step over this or
Speaker 1: land mind myself asking you this question, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hear me out when I say this. So when you
Speaker 1: say that, like you felt relief when he um when
Speaker 1: he eventually passed, was there a piece of you that
Speaker 1: felt shame for feeling that because of your kids? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean my relief that my that relief that I
Speaker 1: was feeling was was tied to my own feelings, my
Speaker 1: feelings for them. I was not relieved that they no
Speaker 1: longer had a father. I was relieved. I just want
Speaker 1: to make that clear, because when I heard you, I'm like,
Speaker 1: because in my mind, I'm like, you know, we us
Speaker 1: to have I'm like, yes, I'm so happy to be
Speaker 1: out of my marriage, and I wouldn't um. Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: say this, Like my first abuser, he committed suicide, he died.
Speaker 1: I felt relief. But where I struggled was I'm like,
Speaker 1: but he I felt bad for saying I had a
Speaker 1: relief because he had children. And so what I just did.
Speaker 1: And when I heard that, my first initial thought was
Speaker 1: I don't want someone to go what you wished your
Speaker 1: husband to die? And now now they don't have kids.
Speaker 1: Then now that they don't, they don't have a dad,
Speaker 1: you know, So that's kind of like how I just
Speaker 1: and I just want to make sure that like I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you're like you're not you
Speaker 1: don't get like attack to be like she wished the
Speaker 1: father of her children. I never I never wish that
Speaker 1: he died. I never said that. I never was wishing relieved.
Speaker 1: But I could still think people could take that and
Speaker 1: like run with it, right. But this has been my
Speaker 1: whole beat with this book, is that when you say
Speaker 1: you're relieved to not have somebody in your life anymore,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're wishing for them to be dead.
Speaker 1: I think we we we we automatically turn this into
Speaker 1: this black and white thing. It's nuanced. There's so many
Speaker 1: layers to this, and I think, you know, the oversimplification
Speaker 1: of this conversation is the problem, and it's the reason
Speaker 1: why I want to have the conversation, because it's valid
Speaker 1: to feel whole sources of feelings at the same time.
Speaker 1: Just because you're feeling relieved doesn't mean that you want
Speaker 1: them dead. Just because you're feeling sad doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: want to them to come back and be with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I hear you so much because I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember I got the call when my first abuser commits suicide,
Speaker 1: and my first reaction was relief, And then I had
Speaker 1: stayed with shame for so many years having that first
Speaker 1: reaction because I'm like I should, but I did. I
Speaker 1: felt safe, you know, for the first time in a
Speaker 1: very long time, and like I shouldn't feel bad for
Speaker 1: having that as a part of like the grieving process.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, of course, Well, all relationships are so complicated.
Speaker 1: We feel relieved when we get out of relationships, right
Speaker 1: like we're in a bad relationship or we quit a job,
Speaker 1: we feel relieved. That doesn't mean that there are other
Speaker 1: feelings had, like the it's this thing with death. We
Speaker 1: just we look at death as being this thing that
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to have feelings about except these certain feelings.
Speaker 1: But we allow ourselves to have the complicated feelings about
Speaker 1: all other kinds of loss. That's just because death is
Speaker 1: so final, we're not allowed to. We feel bad for
Speaker 1: having complex human feelings. And everyone has those feelings. I'm
Speaker 1: not like the first person to have them. I'm just
Speaker 1: I want to have a conversation about nuance is because
Speaker 1: I think it's important. I think it's important for you
Speaker 1: not to feel bad for having that feeling. I think
Speaker 1: that's so. That's so just like, of course you would
Speaker 1: feel that way, and I think assuming that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: is I think it's problematic. I think that we, you know,
Speaker 1: we should give each other space for having true feelings
Speaker 1: about you know, death well, And I think too, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I know someone one of several people who
Speaker 1: have had people that they were still married to who
Speaker 1: had been sick and then when they passed, they feel
Speaker 1: relief even I mean, you know, it's like I mean
Speaker 1: it's relief for their spouse or it's relief for you know,
Speaker 1: having to care for the spouse, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure they feel guilty for that too, But I think
Speaker 1: that it's you know, very um. I think it's just
Speaker 1: way more common. Like you said, I think we just
Speaker 1: don't talk about it enough. Well, that is also something
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about because caretaking is so hard.
