245. An Unforgettable Double Date with Andrea Gibson & Megan Falley

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And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart pain.

Welcome, Pad Squad, to an unbelievably beautiful hour.

You are about to be changed by these two people individually and by their love

together.

Today we have Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley.

If you have not yet listened to episode 215, The Bravest Conversation We've Had with Andrea Gibson.

Please do go back and listen to that.

In that episode, Andrea Gibson shared with us a devastating diagnosis.

They have a very important

update to that diagnosis in today's episode.

Andrea Gibson, a Boulder-based queer activist, author and slam poet, who has just been named Colorado's new poet laureate.

You all,

I mean, poet laureate is essentially the state's arts ambassador, serving as an active advocate for poetry, literacy, and literature.

Andrea will be participating in readings at schools, libraries, festivals, other events across the state.

It's just a huge freaking deal.

And I guess that makes Megan the first lady of Colorado now.

Andrea is the author of seven books.

Most recently, You Better Be Lightning.

Megan Falley is a nationally ranked slam poet and the author of three full-length collections of poetry.

Most recently, her book, Drive Here and Devastate Me.

Since transitioning to writing prose, excerpts from her memoir in progress have won several first and second place national prizes.

She runs an online writing workshop called Poems That Don't Suck.

which has been heralded as a degree's worth of education in five short weeks.

Andrea and Megan.

Hi, y'all.

I feel kind of nervous, like we're actually on a double date.

Yeah, that's what Abby keeps saying this morning.

She's like, I feel like we are actually going on a double date where we would actually be friends with these people.

What did you say?

She goes, what if they don't like us?

Yeah.

What if they don't like us?

What if I say something silly and dumb,

which is likely?

That's usually my role.

So

I occupy that corner of the internet.

So me too.

You are off the hook, my friend.

Oh my God.

Recently,

my job is to follow Abby around and correct everything that she says that's not politically correct, even if we're just by ourselves in the living room.

So I have a good time.

But the other day she said something and I said, we don't say that anymore.

And she said,

she said, I'm sorry.

It's just really hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

And I said, we don't say that anymore.

That's offensive to old dogs.

And she goes, oh my God, I am so sorry.

Of course it is.

one of our first arguments um was when i called my dog my senior dog geriatric and andrea we learned the term is actually super adult uh so don't worry abby

yeah we wrote a poem about it together that we performed on stage i i don't know why i thought geriatric was a problem i i don't know if it is but your internalized ageism Maybe,

maybe, you're right.

See,

I have the same thing, Abby, you know, and the other thing that happens with me is I don't know many words.

So Meg follows me around the house trying to teach me words, you know.

Oh, that also sounds fun.

I mean, how is that even possible?

You're a poet.

I don't believe that.

I don't believe that's true.

When I published my first book, the publisher wrote me right before it was going to print and he said, Andrea, I want you to know that every poem in this book has the same words in it, just rearranged in a different order.

And I said, Well, that's because those are the only words I know, Derek.

That's amazing.

So, you two,

this is going to be interesting because

I know everything

about YouTube.

Because,

of course, I was prescribed Andrea's poetry by my actual doctor.

And then, in preparation for this, I had not read read Megan before.

I cannot believe how beautiful your work is.

Last week, I went

out onto my little deck and started reading your books, all of them.

I had three of them.

And I came back in, what, like seven hours later, and I was so sunburned.

Do you remember that?

I mean, we literally went on vacation all last week and she was like,

everybody put their sunscreen on.

And then we come home for one day and she comes in like a fresh day.

Megan, it's just so

freaking good.

You are so

good.

You too.

I mean, my God.

First of all, talk to us about how you met.

So you, Megan, posted something on Facebook in 2011 that said,

I'm really fucking excited for Andrea Gibson.

Okay, which meant that you were going to what?

Take us back to then.

It was a show that I was going to see of Andrea's.

Yeah, that I had been taking part in

raising or organizing.

And so that was, yeah, it was a little bit of my promo.

But

I, at the time, like when I approached Andrea to do it, felt very

like this was completely platonic, what I was saying.

I was just excited for the poetry at the time.

But in retrospect,

I like looking at that.

Yes.

Okay, Andrea, when did you figure out that there was something going on between

maybe Megan and you?

How did it all work?

What was the deal?

So Megan and I, we were both in the poetry scene.

So we had been friends for years and we were doing weird stuff together.

We were, we would, if I was on tour and she was living in New York, I would come to her house and we would do dance routines and make up parody songs and stuff like that.

But I think that I as you do, I had the huts for Meg long before she had any feelings for me.

Yeah.

Like,

and I think that it was sort of unexpected.

I typically were, um,

how do I put this?

I typically was attracted to women who were older than me or much older than me.

I was attracted to super adults.

I still find super adults very beautiful,

but I had never been attracted to somebody this much younger than me.

I mean, I'm, how old am I?

48.

I'm at the age where Meg has to tell me how old I am.

Right, I get it.

And Meg is 35.

And so, yeah, it was surprising to me.

And do you want to take over from here?

It too was surprising to me.

We'd been friends for a long time, and then we were on a dance floor in Oakland after the national poetry slam.

And I'm dancing with Andrea, who

you can't really dance with Andrea so much as like it's like a firefly experience, like creatures dancing around each other.

There's no like, you can't like touch it or something.

There's some kind of force field happening.

It's great.

I love it.

But so, yes, we were fireflying around each other on the dance floor when, and I'm very enthusiastic in my dancing which is a euphemism for i sweat a lot and

andrea suddenly runs their hands down my sweat slicked arms and then licks the palm of their hand um that is a move it was yes it was it was one of a kind

It was one of a kind.

