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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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I m thrilled to welcome today s guest, my dear friend, Nora McInerney, host of Terrible Things for Asking, the founder of the Hot Young Widows Club.
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She s also the author of many hilarious and moving books.
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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we re here.
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Pulling the Thread is about big questions.
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Why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context, the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what s required to heal ourselves and our world.
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I ll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks on their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
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My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
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Sometimes it feels like empathy, sympathy, sorrow, grief are scarce resources because we certainly treat them like that.
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And if someone is feeling too much for you, they are not feeling enough for me.
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If somebody is comforting this person at the funeral because they are weeping the loudest, not because they were closest to this person, but because funerals bring up all kinds of feelings about ourselves, our relationships to other people.
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I was unhinged.
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At a funeral for my mom s friend s husband, I was supposed to be on my second date with Aaron.
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This man died of brain cancer and I was choking, crying, imagining my own dad dying, not knowing that this same disease is growing and
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the man I m about to go on a second date with, not knowing that in four years I will be at my dad s funeral, just thinking other things.
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And then we re always checking up on each other.
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Just this is a human thing, right?
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To check up on each other, to see how other people are doing it, to take your eyes off your own paper, to see how you re doing and what kind of attention you re getting.
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All these things, all these comparisons, they all come down to, like, does mine count?
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Does mine count?
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And the thing is, they all count, and they re all completely different.
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So says Nora McInerney, one of the brightest lights in my life and a guide to many, many others, thanks to her hit podcast, Terrible Things for Asking.
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Nora is quick to point out one of the deep and painful ironies of her life, which is that she wouldn t be our guide if she hadn t really been through it and lost so much.
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In the span of a few months, Nora miscarried, her father died from cancer, and her first husband, Aaron, died from geoblastoma when he was 35.
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Alone, widowed with their baby, Nora began the journey back to life, using this new, deeply unwanted reality as the ground from which to plow a path for the rest of us.
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A path that s often sad, sometimes hilarious, and always wise.
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In the early days of her loss, she founded a Facebook group called the Hot Young Widows Club and started a podcast called Terrible Things for Asking.
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which became a meeting ground for other travelers who also found themselves improbably devastated and lost.
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She also gave an incredible TED talk, We Don t Move On From Grief, We Move Forward With It.
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In the intervening years, she remarried, birthed another child, and wrote a roster of hilarious and moving books, It s Okay to Laugh, Crying is Okay Too, No Happy Endings, Bad Vibes Only, and more.
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She also started a company called Feelings & Co.
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where she attends to all of our messy emotions, the good ones and the bad ones too.
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Besides the main podcast, she now produces a short daily show, It s Going To Be Okay, and The Terrible Reading Club.
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Shameless plug, but Nora featured on Our Best Behavior and interviewed me on this show.
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Nora is one of my favorite conversation partners because she s not afraid to go there and make jokes while doing it.
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Okay, let s get to our conversation.
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I loved, I mean, I love all of your books.
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I love everything that you do.
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I love, obviously love your podcast and with Bad Vibes Only, not that you don t talk about the four times and your other work, but the hilarious insight into your life and your upbringing and the fact that you actually knew The Shrink Next Door.
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I feel like that was a real mic drop in the middle of your book that I did not see coming.
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I m trying to decide whether I should make this into its own podcast episode because I listened to that Wondery podcast, The Shrink Next Door, like anyone did, like a fan of a podcast.
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Within two minutes of listening to it, I thought, wow, this is so similar to
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my boss s therapist when I was in my 20s.
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And you lived in New York.
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Yeah.
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Every boss has a therapist that they tell you all about.
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Not every boss has a therapist that you go see.
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Right.
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For what is not therapy at all, but strangely for us, a dinner at Le Cirque or what were the other really fancy ones?
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Name the fanciest restaurants in New York.
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La Bernardin.
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Yes.
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I feel like you were, I think it was La Bernardin.
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So many.
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We went to Kraft Steak when it was new.
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We went to, what was the other one that was on Madison?
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One Madison?
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Madison One.
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Eleven Madison Park.
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Eleven Madison Park.
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Madison One s our school.
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Just Madison-y.
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Just Madisons.
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Yes, Eleven Madison Park with this older man and a bunch of girls in their 20s.
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I listened to two minutes of that podcast.
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I realized it s the same guy.
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And at the 2020 iHeartMusic Podcast Awards, which I think was maybe the first one of these awards, I m not sure, but either one, right before the world shut down, I was out here, went to that show, got an award.
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Joe Nocera from The Shrink Next Door also got an award.
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The way I weaved through a crowd to grab this man by the shoulders, turn him around and say,
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I knew the shrink next door.
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I know him.
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And then spilled the story to him was he described it as alarming.
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And I think that s the best way to put it.
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An assault.
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An assault to the senses and to his physicality.
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He was like, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.
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Email me.
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And that is how I got to be on the like post show bonus episode.
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Oh, my God.
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The most famous thing you ve ever done.
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Yeah.
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And I always thought that could be a good story.
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And it had gotten cut from a couple other books, variations on that story.
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Really?
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Had gotten cut from other books.
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And I thought, no, there s a good way to tell this.
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You re like, I m slamming this down.
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Anyway, I was reading your book, At a Pool, last summer before it came out.
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And I got to that story and was dying, laughing, and dying that I did not know
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that this is part of your lore.
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Part of the lore.
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And I have to wonder, it s impossible to understand, but thinking about a fantasy in which your life, where you travel down a different path and didn t become the shepherd of young widows everywhere, the patron saint of widows, young widows, where would you be?
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Do you have any sense?
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I always think about that.
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There s two ways that I think about this.
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One is that I always had this in me, the same drive to create.
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the same, I ve always been an idea factory.
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I ve always been a person who wants to think about how I feel, how it connects to how other people feel, how it connects to the world and talk about it.
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I was doing this when no one was reading.
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I was doing this when no one was listening.
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I was talking about making a podcast in 2009 with my best friend.
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It was called Best Friend 1 to Best Friend 2.
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That s what it was called.
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Because we d call each other and say, Best Friend 1 to Best Friend 2, do you copy?
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Just not talking about me.
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I just want to make, I just want to make this clear.
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David Gilmore jr.
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David Gilmore jr.
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I always had this drive to do things even when nobody cared about it.
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I had a blog.
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The minute I discovered what a blog was, I was dancing like no one was watching.
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I was writing like everyone was reading when no one was reading at all.
