Katie Sise, YOU MUST BE NEW HERE
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[0:44]Katie Sice is the author of You Must Be New Here, a novel.
[0:48]Katie is a best-selling author of eight novels.
[0:51]Her books have been included on Best of Lists by Good Morning America, The New York Post,
[0:55]Pop Sugar, Parade Magazine, and Pure Wow.
[0:58]Her sixth novel, The Break, was a Zibi's book club thick, and her seventh novel, The
[1:02]Vacation Rental, was a 12-news book club pick.
[1:05]Her newest novel, You Must Be New Here, comes out July 8th.
[1:09]Katie is a former TV host and jewelry designer, and lives outside of New York City with
[1:13]her husband, four children, and a golden retriever who has finally calmed down.
[1:17]Welcome back, Katie.
[1:18]So happy to have you on Totally Book to Zibi.
[1:21]Again, to talk about You Must Be New Here, your latest novel, congratulations.
[1:26]Thank you so much.
[1:27]Thank you for having me.
[1:28]It was such a nice surprise after finishing the book to see your lovely note in the acknowledgements
[1:32]to me that was so sweet.
[1:34]Oh my gosh.
[1:35]I'm like, oh my god.
[1:36]Kyle, look.
[1:37]Anyway, it was very exciting.
[1:39]Oh, good.
[1:40]Well, you deserve that and a ton more, so please.
[1:42]I do always wonder if people read the acknowledgements I always do, so sometimes I read them
[1:47]first.
[1:48]Yeah, I read them.
[1:49]I loved them.
[1:50]I loved them.
[1:51]It's like a treat.
[1:52]Although the other day, I did start reading an acknowledgement section, and they were like,
[1:55]if you're reading this before reading the book and I was like, oh, it's coming.
[1:59]That's great.
[2:01]Right.
[2:02]Right.
[2:03]Okay.
[2:04]So what is your book about?
[2:05]Okay.
[2:06]So this book was a lot of fun to write.
[2:07]And it's really, I think, mostly about female friendship, someone once, a reader, an earlier
[2:13]reader told me that in a way, it's almost like it has almost qualities of a romance
[2:19]where, but really like with friendship.
[2:22]And you know, with all of my books, it's characters kind of that are in unthinkable circumstances
[2:27]and friendships are put to the tests and there's a lot of, you know, there's like,
[2:30]mother child relationships, there's always sisters somewhere in my books.
[2:34]And this is a story about this woman who's living in a town much like mine and she was
[2:40]a former artist and she has a daughter named Daisy who is medically fragile and, you know,
[2:46]she's gone through a divorce.
[2:47]So you open the book on meeting this character who I think is quite lovely, hopefully.
[2:52]readers will too.
[2:53]I really loved writing her and she's a very good, the good mother and, you know, life
[2:58]is kind of going long one way and then a neighbor comes and moves into the house next
[3:02]door to her.
[3:03]And they kind of live high, you know, always there's always woods and cliffs involved
[3:07]because I feel like my imagination is like, I love we live in the woods and I, I enjoyed
[3:11]them from afar.
[3:13]So the neighbor moves in and it kind of awakens something in my character Sloan and she
[3:18]just feels this amazing connection.
[3:21]It all happens very quickly.
[3:22]It really takes place over the course of one week and right when the neighbor moves in
[3:27]and they're having all these late nights and they're connecting.
[3:29]We've all like felt that spark like a really magnetic female friendship where you're just
[3:32]completely like it's almost like a switch has slipped and you feel like you've known
[3:36]the person forever and you're having all these great conversations.
[3:39]And then a few days into all of this Sloan's babysitter Margaret disappears and then
[3:44]is found is found killed.
