Glynnis MacNicol, Author of NO ONE TELLS YOU THIS
[0:00]Welcome to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books, the podcast that features conversations
[0:15]with writers of all types.
[0:17]Today's episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books has been sponsored by the Crafts Studio,
[0:21]with locations in New York City on the upper east side of in Tribeca, the craft studio's
[0:25]a perfect place to bring your kids for some crafting fun.
[0:28]CraftStudioNYC.com.
[0:30]I'm very excited to be interviewing Glinnis McNichl today.
[0:33]Glinnis is the author of the memoir No One Tells You This.
[0:37]She is a prolific writer and has contributed to the New York Times, L, Town and Country,
[0:41]W, and Forbes, among other publications.
[0:43]She also co-authored a book on puberty called There Will Be Blood, The Hello Flow
[0:47]Guide to puberty, with Nama Bloom.
[0:50]A former Internet marketing savant working 18-hour days, Glinnis co-founded and runs
[0:55]the list of private online community of high-powered women.
[0:58]Glinnis, a Canadian, currently lives in Brooklyn when she's not out exploring the world.
[1:03]So welcome, Glinnis.
[1:04]Thanks for being on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[1:06]Thank you for having me.
[1:07]Thanks for coming, especially on this rainy, awful day.
[1:10]Huge welcome fall in New York.
[1:15]So first of all, congratulations on your fantastic review in the New York Times book review.
[1:20]Thank you.
[1:21]Yeah, it's intense, I mean, I keep saying this whole thing's been intense, it's strange
[1:27]to be reviewed, it's strange, the whole thing is wonderful and like a little overwhelming.
[1:31]So what was that like?
[1:32]You picked up the book, we opened it up, and I know you saw it online.
[1:35]But what was it like just opening it up?
[1:36]Well, the thing about the New York Times book review is they actually let you know, they
[1:40]let your publisher know, weeks in advance that you've been assigned for review.
[1:44]And then they give you a general sense of when it's publishing.
[1:49]And then your publisher sees it a few days before it goes live.
[1:53]So I actually had seen it like three or four days before.
[1:57]You're just not allowed to, I don't know what, I mean, I guess because no one wants
[2:02]to get on the wrong side of the times, it doesn't occur to anyone to, you know, broadcast
[2:07]that in advance.
[2:08]But so I knew I had seen the review a few days ahead of time and so it was really wonderful.
[2:14]But I did, where was I, I had to have somebody, I was out of town.
[2:18]And so I had to have somebody, I wasn't out of town, I was in the, I was for the East
[2:24]and I was in the East, yeah.
[2:25]Yeah.
[2:26]Yeah.
[2:27]Yeah.
[2:28]And Caroline Waxler, we don't, that morning in September and by two copies of the Sunday
[2:32]Times, which is not nothing because that is a lot to carry home and brought it back to
[2:36]the house.
[2:37]So we could all read it.
[2:38]And it was really lovely.
[2:39]It was really, it was really nice.
[2:42]Piper Weiss actually read it out loud over the breakfast table.
[2:44]So it was really, it was a pleasant experience.
[2:47]That's awesome.
[2:48]I love that.
[2:49]It is still fun to see everything in print like as a, like a newspaper lover and a magazine
[2:52]lover and somebody who has a history of in the media.
[2:55]There is something still thrilling about seeing it in print, even if the readership online
[3:01]is, you know, so much larger.
[3:04]I just posted on my own screen on the other night after I like finished a stack of newspapers
[3:07]that I had saved for like three days and then finally got to know, I was like, does anyone
[3:10]else do this?
[3:11]Yeah.
[3:12]Yeah.
[3:13]And I was like, get the newspapers and horror.
[3:14]And surprisingly a bunch of people said yes.
[3:15]Yeah, I don't feel so alone.
[3:16]But I agree.
[3:17]I like the print.
[3:18]All the difference in my, I've just come back from being in Paris and I took all social
[3:24]media off my phone and made a point to read book books, not just even on my Kindle.
[3:29]And after about 10 days, you've really noticed or I do, like there's almost like a chemical
[3:33]shift in your brain that your body like calms down and your brain feels better.
[3:37]And you just, I think there's really, I really believe there's something to reading book
[3:42]books or something to reading prints like not having that light in your face makes a difference
[3:47]in how we just feel totally.
[3:49]I feel like reading is the only thing that can keep my attention these days.
[3:52]Yeah.
[3:53]Like, even if I'm watching TV, I have my laptop on the line up and terrible.
[3:56]But reading, I'm like, boom, the world is gone and like in it.