I've never heard of this move.

No, no, I don't think it's been done.

And never to be done again.

They shouted above the crowd, the last person I was with, that was the sweaty I was having sex with, and then licking their hands.

So I thought, huh, I think something's happening.

Well, this is not a move I had tried before, nor was it a move I had thought about the second before I did it.

It just happened.

And then

she, for some reason, followed me back to the hotel because the move worked.

That's right.

Yeah, it did.

The next day, I woke up with what I would later find out was Giardia.

And

I was.

Are you serious?

So, listen, I was doing a live Reddit interview, and my friend was having to type from the living room while I sat on the toilet and hollered the answers to her.

And I kept saying to my friend, I kept saying, Megan gave me Giardia.

And my friend kept saying uh nope i think you got giardia from licking the length of your hands in a nightclub

yes that's probably right she was a good friend and she was actually the one i told i was like this really weird thing happened with andrea like i told her right away and she's like uh i'm not surprised andrea has had a crush on you for two years or something

what

it was not in my field of consciousness that that would have occurred.

And then my life changed.

She didn't.

She didn't know a super adult would have the huts for her, I guess.

Right.

Now we know why.

And it's sensitive about that word.

We understand now.

It's full circle.

So you were like in your

mid to early 20s, Megan, and

at the time?

I was 27 and Andrew was 27.

Okay.

I think something like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

I am amazed by that move.

I'm just going to say it.

Never have I ever done that.

You've met your match, Abby Wambach.

Wow.

I mean,

wow.

I feel like the listener should maybe not try that at home because I can't think of another person who would have done that that I would have allowed this to move forward.

That's right.

It might be special to Andrea to pull that one off.

I was reading The Room of You.

Yeah.

But isn't it, don't you, because there was some poem or post or now, I don't even know what it was, but you were saying you mark that as the beginning of your relationship and it's like an anniversary the night that you licked the sweat off of megan

yes i have the longitude and the latitude of the club tattooed on my arms okay so it wasn't an original idea i told you it was megan's idea i know okay i told abby i wanted us to get that recently so we're already copying you But I told you that was Megan's idea, right?

Did I try to pass that off as mine?

No, you

told me it was their idea for sure.

Okay.

So you know you have the hots for each other.

You know it's like very much working out physically.

But when do you start talking about, is this real?

Are we having this?

Are we going to make this a

lifetime romantic friendship?

What are the conversations like?

Well, I'd already decided it was a lifetime romantic situation.

I had just planned to

be celibate and single for a year right before that happened.

And so I told her that.

And we actually didn't

really touch until I didn't make it a year, I made it 11 months.

And 11 months later,

do you remember the details in between?

11 months later,

what am I forgetting?

Well, one night Andrea whispered, I came to visit and like slept in Andrea's bed, but we didn't touch.

And they whispered, I'm not going to kiss you till I'm 40.

And they were like two months away from being 40 or something.

So it was, it had a build up for sure.

And then when I finally asked her on a date,

I texted her, would you like to go on a date sometime?

And Meg responded,

sure, with who?

With who.

And I think, and she asked me the moment when I fell in love with her.

And I think that was it, when she wrote back, with who?

And I thought, this person's funny.

Uh-oh, I love her.

Uh-oh, I love her.

This person's funny.

Uh-oh, I love her.

What was the story about the Lana Del Rey concert?

So that was the date.

I was a big Lana Del Rey fan.

I wrote a little collection of poems about her.

And Andrea knew this.

And so asked me if I would want to come to Colorado because I lived in New York at the time.

and go see her at Red Rocks.

And if you don't know, that's the most incredible music venue in the world.

So, I really was very excited for that date with that person.

We had front row seats, yeah.

Yeah, it was

uh, and then the morning of the concert, we wake up, and I wake up like so early and excited, and I check my phone to see, okay, like what time does it start?

How far is it away, or whatever?

And it's May 13th, and I see that the concert was on May 12th.

And I was like, wait, was there two nights?

And then, no, there were not two nights.

So we'd missed the date.

No.

But

I sometimes I wonder, like, I messed it up.

Sometimes I wonder, we ended up having such a good night.

Like, Andrew, I was so worried.

I'd be so disappointed and stuff.

And we had such a beautiful night.

I think I just complimented you for like 10 hours.

And

which is my ideal date.

So listen to this.

This is what Megan wrote about that night.

I woke up Christmas morning excited, checking her site for the details, Lana, only to realize the concert was the day before.

You thought I'd be so sad, but I spent the evening falling never look back in love with you.

That was eight years ago today.

Best concert I never went to.

So much music.

Fuck.

That's not even a poem of hers.

That's a fucking Instagram page.

She burps this stuff.

I swear to God, what what you were saying about her writing earlier, I think that she is maybe the most talented writer I've ever known in my life.

And it is so easy for her.

I could pull my hair out watching her.

It's just so easy for her.

I do not have that relationship with writing at all.

Well, and you only know so few words.

Well,

she knows so many.

Because if I'm reading and I get to a word I don't know in a book, I think, why on earth did this writer put this word in here?

Like, this is ridiculous.

I'm not going to the dictionary.

I skip it and I move on.

I like that.

Look how much success you can have as a writer with knowing so few words and reading so little.

Really?

Are you not a big reader, Andrea?

You know, I used to read.

constantly all the time.

And then I went through a period with Lyme disease where it was difficult with my vision to read.

And then so I stopped reading for a while.

Now I listen to a lot of audiobooks and stuff like that.

I read poetry, but I rarely read these days.

And it's even been, it's been much different since my diagnosis too.