[3:46]And so the book kind of spirals from there, there's another character named Clara who
[3:52]it's told from the perspective of Margaret, the babysitter who has disappeared Sloan,
[3:56]the young mom with the daughter Daisy and then also Clara who's like this very forward
[4:00]facing really involved on like and so many of us can I think really or and it's a luxury
[4:06]to be able to relate right you're able to be involved in school and you're doing all
[4:09]the things and you're like showing up and saying yes to everything and you're on you know
[4:13]all the boards and all the things and outwardly she has this very beautiful perfect life
[4:18]but behind the scenes things are going out within her marriage and her home life so everything
[4:22]sort of their lives are very intertwined and everything spirals and secrets are revealed
[4:28]and all the things.
[4:30]Wow.
[4:31]And a long winded answer to what is your book.
[4:33]Yeah, that's great.
[4:34]I read the whole book and totally enjoyed it and I was giving a running commentary because
[4:40]I read a lot of it in a second traffic and on this weekend long trip and I kept
[4:44]thinking like I think it's this guy I think it's this person who did it now I think
[4:47]it's this person.
[4:48]They're like where's it yeah where's the twist anyway well that's what I have going on
[4:52]the whole time I'm writing so I am not an outliner you and I have talked about I am
[4:56]do not outline so I love to just pretend like it's Netflix and I'm just opening my computer
[5:00]to see what they're going to do and where it's going to go so I never know who my killer
[5:03]is I never know who my bad guy is and they kind of reveal them they reveal themselves
[5:07]to me sometimes like I definitely had it happen where it was not someone that I thought
[5:10]it was going to be and they sort of come out of the woodwork and then there's obviously
[5:13]the moments in revision that you have to go back and make that feel really believable
[5:17]but I also think sometimes it's always also there like I'm like oh right it is of course
[5:22]it's you like you were doing this in chapter three that was a little bit off and I didn't
[5:25]pick up on it so I love seeing what they're going to do I like throwing in a room and
[5:29]they totally surprised you it feels like improv like my background is in theater improv
[5:34]and you always had to say yes to everything and see where everybody's going with everything
[5:37]make the only rule is to just allow it to happen so you wrote in a really poignant
[5:44]way about divorce too and you had this one section she is Sloan and Dave have a pretty
[5:50]close divorce relationship where they're coming and going all the time for their daughter
[5:53]Daisy but you have a moment where Dave knocks on the door of his and slums house which
[6:01]used to be both of their homes and now it's mostly Sloan's house and she has this reaction
[6:06]to having her ex-husband knock on his own front door for the first time tell me about that
[6:11]I feel like that's something somebody who's divorced must have told you or tell me about that
[6:17]yeah no so no one has mentioned that I think that the reason I like this job is that the thing
[6:23]that I always when I was younger had going on which was good and bad was it sort of an oversensitivity
[6:29]just to the world and people's what somebody else was going through and so usually and while I
[6:34]would never assume that I would understand what it would feel like to be divorced because I can't
[6:38]and but I like would imagine these little things that like somebody like that must happen that
[6:43]moment where like suddenly it's not both of your place and that just has to feel even though
[6:47]they'd raised their child in this house and they loved that house so yeah that one sort of
[6:52]came in the moment and you know the one thing I did in this book it's funny because the divorce
[6:58]family I I were I also hope I did justice with in this particular book the family would
[7:04]Daisy having a medically fragile child that will keep me up at night so like I won't worry about
[7:08]bad reviews I don't worry if somebody doesn't like it like that's totally okay I feel like and
[7:12]I'm this is I can say this after being 15 years into it the first novel I wrote I was extremely
[7:18]upset when I read bad reviews and then I kind of realized like that's just part of it it's okay
[7:22]and it's better to have readers even if sometimes they don't like it but the one thing that does
[7:26]keep me up at night is making sure that I've represented something I remember talking about
[7:30]with when we discussed the break on your on your podcast and I was saying that I wanted to really