[3:59]Yeah.
[4:00]Which is how I was with you.
[4:01]Yeah.
[4:02]Thank you.
[4:03]No one tells you this.
[4:04]This is my goodness.
[4:05]So tell listeners what you're, remember is about getting better at answering this question
[4:11]early on.
[4:12]No, no.
[4:13]It's good.
[4:14]I should be able to tell people what my book is about, but early on is, it's, it's
[4:16]a little, essentially it's a memoir of my 40th year.
[4:21]I turned 40, I was single, I didn't have any children.
[4:25]I really felt like I approached my birthday with an enormous amount of dread.
[4:31]And then I turned 40 and swiftly discovered that it was so much better and more exhilarating
[4:37]than I had ever been led to believe, which made me resentful that no one had prepared
[4:41]me to be like, wow, you could actually enjoy yourself.
[4:44]And then in the same time it was, it was much more difficult in ways that I was not prepared
[4:49]for.
[4:50]My mother was very ill and I was a primary caretaker in many ways.
[4:54]And my sister at that time was, was home alone with three small children.
[4:58]And so I was helping out where I could there.
[5:01]And so I felt like, and this applies to all women, but in particular case of this book,
[5:06]I felt like the narratives we tell around, the experiences of single women were just so lacking.
[5:13]And the narratives we tell around, the lives of women over a so-called certain age were
[5:17]like, essentially non-existent.
[5:20]And so I got to the end of that year and I am a writer and I spent a lot of your complaining
[5:26]about the lack of stories and at this, what I joke is my opera, a home moment where I was
[5:31]like, you were a writer, perhaps, and like I felt like I had enough material from the
[5:36]year to make a somewhat compelling narrative.
[5:39]And so I turned into a book, which fortunately got published.
[5:45]I love how you started it off or you had the whole scene in the beginning when you took
[5:49]the subway out and you were at that random hotel, I was like, yeah, looking out on the
[5:53]beach.
[5:54]It was just like when I think of your book, I just like picture you sitting there.
[5:57]Oh, thank you.
[5:58]Yeah.
[5:59]It was so random and last minute, but in that hotel, it was that moment of telling the
[6:03]Rockway.
[6:04]It doesn't exist anymore.
[6:05]And it's just, I mean, after your description, I can't say I'm totally surprised by
[6:09]that.
[6:10]I always think it's too bad though, because the Rockways is both so close and also to take
[6:15]the train.
[6:16]It was like an hour and a half.
[6:17]It's nice to go out there for a little staycation.
[6:18]I think lots of people would do it if they could, but it's just, you know, it's not available.
[6:23]And the fact that you did it to celebrate your birthday when you had like a million people
[6:26]offering to do things with you and you were like, no, I'm going to do this by myself
[6:29]from taking the train.
[6:30]I'm going to this crazy hotel and making an adventure.
[6:32]I know.
[6:33]I really tried to emphasize a lot about you, right?
[6:36]In the book, I was like, I didn't want my friends to feel like I was criticizing them
[6:40]because I definitely, there was no question that if I wanted to have a big party I could
[6:44]have, but yes, I didn't.
[6:48]So the parts of the book when you describe dealing with your mother's Parkinson's disease
[6:52]were really, really moving.
[6:54]There was one scene with your mom who you had said had almost never gotten angry before
[6:59]and she suddenly turned on you like a stranger after telling her she couldn't go home
[7:04]because she was home.
[7:05]You wrote, I watched a wave of horrific amazement sweep over her.
[7:09]And for a minute, I was reminded of the exaggerated acting and the old twilight zone episodes
[7:13]we used to watch on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid.
[7:16]She looked wild.
[7:17]Her eyes started back and forth.
[7:18]The Parkinson's tremors normally so subtle as to be invisible jerked her body this way
[7:23]and that it was as if my mother had disappeared and been replaced with I had no idea.
[7:28]And then you later say it took me an hour to get her to bed that night and many more to
[7:31]calm her down.
[7:32]Yeah, I haven't read that actually since I wrote it.
[7:34]There's parts of the book because my was writing it.
[7:36]No, I'm sorry.
[7:37]No, it's okay.
[7:38]No, no, it's okay.
[7:39]Sorry.
[7:40]There was parts, my mother died 20 days after I handed the first draft in.
[7:44]So there's parts of the book that I literally, it was a challenge when I first went on
[7:48]book tour to find passages to read that I could read because it was still in the book.
[7:54]And still continues to be like the prologue in this, particularly that book.
