55. Eff Perfection: Let’s Rest in the Rubble Together

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Hi, everybody.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

It's a special week week out and about.

It's

about to be Christmas for some of us.

Thanks for spending

your time with us this week.

I've been thinking a lot about the Christmas story and how it has always been so deeply important to me.

So much so that once when Craig and I were married and Chase was a baby, I volunteered our entire family to be Mary, Jesus, and Joseph at our church

Christmas Eve Nativity play.

Just because I just wanted to be closer and closer to the story.

I just needed to be closer to the story.

I needed to crawl inside the story somehow.

And so we, we volunteered.

I volunteered.

Poor Craig, such a good sport in his robe and sandals and beard in front of all of his church buddies.

He's such a believable Joseph, though, right?

Like having just found himself in the center of a confusing Insta family with a young wife, completely convinced that her new baby boy was God himself.

Exactly.

My life and my understanding of the Jesus stories has changed so much over the past two decades.

But those stories are still equally precious to me and maybe more precious.

to me since I started understanding Bible stories and all religious stories, really, not as historical reports that reveal facts about our shared world but as literary works that reveal truth about our shared humanity

and my favorite way to hear the christmas story ever is from linus in charlie brown christmas special oh my god when he stands up and that spotlight and he holds his little blankie and he tells that story oh my god That one slays me, but every time I hear it, no matter who is telling it, I'm just all goosebumps and chills and tenderness and truth.

Because how I understand the story is this.

So long ago, a whole culture of people was suffering, oppressed by power and collective deep pain.

And they had been hurting for so long, but they still yearned.

They had this deep collective yearning because in their bones, they knew there was a promise in the air, some kind of promise in the air of hope, of comfort, of justice, of freedom, of peace, of saving.

Right.

And

so they waited with this

expectation.

And they expected their rescue, their relief to come in the only form their culture had promised that power could come, right?

In a shiny king.

Right, with money and the right family, someone much different from them and their families, someone better.

And of course, they were right about the promise in the air.

Hope did come, but not at all in the form they were expecting it to come.

Not in royal robes and castles and gold,

but in a cold, dirty barn wrapped in rags with a young, scared, outcast couple.

Hope was right there with them, just like them, them,

in a child like theirs, in a home poorer than theirs, in people more powerless and forgotten than they were.

Power and hope and peace were there, but not separate from them, with them.

Emmanuel, God, love, peace, hope with us now.

Which is why it's so confusing the message of Christmas today, all shininess and optimization and expensive gifts and perfection, Because

that couldn't be further from the original idea

of Christmas, right?

The original Christmas idea

is actually not religious.

It's not Christian, even.

It's spiritual.

It's cosmic.

It's for all of us.

It's actually the theme of this podcast.

It's that God, love,

beauty, truth, hope, whatever.

You call that thing we yearn for, it's always in the place we least expect it.

It's always in the last place we tend to look for it, which is, of course, right where we are.

Right where we already are, right

now.

The idea is about how we yearn for comfort, for relief, for saving, for hope, and we think it will come.

How our culture promises us it will come.

It'll come when we make more money.

It'll come when we fix our relationships, when we get skinnier, when we get smarter, when we get shinier, when we get richer, when we get more successful, but it's not coming.

It's never coming.

It's always only

already here.

It's not separate from our messes.

It's inside of them.

It's always been with us in us now.

Now, in our messy, busted up homes and families and friendships and bodies and minds and hearts.

Hope and love, magic.

It's not apart from our lives with a different kind of person or family or life.

It's here now.

And so, as this year comes to an end,

let us quit turning away from our lives and instead toward them.

As we quit chasing the shiny, let us just sit down and rest in the rubble.

together.

Because hope and magic and the promise of Christmas, it's right here.

Right here in the rubble of our lives.

With us.

It's just us

in the dark looking up at the stars together.

So thank you for sitting with us in the rubble this year.

You have given us hope and peace and joy, and we promise to keep trying our best to return that to you each week.

That was really beautiful.

Thank you, Perry.

Wow.

I love that.

I love that because it's also

like in the rubble made me think so much of all of the

holidays where life felt like rubble, you know, and it's such a weird

moment to be in in all the celebration of

all of the things

that are right in the world, and families, and relationships, and health, and all of it, when

those things

are in rubble in your own life.

And I love that just it's already here.

All of the magic that you're seeking isn't like

completion away, isn't a fix away.

It's like the magic is the same

inside of

every person.

It's like you already have the stuff.

Yeah.

You know, there was one point where things were such a mess in my life.

So much rubble.

And

the world.

Like everything was shit, basically.

And I remember Liz Gilbert writing to me and saying, the challenge is when nothing is well,

remembering that all is always well.

Like there's some

ground, there's some foundation, foundation beneath the rubble that is absolutely unshakable.

And the thing is that that foundation is always there.

Whenever I catch myself waiting, I know that's off.