[7:35]get the postpartum mental illness really correctly like you know I can use my own experience as
[7:41]much as I can but then I need to make sure that I'm doing it right so so for this book I would say
[7:45]that I'm glad that you glad that you liked that part and I would say the thing that I was like gosh
[7:50]I've got to get this right what was Daisy was the character who has a primary pulmonary hypertension
[7:55]so I picked that because my little cousin and my aunt both died of it and so I felt like I could
[8:00]at least speak to it in a sense of enough wear and coming with a little bit of understanding
[8:05]and two of my best friends here have medically fragile children and so I felt like I wanted that
[8:11]to be on the page like I wanted that represent I wanted that representation to be there but I had
[8:15]to be very careful about how I wanted to do it in the right way and that stuff keeps me I mean
[8:20]that keeps me up at night like I feel like you just want to get you want to get that stuff right
[8:24]but I'm also glad that that that felt authentic Daisy and Dave's where they were at
[8:28]and usually I feel like I'm writing characters right in the thick of a marriage like something is
[8:32]going wrong some secrets been uncovered or whatever it is but with them it was there was almost
[8:36]like this slowness like there's not a lot of like there's not much passion lost there like and you
[8:41]don't know why they got they had their divorce and I knew I wanted there to be some massive
[8:45]reason that just kind of like she says sucked all the air out of the room and and then you find
[8:49]out what that is but yeah it was it was a different thing to write than usual. Well you wrote about
[8:55]the illness really beautifully and you wrote about your loss and the acknowledgements which I did read
[9:01]or earlier thing but I'm so sorry that you went through that and you had this one moment where
[9:07]Sloan is worrying about the murder and all this other stuff and she's like but look we have a kid
[9:12]who might not outlive us and it puts everything into context yeah you know he's like we're
[9:18]going to every day is the gift or something like that like we're going to make every day as great
[9:22]as it can be and we're not going to go there so how tell me about what happened with your family
[9:26]and how you personally interacted but how it affected everybody I mean I remember so I was my
[9:33]aunt was diagnosed when so it was she gave birth to my cousin Jessica when she was 28 and that's when
[9:40]they realized that she had primary pulmonary hypertension and it can come on it's you know it can come
[9:45]as a child it can also come on isn't it she didn't realize it until she gave birth and she just
[9:49]didn't feel right didn't feel right and then she this is nuts so that was understood she gave
[9:55]birth to her on December 13th and actually and again some of this is you know the way
[10:00]a family story goes and develops and takes on its own life.
[10:03]But my understanding is that she came either extremely
[10:05]close to death or had like something incredibly
[10:08]medically sort of extremely serious right up to the edge
[10:11]happened during Jessica's birth.
[10:12]And then she actually died 10 years to the day after.
[10:16]So my cousin Jessica was him.
[10:18]So like my family, we come from a family of like,
[10:20]there's a lot of faith.
[10:21]There's a lot.
[10:22]It's a big family, a huge Irish Catholic family.
[10:24]So there's also a lot of loss.
[10:26]My mom is one of 12 kids.
[10:28]My dad's one and nine.
[10:30]And so there's a lot of like a lot of love, a lot of everything.
[10:33]And a lot of loss.
[10:34]So my god mother, my Aunt Katie, I'm named after.
[10:38]And her and then Jessica was in her 20s when she died.
[10:42]So it was like it was really, it was really kind of
[10:45]takes the ground from under you.
[10:46]And I remember my mom and my sister and I are extremely
[10:48]close.
[10:49]And now as an adult with children, I think about it
[10:51]for my mom's perspective when my when her sister
[10:53]when her little sister passed at age 38.
[10:57]And so it just felt like I felt like something to not shy away
[11:01]from.
[11:01]That's what I'll say.
[11:02]Like even though it made me nervous to write about,
[11:04]because I was like, I hope I can do this.
[11:05]But then and do it respectfully.
[11:07]It felt like something I didn't necessarily
[11:09]didn't want to shy away from.
[11:10]And I love their mother.
[11:11]I love Sloan and Daisy's relationship on the page.
[11:13]Like that she just delights in her.
[11:15]And that's her only child.
[11:17]And she just, she just adores her.