[7:57]I wrote in one sitting and I have never reread at all.
[8:00]I have sent it to my agent and said, you have to tell me if there's like styling mistakes
[8:03]and hearing anything because I, it was too much.
[8:05]So I think one of the reasons those, that part of the book, we can talk about this in
[8:11]second, but one of the reasons that those parts of the book resonate is because I was
[8:14]writing very much in the moment, which is both, you know, has its challenge good and bad,
[8:20]I think you have writing with no perspective whatsoever and you're writing from like a really
[8:25]raw place.
[8:28]And I think that it's resonating, but it's interesting to me readers what they take.
[8:34]I can tell based on the way people talk about portions of the book sort of what age
[8:39]or what experience readers have with their parents because some people only focus on the
[8:43]story line with my mother.
[8:45]Some people complain that there's too much about my mother, some people don't mention
[8:48]my mother at all.
[8:49]I thought it was so interesting in the times review that there was so little mention of
[8:55]my mother in that review.
[8:56]It was very focused on the fact I was single and the reviewer later said that she was
[9:02]in a similar position.
[9:03]So I think people see in the book or take from it is based a lot on what their experience,
[9:08]which is probably true.
[9:09]There's a lot in this book.
[9:10]But I think anybody who's gone through anything with an ill parent, particularly Parkinson's
[9:15]and my mother suffered from Parkinson's related dementia, which is very similar to Alzheimer's
[9:22]and anyone is increasingly I think that disease is becoming something we're all unfortunately
[9:27]becoming more familiar with.
[9:28]It's so unnerving because this person that you know so well becomes completely different.
[9:36]You just don't.
[9:37]There's no good way to handle it.
[9:38]It's so overwhelming.
[9:39]And there's a phrase for it that I can't remember.
[9:44]I was trying to think what it was on the way here, which is essentially like a strange
[9:48]morning you go through, like you're morning the loss of the person you knew even though
[9:53]that person is still present as a weird, it's like twilight grief or something like that
[9:57]where it's just such a strange.
[10:00]place to be in because there's no closure to it. I interviewed a man named John Hennessey who's
[10:06]written a series of essays about his mother's Alzheimer's and he came on and was talking about
[10:10]the exact same thing. It's so bizarre. And then how there are no societal really structures to
[10:15]help you cope with that. But I think unfortunately that'll change because I think all timers
[10:20]is increasingly becoming a disease more and more people are forced to contend with. There was an
[10:25]amazing piece in the times of the day about a woman who's been diagnosed with all timers and
[10:29]says she's not ready to retire. Which is interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's as with so many things
[10:36]when we have these platforms to talk about them. But also as the baby, my mother was essentially
[10:42]part of the baby boomer generation ages into all of these illnesses. Yeah. Baby boomers are always
[10:48]the generation that forces to talk about whatever I mean. And in this case, sadly or now, you know,
[10:54]their illnesses and their elder care increasingly become, you know, something we're all
[11:01]we have to cope with. So yeah, it's tough though. Tough for everyone. This is my last quote about
[11:07]your mom. I can move on. It's not the only thing I mentioned in a lot of parts. But you wrote,
[11:11]she'd been slipping away for months now, maybe years, a drop at a time. And with each part of her
[11:15]lost, I had to ask myself whether I was imagining it. I could still hold her after all in here,
[11:20]and yet she was not there too. Just having to deal with that. How did you cope? Like what?
[11:28]Just what I don't know. I think this book was partly a coping mechanism. I mean, this as I said,
[11:35]this book was really written in the moment, which I had a writing teacher once who said you
[11:40]shall always wait five years to write about anything. Oh my gosh, I wouldn't remember a thing.