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And I do think it wouldn t have been this obviously,
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But it would have been something else.
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And we would still be talking.
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I truly believe that.
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Yeah.
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No, I agree.
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I think you are the Loonan family.
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We re stands for people who are listening.
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My older brother, Ben, who is a book editor and a young, a hot young widow.
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Possibly one of the hottest.
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The hottest.
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That is so cute.
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He is adorable.
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That little book editor, bird watcher, and his little.
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He s why I m into birds.
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He s so cute.
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But when Peter died, you were, had you met?
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Did he know you?
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We had not met.
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Yeah.
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We had not met.
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Yeah.
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I recognize you can t sort of be everyone s guide to this process, but your work can be.
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And you really,
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walked Ben through that, the gate, that narrow gate that no one wants to pass through.
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And what s so amazing about you and your legacy and the work and what you re doing now is the full complexity of what it is to be human as someone who has really lived, right?
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And
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You have been in it, you ve been through it, in a way that most of us pray we won t have those exact circumstances.
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And yet so many people do, unfortunately.
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And you re also one of the funniest people I know.
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And so to be able to hold, we don t have many cultural examples of holding all of these simultaneous experiences at once.
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And I remember after Peter died, it was in San Francisco after he was at his older brother s wedding.
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So the whole family was there.
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I flew to San Francisco that morning.
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I flew with my brother and my dad.
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My dad arrived later that day back to New York.
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And we went to see their friends and we were gathering and people were telling jokes and stories and we were laughing and crying.
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And it was such a beautiful night that might have seemed perverse to anyone watching, but it was like thick with despair.
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Thick.
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And yet to laugh felt like the only way to actually honor Peter and bring him into the room and to be ourselves with his memory.
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I don t know, but you are that for all of us.
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My dad used to say, especially when I would get so sad, I would get so sad.
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all the time in my childhood and my adolescence.
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And, you know, my grandma died and I was old enough for that to happen.
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I was like 27, right?
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My grandma was a very old woman.
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She had nine kids.
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My mom was one of the oldest of those kids.
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So, and it s always sad to lose someone that you love.
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And I remember my dad saying to me so many things that were very helpful.
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And one, he said, and he said this also when he was dying, he said, life is for the living and life is for living.
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And I think the most natural thing in the world is to sort of want to wrap yourself around the sadness.
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And that s good.
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You do need a period of time with that.
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And also, someone s life is more than just their death.
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And Peter
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had a real life that included hilarious things about him and about your life together.
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And so did my dad.
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And so did Aaron.
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Aaron was the funniest person I knew who could just immediately, so quick, so quick.
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My dad was very dry and quick and very clever.
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Aaron could just make anyone laugh at all, and the combination of them together was wonderful.
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But we were laughing.
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We were laughing.
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If you could have seen my siblings and I driving to the Mall of America after my dad died in his car, my mom driving, me in the front seat, the other three siblings in the back, because
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My brothers didn t have anything to wear and we were like...
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My dad liked a good suit.
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He liked a well-dressed man.
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And we were like, you fucking losers.
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You don t own a belt.
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You don t own a belt.
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We have to take you to Nordstrom to get a belt and a suit jacket.
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And we re walking through and just piling things up.
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Of course, my sister and I participated.
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Don t need anything ourselves.
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And we re piling things up to buy for our brothers while simultaneously berating them in the style of our father.
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looking at them like, do you own socks?
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Do you have socks?
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Are they gonna be white tube socks?
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Now we gotta buy socks.
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But same thing, if you would ve seen us driving down Highway 62 on the way to Mall of America, you would ve thought, what a bunch of fun idiots.
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And if you would ve known where we were going and why, you would ve thought, what a bunch of nutcases.
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But it is, it all happens together to me.
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It all happens together.
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And it s not like you were sitting around being like, man, how can we just,
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Isn t it so funny that Peter died?
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Isn t that the funniest thing?
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So hilarious.
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Yeah.
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Well, and there s this part of life that becomes one about compartmentalizing when in reality, most of us aren t eating our lives off those compartmentalized meal trays and to the performance of how we re feeling, which can often feel
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deeply disconnected, sort of that awareness.
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And even when no one s watching, definitely when people are watching, you know, when you re in any sort of forum where you re supposed to be expressing your grief in a certain way, but also in private where you have sort of this, I don t know, inner critic or other person who s like, what are you doing?
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You know, either pick yourself off the floor.
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I felt a very strange experience, a very strange in the morning experience of Peter because
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I met Peter when I was 16.
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He met my brother their first week of college.
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And he was my best friend and the more emotionally able brother between my brother and Peter.
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And my brother was always birdwatching and being Ben.
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And so Peter was my travel partner.
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Since you were 16.
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Since I was 16.
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And I felt the loss so acutely, but I was, I m an overfunctioner and I was helping my brother who was obviously not okay.
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And it s very interesting, like the hierarchies of grief, who gets to be the most sad.
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People were sort of like, well, why are you?
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What is this to you?
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Oh, your brother-in-law?
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Yeah, your brother-in-law.
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And your best friend.
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Yeah.
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Not your, like truly a brother.
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I think of my sisters-in-law.
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I don t think like, oh, that s my brother s wife I think of.
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That s my sister.
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That s somebody I ve known since I was 19.
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That s somebody I ve known since I was 26.
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Yeah, but we have these ideas, too.
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I m not a particularly sentimental person.
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I mean, this is a terrible thing to say, but she wasn t a very kind woman.
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But sometimes I m like, is my grandmother dead?
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I can t remember.
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Maybe that s a shocking thing to say.
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But it s not like I look for every opportunity in which to center myself in grief.
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And yet, I feel like there s a cultural idea
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of who gets to be sad, how long, obviously like when you really need to be over it, but don t be too over it.
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Yeah, don t be too over it.
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Don t look like you re having too much fun.
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Right.
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When is it appropriate to, as a 30 something year old, find a new life partner because your first life partner is no longer available?
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I mean, you ve really lived that and now you re a person in the public and you gave an incredible TED talk about this, how we don t move on, but we move forward.
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What do you want to say?
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I know you say a lot of things, but like, when do you, but what is that?
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Oh, I think it s all wanting to know that whatever happens to us counts.
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And I think that s why we want to weigh and measure what happens to other people and what they get and what we get.
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And is it enough?
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I remember I ve always been a person who to connect to the conversation that we had on
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my show and about your book, wanted to be good, right?