[11:19]Yeah.
[11:20]Well, it was thank you for sharing all that.
[11:21]And the relationship, obviously, every parent, not every
[11:25]many parents feel that sense of protection.
[11:28]But I feel like you just upped the ante sort of on that
[11:32]instinct by adding this extra layer.
[11:36]And it's, you know, I just felt so bad when, you know,
[11:40]the fear of like the falling and, you know,
[11:42]oh, she's going to fall like, we all have that.
[11:44]Like, oh my gosh.
[11:45]What if, you know, what if, right.
[11:47]Yeah.
[11:47]And sometimes I find with fiction, it's almost like taking a feeling
[11:50]that you've had and trying to like really magnify it.
[11:52]Like, if you felt shades of depression or you felt shades of
[11:56]a fear or something, you know, sometimes it's like you can
[11:58]put yourself, it's so much easier to put yourself in
[12:00]someone's shoes, which is why, you know, every not to wax
[12:02]poetic about going through hard times.
[12:04]But they, it does make you so much more empathetic.
[12:07]It's true.
[12:08]Like you're just like, okay, I can imagine what that
[12:10]would, could feel like in your situation or, or times
[12:14]40 or whatever it is, you know, it makes you far less
[12:16]judgmental and more just willing to kind of, no, no, no,
[12:20]go there and make everything doesn't have to be so perfect.
[12:22]Well, I also loved your teen characters, Margaret, the
[12:26]babysitter and her blood warrant, you know, as a mother of
[12:29]twin teenagers, I feel like I was relating to both of them,
[12:33]like her trying to get into college and what happens there.
[12:36]And then how do he feels about it and their own interaction.
[12:40]And, you know, there's one moment where he gets quite upset.
[12:43]And I was so happy you put that in because just because
[12:46]you're a big, strapping teenage boy doesn't mean you don't
[12:50]still have feelings, right?
[12:51]So I like that you put that layer of realness, honestly, into
[12:56]that narrative as well.
[12:58]Yeah.
[12:59]I love writing teenagers and I also feel like, of course,
[13:02]somebody's standing outside, you can let me know if it's too
[13:05]loud and I'll move.
[13:05]But I love writing teenagers because I think that a part of
[13:09]me still feels like I, I, I just wrote a new scene for
[13:11]something where it's a lifeguard.
[13:13]And I'm like, I, I actually found pages that I wrote when I
[13:16]was 19 and not like to knock myself and be like, because maybe
[13:19]I should have improved more.
[13:20]But I read those pages I wrote in 19.
[13:22]I was like, this could be in a chapter.
[13:24]And I mean, this is, I was always so interested in families.
[13:27]And like, I was always interested in marriage.
[13:29]Like, I used to love babysitting because I love other people's
[13:33]houses and other people's lives.
[13:34]And like, thinking about what goes on.
[13:35]And I just, I love family dynamics.
[13:37]I just find them to be so interesting.
[13:39]But yeah, but I love writing teenagers because I think a part
[13:42]of me still feels that like, I love that exciting age when the
[13:45]the world is open and anything can happen.
[13:47]And you have all these big dreams and you know, kind of
[13:50]scrapping it all together and making it work.
[13:51]But so I love writing Margaret.
[13:53]I feel like she was a real fun.
[13:56]I mean, I, I actually hate obviously that what happens to
[13:59]her in the book.
[14:00]And I have to sometimes put that out of my head while I'm
[14:02]writing or also it's too dark.
[14:03]Mm.
[14:04]You know, and I've had other books where I won't mention what
[14:07]they are in case anybody doesn't want the twister in.
[14:09]But I've had other books where like I, I set out thinking
[14:11]that character will just unfortunately have to die.
[14:14]And then I can't do it in the end in the character.
[14:16]Something happens and like, oh my gosh, they're so alive.
[14:19]So this time I had to put my head down and just be like,
[14:21]okay, this is where this book needs to go for everything else to
[14:23]sort of, you know, come to light.