[11:44]Yeah. And I think her point was that you don't have perspective and you don't understand what
[11:48]was going on. And she's right because I had to revise this book heavily or do rewrites more
[11:56]than I normally would because I was rewriting to get perspective on things. Like you don't want to
[12:00]write an anger and you don't want to write an resentment or any of those things. So there's details
[12:07]in this book that I probably wouldn't remember now had I not written them down as they were
[12:12]happening. I don't I just almost think that I'm only just coping with it now because I was writing
[12:19]the book as it was happening. Then I revised the book in the aftermath of her death and then the
[12:27]book has published. She only died a year and a half ago. So it's only like I'm only coming out of
[12:32]sort of this whole to nine years. I don't think it's denial. I think it's just that you channel
[12:38]and grief is such a weird beast anyway. Like it takes on so many forms and it can catch you off
[12:44]guard and it's like it's such a strange and I think we're talking about that more and more,
[12:49]you know, friends of mine run a website called Modern Loss and they put out the book Modern Loss
[12:54]which is really really wonderful but like I have that. Yeah figuring out how to talk about grief and
[12:58]how like you can sort of feel like oh it's been a year and a half I should be over this for
[13:02]dealt with this and that's never the case. Like that doesn't it just takes on different
[13:08]sort of forms. So I don't I in the moment like as those things were happening I dealt with it by
[13:14]eating a lot of chocolates. I gained like 25 pounds that year and then in the aftermath I dealt
[13:19]with it by writing the book and so you can ask me to hear how I'm dealing with it now because
[13:23]now it's all wrapped up in the book too. Like it's it's you know I'm sort of having to come out
[13:28]out of the book writing process and just sort of deal with real life. So we're just doing
[13:32]another book and I never have to deal with it. I think real life she's having just landed
[13:36]from Paris so I know who it was. Okay so I'll get away from these you know end of life.
[13:43]You had this text relationship which you described so well so you basically had like a relationship
[13:50]it would have been like a pen powder relationship in the Holden days. Of course right which sounds
[13:55]very romantic. Someone I think I put it in the book but someone said to me like oh this is like
[13:59]one people used to send love letters to each other over long distances and I was like which is true
[14:04]yeah to some extent. Yeah so you have this whole long texting relationship with some sort of
[14:11]celebrity and I've asked you before and you will not. You still will not admit who it is right.
[14:14]It's not admit. I just think that we are way I think when it comes to stories about women I really
[14:21]wanted this to be a story that centered that on I mean me but on the character of a woman and I
[14:29]was really keen to keep all the men in it inside roles. Like it's not it's the same thing when
[14:35]I wrote the Times article about No and Blise I'm happy like yeah the opening anecdote about sitting
[14:40]beside a well known writer. It was kind of like who he I don't want the conversation around that
[14:49]article. I don't want the conversation around the book. Right. To hook onto a famous male name
[14:55]because that's not the point of the book and it's very and it would very very quickly become the
[14:59]hook of the coverage. Got it. And it's that would never be the case for a man by the way. He could
[15:06]just name as many famous. Like that's we do not center male stories on women that they've been
[15:12]associated with. They're like at that's a side issue when we talk about Warren Beatty it's like a
[15:16]a side issue of all of the paramours he's had or relationships. And I just want to keep it it was
[15:24]relevant in the sense that like fame is its own distorting thing and like the way we can track
[15:30]people. Everyone has every single person by dent of social media has like a little fame and print
[15:36]now because we can sort of track people's movements around that it just made it easier to like track
[15:40]someone's movements. But I just kind of am like it's not about the men in this book function is the
[15:45]the same way women have functioned in most male stories which is their like side characters or just
[15:49]like accessories to the narrative that. So my attempts to get the name out. It's deeply out. I just
[15:57]I'm glad you have a theory about it. No, I just want to get oxygen to it. I don't really. Yeah,
[16:03]I'm just playing. It's only your insistence on not telling that it's sparking my interest.
[16:09]I said the role of the character does not gain any words. But it was a very funny like modern day
[16:17]dating completely or you barely ever see some on yet. You become so dependent over text that like
[16:22]when you actually saw him once you wanted to leave to text him to talk about. It's like
[16:30]the text the figure on your phone. You have the relationship with like
[16:37]the person in the text messages. But so much of that is like what you're creating on your
[16:43]own, right? They're not there. There's no smells. There's no sounds. There's no like touch. And
[16:48]there's no way for them to irritate you with those things or satisfy you. You know, like it goes
[16:54]both ways. There's not somebody sitting there, you know, like snoring in their sleep that you
[16:57]want to punch in the head. They literally just exist on your phone, which is very convenient and
[17:01]very comforting and very much a creation of your own imagination of what you're hoping
[17:06]that person is. So when they show up in real life and they just are completely disconnected
[17:12]from the character you've created, I remember leaving like a dinner date or a date or a night
[17:17]or something with them and just being like, oh my god, that was awful. And then picking up my
[17:22]phone and wanting to text the like character on my phone and created that was just sort of
[17:26]comfort to me to be like, I just said this terrible experience and I was like my god, it's the same
[17:31]person. How screw and I think we all do that. It's so screwy. It's like we're all so many,
[17:39]we're the online self, we're the real life self. And in our lives, that can be difficult and
[17:45]complicated, but in relationships. It's just now I am so adverse to texting and the gutty that
[17:50]I'm saying. I'm like, oh no, call me or see me. I'm like, if I go back and read my text messages or
[17:55]even like, like I don't really use Tinder anymore, but anytime the texting, I see somebody
[18:02]like trying to push relationship on text. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not dead. I'm not going
[18:07]down this road again. It's all IRL from here on out. I have a new mom friend, which is like,
[18:13]you know, Michael on a dating at this point. Yes. Which is true. You can do a dating book about
[18:18]mom. But I was like, I'm going to call you and I was like, you know what, I'm going to just keep
[18:23]calling this one. Because it's so much faster. Like I've kind of gone full circle on the whole
[18:27]thing. Totally. I can't figure out these new plans. I don't know where that well. Like, let's just
[18:31]talk. Okay, we figured out. Let's just talk. I know. It's amazing that that's radical now.