I describe it to Meg as like, I just don't want to spend my time looking down.

I just want to spend my time looking out at the world.

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Is Megan the one that told you your diagnosis or no?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I didn't diagnose cancer.

Trying to figure out what diagnosis we're talking about here.

I have a whole collection.

Again,

we decided beforehand because Andrea would still be under anesthesia when we found out what it was.

And we decided beforehand that I would tell Andrea.

Yeah.

And so I woke up, and it was my mom and Meg beside the bed.

And Meg has all of these,

saw so much that I didn't.

Like, she was there watching my parents' reaction, all of this stuff that I had no idea about, actually, until I started reading the memoir that she's been writing.

And so I woke up, and Meg told me, and

she knew exactly how to say it.

And I just felt okay.

Yeah.

How are you doing, Meg, lately?

How are you handling everything?

Do you want to tell them your news?

Oh, yeah, I can give you an update on my health.

And then, would that be helpful first?

And then, yeah.

So, I think the last time I spoke with y'all, we went into the doctor.

They said that at this point, it's considered incurable, and they could offer me some drugs that had just come out of trials or were in trials that could potentially potentially prolong my life.

The problem was that they had very little chance of me responding to them.

And they came with like a slew of side effects,

scary ones.

And so

I didn't do anything.

I was like, I'm not going to, because I was feeling so good, you know, physically so good.

I wouldn't have known I had cancer and I didn't want to go back on drugs.

So it took me a couple of months.

I I did some alternative treatments and it took me a couple of months to figure out what I wanted to do.

And I was just trying to be patient with it and not be so terrified of the cancer that I just jumped on something.

I had friends doing tons of research and looking into things.

We got this

tumor test back that said that I was a really good candidate.

for the drug that I really didn't want to do.

And I really didn't want to do it because its primary side effect was that it can take a lot of your vision.

People describe it as if you completely fog up your glasses and you look that look out through your glasses, that's sort of what it can be like.

And it can be permanent.

Like even if they take you off the treatment, it can stay.

They said they couldn't guarantee that it wasn't.

But ultimately.

That was what was holding me back.

And then one day

I realized that I had to sort of check my own ableism because I had had this idea in my head that if I couldn't see, then my life wouldn't be worth living.

And then I started thinking about folks who years ago started asking me to put image descriptions on my photos online.

If people don't know, you can do that in the background of all of social media, which I've been doing ever since.

And I started thinking about those folks.

And I'm like, I'm not going to not opt for an option option that might prolong my life because I might not be able to see like millions of people have beautiful beautiful full lives and can't see

and so I went on the drug

after I had that realization and the first treatment we didn't quite know what it was doing and then

Three weeks ago, we went in and got the results of my second infusion.

And this drug is like a chemo, but it's different.

It doesn't go in and take everything in your,

fight every fast-growing cell in your body.

It directly targets folate receptors in the body and they're in the eyes.

That's why it impacts your eyes.

But we went in three weeks ago and we found out that my cancer marker after the second treatment had dropped

all the way down to the number it typically is when there is no evidence of disease in my body.

And that was after the second treatment.

I could feel the tumor on my rib and my liver.

I could feel that it was no longer there.

Like I had been talking about it a lot.

And Meg and I, we couldn't believe it.

And I go in tomorrow for another infusion, and we could go in tomorrow and they could say, okay, it's growing again.

This treatment isn't working.

But as of right now, the last information that we got was that my cancer marker is way, way down.

And I can feel it physically that this tumor is no longer here.

So, that's where we're at with that.

And that drug had, what did they say?

It had just come out of trials a couple months before, and it had like a 30% chance of me showing any response at all.

So, that's where we're at.

It's part of our

happiness today.

Yeah,

Okay.

Okay.

How are you, Megan?

You know, that

day, I actually pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and jumped for joy.

And I don't think that I'd ever physically, I've heard that term before, jumping for joy.

I don't know that I'd ever actually seen it in action, but that's what happened.

But I think even more than that, what's true is the last, and Andrea talked about this before with y'all, but I can corroborate the story: is that the last two years have been some of the happiest years of, I mean, definitely our relationship

and lives.

The night before, or maybe two nights before Andrea's second surgery after the first recurrence, I bought a convertible because a while ago,

because when Andrea was sick, it was like a way to to be out in the world when we couldn't really be out in the world.

And we were driving at night, and somehow, you know, Shania Twain's still the one comes on, and we're like full blast singing it to each other, just in the streets of Colorado, like ignoring any onlookers.

Complete, I would say, Andrea is the most earnest singer because it's like real eye contact and it's

real soul.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, Glenn.

And it's, it's a mix of so,

yeah.

I guess it's like the arm blick.

You're like, who can get away with this but you?

But it was just so completely earnest.

And we were having so much fun.

And it's been, you know, we've had so many dance parties and so much,

so much access to joy and way more than we had.

before all of this.

So that's not to say like, you know, when the doc, we had the day where the indoct doctor said it was incurable, and I'm, you know,

weeping and can't speak in the office, but

that night we're dancing.

And I think this is less maybe a skill of mine and more of a like a genetic anomaly, but I really don't worry.

I wanted to ask you about that because that feels aggressive and ridiculous.

And what is that like?

And what is it like to be a person who doesn't worry

with Andrea?

Yeah, opposites attract.

And I think, though, you do worry a lot less now.

I think

it might be an ADHD thing.

I don't know, but I really am dealing with whatever's in front of me at the time.

So when, as Andrea said, they were feeling really well when that's happening.

Why would I exist in a moment that's worse?

I don't know.

It just,

I think I'm probably lucky.