[14:26]I love that construct of, and I'm with the current project I'm
[14:28]working on now.
[14:29]I'm doing the same, I love the idea of like a mystery and
[14:32]present day just whipping the band-aid off an old mystery.
[14:35]And you're like, that's what happened.
[14:37]And it takes the new thing.
[14:39]So it's almost like a dual mystery, but they're so intertwined.
[14:42]It just feels like a, it feels like a good, fun way to discover
[14:45]what's, what's really going on.
[14:46]So how, how do you approach each project?
[14:49]Like if, on the other side of the zoom, do you have sticky notes?
[14:53]And I know you don't outline, but do you have anything, anything
[14:57]there or do you just have to know the, I have to know the twist.
[15:00]That's actually the only thing I have to know and that I'm okay.
[15:02]Like if I know there's going to be just like a bananas twist,
[15:04]I feel like in this genre, you can't just write something
[15:09]that's really from your leg.
[15:10]I just think that people want, I feel like
[15:12]part of this job is that hopefully that you're reading and you can't put it down.
[15:16]That's like my biggest goal is that you're being entertained.
[15:19]Like I love the word entertainment.
[15:20]I take it really seriously.
[15:21]I feel like in my, any hard time I've ever been through,
[15:23]like to be able to turn to a book in a movie is just the biggest gift.
[15:27]So like to me, my first main job, even more than writing a nice sentence,
[15:33]is that you're pulled in and you're entertained.
[15:35]So that like when you're in traffic, you're like, okay, but I'm also like,
[15:37]enjoying what's happening with these characters is really entertaining.
[15:40]And so I would say as long as I know that I have a really good job dropping
[15:44]twist that, I mean, job dropping sounds are very cliche,
[15:47]but something where people are really going to be like, okay,
[15:49]I did not, I didn't see that coming.
[15:50]And I haven't seen it before.
[15:53]That parts hard because you don't want to, you know,
[15:54]you want to do a twist that hopefully feels really original.
[15:57]My favorite book for twists is the vacation rental.
[15:59]Like I just loved the twists in that one.
[16:01]When I, that was the one before this one.
[16:02]But I do like some of the little, the little things that are thrown in here as well.
[16:05]This one feels, yeah, they feel like a little more subtle and a little,
[16:09]like darker, but I do as long as I had the twist,
[16:12]I can write, I can write just kind of keep going.
[16:14]And usually, you know, now I would say this far in,
[16:17]there's not as much revision.
[16:18]I mean, maybe they're so big, but I feel like there's not as much going in
[16:21]and tearing things apart.
[16:22]And like now I've got to scrap five chapters.
[16:24]It just feels more like, okay, we've got to just trust that I know how to get you
[16:27]from point A to point B. And sometimes people will ask, well, what about,
[16:31]like, what about all these dual stories?
[16:32]How do you keep the timeline straight and the storylines and the Margaret 10 years
[16:36]ago with the, you know, or five years ago with the care, I think it was
[16:40]only three years ago, actually, I think we changed that.
[16:41]But with the present day, and I feel like at the end of the day,
[16:45]you're always telling a linear story, even if you're going back in five years,
[16:48]like I'm still, I still have to tell you what's going on with coal and
[16:52]Margaret and where they are to sort of, to figure it all out.
[16:56]But other folks, you know, it'll jump around a little more.
[16:59]And I just still feel like it's, you're telling the same.
[17:02]You got to like reveal the information at the right time, no matter what time
[17:05]line you're in.
[17:06]So what number book is this of yours?
[17:08]Okay, so this is so I did, I first wrote a book called Creative Girl,
[17:12]which was about having a creative career, and then which I had like no
[17:15]business writing because I was 28, but I thought I did.
[17:19]And I think at the moment that was, I don't know.
[17:22]But I love that book, but I was like a lot of like my own sort of, you know,
[17:26]just when you set out and you don't know what you're doing.