Speaker 1: It is so hard, and when you're taking care of somebody,
Speaker 1: regardless of what you're relationship is, if they're the love
Speaker 1: of your life, spending I mean I spent. I was
Speaker 1: taking care of him for four months. It was gruesome
Speaker 1: and brutal and horrific, and regardless of how I felt
Speaker 1: about him, it would have been gruesome and horrific. And
Speaker 1: you know when when people I remember at the end,
Speaker 1: the doctors kept trying to give him He wasn't even
Speaker 1: speaking at this point, and they doctors kept trying to
Speaker 1: give him chemo pills. And I had said to them
Speaker 1: at one point, I was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: He's not even responsive. You're trying to put a pill
Speaker 1: down his throw he can barely swallow. And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, some people want more time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: more time with him, just lie like for what I
Speaker 1: think this Like the prolonging of the death is not
Speaker 1: the point. And I think for so many caretakers too,
Speaker 1: It's like, even if you love somebody that your entire
Speaker 1: life revolves around taking care of them. It is a
Speaker 1: full time job. It is so overwhelming on so many
Speaker 1: different respects, not not even taking under consideration when you
Speaker 1: also have children and you're taking care of a dying
Speaker 1: spouse while also taking care of four children, like it is,
Speaker 1: how could you not feel relieved for that to be over?
Speaker 1: That is it's excruciating and for everybody involved, it was
Speaker 1: excruciating for him. He was in paying the entire time.
Speaker 1: For my kids, I mean, it was awful for them
Speaker 1: to see their father like that. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a complicated man when he was before he was dying.
Speaker 1: For all of us, it wasn't just me that had
Speaker 1: you know he was he was a person that had
Speaker 1: you know, it was a person um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: felt relieved. They felt relieved when he died because he
Speaker 1: was no longer in pain, because it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was you know, I, I and and all of
Speaker 1: that is valid too. I mean we we I held
Speaker 1: space with them for all of their feelings too. I
Speaker 1: was very honest to them about how I was feeling,
Speaker 1: and they were very honest with me, and we had
Speaker 1: all different feelings and we still do four years later,
Speaker 1: and we talked about them and it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we don't love him. Um. To have you know, unresolved anger,
Speaker 1: all these things. It's so important to talk about this
Speaker 1: and for children to feel like they can talk about this,
Speaker 1: and for us not to shame each other or feel
Speaker 1: guilty for having real feelings about people who are human
Speaker 1: and complicated just like we are. Christen, you're having some
Speaker 1: you wanna you want to speak on it or she's
Speaker 1: new to me. I'm very rarely speechless, so UM, I'm
Speaker 1: trying really hard to frame it. I'm a very open
Speaker 1: feeler and I'm a very open dialogue person, and grief
Speaker 1: is something that has just inundated me for probably the
Speaker 1: last year and a half. I lost five people in
Speaker 1: eleven months, and one of them was my dad and
Speaker 1: that was a year ago. So I'm trying to collect
Speaker 1: myself for a second, just to be able to frame
Speaker 1: this in a way that is sharing, um, but also
Speaker 1: not narrating completely somebody else's story. UM. But the relief,
Speaker 1: it's like I've been in the depths of grief and
Speaker 1: trauma therapy. I have gone to a grief intensive like
Speaker 1: I've really been in this, like I'm feeling at all.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about it. But oh guys, and I'm not
Speaker 1: a pretty crier, like, oh my gosh, I'm literally wrapping
Speaker 1: my arms around you. I I know who needs a
Speaker 1: pretty crier. I don't want to pretty prior here. Well,
Speaker 1: I sit next to someone that could really wouldn't any
Speaker 1: award there. I'm pretty pretty car. I got a big
Speaker 1: vein that comes through my I don't worry. Yeah, Katherine,
Speaker 1: there there's there's my tough love. Always I've seen a
Speaker 1: ruggly cry let me should usually just look like a
Speaker 1: movie scene. No, I just it hit, like hit this
Speaker 1: super soft part of my heart when you talked about
Speaker 1: the relief that comes with it, because my it's not
Speaker 1: for a lack of onian. I am really emotional, Like
Speaker 1: this one really got me, you guys. I watched my
Speaker 1: mom caretake my dad for so long. Um, he did
Speaker 1: not take care of himself. Drugs and alcohol. We don't
Speaker 1: talk about that. So that's hard for me because I'm
Speaker 1: the trailblazer and like I say, what is true and
Speaker 1: what is real, and the relief is real. It is
Speaker 1: so real, And that has been part of what I've
Speaker 1: had to talk about a lot, is just the unexpected,
Speaker 1: like it is. I didn't have the fairy tale. I
Speaker 1: didn't bury my hero. In a lot of ways, I
Speaker 1: feel like and I don't need any skepticism from anybody online,
Speaker 1: so help me God. In a lot of ways, I
Speaker 1: felt like I buried a child. Yeah, I grew him.