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Wanted to be good at things and wanted to be perceived as good.
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I wanted to be the best widow I could be, which is Jackie Kennedy, right?
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Unfortunately, why is Elise laughing?
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It s because she s seen me.
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She s seen me.
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I don t have literally any of those qualities.
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Not a one.
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But damn, I looked good at that funeral.
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I will say I wore a white wool dress.
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Oh, beautiful.
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Aaron wanted me to wear white.
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He was very into Michelle Obama at the time, and she had worn a white dress somewhere.
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And I was pretty ripped from not eating.
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and working out and he was like, yeah, arms out, white, find something white, arms out.
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I was like, got it, got it, bud.
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I wanted to be so good at grief, so good at being a widow.
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And part of that was like checking up on how I was perceived and being very
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I didn t want to be too sad.
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Some people I could tell wanted me to be sadder.
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I felt like a zoo animal.
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Erin s obituary went viral and I could not stop reading, right?
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I couldn t stop reading.
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I was on Twitter at the time.
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So replies to news stories about it, BuzzFeed comments.
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Did he write it himself?
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I m trying to remember.
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We wrote it together.
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We wrote it together.
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And the funniest jokes are his.
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The funniest jokes are his.
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He couldn t type, so we re tight.
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We love to do things together.
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He was like my first creative partner, truly.
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The first person that was like, yeah, I would have an idea, and he would make it into a thing, you know?
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A poster, a t-shirt, right?
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When this was hard to do, when you had to find a printer, when you couldn t do it all online.
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And I would read all these comments, right?
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99.9 as they always are we re good to moderate and some would be like my husband died to who gives a shit My mom also had brain cancer.
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Okay, where s her fucking news story?
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And you know what?
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I got it.
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I got it I got that feeling
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Of course.
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Sometimes it feels like empathy, sympathy, sorrow, grief, are scarce resources because we certainly treat them like that.
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And if someone is feeling too much for you, they are not feeling enough for me.
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If somebody is comforting this person at the funeral because they are weeping the loudest, not because they were closest to this person, but because funerals bring up all kinds of feelings about ourselves, our relationships to other people, I was unmoved.
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hinged at a funeral for my mom s friend s husband.
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I was supposed to be on my second date with Aaron.
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This man died of brain cancer and I was choking, crying, imagining my own dad dying.
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Not knowing that this same disease is growing in the man I m about to go on a second date with, not knowing that in
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Four years I will be at my dad s funeral just thinking other things.
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And then we re always checking up on each other.
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This is a human thing, right?
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To check up on each other, to see how other people are doing it, to take your eyes off your own paper to see how you re doing and what kind of attention you re getting.
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All these things, all these comparisons, they all come down to, like, does mine count?
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Yeah.
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Does mine count?
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And the thing is, they all count and they re all completely different.
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Yeah.
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They re all completely different.
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I can t say, you know, do I love when people are like, I know exactly how you feel because, you know, my grandma died.
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Did you read the Rob Delaney book?
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No, I haven t.
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It s one of those books that I circle and circle.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m going to give you the best part of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s someone who says something, he s like, do you think I give a shit about, I m going to paraphrase because he said it so much in such a funnier way.
2
SPEAKER_01
But he basically says, oh, your grandpa died?
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t give a shit about your grandpa.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s what they re supposed to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And in fact, if your grandpa has the gall to be walking around alive when my one-year-old s dead, like what?
2
SPEAKER_01
And of course, does he really feel that way?
2
SPEAKER_01
No.
2
SPEAKER_01
No.
2
SPEAKER_01
He just means to him, the center of his world.
2
SPEAKER_01
His loss is the biggest to him.
2
SPEAKER_01
Peter is the biggest to you and the biggest to Ben in different ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ben is the one who lost his husband.
2
SPEAKER_01
You lost your Peter.
2
SPEAKER_01
Peter s mom lost her Peter.
2
SPEAKER_01
These are all different Peters.
2
SPEAKER_01
So this is, I m the worst person at answering questions, but I do understand that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I understand that because I ve done it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is something that I can see in myself sometimes.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it is something that I did.
2
SPEAKER_01
when Aaron died.
2
SPEAKER_01
That is the darker side of grief.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not just like your own sadness, but the, you know, sort of exchange rate to someone else s.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then there are so many other factors and it s the, you know, I m thinking about after Peter died and my parents very practically being like, I wish it, you know, wish it should have been one of us.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like,
2
SPEAKER_02
We don t, we can t exchange lives, obviously, but being like, it would, I wish it had been one of us.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I m sure his parents felt the same.
2
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, and I, that s like also perverse, but my dad was like this, that me dying at this point in my life, you know, he s in his seventies or your mom, like, that s not a tragedy, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
That s an eventuality, but this is a tragedy.
2
SPEAKER_02
And there s this line,
2
SPEAKER_02
And the way that we think about these things, there s like a tipping point also between tragic to too bad, to wow, lucky.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow, lucky.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow, lucky.
2
SPEAKER_02
In your sleep at a certain age, everything s sorted and done.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then to understand our grief within that spectrum.
2
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And this idea that even when someone gets one of those like, wow, lucky,
2
SPEAKER_02
endings, there s still an implication that you re supposed to grieve rather than celebrate.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_02
Or just be like, this is right.
2
SPEAKER_02
This feels right.
2
SPEAKER_02
This feels right.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s nothing that feels right about Aaron s death.
2
SPEAKER_02
Your dad was too young, but yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But if you would have asked me at 20, I d be like, yeah, 62 is pretty old.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know?
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I m 31 and my dad s dead and I m like, Oh no, I m, but I m an,
2
SPEAKER_01
I m a baby.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m a baby, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m a baby.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I do think, even if you re ready, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Even if you re, my grandma was ready, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
She had a great goodbye as far as cancer goes.
2
SPEAKER_01
She was like, I m in my 90s.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I don t want to do some chemo.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, no thank you.
2
SPEAKER_01
And still, I think the death of a parent turns everyone into a child again.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, certainly.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m Rachel Martin.
2
SPEAKER_00
After hosting Morning Edition for years, I know that the news can wear you down.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we made a new podcast called Wildcard, where a special deck of cards and a whole bunch of fascinating guests help us sort out what makes life meaningful.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s part game show, part existential deep dive, and it is seriously fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
Join me on Wildcard wherever you get your podcasts, only from NPR.