[17:29]And it's really, you know, it's like the path is so circular.
[17:33]And you just are trying to navigate that.
[17:35]So I, that was a fun way to start.
[17:37]And it really opened a lot, I used to be a TV host and I was making jewelry,
[17:42]which was really fun.
[17:43]And it sort of felt like that, that was a way to get back into writing was to
[17:47]work on that project.
[17:47]And then I found my agent that way and I love my agent so much.
[17:50]And then I wrote three young adult books.
[17:52]I wrote a novel that didn't sell.
[17:53]I wrote a paranormal romance, which I still reread like every two years.
[17:57]And I'm like, I love this character.
[17:58]Like, let's try it again.
[18:00]And again, I don't literally like, now's the time.
[18:02]Well, maybe you need to start publishing.
[18:04]Are you published anyone?
[18:05]No, no, no, I'm not.
[18:06]But I mean like, the market is ready for it.
[18:09]The market is ready for it.
[18:10]We'll see.
[18:11]So that was in 2000, around 2010.
[18:17]And I remember when it didn't sell, I was like, just so devastated.
[18:20]I'm like, oh no, like writing fiction is so much harder.
[18:22]What am I going to do?
[18:22]And but then I just kind of figured it out.
[18:24]I did some ghost writing, which was helpful to practice, you know.
[18:28]And then I did three young adult novels for Harper Collins.
[18:32]And then I did, this is the fifth one.
[18:34]So this would be the eight ninth book, eight novel.
[18:36]This is my fifth adult suspense.
[18:39]So for Amazon.
[18:40]And so, so yeah, nine novels, which is just crazy.
[18:43]I mean, that's just bananas.
[18:45]Although then I sometimes I go to like,
[18:46]when there will be an author event.
[18:48]And someone will be like, well, I've written 40 and I'm like,
[18:50]okay, well, that's, that's really amazing.
[18:52]No, that's rare.
[18:54]I don't know.
[18:55]There I could count how many people.
[18:57]Right, right.
[18:58]Right.
[18:58]I know I've done like someone came the other day and was like,
[19:00]60 books or something, most daily, no less a day like hers.
[19:03]But a lot of it's not an adult, you can write a lot more books for kids.
[19:09]Right.
[19:09]Right.
[19:10]I'm cheating.
[19:11]I'm getting, but we'll tell Melissa that.
[19:13]We'll tell her she's a, she's a, she's impressed.
[19:15]But also, right, that's a fan girl over her so much when I was
[19:20]writing YA.
[19:21]I'm sure I still, if I met her today, I would also do that.
[19:23]But I, there's just, there's just really good storytellers all over the place.
[19:28]Like, and I said, she's one of them that's like, you know,
[19:30]she'll grab you in no matter what she's writing about and you read the whole book.
[19:32]And you're, you know, I mean, I love the art of story.
[19:35]My dad used to when I senior year, I was allowed to get out early.
[19:38]And so I'd come home before like lacrosse practice or something.
[19:42]And I would watch soap operas and my dad would come home.
[19:45]You know, they're really good at steaming me out, seeing on the TV.
[19:47]He would be like, I can't believe you're watching this.
[19:48]And I'd be like, dad, it's the art of the story.
[19:51]Like, I'm learning the art of story.
[19:52]And so I always remind him that now I'm like, I told you those soap operas.
[19:55]I mean, did they just, you know, pay it off, beginning middle on an end.
[20:00]The first is like beginning, middle, middle, middle, middle.
[20:02]That's what I've learned is the difference.
[20:04]Like someone explained that to me once,
[20:05]the difference between a book and a movie versus a TV show
[20:09]that you're like living in the middle.
[20:11]I thought that was so interesting.
[20:12]Oh, I'd like that.
[20:13]I am.
[20:14]Yeah.
[20:15]Huh.
[20:16]Interesting.
[20:17]OK, so what's the plot of your next book?
[20:19]OK, so the next book I want to try.