Speaker 1: I dealt it with his and his unfairness and the
Speaker 1: addiction and all of the tidal waves that come with
Speaker 1: the addiction. And the struggle I'm having recently is watching
Speaker 1: my mom find the freedom and she doesn't not deserve that.
Speaker 1: It looks really crazy sometimes, like I can obviously tell
Speaker 1: she's going through something. Um But when you said that,
Speaker 1: I was just like I was trying to fight back
Speaker 1: the tears and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna table
Speaker 1: this and probably lose it when we get off of here.
Speaker 1: But man, like everything you were saying was like a sentence.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even like it was from me. It was
Speaker 1: like straight from God, straight to me, like the most
Speaker 1: seen words of what that experience has been. And I've
Speaker 1: never felt shameful for feeling the way I because I've
Speaker 1: just owned it for too long now. Like I started
Speaker 1: at seven, I just turned forty in January, so I'm
Speaker 1: thirteen years deep in therapy and owning it. Alcoholism and
Speaker 1: all of the ripple effects that has on everyone, the
Speaker 1: lost relationships that are like you know, consequence of that,
Speaker 1: um healthy boundaries Like I love boundaries. We talked about that.
Speaker 1: I keen love boundaries because it's what has helped me
Speaker 1: preserve the things I'm earning and the things I'm doing
Speaker 1: and working so hard for. But the freedom and relief
Speaker 1: of death is really hard to navigate, and it comes
Speaker 1: with a lot of big feelings. Especially I am a Christian,
Speaker 1: Jesus loving person, and so I felt really for him.
Speaker 1: Almost the first thing I said to my mom is
Speaker 1: he has all the answers to all the questions and
Speaker 1: he just gets to take a minute, like the most worrisome,
Speaker 1: wound up, anger, rage filled, unpredictable person and now he
Speaker 1: has the answers. And I felt relief, and I felt
Speaker 1: like there's you know, ways now that we all can
Speaker 1: navigate and commune and connect differently because we have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do so. Without the big black cloud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the unpredictability. It's a lot that and that feeling like
Speaker 1: that you're having is this is this is like, this
Speaker 1: is all I want to talk about because it's so
Speaker 1: important to validate that those feelings because they're so like
Speaker 1: that's that's. First of all, I think it's far more
Speaker 1: common to have that feeling than not to because all
Speaker 1: of our relationships are complicated. But when you bury somebody
Speaker 1: that that was you know, that was toxic for you
Speaker 1: and a lot of reasons. That doesn't mean you don't
Speaker 1: love them, that that you didn't love them, but that
Speaker 1: I mean we everyone in my house, what we would
Speaker 1: walk on eggshelves, all of us for years and when
Speaker 1: that went away and you and I think also, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think there's this other part of grief when somebody
Speaker 1: dies and you're not just grieving them, if you're grieving
Speaker 1: the relationship because you realize how much easier it is
Speaker 1: to live without them. I think that is a very
Speaker 1: real grief. I think that is a very valid grief
Speaker 1: to have when you realize, oh my god, like this
Speaker 1: person made my life really hard and now they're gone
Speaker 1: in my life. Isn't his heart, and that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that there isn't intense sadness that they're gone, but recognizing
Speaker 1: that you what your life looked like with them in
Speaker 1: it versus with them out of it, and that a
Speaker 1: lot of that is easier and not harder, which is
Speaker 1: the assumption, right. The assumption is that this person is
Speaker 1: gone and your life is in pieces. So what happens
Speaker 1: when the person is gone in your life actually feels
Speaker 1: like you can finally put it back together. That's that's
Speaker 1: so valid and I think extremely common, and we don't
Speaker 1: talk about that, so we just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: my my experience navigating this, I felt really alone because
Speaker 1: I couldn't talk about this because, you know, is having
Speaker 1: all of these feelings that I couldn't share publicly that
Speaker 1: I couldn't even admit to myself without feeling bad about
Speaker 1: having them because I get to be alive. I get
Speaker 1: to be the one who watches my kids grow up.
Speaker 1: And there's so much guilt tied in that too, and
Speaker 1: being the survivor. And I'm sure your mom has those
Speaker 1: feelings too, like where she still gets to be here,
Speaker 1: but the idea, like the relief that you have for
Speaker 1: her like is so that is. That's love. That's love, right.