[18:35]I know. In breaking news. Yeah, exactly. Mother decides to make a phone call. It sounds like a
[18:43]a New Yorker card. So I was laughing out loud in the book when you were describing the time
[18:53]you're helping your sister. It was a single mom at that point with her newborn and her two other kids.
[18:58]So you describe the scene with your niece, nephew, Zoe and Quinn. And they bring you this
[19:02]pretend cup of coffee. The fact that they were doing that and that you insisted on it was the funny
[19:09]because you wrote since they started walking and encouraging them both to bring me pretend
[19:13]coffee so that when they were all enough to make actual coffee, they would just bring you to be
[19:18]automatically. Yeah. That is some just by the way, that is not panned out yet. All of my efforts on
[19:25]the although I think my niece has made me snacks. Like they're getting to the age now they can make
[19:30]their breakfast. But and they and we've reached the point, like when I was a kid, maybe this
[19:34]happened to you where you were the only one who knew how to work the DCR like your parents were
[19:38]like, I haven't got a clue. We've reached that point where like the television is connected to the
[19:41]iPad, which is connected to Netflix. And I'm like, I don't have any idea how to turn the TV on and
[19:47]I'm going to be handing it to my three and a half year old nephew being like, go for it. I don't
[19:50]know what's happening. Do you have a guy come today? He just said, they just have any mail and said,
[19:54]we just turned it on and off and now it's fine. Exactly. I was like, all right, right here. Okay.
[20:00]Anyway, to keep going on this, okay, so you've trained them to bring you coffee and then
[20:03]you continue writing, this was the first time it had actually worked.
[20:06]I sipped the pretend coffee theatrically as if it were the most magical thing I'd ever
[20:10]tasted.
[20:11]Well, so we clambered up staring at me with wide happy eyes.
[20:14]A second later, quit arrived, doing a running leap on the bed and sending my head, smacking
[20:18]into the headward and the coffee cup flying.
[20:20]Maybe it's bad that I've done that so far.
[20:23]No, I think that it's a friend who's a professor in gender studies and so brilliant
[20:31]smart, Marian and Cooper.
[20:33]And we've had conversations where she says gender is all culture and whenever I'm with
[20:37]the kids, I'm like, I don't think I believe the gender is all culture.
[20:41]I really, the way they behaved was so different and my nephew is so physical and my
[20:49]niece is so emotional and intellectual from a very young age that it was just
[20:54]amusing to me to watch it play out of my niece would climb into bed and snuggle and want
[21:02]to talk and my nephew would show up and it would be like, I'm about to be physically
[21:06]assaulted.
[21:08]So it was just fun.
[21:09]I love being with the kids and I wanted that chapter to be, I wanted it to reflect the
[21:15]joy and energy and fun as well as the difficulties, but I do have so much fun with them
[21:23]and I do really enjoy the energy around and the school run is so stressful and I do get frustrated
[21:29]when we talk to mothers as if they talk about the school run as if it's life and death
[21:35]and it's not that it's life and death, it's how it's the penguin of the day, it's how
[21:41]everyone gets through their day and it is so important and I just remember feeling when
[21:45]I got the kids to go on time, I'd be like, let me just give me an Olympic medal for
[21:49]getting this accomplished and I feel really, it's unfair the way we patronize the importance
[21:57]of those roles and mock, I think women who talk about them with levels of seriousness.
[22:04]And also I just think it's, I just enjoy it and I might have more enjoyment because it's
[22:07]not my full-time life, like there's always, I say this in the book like in the back of
[22:10]my head is the knowledge that I have an apartment in New York that I don't have to share
[22:13]with anybody and I will eventually go back there but I do like doing school runs and I do
[22:19]like being with the kids.