2
SPEAKER_02
When you and Aaron, when he was alive and next to you and you re co-creating and writing a viral obituary or making merch.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
For literally an audience again of none.
2
SPEAKER_02
A whole life.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
But do you still feel him?
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you still co-create with him?
2
SPEAKER_01
All the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
All the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wish he could have lived to see Free Britney.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, when I got amazing tickets to the Taylor Swift eras tour, night one.
2
SPEAKER_01
accidentally.
2
SPEAKER_01
First I was locked out.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a whole saga.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t get them.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I got an email that was like, you have a second chance.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thought I was buying two tickets.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s another thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
I thought I got a hell of a deal on two tickets.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I paid through the nose for one.
2
SPEAKER_01
Row seven, seat 13.
2
SPEAKER_01
My two lucky numbers.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s where I ended up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who opened?
2
SPEAKER_01
Paramore.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who were Aaron s two favorite girls besides me and Jenna Lyons?
2
SPEAKER_01
He had two framed photos on his desk.
2
SPEAKER_01
Three.
2
SPEAKER_01
He had a signed poster from Taylor Swift from the You Belong With Me video.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know where that is.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s driving me crazy.
2
SPEAKER_01
I literally am about to go tear apart the storage unit now that I ve thought of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can t live without knowing where that is.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m going to die.
2
SPEAKER_01
Two, Hayley Williams, Taylor Swift, the three of us, I don t know where Jenna Lyons was.
2
SPEAKER_01
She was not in Glendale, Arizona.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were all together on that night.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, I can t believe.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then
2
SPEAKER_01
The song she played, there was all these moments, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
There s all these moments where I feel him, I hear him, I know even when I m making a joke that I m like, I m stepping into the line Aaron would have said if he was here.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he was very, he really liked to be credited for his jokes.
2
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes I ll be like, that could have been an Aaron joke.
2
SPEAKER_02
You re just giving him the nod?
2
SPEAKER_01
That would have been.
2
SPEAKER_01
He would have said that.
2
SPEAKER_01
However, you know, someone said something and I was like, oh my god, Aaron would have died if he hadn t already.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I heard myself say it and I was like, that s an Aaron joke.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s an Aaron joke.
2
SPEAKER_01
He wants you to know that was him.
2
SPEAKER_02
I love it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was him.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so I do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we were together for four years and there are, I can t believe that truly because, and this is the moving forward of it all, right, is that I
3
SPEAKER_01
still think of us as like on December 3rd, 2021, I was like, wow, we ve been married down for 10 years.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
And
3
SPEAKER_01
I still think of that as a real primary relationship in my life, alongside my marriage to Matthew.
3
SPEAKER_01
Polyamory for me couldn t work if they were both alive, I ll tell you that much.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s no way I could care about two men s days, thoughts, feelings.
3
SPEAKER_01
It is easier when one is dead, but I do still think of that as a marriage, as a continued relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, it makes sense to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think a lot of people can relate to that, the intensity or depth of certain relationships compared to the surface nature of others.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so in some, you can sort of amass a lot of memories and a lot of days and still not be as affected
3
SPEAKER_00
by the intensity that you might experience with someone else.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like now I think about friends who are, even myself, like struggling to get over certain breakups or the way that some relationships, even platonic ones or work ones or...
3
SPEAKER_00
could be romantic, like dog us.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, the people who really stay with you.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very interesting, because I think we have this tendency culturally to pathologize that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And now it s like, oh, that guy broke up.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was probably a psychopath.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or maybe you were dealing with a malignant narcissist.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
Everyone s a narcissist.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now we have this idea that to be injured deeply by the loss of a relationship means that there s a pathological agent.
3
SPEAKER_00
But sometimes there s just an intensity
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I also think, you know, I m, I don t know on the woo woo meter, like how much, how many like football fields farther than you I am.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I also think that there are certainly people like where I m sure you and Aaron have done this before.
3
SPEAKER_01
I could cry cause that is exactly how it felt right away.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I wanted it to be,
3
SPEAKER_01
Like when I met him, it was, and I d, okay, I d only had this with guys who I had very friendly flirtations with, right, where we like, like really got each other on a.
3
SPEAKER_01
intellectual humor level where we could talk about anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some of my deepest male friendships were like what I had with Aaron.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d never had a romantic relationship where someone liked me, not just wanted to have sex with me or wanted to date me, but liked me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was coming out of being in my 20s during the game era, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh my god, Neil Strauss.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I was a part of a group of girls who were like, I m going to do that to you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I literally did treat my 20s like no man has a feeling, and I don t care about any of you, even if I am also deeply affected by everything you do to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember it just being so easy with Erin and me trying to complicate it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And saying to him one time we were at a bar and I was like, are you like sleeping with anyone else?
3
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, he does a spit take, spits his drink into his cup and goes, Jesus Christ.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, when?
3
SPEAKER_01
Should I?
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like, you re my girlfriend.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, well, you like, we never like really had, he s like, I m sorry, do you spend every day with a person and they re not your boyfriend?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, yes, I have done that actually.
3
SPEAKER_01
I have done that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I just like wanted him to like be mean to me or something.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he just,
3
SPEAKER_01
liked me so much to the point where I started to like myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I would have without him.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I would have.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when he was gone, I didn t have that lens to look at myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, well, if this good person likes me, then I m good too, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m worth something too.
3
SPEAKER_01
That was a huge loss.
3
SPEAKER_01
But no, I felt like I knew Aaron forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was there when he died and that did blow my woo scale a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_01
There were a few moments like that, but I was there when he died and I.
3
SPEAKER_01
knew the moment.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t need to be told, you don t really usually need to be told, but I was there, we were alone, and I knew that he was a part of me.
3
SPEAKER_01
I felt that sort of puzzle click in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I understood where we were, cosmically, truly, in space and time where I was like, oh, it s forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re forever, you re forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
The physical loss is undeniable.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s never as good.
3
SPEAKER_01
You sense Peter, you feel him in moments.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not as good as being like, I want to watch.
3
SPEAKER_01
this movie with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want to go to this place with you and hear you say, I want to hold your hand.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not the same, but it is real.
3
SPEAKER_01
And my dad was deeply Catholic.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember as he was dying, he had just woken up from a dream where
3
SPEAKER_01
he was in his childhood home and he slid down the banister onto the landing into his mom s arms.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, what do you think it means?
3
SPEAKER_01
I m like crying listening to this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, well, we just never really leave one another.