Speaker 1: The and and the relief that somebody isn't no longer
Speaker 1: in your life is also loved because when you love somebody,
Speaker 1: you tolerate them in ways you wouldn't otherwise. So I
Speaker 1: think a lot of our relationships with people, especially family members,
Speaker 1: that we love but also make our lives really hard.
Speaker 1: I think there is relief when they die because we
Speaker 1: love them, not because we don't. Because I stayed with
Speaker 1: him for years because there was love there, and I
Speaker 1: tolerated him for years because there was love there, and
Speaker 1: I stuck with him, and I nursed him, and I
Speaker 1: was there with him to the end because there was
Speaker 1: love there. So it comes from a place of love,
Speaker 1: the relief because I couldn't just leave, even when I
Speaker 1: wanted to. You can't just leave your father, right, he's
Speaker 1: your like the feel like there's this feeling where you
Speaker 1: you you can breathe and be in your body and
Speaker 1: in your life without this person that you that you
Speaker 1: didn't know how to to leave when he was in
Speaker 1: it right any more, in the loss of them before
Speaker 1: they're dead. In so many ways too, that is a
Speaker 1: whole other part we My marriage was over long before
Speaker 1: he died, and I had already mourned him as my husband.
Speaker 1: I had already grieved our marriage long before he died,
Speaker 1: so that was already done. My grief was tied up
Speaker 1: in my children really for the first year, and I
Speaker 1: didn't even give myself a chance to think about how
Speaker 1: I was stealing until I knew that they were okay.
Speaker 1: As soon as I was like, okay, they're okay, now
Speaker 1: it's my turn to figure out how I am. And
Speaker 1: I think it's something to be said to like, the
Speaker 1: grief shows up all different parts, and I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: still like grieving my ex husband, and there are moments
Speaker 1: that just say randomly come up and it's like their
Speaker 1: grief is is not just like all right, I'm over
Speaker 1: it and I'm done. It's like you're still because to me,
Speaker 1: it's like no one could have told me that it
Speaker 1: was a death at the time, because it's like that
Speaker 1: was you know, he was gone disappear, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: like you didn't disappear, but like when you went to
Speaker 1: rehab the first time, I'm like I couldn't talk to him,
Speaker 1: I couldn't see him. It was like to me, it
Speaker 1: was like this like death and like he's just boom
Speaker 1: gone and granted, yeah, he's you know, very much alive.
Speaker 1: And in me and my kid's life is it's still
Speaker 1: like it's still grief whether you lose someone or or
Speaker 1: you don't you know. And so I think you're in
Speaker 1: a podcast with your friend and then this sweet thing
Speaker 1: comes on starts talking about death and grief just hits
Speaker 1: you like a TidalWave because it happened. But that's how
Speaker 1: grief is too, and that's the thing. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: just it's not like you spend a year of crying
Speaker 1: and then you're over it. Like every look my my
Speaker 1: my kids, my daughters, my twin daughters, their birthdays on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: whenever there's a birthday, whenever I'm like, okay, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna. I'm like waiting for it to hit me
Speaker 1: and it'll all be like at Trader Joe's, like getting
Speaker 1: pasta and like just start because it does. It's like
Speaker 1: it finds you when you least expected, or when like
Speaker 1: you're triggered by a smell or a song or like
Speaker 1: something it's and then that's it. And I think that
Speaker 1: grief again, like it doesn't end like I'm going to
Speaker 1: carry this. My children are going to carry this with
Speaker 1: us forever. We're always going to have you know, we're
Speaker 1: always going to grieve him, and it's always going to
Speaker 1: be complicated, and it's going to change, and it's fluid,
Speaker 1: and you know, there have been plenty of times where
Speaker 1: I've missed him and wished he was here, and then
Speaker 1: there have been other times where I was like, thank god,
Speaker 1: he isn't all of that can live together, it's all,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a both end of life. It's the
Speaker 1: carrying the grief and the gratitude at once. Totally. It's
Speaker 1: my ampersand on my hand um to have oath is.