[22:20]They're older now so it's less, I can literally be like, you know, get dressed and get in
[22:27]the car or we babysit and they can make dinner, dinner because I dinner for us is like
[22:31]a hot dog.
[22:32]I had dinner, we had dinner with this other couple and my girlfriend confessed to me like
[22:37]in a very ashamed way that she had been late to school if it was like eight times.
[22:41]Right.
[22:43]So I held it, she was like new to you and I was like, okay, here's what we're going to do.
[22:48]So if this particular friend I won't name your name is Listening, you can now call me
[22:51]until you actually listen to this episode but she, you know, I was like, okay, here's
[22:56]what you have to do to not be late and I made her backtrack through the whole day and
[22:59]like set the other day and now she's so proud, she's like, never late and she's like
[23:03]so grateful.
[23:04]I'm like, oh, I didn't do this at the alarm but it is so stressful, it's like, you
[23:08]know, the one thing you have to do anyway and it goes off the rails so easily, especially
[23:13]getting girls dressed, oh, my lord, like getting them to wear something that they want
[23:18]to wear.
[23:19]I, in that I slip into like all of the language that I, in theory, I hate of like, oh
[23:23]you look pretty.
[23:24]Oh, do you want to go to the salon?
[23:25]I'm like, oh, this is disgusting, like we have to get to school on time.
[23:31]And so a big question to answer, a big part of your book also was when you decide you
[23:37]don't want to have your own kids that instead of sort of waiting and hoping and thinking
[23:41]eventually you decide, actually, you know, I don't even really want that if I had wanted
[23:45]it, I would have done it.
[23:46]Like I accomplished so many other things in my life, it's not like this would have slipped
[23:49]through the cracks.
[23:50]Right.
[23:51]I must not really want it.
[23:52]Right.
[23:53]I would have done it.
[23:54]And so you have this great scene where you're holding Connor, your sister's newborn and
[23:57]asking, do I want this?
[23:58]And ultimately you say no, but then you add, of course, I might regret it.
[24:02]I knew that, but it seemed to me that going through life making decisions and what I
[24:06]might possibly feel in a future that may or may not come was a bad way to live.
[24:11]So tell me more about that and I really, I think the question around children for me was
[24:20]it boiled down to would I be okay without children because the sense of like would I be
[24:26]if children, if I didn't, I think, you know, turning 40 right then I knew if I wanted to,
[24:33]if I wanted to get pregnant essentially, I needed to make that decision on in that moment
[24:39]on that spot.
[24:40]And I train emphasized here too, there's a lot of ways to be a mother because I think
[24:43]too often we confuse pregnancy with motherhood in ways that are really disrespectful to
[24:49]what being a mother really is.
[24:51]And I wanted to say like really emphasize like there were ways down the line that if I decided
[24:57]I wanted to be a mother, I could pursue.
[25:00]But the idea did I want to get pregnant and have a baby with something I had to look
[25:05]in the face and just and really make that decision because as we know, yeah, there is a clock
[25:10]whether or not we want to acknowledge it or not at all times.
[25:13]And I really just because I was in this moment of like I was in the literal deep end of
[25:19]children, I was having it wasn't if I wasn't theorizing.
[25:22]I was sitting there, the kids and I just thought like am I going to be okay if this doesn't
[25:27]happen to me?
[25:28]And I really made me forced me to consider my life as something I had created on purpose
[25:33]as opposed to something that had happened to me while I was waiting for my real life
[25:36]to happen to me, which I think is the way we often talk to women like oh, you're just
[25:41]like I up cause not so much anymore, but I very frequently am confronted with like oh,
[25:46]don't worry, there's still time is if you're waiting for life to come and I just thought
[25:50]no, my life is something I've built intentionally that I want that I value that I like
[25:54]that I'm comfortable with and I'm going to be okay if I don't have kids.
[26:00]In fact, I don't want kids badly enough to up end my whole life in pursuit of them.
[26:06]I think that's really what it came down to and I think for some women, I don't think
[26:10]I know for some women it's a question of I don't want children, but for me it was far
[26:15]more a question of like do I want them enough and I didn't, I didn't want them enough
[26:21]and I would be okay without them.