3
SPEAKER_01
I do think that s true.
3
SPEAKER_00
I really do too.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that in this strange, as you just said, like this puzzle piece clicking inside, I don t know that this is true or has to be true because I think there are certain people who
3
SPEAKER_00
are persecuted by people on this plane and they don t want that person inside of them from the other side.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I do think that, yeah, Aaron does.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he lives in all of your work and he lives in you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting to think about because
3
SPEAKER_00
I feel Peter acutely a lot of the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have conversations with him.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sense him.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I also, as you say, listening to you hear this, it makes so much sense.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t sense him outside of me, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s an internal, it s not like he s a phantom at the foot of my bed.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think that I feel him sort of everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I m like the focus of his attention necessarily.
3
SPEAKER_00
And not being able to pick up the phone to call someone or to see someone, you have to, it s a direct line.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can t explain it in any other way except that there s no questioning what they would say because that reality is your reality.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like Catholics pray to saints too, you know, and when I was younger and my grandpa died and his death was very sudden and he was in his 60s and it was very unexpected.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember my dad saying like, you can pray to your grandpa.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know if that s allowed, but my dad was like, you can pray to him.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, like you can, that s a way that you can, like you can tell him things, like you can ask him for things, you can do stuff like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Aaron was not religious at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was not religious.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he watched my dad get last rites, which, yes, they ve renamed again.
3
SPEAKER_00
They renamed it as?
3
SPEAKER_01
Something dumb.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, no, I m calling it last rites, baby.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not updating my vocabulary for something I dip in and out of.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Aaron was like, oh, I want that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want that, whatever that is, that sort of ritual, that sort of
3
SPEAKER_01
connection to something beyond yourself and to like other people too, like the other people who are around you or have been around you.
3
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I do talk to Aaron and I do feel him.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve spent so much time with other people in deep grief and
3
SPEAKER_00
talking about this world and everyone s path is different.
3
SPEAKER_00
There is no tidy package.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s no linear model.
3
SPEAKER_00
All of that has fortunately been debunked as much as it sort of like corrals our sense of certainty or security that we can follow a process and be done with something that will definitely have its way with us in unexpected
3
SPEAKER_00
But is there anything that when you meet another griever, another lost traveler, where you think, okay, this person, you re going to be okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s that woman who wrote The Grieving Brain, Mary Frances O Connor.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if you read that book, but there s studies of Japanese mourners and she writes about sort of like,
3
SPEAKER_00
with loss the part of it is the physicality of like as map making creatures in this reality structure where we know where the chair is we know where the couch is and then you re trying to navigate your life with like a massive part of it missing it s like you re missing the map and so she s a scientist probably an atheist I m not sure but her point was like for people who think that there s a place that these people go they did a study
4
SPEAKER_01
I think on Japanese people who believe in some sort of liminal space or realm, and then they did just so much better than people who believe that there s nothing else and there s just this materialistic realm.
4
SPEAKER_01
Not to push spirituality or like my, I don t, what I believe in has no name or context,
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you find that the people who can somehow find a way to maintain contact do better?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I recognize you re not a research scientist.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
I really don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I can tell you anecdotally from my life and my experience that most people I have met, even if you don t have a faith system, you do believe
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve never met a person who s like, yeah, and they died and there s just nothing else, and then they re gone.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve never met a person like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I haven t encountered a person like that, except for now, my 10-year-old son.
4
SPEAKER_00
When he was two, he was 22 months when Aaron died.
4
SPEAKER_00
The veil is thin with children, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
We d be in the living room.
4
SPEAKER_00
Our house is all connected.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I remember him, he was underneath the dining room table and he said, oh, hi, Papa, and stood up and hit his head on the table.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because he was standing up to see, like he could, he was looking at the couch where Aaron laid a lot of the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then he hit his head and he was saying like, oh, Papa, like talking, still talking to Aaron while I m holding him.
4
SPEAKER_00
I remember being outside and he was standing on this tiny picnic table I had bought saying, oh, hi, Papa.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have this video of him saying, my Papa s the clouds, my Papa s the grass, my Papa s the dirt.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just like things that I don t remember saying to him.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I remember feeling it s so true and so real.
4
SPEAKER_00
But now my child is 10 and he did go to Lutheran preschool and I have not raised him religiously.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, well, heaven s not real.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s a hard thing for him.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, my dad s not here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s not here.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s not here.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s not here.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I have said all those things.
4
SPEAKER_00
We ve laid in bed and talked about all these things and cried about all these things.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I ve said I do feel him.
4
SPEAKER_00
I do feel him, and it s not the same.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s not as good.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not as good when you re a 10-year-old boy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Of course it isn t.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we were recently on a walk.
4
SPEAKER_00
my two most traumatized children, and I went on a walk one evening, and I was like, God, isn t this great?
4
SPEAKER_00
Look at us.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we hear a thud, and we hear a grrr, and a Prius has hit a cat in front of us.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I won t describe it, except to say the children are screaming, the car stops, and I say, you hit a cat.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the guy, you know how Prius is, peel.
4
SPEAKER_00
He just zips off and the kids are crying and everyone s crying and I m like, okay, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we were walking home and I was like, this is where believing in God would really be helpful.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did the cat die?
4
SPEAKER_00
The cat did.
4
SPEAKER_00
not to survive.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like yelling at them, I m like, you know, my dad would have said, let s say a little prayer for the cat, but can t really do that with you two.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know, like, I m like, I was like, and yet sometimes bad stuff just happens, guys.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know, you just saw kind of a bad thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And also that person s not a bad person.
4
SPEAKER_00
They did a bad thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
We don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they ve got, you know, maybe it s someone else s car.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they don t, you know,
4
SPEAKER_00
Who knows, but that connects in that believing in anything is usually pretty helpful when something bad happens.
4
SPEAKER_00
Believing in anything, even if it s just people, even if it s just whatever the universe is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that it s not something that we ll ever understand that follows no linear logic, as our friend Kate would say.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s no reason.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s no reason.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can t say, well, the good thing about Peter dying
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say the best part about that cat getting pancaked in front of us, well, the upside of not having a dad, or of having a dad, but not the dad, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because Ralph has somebody that he calls Maddy Daddy or Dad or, you know, like he has a dad, but he doesn t have his dad, you know?
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s different.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t need to be seeking out sort of like the sunny side of loss.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I do think sometimes I look at my kids and I think, well, God damn it, the best part about being raised Catholic was I had a place to sort all of that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, totally.