Speaker 1: It's funny we talked about that last week, like you
Speaker 1: can't you can't time triggers. That's another like big thing
Speaker 1: to you, just you you can't time when when it's
Speaker 1: going to come up. But I wanted to run out
Speaker 1: of this room just now. Did you see me looking
Speaker 1: for exit strategy behind you? I think it's just it's
Speaker 1: so interesting though too, because I'm like the you have
Speaker 1: the relief and things like man like sometimes would be
Speaker 1: so easy but then also easier with certain things if
Speaker 1: but then then then you also struggle with this this
Speaker 1: side effect too of like you know, not having the
Speaker 1: parents in your life as well. So it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's hard. I think it's just hard, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's all. I think it's all hard. I think
Speaker 1: all I think. I think it's all hard. And I
Speaker 1: you know, there are times, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: my friends are divorced when they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and they're dealing with custody stuff and the drama dealing
Speaker 1: with an X, which I don't I don't know what
Speaker 1: that's like, and it sounds really awful to me. Um,
Speaker 1: And and you know, I I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways is harder to navigate all of the stuff
Speaker 1: with a partner that's no longer a partner, former partner.
Speaker 1: And but then there are also times where you know,
Speaker 1: something happens with my kids and there's I want to
Speaker 1: like text him or oh my god, look at her
Speaker 1: kids or you know, and like that that I can't
Speaker 1: do that, and then it's harder for me. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like we're it's it's it's you know it, It's
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's all hard. Marriage is hard, divorce is hard,
Speaker 1: death is hard. I I you know, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I think they're all hard and complicated, and no one's
Speaker 1: nothing is harder than the you know, for the other,
Speaker 1: and no grief is worse than another person's grief. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's all just really hard and really complicated,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with any of the feelings that
Speaker 1: any of us are having about any of the stuff.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's all of this, which is probably that's
Speaker 1: why it's all of us. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, hence
Speaker 1: the name. I mean, that's kind of my whole beat, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, how do we how do we carry all
Speaker 1: these feelings and the same basket without feeling bad about it?
Speaker 1: And I think that's huge too, because there's so many
Speaker 1: people that love to shed their opinions when on things
Speaker 1: that they haven't gone through it, or that's that's it's
Speaker 1: that's that's a tricky basket. Yeah, And I think I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that comes from internal shame. I
Speaker 1: think all all shame, you know, comes from internal shame,
Speaker 1: the way we shame others. I don't think people who
Speaker 1: don't feel internal shame shame other people. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's very much. I think it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about triggers. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: being honest about their experience is very triggering for others.
Speaker 1: And look, I've been writing on the internet for twenty years.
Speaker 1: I've you know, I've heard it all. I've been judged, criticized, shamed,
Speaker 1: you know, my entire career. So I think for me, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could have written a book
Speaker 1: like this if I didn't have like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: have experience navigating that and sort of you know, getting
Speaker 1: to the other side, have been saying, you know what
Speaker 1: this is, I don't feel bad. I don't and you
Speaker 1: can't make me feel bad if I don't feel bad.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the thing, right, It's like when
Speaker 1: you get to a point when you're like, I've really
Speaker 1: I've really done the work and explored these feelings and
Speaker 1: I feel like this is where I met I'm at
Speaker 1: with them, and I'm okay with that that if people
Speaker 1: other people aren't, like, okay, that's fair, so fair. I
Speaker 1: will hold space for your feelings, but they're not mine,
Speaker 1: you know. Doesn't that wrap up a weird talking Catherine,
Speaker 1: Um Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about something that you know obviously, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel and they feel I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of shame around. So UM, thank you for
Speaker 1: for your words and what you what you've done for
Speaker 1: not only my middle school heart but my adult heart now.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for having me. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you all of course. Alright, alright bye, Well some of
Speaker 1: the stuff, UM, lots of emotions we have, like from
Speaker 1: my soul. I couldn't even hide it from no, but
Speaker 1: that's that's okay. I'm like, you should you should feel
Speaker 1: And I was gonna like, ugly weep, could you hear it?
Speaker 1: Like I couldn't swallow the tears? Yeah, I was like
Speaker 1: I was. I was going to intersect because I'm always
Speaker 1: like I remember when I can say it now. But
Speaker 1: I was on Red Table Talk. I don't know the
Speaker 1: premier day yet, but when I see someone cry, I
Speaker 1: want to immediately be like, talk to me, what's the
Speaker 1: emotion coming up? Because I saw Jada start to get
Speaker 1: literia and I just stared at her until there was
Speaker 1: a breaking conversation to be like do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about that? Because it's like I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to like, I don't want you to shove it.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to push it down a minute
Speaker 1: too because I was like she can see me, and
Speaker 1: I am like like like here sending out back here,
Speaker 1: Holy Macron. But we're going to continue this conversation and
Speaker 1: also we're gonna unpin Catherine's conversation. So um, meet us
Speaker 1: on the after show