[20:21]I just started it and I want to try.
[20:24]So it opens with this sort of like grandiocene at the pool.
[20:27]And there's like a near accident.
[20:29]Everything's OK.
[20:30]And then I want it to be the story of this family.
[20:32]And I want, unfortunately, we have a Margaret situation.
[20:35]So like somewhat so unfortunately someone
[20:37]has to die as of now before I revive her, bring her back.
[20:40]And my thinking is that like as usual,
[20:42]it'll be like the story of like a family
[20:44]and sort of how they recover.
[20:45]And then I end up present day mystery.
[20:47]And I want to show the family sort of 10 years ago
[20:49]when it happens and then in 10 years.
[20:51]And then in the 10 years, like in the present day
[20:52]storyline, I want there to be like a daughter-in-law.
[20:55]I think with a baby and like go into that dynamic of like daughters
[20:58]and not like mothers and not like all those things.
[21:00]And she's living in her mother-in-law's house
[21:02]where her husband's sister disappeared.
[21:04]So I think I just want to kind of,
[21:05]what do you think you're recovering from the most right now?
[21:08]Recovering from?
[21:10]If anything.
[21:11]If anything, you mean me.
[21:12]Oh, me as like a human, you mean like,
[21:14]you as a human.
[21:15]My past like traumas.
[21:16]You mean, like today.
[21:18]You know, like if you said like right now,
[21:20]I'm like recovering from a could be something funny,
[21:22]could be something sad, it could be, I don't know.
[21:25]Like God, what are you covering from that?
[21:26]It's just a great question, like a million things.
[21:29]I would say I'm always kind of on like the razor sharp edge
[21:31]of like honestly like worrying that something, you know,
[21:35]and that to me is so magnified since having kids.
[21:39]It's like not even, I think as I've gone along,
[21:41]I just talked to a mom, a friend of mine
[21:43]who has two little ones who are probably like four and one.
[21:46]And I think it's like as you keep going,
[21:48]you kind of learn how to learn how to do it a little more.
[21:52]But yeah, I would say I'm like trying to be like relaxed
[21:56]and present and not 80 steps in the future.
[22:00]Although I think about it's gonna write a personal essay
[22:02]which you're good at and I'm not.
[22:04]I would sometimes I feel like the moment
[22:06]is like actually more full when you're thinking about like,
[22:09]like sometimes I look at my kids and think about
[22:11]if someone had showed me a video of them 10 years ago
[22:14]and then showed me like this current day.
[22:16]And I just feel filled with just like such awe
[22:18]that that's life and that that can be like so beautiful.
[22:21]And part of that is also like looking into the future
[22:24]and like wondering what will be.
[22:26]And like to even daring to hope
[22:28]that there is like a future where everybody is together
[22:30]and happy and healthy.
[22:31]So while I'm all for living in the present,
[22:34]for me there's like something to be said about the past,
[22:37]the present and the future and how it kind of like
[22:39]the moment feels the full of sometimes in a way
[22:41]when I'm in all three, although I'm sure every single
[22:43]therapist in the world would disagree
[22:45]with what I'm saying, I don't know.
[22:48]Katie, thank you, thank you for your entertaining read
[22:52]for keeping my mind sharp as I try to figure out
[22:55]what was happening next.
[22:56]I'm now going to treat sort of new friends
[23:00]with a grain of caution that maybe I won't leave for
[23:03]not to give anything away, but just you never know.
[23:06]But you never know about people.
[23:07]And also yeah, for babysitters.
[23:09]So there's that.
[23:12]I husband does say that he's like,
[23:13]we're not, you have to stop.
[23:15]He's like, we're never gonna get babies to her again.
[23:19]Thank you so much.
[23:20]Thank you for having me.
[23:21]Of course I could eat.
[23:23]Bye.
[23:24]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[23:27]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[23:30]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[23:33]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.
[23:37]Thanks so much.
[23:38]Oh, and bye the books.