Like, I want to say, like, I worked really hard to get here, but that's just how my psychology works.

And I wish it was a gift I could give to other people because it seems easier.

Okay.

I have a question because I think this is interesting.

When I met Glennon,

I would have considered myself, at least when I got sober, I would consider myself somebody who just does, I'm not a big worry word.

Like, that's not what I do.

I feel like

very much like you.

And Glennon is on the opposite side.

So, of course, we attracted each other.

And now that Glennon is in therapy and is starting to release and see and surrender control,

her anxiety and worry is lessening.

I don't want to mischaracterize this.

It's lessening.

And so I

am starting

this interesting.

balancing act.

I've started to think more proactively more about about the totality of our ecosystem because I know deep down that she isn't doing it like she used to.

Like she's like the protector.

She's the one who's going to worry for us.

So I wonder if that dynamic is anyway similar for you two.

I think that Meg has never worried.

I mean, I used to think, what is this species of person?

You know, it is just

so odd.

And at times I found it rude.

I took it.

I found it problematic, I found it dangerous.

I

and until I had the experience of letting go of control and surrendering to this whole experience of cancer, and then realizing, wow, like life is so much more doable.

And not only that, but what you're talking about, Abby, I feel like I have far more access to actually showing up to, you know, the fact that the planet is burning and that sort of stuff while I'm not worrying.

I think that we think that worrying is what will help, but that wasn't the case for me.

I think that maybe it is for some people, but yeah.

Meg, so if you're only focused on what's in front of you.

Okay.

So that works well if the thing in front of you is good.

What about when the thing in front of you is bad?

Like,

you got good news.

This is good news.

Yeah.

And I don't want to gloss over the ridiculousness of the, I'm so happy for you.

So both.

Before, when you get terrible news,

are you also only surrendered to what's in front of you in the terribleness?

Because hope is kind of like worry, but the opposite.

It's jumping ahead to like the next thing.

So do you do that when what's in front of you is terrible?

Or is your strategy, I'm going to be completely surrendered to what's in front of me, whether it's positive or negative?

That's a great question.

I don't know if you have a better lens on me than I would in that way.

I do think I lean hopeful, but that doesn't mean, you know, when I'm in the office and the oncologist is saying that thing, in my brain, I'm not saying that's not true.

You know, I'm accepting what she's saying and having my emotional response to it.

And then I think maybe a bit later in the day or the week or something is when

I'm saying like, look at us now and we're dancing and we're so in love.

So

yeah,

I guess I hold the hope more than

other things, but I don't feel like it's coming from a place of utter denial.

I also, Andrea to me is the most

miraculous person I've ever known.

Like, I feel like timing and miracles and stuff just happen

around them and because because of them.

And

I was thinking the other day about how, when the doctor said it was physically impossible to run a four-minute mile, like there were just like physicians, you know, said there's no way your heart would explode.

And then somebody did it.

And then tons of people did it because it happened for the first time.

So I think my perspective in all of this is to keep putting ourselves in the way of miracles.

And that if they happen to

anyone, it's certainly Andrea.

So, I guess I do lean hopeful, but the worry thing never worked for me, it just shot on whatever moment I was in.

Yeah, it's never worked for any of us, but that doesn't keep most of us from persevering.

I think that that's wonderful.

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Do you feel surrendered to hope right now, or do you feel scared of hope?

Is there any part that braces for the hope not being real?

Do you feel scared of it or are you fully embracing it?

I know a lot of people are terrified of hope because they feel like it can be a letdown.

I've heard that a lot, like it's further to fall or something.

And for me, I don't have that experience because hope makes the present more beautiful.

And so I think when we're worrying, we're sort of preparing ourselves to handle a future emotion.

And when I'm just remaining hopeful, I'm in control of the emotion that I have right now.

It's good.

You're so sane.

What was your conversation?

when you left that freaking doctor's office with the markers being so low.

Like, what do you two say to each other?

Yeah.

On the car right home.

We were probably trying to find

a minute to talk because my best friend was in the back seat screaming about how wrong the doctor was.

And the conversation, I don't know if I said this out loud to you, Meg, but It was the very first time that I had the thought since the two years since I had been diagnosed.

It was the very first time that I had the thought, hmm, I might live.

And I don't know why I had that thought.

I said,

I don't know how.

I know that it's like, I don't know what it is, one percent chance, but I felt into that one percent chance.

Um, and then our conversation

was largely about it being in my hands now.

Like, I had given my power away in regards to my choices, and I knew from that point on, it was my choice to make and um in our collective choice to make like i would make those choices with my friends including including my screaming best friend in the back seat we walked out of the hospital we immediately we were over in the coffee shop there was immediately got coffee or immediately got tea it was i think i may have written you about this glenn in yes

We're in the, we're in line at Starbucks and this man and I both asked for the bathroom key at the same time or the bathroom code, and then we looked at each other and we literally sprinted in a race to see who would meet each other.

And then we both get there at the bathroom and we're just falling over ourselves laughing.

And it's one of those moments where I'm like, I'm laughing.

Like, I cannot tell you the amount of times in these last two years that I've just, I'm laughing.

And how am I laughing right now?

Like, how am I laughing right now?

So, I remember

right after your first surgery, Andrea would actually

laughing became very physically painful because they had scars and organs and stuff removed.

And the amount of times Andrea was saying, ow, stop, because we were laughing so much, it was like such a gift for the surgery because it was almost like this alarm of, hey, you're having joy right now.

You're having joy right now.

And

the pain was, in a way, like a constant reminder of joy.

And she brutalizes me with her humor.