[26:22]And then of course when you say that so often the response I've been on the receiving
[26:27]end of is oh, you're going to regret it, don't you worry that you're going to regret
[26:31]it, don't you worry that down the line you're going to wish you made a different decision
[26:34]on like don't you worry that about everything in your life like don't like that the idea
[26:38]that I'm going to go against what my instincts are telling me I'm a grown up, I have a reasonably
[26:43]successful life, I know myself fairly well, the idea that I would go against it on the off
[26:47]chance that 10 years from now or 20 years from now I might regret that decision like that
[26:52]seems like a really a terrible way to live and just on any level just like a like am
[27:00]I going to regret I don't take this trip to Paris, that's fine, but like am I going
[27:03]to regret not creating a life when everything about me right now is saying that like
[27:06]I've really investigated this decision and interrogated myself and like no and don't insult
[27:12]me or women in general don't just believe women when they tell you that they know what
[27:17]they want is essentially what a whole thing like your best guess at how you feel tomorrow
[27:21]that's how you feel today yeah well that's a good line I've never heard that but yeah
[27:24]I think like I think it's a saying or maybe I know I didn't make it up but I've heard
[27:28]it somewhere because I often I'm like what should I do what should I know it's like well
[27:31]how do I feel about it now yeah that's my best guess and we don't ever talk to women
[27:35]like they know themselves it's always everything around women's you know magazines culture
[27:42]everything is like how you're not okay the way you are let us tell you how to make yourself
[27:47]better like we don't actually believe women very easily when they tell us like I'm
[27:51]pretty great with how things are it's always like no well look it could be better
[27:55]until I just was like I actually I'm not saying like I have all the answers but I know
[28:01]myself well and I I'm was 40 at that time I'm 44 now like I have a fairly solid knowledge
[28:10]of myself I feel pretty secure with how I live my life at this point like if I say this
[28:16]this is how I feel yeah we'll take your word for it yeah take my word for it and also
[28:22]what would the fact people always feel obligated to wait on that I'm always like what skin
[28:27]do you have in this game because take all energy and put it towards changing you know health
[28:31]care in this country or like the support system where child care I find the more people
[28:36]fight for something that is basically irrelevant like the more people insert themselves
[28:41]into something in your life yeah it's just something they're working exactly yeah and so
[28:45]oftentimes I'm like I'm just gonna let this person right work this out and I'm not gonna
[28:50]like you're a little overly invested in in a life that you have nothing to do it yeah I mean
[28:55]when I'm not like yeah for emotional state I make that decision it's hard it's like my
[29:00]mom is exactly so you is speaking of this you know successful life that you've built you
[29:05]basically started out as a way of bartender which is wait your waitress in the terrible
[29:10]terrible bartender so I wait your waitress and I have an image in my head yeah and then you
[29:18]went from there to building this 18 hour a day like high pressure a high power job which you said
[29:25]was sort of a quote no clocking out no offswid high intensity job and then five years into that
[29:31]career you said you didn't so much stop as buckle under my own momentum so interesting I haven't
[29:37]read the book now like nine months I'm like wow I did write that you did I have it right here I could
[29:42]I could so tell me about the burnout because I was really interested you know you described sort
[29:49]of the burnout and the spiral until like where you had to basically just stop yeah and regroup
[29:55]in a really great way so how did you how did you cope with the with the burnout basically so
[30:00]I was very early on to I was a media reporter and I was sort of that first wave of media
[30:08]internet journalism where there was no it was and I was lucky because I sort of catapulted
[30:14]my way over to a position that pre the internet would have taken like 15 years to achieve.
[30:20]So the internet both allowed me to fast track to a place in my career but at the same
[30:25]time there was a price to pay for that so there was no we didn't have discussions in
[30:29]those days about like you know you get off work or you shouldn't be answering emails
[30:34]or let's turn our phone off I was really working nonstop for years and so when I burnt
[30:42]out it was so like spectacular burnout like I like cleared my desk and walked among the Brooklyn
[30:49]Bridge and just like and then I didn't work for six months now I had I was somewhat
[30:54]responsible financially so I had some savings but I did not have the amount of savings
[30:57]to facilitate goodness not working for six months but I it just kept going like I'd
[31:01]watch my and I'd been supporting myself since I was a teenager so to say I was watching
[31:06]my bank account diminishes really like all rational thought had gone out the window and
[31:11]I remember talking to a therapist about it after and she just said like that that is
[31:18]that is the definition of burnout where you're just not making rational decisions at all
[31:22]but we tend now I think we take that word more seriously when this happened to me I
[31:26]think it was 2012 and I was so early that people would sort of be like looking at me
[31:34]like I was a little crazier I didn't know that I was talking about I wrote an article