4
SPEAKER_01
Religion is powerful.
4
SPEAKER_01
It certainly creates some order amidst the chaos and structures us all around a common language and vocabulary that is cultural.
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It extends beyond just knowing how to use a rosary.
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And knowing how to use a rosary is so lovely.
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And to say like, oh, your grandpa s dead.
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Go grab your rosary.
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Let s go say these same words that your grandpa said, that his grandpa said, that his grandpa said over and over.
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It s interesting.
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I mean, one of the things that I think is really hard, I mean, there are a lot of hard parts about religion, but one part is when I think of my own being a person of faith, of like a really difficult to define faith, but trusting that there s some other order to this universe and that energy matters, that we re more than this materialist reality.
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But
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And I write about this in the book.
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It s one of the core tenets is this idea that, you know, whether you believe that Jesus was a real person or you believe that he was half human, half divine, which I think we all are, his point or one of the things that what he was actually saying was so beautiful, the way that it s been weaponized.
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to stand for things that he actually didn t believe in is not so great.
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But he wasn t preaching about a church.
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He wasn t talking about priests.
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He wasn t creating intermediaries between the people he was talking to and their direct connection to divine.
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He wasn t starting an MLM.
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He was not starting an MLM.
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There s something to the effect of, like, two or three people, that s a church.
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And when you think about getting in touch with ourselves and this idea of confession or even like penance, the original word was metanoia, which was like essentially just not about penance.
4
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It was about higher mind, like getting above things, getting to, I think maybe a higher perspective.
4
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But when you think about these hard moments and being able to talk to someone, whether it s a dead loved one or God, Jesus, Allah, a dear nature, whatever it is, and being able to sort of be seen in your totality in the way that Aaron saw you and be held and be held in your wholeness and completeness and goodness is such a beautiful and essential
4
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instinct in all of us.
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And now, you know, I don t believe in telling priests about your sins and, I mean, to each their own, but this idea that you need an intermediary isn t great.
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But I know some people find a lot of... Some people really love it.
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Some people love, you know, like a stage and a script that tells me who s in charge.
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Who s in charge here?
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And thank God it s not me.
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Thank God there s this other person who can tell me what I m supposed to do.
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I do think that sort of set me up for a tough transition into adulthood and into not having religion, honestly.
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I m like, okay, then who s in charge?
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Who s in charge?
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When did you fall away from that just through growing up?
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Yeah.
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I mean, just slowly.
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It s hard to tell.
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As a kid, I would sit in mass and be counting the squares in... We had a post-Vatican II church.
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I didn t love the architecture of it.
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I was like, ugh, yuck.
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63, didn t love it.
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Now I look at it and I m like, beautiful.
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I get it.
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Gorgeous.
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But at the time I was like, ugh, God, I don t love the colors in the stained glass.
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I d be counting the stained glass tiles.
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Then I d be like, I better pay attention because I m afraid God can tell.
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And then I was afraid that the priest could see thought bubbles above my head for a while.
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But I also loved the rituals.
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I was an altar boy.
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We didn t even say altar girl.
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Amazing.
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So I did that kind of stuff, but I also never really felt it at ease.
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And I felt it at Christmas Eve, when they really bring it all out.
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But I could never understand the homily.
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Never once.
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I was like, what are you talking about?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t understand what this is about.
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SPEAKER_01
You re reading something.
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You, this man who lives in the house next to the church, is explaining something.
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SPEAKER_01
I m not getting it.
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SPEAKER_01
It s definitely not engaging.
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SPEAKER_01
The music s not good.
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The seat is uncomfortable.
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SPEAKER_01
I totally understand why people love a mega church.
5
SPEAKER_01
I get it.
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SPEAKER_01
I m like, ooh, stadium seating, a fog machine, audio-visual, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
A sound system, are you serious?
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Yeah, a TED Talk in the middle, then go out to the gift shop, a literal gift shop with a Starbucks.
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SPEAKER_01
And there s on-site amusement for children.
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On-site amusement for children, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
But I still went to a Catholic college on purpose.
5
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And I would sometimes go to mass at college on purpose.
5
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And when I graduated and I lived with a boyfriend who was also raised Catholic, the first thing I did was like, well, we have to go to this church.
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We better join this church that s two blocks away.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
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I just, yeah, it s interesting because going to services and the Jewish services in this Methodist church in Missoula, which is kind of funny, but I could connect to the stories, I could connect to the culture that was being passed down, and I could recognize its power, and that was interesting to me.
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But the rest of it, in a way, is not for kids.
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I sort of don t think you can, that s where I think we get this idea of morality that can be really pernicious and that we don t have
5
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context in our own lives to interpret.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I think that faith, and I think about myself, I really had no interest or engagement with any of this until Peter died.
5
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And I do think that once you start living, once things start happening, when you re, to quote Richard Rohr, in the second half of your life,
5
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where you ve hit the floor and bad things have happened that you would never have chosen, then you have the material, the fodder to actually understand what some of these stories are about.
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Yes.
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And I really did.
5
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I think I found my way or myself more interested in that.
5
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I started going to a Lutheran church
5
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Maybe in 2016, 2017, I baptized my second son Lutheran, my first son Catholic, because Aaron was like, look, I don t know.
5
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Let s just hedge our bets, baby.
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I don t know.
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Let s cover the bases.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s cover the bases.
5
SPEAKER_01
And also, he also loved the ceremonies.
5
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He loved them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it does feel, and it felt powerful to me as a parent to say, I m doing this thing.
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You re wearing the same little dress I wore when I was a baby.
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that my mother bought for me, and there s a little bit of lace on it from her gown.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it sort of does put you into the tradition of a bigger culture too.
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I would say I m culturally Catholic.
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I did not feel any of that stuff as a kid, except I sent my kid to Lutheran preschool, both the little boys, and you should hear them talk about it.
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When they hear Easter s coming, Q, as a two-year-old, came home and was like, and they stabbed Jesus in the side, and they nailed his, and they made him, and they laughed at him, and they laughed and he died.
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And they killed him and they left.
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I m like, yeah, that is a dark story.
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And he s like, losing his mind over it.
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It s a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a lot.
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We did Stations of the Cross in second grade.
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And I just remember being like, one s a lot of time on your feet.
5
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And two, you re like, holy shit, this is dark stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re really talking about torturing a person, and you did this for you and your sins, you confess your sins.