Like I can't have a cold around her.

I can't have a stomachache.

I can't do a surgery and be around this person because she makes me laugh so much that I get so mad because it's so painful and I can't, I can't stop laughing.

It's harmful.

It's dangerous and harmful.

Cancel me.

I'm going to cancel her because of her harmful, it's awful.

And so I told her, if I ever get COVID, she's, I had previously wanted her to stay and get COVID with me, but now she's, she's gone.

She's kicked out of the house.

Fair.

You laugh in the midst of all of it.

Your love story is otherworldly.

It's so beautiful.

Do you fight like normal people, even in the midst of all of this drama and trauma?

Or is that something that goes away?

Like it doesn't matter.

Well, we used to fight before this, like abnormal people.

Okay.

We used to fight a ton.

Oh, yeah, there's poems.

There's Dangerous Diagnosis.

Yeah.

We celebrated fighting in a way, or we found a way to, in writing and stuff, but

it went away.

I mean, of course, everyone's going to have some stuff, but the amount that

any arguments, all the pettiness just really reduced so much.

And I think what largely happened was our appreciation for each other kicked into high gear with the diagnosis.

What would you say?

I would say that we used to argue a lot.

I mean, especially when we were going through the time of the pandemic and we were both home alone and with each other almost 24 hours a day.

And then after the diagnosis,

it was,

I try to explain this, but it was almost as if I was seeing Meg as if she were a new person.

And I had heard this thing years ago.

I think I learned it in college of our greatest human desire is to be known.

But there was something about right when I was diagnosed where I realized that the best way to know somebody is to unknow them, to see them as a mystery, to not expect the same patterns.

And what's really beautiful about that is as soon as you stop expecting the same patterns,

that energy almost creates this world in which the person no longer does the thing anymore or has more of a capacity to not do it.

But I remember just being overwhelmed with just watching Meg walk through the house and thinking,

who is this person?

Like, who is this mystery walking around in here?

And I had years ago heard a poem by Mary Oliver talking about her partner at the time, and it was called The Whistler.

And I think they had been together for decades.

And then one day, Mary walks downstairs and hears Molly whistling, and she had never never heard her whistle before.

It's such a beautiful poem.

It just talks about how, you know, there is so much to uncover in a person.

Even decades later, we only know a fraction of them.

And I feel like there was something about that energy of just feeling like you were new.

But the other thing is, is we both grew so quickly in such a short amount of time.

And I've seen friends who, you know, one person is growing and the other person isn't and the relationship sort of falls apart.

And I think that we both grew in the exact same moment and and we're growing have been growing since and so that has i think that's a lot of what has kept our love feeling very vibrant

do you have certain conflict styles what would you say each each of your conflict styles is

for sure well i'm always right so see that's hard

yeah i'm always right and perfect And then, thus, when somebody has a problem with me, I have to tell them why they're wrong.

Right.

You're like a lawyer and you prepare your case for yourself instead of trying to actually fix the conflict.

Because that's what I've learned, that that's actually not conflict.

Lawyer sounds like you have to prepare.

This is just logic.

Oh.

Wow, you just did it to me.

So I get it.

Yeah.

And I, Andrea, you in the the past have been like much better at expressing the full spectrum of your emotions and stuff.

And

I go right to like the brain-heady

experience.

The other difference is Meg has this thing that she calls going to the basement, or we learn to define it as going to the basement.

And so I always think of conflict as

this is what we're doing for intimacy.

Like if we're going to, if we're going to do this, so we can be closer, so we can understand each other.

and i think when meg and i got together she had this idea that if you're in a very healthy relationship um you never argue you never have anything to process and i don't do the same thing now but for a lot of years

I could think of no better way to spend my day than to spend three hours processing one tiny thing until she fully understood how I was actually right about everything.

It's like, it is not enough for me to understand you.

I want to overstand you.

Yes.

Yes.

And Meg, talk about your opposite inclination.

Well, you've actually always said I'm, it's almost like I'm a husband in this way.

Like I, you know, I'm kind of like, let's put on the TV and like kick back and this is fine.

Yeah, the emotional.

I've gotten better at it and you've gotten better, I think, at relaxing a bit too.

But But Andrea actually helped me learn by prefacing some of our arguments with, I'm bringing this up because I want to be closer at the end of it.

And that really opened me up to

the whole talking thing.

It's good.

Andrea knew what your kind of your attachment style was and Glennon's attachment, her ability at the beginning of our relationship to show up in a conflict and say to me, I'm not going to leave you.

I just really need to talk about this thing that's happening and it's really important to me, but I'm not, because I was just afraid, huge fear of being left.

It's very cool that they were able to do that for you, Megan, to get you onto the side of this processing lesbianism that we

love.

Oh, and you too, like the gorgeousness of it, having a safe container of like, yeah.

Yeah, removing that thorn of potential abandonment where only your defenses are going to go up.

Then I think that's a good takeaway for anyone.

Yeah.

Glenn and I fought a lot in the early days and like the first like two years.

It was like throttle on and we were just like in a total power battle.

And then I don't know what happened.

We just went dead inside.

I just think it stopped.

We were just like, oh, you're not going anywhere.

I'm not going anywhere.

We're just going to talk.

I think we were trying to change each other.

I think we were trying to change each other for two years.

And then we we both stood strong.

We did.

Good job.

And then we gave up.

And then we're like, okay, we're going to let you be you.

Yeah, I guess.

We're going to let you be you.

We surrendered.

Good for us.

There's a song like that, but

we thought it was happy at first.

Why don't you be you and I'll be me?

I don't know.

We thought it was happy, but then we realized it was a breakup song.