[31:37]about it in 2013 or 14 and I still get emails about it I get emails from college professors
[31:41]I get emails I got emails from Iraq were veterans saying I described PTSD perfectly I get
[31:46]emails from like college kids doing papers so I really I just happened to be a little
[31:51]early into what I think we all struggle with now which is the relentless onness that
[31:58]comes with the phone with the internet I think probably the news cycle right now is making
[32:04]a lot of us check out in ways it is healthy because we don't actually I always say to people
[32:09]like in August I took all social media off my phone just because I thought this is the
[32:14]break that I need and I think probably most people need and I just someone said well aren't
[32:19]you worried I said if the apocalypse happens someone will come and tell me or they'll see
[32:23]them running down the street like there are ways to let people know what's going on in the
[32:26]world don't exist on your phone but it was so unnerving because I'd been so ambitious and it
[32:34]was so debilitating and I just I remember there was like a full month where I would just like
[32:39]lie on the bedroom for watch Golden Girls reruns and I know and I would just like be like
[32:44]oh to be a six-year-old woman florida in the 80s before the internet now that is like I mean like I
[32:51]was dig that is where my head was at it was so desperate for an off switch and in the I mean
[32:59]it at the time it was scary and irresponsible and all those things and in hindsight I'm very
[33:06]grateful because it really made me turn and look and say like what is it you really want to do
[33:12]make some pretty hard decisions that eventually resulted in this book and me doing writing that
[33:17]I want to do and you know Rachel Sklar and I creating a business out of it that's still that
[33:22]still runs so but those things hindsight is always so much more like kind like the book is
[33:28]hindsight right like you can talk about it it sounds great but in the moment it's so I
[33:31]literally there was I lived in Brooklyn Heights at the time and I would walk around I couldn't
[33:36]pay my cable bill or my internet bill so everything got cut off and I would walk this before
[33:40]everyone pass coded their internet signal I'd walk around the neighborhood with my computer
[33:43]looking for like a random signal to get a lot of people would see me that I knew because I knew
[33:49]so many people in a minute they'd be like what are you doing I go oh you know you know my
[33:52]internet's just down today and I have to flick and they'd be like oh okay but it was really it
[33:57]was it made a great scene in a movie but at the time it was just so pathetic no it's not
[34:02]like it's you know part of the part of your process yeah and so I want to know what's next
[34:09]for you and then if you have any advice to aspiring writers what is next is I think hopefully
[34:18]in a novel I don't think I'll be writing a memoir again in the interim I think I'm going to do a
[34:22]short book for Simon and Schuster just talking about the profession of midwife they're doing like a
[34:27]series and I'm going to write them midwife which is sort of like a little interim project for me
[34:32]awesome right but not I've to use my imagination and I think probably the next one is a novel I
[34:40]there's a late 90s New York is an ever fascinating place in time for me so it's sort of in the
[34:47]back of my head but I'm still this book is still sort of chugging along so a lot of my energy is
[34:52]still focused on this advice advice my advice to aspiring writers is and I got this advice too
[35:02]and I understand it sometimes frustrating is to think of writing as a craft like anything else like
[35:08]it you it's not a the result can be magical but like the actual doing of it is just a matter of
[35:14]doing it every day and and I did it every day because that was my job to write 15 posts a day and
[35:24]as much as that was exhausting when it came to write to the writing of this book on days where
[35:30]I felt terrible or my writing felt terrible or I was so discouraged I had that muscle memory of
[35:35]knowing like tomorrow will be better because I put in all those hours doing it that I didn't panic
[35:41]that I just sat back down at the desk again and I wrote and there was no like I'm waiting for
[35:46]inspiration or the muse or all that other nonsense that gets attached to it literally like if
[35:52]you're training for a marathon you have to run every day like as anything else you just have to
[35:56]keep doing it and that doesn't sound very inspirational but it's true and you will inevitably get
[36:01]better and also just read like get off the internet as my number one piece of advice in life just
[36:06]trying to get off the internet for a portion of every day leave your phone away from your
[36:10]bed and read for an hour before you go to sleep unless you're listening to this podcast in which
[36:14]case keep your phone we'll know because it's for when you're exercising or when you're on the
[36:18]train or whatever but I do think really and as we talked about like listening still exercises
[36:25]your brain and your imagination I mean like no I yeah no thank you for just always listen to
[36:32]this podcast but yeah that's those were my I do think as as beneficial as the internet has been
[36:39]making time to get off it as much as possible it was really helpful for all of our sanity
[36:43]so angry well thank you so much for coming maybe this was so fun very big this episode of mom
[36:51]ston't have time to read books it's been sponsored by the craft studio craft studio NYC.com
[36:55]with locations and the uppery site and in Tribeca it's a really fun place to take your kids to do
[37:00]some crafting and painting bye