5
SPEAKER_01
They moved it all down.
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I did that in second grade.
5
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And I got to confession and I said I have nothing.
5
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I m eight.
5
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And Father Ken s like, right, but have you ever been rude to your parents?
5
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And I was like, what?
5
SPEAKER_01
He s like trying to draw it out of me.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, honestly, I don t know.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
They passed me, but barely.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then I did confirmation at the same time we did a twofer.
5
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Confirmation.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
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Like confirming into your faith you re eight years old.
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Right.
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Like I can t even...
5
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cross a busy street alone.
5
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Right.
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But you re deciding what you believe.
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What I believe and I don t understand it.
5
SPEAKER_01
None of these stories make any sense.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then when you do read or you re reintroduced to them as an adult, as I, you know,
5
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like they re deeply meaningful and beautiful.
5
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And I was talking to my mom the night before Easter and she s like, isn t it so amazing to think like that Jesus didn t even want to die.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he just cried, you know, and his mom was there and I m like weeping, like talking about it with my mom.
5
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And I m like, yeah, what a sad story, you know?
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And then even the way that the crucifixion is interpreted, this idea, he never said he died for our sins.
5
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That s like a, that s, I think, Augustine, that s,
5
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fourth century stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
If anything, I think he was illustrating that yes, even the son of man, which is what he called himself, not the son of God, the son of man, this half divine, half human guy is fallible and will die, but not.
5
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you know, that there is this resurrection event.
5
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, it is a beautiful story, but I think also the way that it s told as sort of this like quite strange and perverse, and the programming for kids, at least within the Catholic faith, that we re all depraved and fallen and have to atone for things from birth that were tainted is also not actually really in the Bible.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
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And also just not great to hear, right?
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Not the best way to like think about yourself or other people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Weirdly, like that didn t really get in for me.
5
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Like I was like, you know.
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It doesn t make sense.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think because probably there s also that inner knowing where you re like, this doesn t make sense.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t even believe this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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That doesn t make sense.
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But yeah.
5
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Not to completely switch gears, but as your umbrella continues to expand in the world, you re a little bit of a safe harbor, I think, for everyone who has a lot of feelings.
5
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I know that s the name of your company.
5
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But when you think about that, because there has to, I m sure, be a point where you re like,
5
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I m more than a widow.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m more than a person who represents grief.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we know this about you.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re also a comic.
5
SPEAKER_00
Anyone who can see Nora Live needs to go.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are there points when you re sort of like, can I pass the baton?
5
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and enter a second chapter of my life where I am not the patron saint of hot young widows.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, I m not young, I m not hot.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean like, or the patron saint of sadness.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the patron saint of sadness.
5
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Yeah, I think there is like a natural undercurrent to everything that I do.
5
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where every funny thing I do will always kind of acknowledge that sadness that is like streaming through me and every sad thing will have those points of levity no matter what.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
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No matter what.
5
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I m always going to be Aaron s widow.
5
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I don t think it will always be the most interesting thing about me.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think the longer you live with something, you kind of decide.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
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And it s decided for you how important that is in different contexts.
5
SPEAKER_01
There was a period in my life where I couldn t meet someone and not have them know that about me.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really couldn t.
5
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t bear it.
5
SPEAKER_01
You needed to know if you met me that my husband was dead.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m married to this guy, but there s another one.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he is dead.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that is a part of me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it always will be.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it s not always the headline.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not always a headline in every situation.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I do think even like reading my earlier books, listening to the very, very early episodes of the podcast, like there s always been more.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
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There s always been more and there always will be more.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that was the catalyst to get me
5
SPEAKER_01
working outside of a cubicle, it really was.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no denying that.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s not the only thing that could have done it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not the only thing that I was going to do.
5
SPEAKER_01
A long time ago, back when that was the only thing, the only thing, right, was that book, that first book and the first episodes of this podcast, someone said, oh, there s just so much more.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there s so much more you re going to do.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was almost defensive about what I had
6
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done or already made, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think they were saying like, oh, we re sick of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s move along.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, let s move along.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I do think that they were offering me that
6
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for my own sake.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s interesting to think about.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I have friends who have taken, who are very closely identified now with really important issues.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it becomes so defining in a way that at a certain point, they re like, can I be anything other than this thing?
6
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And what s interesting, I m thinking of Lynn Twist, who writes about this idea of
6
SPEAKER_01
whenever you re engaging in the world, are you taking a position or are you taking a stand?
6
SPEAKER_01
And the difference between positions implying directions, you re for something, you re against something, you are something, you re not something, and then a stand, which is this higher perspective of being open, not only to movement, but like some bigger, higher goal in mind where you re standing, I stand for human rights,
6
SPEAKER_01
equity, empathy, a more sane culture, and there are positions that are part of that, but I am not just against this, right?
6
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And I think of you, knowingly or not, as, you can t really take a position about being a widow, but about being about a stand, you re taking a stand.
6
SPEAKER_01
and in a very powerful way in our culture that I think allows evolution as you get a wider and wider perspective, the more that you live, which is you re taking a stand for all of it and the importance of the full human experience and the reality of our lives.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you re a bulwark against
6
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a culture that would insist that we try to be happy at all costs, all the time, that that can be engineered.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t even, I don t even like that word.
6
SPEAKER_01
Which word?
6
SPEAKER_00
Happy.
6
SPEAKER_00
I know.
6
SPEAKER_00
I have described myself as happy-ish.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
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You know, I ve used that like, we have a happy-ish holidays event that we do every year.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
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Because it s like, I
6
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tried so hard for so long to kind of be a different kind of person, too, I wouldn t have been able to say the word depression, right, or even anxiety when I was young or in my 20s or, you know, I literally didn t go to therapy till after Aaron died.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s not probably abnormal, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe, but it s like, I don t know.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I just went through all that stuff like with him and didn t even think, you know, at no point do I remember.
6
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t mean it didn t happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t remember anyone in the medical sphere that surrounded us being like, you okay?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Do you need an Ativan?
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
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Like I did, I did.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t love the word happy either because it does kind of imply a destination and all of the sort of...
6
SPEAKER_00
Work, hacks, tips, tricks, the optimizing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to optimize.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to optimize.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to be as inefficient as possible.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to be a person, not a brand.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think that is why people have had all kinds of experiences with me and my work.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to find my work or my Instagram and be like, wow, I know exactly what I m looking at.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re going to be like, wait, what?