Oh,

wait, what song is that?

I'm hearing that.

James Bay.

James Bay.

Yeah, that's good.

I love that song.

Oh, God, that song is so sad.

It'll just crush you.

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What do you feel like you have learned?

Like, what do you know that you didn't know before?

Oh, geez.

This whole

journey, the cancer, all of it.

What do you know now that you will take with you that you would never have known had this not have happened?

oh my goodness

i'm right now trying to write a book about it because it's it's so so much

i'll say a few things the first thing that i learned was that i had i i had

so much self dislike and self-hate that i wasn't conscious of i never would have thought of myself as somebody who really disliked themselves i i thought that i had quite a bit of confidence after the diagnosis where i started to have insights into things, and I had a genuine experience of self-love, and I could feel it in how I interacted with the world and everyone I encountered.

I realized that loving myself was the same as loving every living being

in the world at the same time.

And so that also brought me this insight into uh the fact, I mean, it's a bumper sticker that is cringy for some people.

We are all one, but I could really viscerally feel the lack of separation between us and that we are sort of just all moving energies through each other.

I think that's the first one.

The second one was that I had had this idea that challenges weren't supposed to happen in my life, that if something hard happened, then it wasn't supposed to be there.

And I started thinking about nature and how, you know, if lightning strikes a tree down and a squirrel loses her nest,

they're not raging against the situation.

They're just creating with what is there.

And, oh, and this other thing that I do, I started doing this pretty soon after my diagnosis, where I started thinking about

in regards to challenges, I read this thing that said that

there's this Celtic belief that we choose the challenges in our lives before we were born.

And I've also heard people who have had near-death experiences say that they were shown that when they were in this other realm.

And I started, true or not, if the idea helps you, take it.

And it definitely helped me.

And I started interacting with everything that came my way as if I had chosen it before I was born.

So I could interact with it with curiosity instead of just stories about it being unfair.

And there's just,

there's so much.

I mean, I could talk forever on what had changed, but I would say at the core of it was a sense of self-love that I had never known existed.

And I just didn't know how

shame was the lens through which I was seeing much of the world, much of my life and the people around me.

Almost like I was circling back into my wounds and my psyche and to look through those wounds before I looked out at the world to decide how I was seeing something out there.

And now it almost feels like an experience of being life, looking out at life and wanting to, whatever parts are Andrea, just in my best moments, feeling them just completely fall away.

I think I said something to you last night that was Google.

We're about to fall asleep, and we've been doing this thing where we'll just be like loving glances, and we'll just like look at each other in the eyes and

silence, how you would look at your dog, basically.

And it's really, really nice.

We've invented the new love language, I think.

Loving glances.

Loving glances.

Yeah, but I did it to Andrea, I said it to andrea yesterday and andrea goes okay now drop away all of your humanness and look at me directly from your soul

and i was like what the

i love it though listen i think what they're talking about and the book that you're writing andrea is i'm

so excited to read it because what you're talking about is something that I've been complicating myself and not to the degree that you have but with extreme sports and having to push your body like you have to make up this whole different narrative to do hard shit yeah that's what you're doing and you're doing it in this beautiful energetic way like what we need to figure out here and because we're all down here and the tree gets hit by fucking lightning and falls down and your house is in there and you're like,

I got to rebuild my fucking house.

I can be pissed at the lightning the whole time I'm rebuilding this house.

Or I can just be like,

all right, where's the wood?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that

what you're talking about in regards to like athletics,

I think both Meg and I have encountered this in the last two years that there are ways that we're pushing ourselves physically.

Like I'm working with this one alternative doctor who is trying to educate my immune system.

And so I'm working out three times a day.

And then I'm also doing like cold plunges that I hate.

And I think that there is something,

and Meg as well has been doing this stuff.

And I think that there is something about doing that kind of thing that actually then teaches your emotional self, like to have resilience.

Yes, yes, that's what's happening for me with that cold plunge because she always wants to do this stuff.

And I'm like, no, thank you to all the wellness.

I'm just trying to actually do I have enough serotonin?

I'm at level one.

Okay, I don't need to be well.

But

the cold plunge, it's because it teaches me how to stop freaking out and just breathe.

And that's really what I need to do all day.

So that's why I think it's helpful.

I know, but scientifically, it's also

like the dopamine and, you know,

your body is like learning how to fight for its life for those three minutes.

Yeah.

And a little bit after.

And it's amazing.

Yeah.

And also when Andrea said to Megan, please just now drop yourself and look at me like you're a soul looking at a soul.

That's what I mean when I say to you, I need it to be more care bear stare.

That's not phrasing way better.

The care bear stare, you know, when it's like you're shooting rainbow love into my eyeballs.

Like if I'm not seeing enough care bear stare, that's what I mean.

I'm going to use that term for now on.

That's going to work with me as an

80s baby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What did you say to Andrea when Andrea said the thing about look at me with your soul?

I think I said, What the fuck?

Yeah, that's good.

And then left.

That's the only response.

And turned over and went to bed.

No, she didn't.

No, she didn't.

She tried to do it after she said that.

She tried to do it and she did it in a way that, again, made me laugh so hard.

I was in like in pain.

Oh, yeah.

I think I flipped my hair and did it completely demonically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So good.

Okay.

I have a few more things that we must get to in the next few minutes.

Number one, I need to know what Megan has learned that she will take with her.

I also wonder, did you all bring a poem about each other?

Oh, yes.

Thank you.

And then thirdly,

will you come back, Megan, to talk about your work?

Oh, shit.

Like, will you do that?

Would that be okay?

Because

I have pages and pages of questions.

Like, I just

so many things I have to talk to you about.

So, would you just come back just and talk about your poems and your freaking that your non-fiction?

What are they called?

Are they called essays?

I forgot.

I know.

This is such a weird word, but I think

that's what they're called.

That makes them sound boring, but they're true stories, chapters,

true stories.

I don't know.

And Drive Here and Devastate Me and the Witch, like all of it.

I just, I won't talk about all of it.

So, you will.

Okay.

Yay.

That's good.

So, now we can talk about the other other two things which is number one what you have learned

thank you glennon first of all i'm very excited and i do want to show you that you did send me that compliment on my writing on instagram and it is absolutely my phone background

i wasn't going to be that dorky but it's actually really inspiring me every day so thank you um i thought you were going to show me that i had meant to send you a dm and i had posted it on instagram because i've done that before so i thought that's what you're about to show me so i'm I'm so happy.

You did it right.

Okay, great.

I've been, I think,

blessed to be the main sort of benefactor of the trickle-down theory of Andrea's wisdom and knowledge for the past two years.

So everything that they said, I will co-sign as having impacted me as well, especially

the idea that

a situation happens and then there's an emotive prescription of how we're supposed to feel.

So

that that's not true, that you can get the cancer diagnosis and sinceria twain at the top of your lungs.

That's definitely been a learning.

But

I

think the main thing that's sort of individual for me is when Andrea sort of got this news of like, you have to really take care of your body now.

And our bodies are just so

temporary.

And one night

we were talking about, I asked Andrea something like, is it hard to lose your hair, your eyebrows, whatever?

And Andrea said, I just want to have a body.

I don't care what it looks like.

And I had spent my,

you know, since I was nine years old, hating my body

and feeling like I could

hate it and shame it into some kind of submission, or just

I certainly never thought of it as a temple.

And

something about

Andrea then being throttled into this place where, like, taking care of your health is so crucial.

And there were a lot of ways in which Andrea, 13 years older than me, on chemo, post-hysterectomy, with cancer and Lyme disease, all of this, was actually healthier than me, more energy and everything.

And

I

never expected what happened to happen, but I suddenly started to really love my body first and then take care of it subsequently.

And I realized, like,

I had a theory that

shame and hating yourself were not the ways to

heal anything.

But I think then I really learned it in real time.

And that's been, yeah, a ride for sure.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I asked if they would bring a poem that most that made them think the most about each other or most encapsulated the other.

Do you want me to go first?

I think we should go first.

Andrea's is so

profound and beautiful and quite a bit longer than mine and mine's making fun of them.

okay, so now we're going to see what the Shania Twain experience was.

This is how we roll.

I am deep, and she makes fun of me, and that's what is the glue that keeps us together.

This was originally a 15-minute poem.

This is originally a 15-minute poem.

I'm hoping I got it down to four, which is still a bit longer, maybe three.

We'll see.

But it was one that I wrote after my diagnosis.

And

people argue with the first line, but Welbutrin is used off label for ADHD.

This is called Guardian Angelfish.

I'm nervous.

Like the first time on a mic, I'm nervous.

I'm nervous because I know I'm going to cry.

Welbutrin works wonders for her ADHD, but she calls me Well Gibson because I make her happy.

I make her happy.

Is there anything left to do in this life?

I don't think so.

Except maybe adopt a fourth dog, which we both know she will find because I pull over when I see a stray, but she pulls over, learns parkour, scales a building, and pulvolts between rooftops, returning with another furry bundle freckling her in fleas.

She also follows me everywhere I go.

I don't mind that it's only to put lids on everything I don't.

What can I say?

I'm an open person.

So is she.

She doesn't just see people at their best.

She sees people at the best they haven't been yet, which is why she loved me long before I loved myself.

Thank goodness I figured that out.

Beating yourself up is never a fair fight.

Those gloves fit no one right.

And she always deserved the me who didn't have to squint through bruised eyes to see her clearly.

And how could I not want to see her clearly?

As she pole dances on the tractor, mows our lawn in a bikini, rolls out a red carpet to escort the mice back to the pasture, teaches spiders how to weave their webs outside, and the ants.

Okay, the ants, she slaughters with every weapon she can find, but I forgive her because she forgives everyone so easily.

Watching her do it is like watching paint dry.

There's nothing to see.

Everything is just more colorful after.

This morning, while I was trying to figure out what kind of fish everyone in our family would be, I asked her what she would be, and she said very seriously, hold up, let me google the sexiest fish.

Oh, wait, the most beautiful fish.

Oh, wait, there's an angelfish.

I am the angelfish.

I know there are more fish in the sea, very beautiful ones, but she's a catch I will never throw back because there is no one like her anywhere.

She minds her own business, changes her mind as often as she needs to, and she never, ever lies, which irritates me because she also edits my poems.

Can't keep the look off her face when I use adverbs.

How could I not write the word beautifully while she's sitting beside me, but beautifully doesn't bug her nearly as much as honestly, which I honestly begin half of my sentences with.

And she's worried that suggests the other half of what I say is a lie.

But here's what I figured out today:

I am a liar, I lie all the time.

The other day, I said, we will all have to say goodbye sometime.

That's not true.

Saul Williams was right when he said only believers in death will die.

I don't believe anything could take me away from her, nor would I want it to, but it wasn't always like this.

There were many months we were more flammable than Instagrammable, but we were creative about it, spent an entire summer arguing via badminton so we could drive the birdie of blame at each other's skulls.

I was going to leave that out of this.

But this isn't only for us.

It's for everyone we can convince to not wait for a tragedy to stop calling it zero, zero when it could so easily be called love, serving love.