6
SPEAKER_00
There s some sad stuff and then there s also a rating of Maybelline lipsticks because I really am just trying to be a person in the world.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, and I think that there s so much joy.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love the word joy, and I feel like there s so much joy in so much of your work.
6
SPEAKER_01
And joy to me, where it feels like happiness, at least how it s projected onto us culturally, is something that can be engineered.
6
SPEAKER_01
et cetera, whereas joy is just that laugh that escapes that sort of the, you can t, it s not contrived, you can t force it, it s fleeting.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you know it when you feel it, but it s not gonna be conditioned, corralled or demanded.
6
SPEAKER_01
And happiness to me, like the corollary is functioning.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you know, or numb.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or placid.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, joy is so active.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like a hummingbird.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like when you said that the fleetingness I was like, imagining like a mirror ball.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know, and like when something when like the light catches something and it just sort of refracts all over and you re like,
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, we saw it, you know?
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, we had it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So wait, this, not to go back, but did you go to the Taylor Swift concert by yourself?
6
SPEAKER_00
I did.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is that how you like to go?
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t go intentionally by myself.
6
SPEAKER_00
I literally thought I had two tickets till I got to the gate.
6
SPEAKER_00
So who did you invite and then?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, all day I was like, I don t know who to go with.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I wanted to bring Ralph, thank God I didn t.
6
SPEAKER_00
But he has so, sensory nightmare for that kid, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Even with like earplugs and these headphones over.
6
SPEAKER_00
No.
6
SPEAKER_00
Too many people, too many crowds, very loud, even with earplugs, which I always wear.
6
SPEAKER_00
It happened that one of my best friends from growing up was in town visiting her in-laws in Phoenix.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I have two tickets.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she was like, awesome.
6
SPEAKER_00
I go pick her up.
6
SPEAKER_00
We drive all the way there.
6
SPEAKER_00
We have this beautiful heart-to-heart conversation.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ve cried.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ve laughed.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s 45 minutes in the car.
6
SPEAKER_00
We park.
6
SPEAKER_00
We walk up there.
6
SPEAKER_00
I have one ticket.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she goes, I m not shocked.
6
SPEAKER_00
We ve been through worse.
6
SPEAKER_00
We passed an Olive Garden a mile back.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m going to walk over there, have a glass of wine, take an Uber home, have fun, and kisses me goodbye.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my god.
6
SPEAKER_00
What a friend.
6
SPEAKER_00
A hero.
6
SPEAKER_00
She was like, we ve been through versions of this numerous times.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we have.
6
SPEAKER_00
But this was like the equivalent of going to a club in your 20s and being like, look, they said only I can go in.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s like, I m going to find dine down the street.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s like, Olive Garden, House Red is amazing.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s like, I m going to get myself a salad.
6
SPEAKER_00
She s like, this is still a great night for me.
6
SPEAKER_00
She s like, what is replenishing breadsticks?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Never-ending breadsticks and salad.
6
SPEAKER_00
And isn t it a salad bar?
6
SPEAKER_00
No, it s a bowl.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a glass-ish bowl that s like, you know the printed glass where it s like stamped glass?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
like textured glass on the outside, sort of like resembles leaves itself.
6
SPEAKER_00
And with tongs.
6
SPEAKER_00
And never get the dressing on the side.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a crime.
6
SPEAKER_00
You need it tossed in there.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is a delicious salad.
6
SPEAKER_00
All iceberg, which is the greatest of the lettuces.
6
SPEAKER_00
And yes, I brought her.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then I didn t.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she s like, well, in all fairness, you did say you d bring me to the concert, not in.
6
SPEAKER_00
Thank God I didn t have to like
6
SPEAKER_00
I miss it because I brought a kid, you know, and only had one ticket.
6
SPEAKER_00
That would have been, I don t know what I would have done.
6
SPEAKER_00
I would have missed the show.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a beautiful show.
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But I do, I like to go to stuff alone if I can, yeah.
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And have that communion?
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Yeah.
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And then the second night I went with my best friend, Dave.
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Best friend one to best friend two.
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He flew down.
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Oh, you went two nights in a row?
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He got me those tickets for my 40th birthday not knowing that I had gotten the one ticket because all he saw was me crying.
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I d be like, I didn t even get a ticket.
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Oh, what a friend.
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What a friend, yeah.
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He was like, yeah, you can take anyone you want.
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I was like, you mean you?
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Yeah.
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Like, if you get seven tickets, it s me and you.
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We re going together.
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Yeah.
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I m sure he was thrilled that you asked.
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Yeah, the week before he was like, oh shit, OK.
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Yeah, I guess I ll be down.
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OK.
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Yeah, OK.
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So this conversation with Nora is the second ever on Pulling the Thread that I did in person.
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And it s funny because when I co-hosted a show before, I did almost every single episode save for maybe one or two until COVID in person.
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And I couldn t imagine ever doing it any other way.
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And I ve become so used to just sitting in my bedroom.
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interviewing people, but I have to say to be with Nora, both because I ve known her for years without ever actually meeting her.
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I went to her show in LA, but we didn t get a chance to actually physically meet.
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It was such a pleasure because she is one of those rare people who her insides match the outsides, if that makes sense.
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And I hope that you could feel the energy in the room
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and how emotional it felt at times.
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Anyway, I hope you love her as much as I do.
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If you liked today s episode, please rate and review and tell a friend.
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You can find show notes and full transcripts of the episodes at EliseLoonan.com.
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While there, please sign up for my sub stack.
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I send a short note every Wednesday about topics that are aligned with this show and a deeper dive most Sundays.
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Or follow me on Instagram at EliseLoonan.
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And finally, if you haven t already, please consider picking up a copy of my New York Times bestselling book, On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good, available wherever you get your books.
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It s an exploration of how women have been conditioned for goodness, men for power, and all the ways we ve been programmed to police ourselves and each other according to these cultural ideas of what it is to be a good woman.
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I d also like to give a huge thank you to my sponsors who make this show possible.
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Please support them the way they support this podcast.
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This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studio.
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If you enjoyed this episode, please listen, rate, review, and follow Pulling the Thread.
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Available now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I want to give a shout-out to Phil Svitek, Lauren Legrasso, Mary-Kate McDonough, Allie Brockman, and the entire Kaden s 13 team for producing these episodes, and to Valero Duval for my key art.
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Take care of yourselves.
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I ll see you next week.
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you