I had no idea how much would change when all that mattered became all that mattered.

These days, our biggest arguments happen on our daily walks near the lake.

I always want to walk back the same way, way, which she doesn't enjoy.

I like to circle, she says, we can't agree because I

want to do it all again.

See it from another angle.

The back of the coffee line where she didn't know me but told me I was ordering the wrong drink.

The back of my hand where I first wrote her name so I could remember her birthday when we were still friends.

The back of her arms where she tattooed the longitude and latitude of where we first danced, the birds flying backwards back to the cold, just like her racing home from her lunch in the sun when I called to tell her what the doctor had spotted on the CAT scan.

When I call cancer the big sea, she is the only one who knows I mean the big ocean where we met our own Titanic and didn't sink.

She even managed to convince me it was a good idea for us to dress up as Jack and Rose on Halloween, though my baldness was in no position to pass up an opportunity to wear a wig, I was a bit nervous to play the part of the guy who dies.

But I wasn't really Jack.

I was Rose, and her heart was the door that opened so wide it tore off its hinges and kept me afloat, even as I woke up from surgery and asked her what they found.

Anyone who thinks poetry is frivolous has never needed someone to tell them something unspeakably hard, beautifully.

My guardian angel, my guardian angel fish, you will never not be swimming beside me.

We will never not be swimming beside each other, just like I will never be done writing this very long love poem for which this is only the prologue, baby.

I've barely begun.

Doesn't it just make you want to be

pay attention like they do?

Are you okay?

That was just, I know.

Okay,

Megan, go ahead.

That's my personal favorite if there is no bias or anything.

I just

don't know that Titanic is my favorite movie.

It is, Abby?

Abby, it's my favorite movie in the entire world.

I saw it three times in the theater.

Oh, my God.

I can't.

I cried so much that the woman sitting behind me, I went with my mom.

I mean, I was nine and she suggested that my mom take me out of the theater.

And I turn around and go, no.

Holy shit.

I've been reading about

how when you die, you meet these guys.

Who knows if it's,

who knows what's true after, but that you have guides that help you move through the afterlife.

And two nights ago, I asked Meg who her guides would be, if she has any sense of who her guides are.

And what did you say?

At first, I said the Spice Girls.

And Andrea sort of like rolled their eyes at me and they were like, no, come on, I'm serious.

And I'm like, I'm serious.

It's the Spice Girls.

And then the two people who.

died holding hands in the bed in the Titanic and went down together.

And then Andrea goes, that's brilliant.

Because it's so her, and those are absolutely her guides.

Yeah.

Megan, can we hear yours?

Absolutely.

Mine is on the lighter side.

I've written a lot of love poems about Andrea.

I think a whole section of this book is

love poems, but this is about

one of two or three times that Andrea and I have been riding our tandem bike, and Andrea peed their pants on the tandem bike.

So,

yes.

Oh, God, I love this one.

The love of my life has pissed themselves upon our tandem bicycle exactly two times, both while crossing a major intersection and leaving me to haul the clunky metal beast between my legs like a dying horse across the glaring traffic alone, while they sit on the curb laughing like a stalled engine and a wet spot blooms on their tiny, perfect ass, all the while they're shouting, I'm having a panic attack!

I'm having a panic attack, as if they were the one left for roadkill.

Earlier, we were debating the clock of love, how one's heart becomes a flat tire once someone has seen you for the lemon you are, or no longer peels their eyes from their book when you undress.

All day, I've been thinking I'm a lousy poet, so I'm looking for the metaphor here.

Is love a tandem bicycle?

Both people with one destination in mind, but someone always a little ahead?

I'd prefer to think of love as a sociable bike, side by side.

But love is, more honestly, the swatch of urine on the pants, born from a blushing, a bliss, a surprise, sometimes uncomfortable, often embarrassing.

But how, when it comes, you know you are going home.

Oh my gosh.

I mean, oh my God, you two.

Okay.

So good.

Andrew, you said you could talk about this forever.

I just hope that both of you talk about this forever.

It's all the world needs.

That's all you have to do for the rest of your lives is just love each other and then fucking tell us about it because

there's nothing more beautiful than you two.

And the only reason I'm not panicking now is because I already got you to commit to another date.

So after this is over, I can pause it and then just ask you guys questions for an hour.

We can do another double date.

We'll get put it on the books.

Oh my God.

Please.

I will say before we got on, because I read Untamed, but in the last two days, I've been listening, Abby, to all of your interviews because I wanted to know, feel I knew you in the way that I knew Glenn and Thruart Writing.

And you

at one point self-referenced what you were saying as boring.

And I was like, who is this lunatic to think that any of this is boring?

It was really beautiful.

Thank you.

That's really sweet.

I'm just so happy.

I'm so happy.

I'm so happy for you both.

I'm so happy for the recent news.

I'm so happy that no matter what, if it's terrible news, if it's happy news, if it's wherever you are, there's so much joy and beauty.

It's super rare.

The world, the world needs to know more about you too and how you're living.

within this.

And we love you.

And Pad Squad, we will see you back here next time.

Thank you so much, y'all.

Thank you.

I love you guys.

Thanks.

We love you back.

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I give you Tish Milton and Brandi Carlisle.

I chased desire,

I made sure

I got what's mine,

and I continue to believe

that I'm the one for me

and because I'm mine,

I walk the line

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on map

The final destination

we lack

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find

our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart thing.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the

problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free

And it took sometime

But I'm finally fine

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that

The final destination

we lack

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard

thing

This we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that

We might get lost, but we're okay with that We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do

hard

things.