And that's, it's interesting because there's so much of hope that's supposed to be forward-looking, I guess.

But

to me, that doesn't work anymore.

Because if I'm holding out for hope for something to come, to be coming, that doesn't ring true because it's always love and enoughness and power and peace.

It has to be now.

And let's not forget, you know, this holiday season

for a lot of us wasn't really happening last year.

visiting with family and I don't know, I just, I think this whole year for me

has been really interesting to try to see other people experience presence more because we were so much in the wanting a year ago of a future world, of a different world.

And this year has been, you know, as the world has started to open up even a little bit,

it's watching people choose presence more.

And I think that that's why this, what you just said, gee, it's like so powerful.

It's like right here in the now, now, be here right now.

It's, it will only be good enough if and when we decide it's good enough.

It's beautiful.

And that's different from positive.

That's different from like, oh, be happy with what you have.

Don't even be happy.

Don't be happy.

God forbid, that's the last.

We're not saying Merry Christmas to you.

As my therapist says to me, um, in a smiling with delight, meant to be a compliment,

we just have so much fertile ground.

So much fertile ground.

Basically, meaning that I will never, ever get to stop going to her.

But I mean, it is everywhere we are is fertile ground, really.

There's gifts in all of it.

I love this little line.

I think it's Javi's that says, what if right here and right now, God once circled on a map for you?

You know, what if just like right here, right now, this is it?

Because a theme of this whole podcast has been, you you know, the thing that screws us up the most is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be.

So what if we just deleted that

idea of that and we just looked at what is and found it to be enough?

That's cool.

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Let's get to some questions.

Let's hear from Lauren.

Hi, Glenn and Abby and Amanda.

My name is Lauren.

I am calling after listening to Esther Perel answering relationship questions and she's talking right now as I'm listening

what it means to end a relationship and end it the right way.

And I know I missed Esther, but I'm actually wondering what it means to repair or say sorry because I have a relationship that I didn't end the right way and this was about 10 years ago But I think about him often because I feel that I hurt him, and I feel that I owe him an apology and a repair.

But I'm not sure if entering into his life at this point would be more selfish than helpful for him.

So I'm wondering if you guys can maybe touch on your thoughts on repairing and apologizing, and when it's appropriate, or when to just let it go.

Thanks so much.

I live for your podcast.

I love

this question and I love this question for

this moment we're in right now because I feel like a lot of people, whether intentionally or not, at this point of the year kind of have this introspection and,

you know, some kind of self-audit of

the year and, you know, what

has happened, what they've done, kind of looking back to say what do i wish had been different what do i wish i had done differently

and what what can next year

be

like if i were to be more intentional about um some changes

i think lauren is probably ahead of 90 of people in thinking through the intention behind

her desire to reach out to this person she was in a relationship with.

And I think it's so such wise modeling.

And I'm so grateful that she sent it in.

For me,

sometimes when I have wanted to go back and apologize for something, it's been to relieve myself of a burden.

When I really get down to it, if I'm being super honest, I want to apologize because I don't want other people

to think I am shitty.

Yes.

Or at least that I stayed as shitty as I was.

Yeah.

So you're not really doing it for them, you're protecting your own reputation.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

Yes.

And I think that that is a first

question that is a beautiful one to ask.

Like if you are thinking about reaching back out and to apologize to someone,

you have to ask yourself:

Are you looking to be unburdened?

Are you asking

anything of that person?

And not directly, but do you have some kind of expectation or desired outcome?

Even if that outcome is their different perception of you,

because if that's the case, then you are actually just further burdening them.

Giving them another job.

Who's it for?

Right.

It's like

if it isn't a complete sentence, if you're not just saying something to say it

without

any expectation of any change in anything, then I think it could be selfish.

And

I think that

she used the word repair, which I think is such a beautiful word.

And I love it because that word means to put back in order.

So when we're talking about, you know, regrets from our past,

it's funny to use that word because there is no going back and reordering.

I mean, we literally can't go back and put in order.

And sometimes I think when we're apologizing, what we are asking other people to do,

other people that we hurt, is to pretend that we can go back and put it in order.

I hurt you.

I feel terribly about it.

Can you go back and put it in order so it hurts less for both of us?

Oh, God.

And

that is the kick in the shorts about life is that

it is not possible.

And we shouldn't pretend that it is possible that we can reorder what we did to people.

That's really, really, really, really something.

There's that famous quote that so many people use about the meaning of forgiveness.

and it's that forgiveness means giving up hope that the past could be different.

And I think we usually

think about that in terms of the people who desire to forgive others so that they can move on with their lives unburdened of resentment and anger.

But I think we also need to be aware of it in terms of people who are apologizing that that we are not asking for forgiveness that we are not asking the person we've hurt

for a hope that the past could be different

the repair word is it actually has um two latin roots and the re of it means again

and um there's para re, which means to make ready,

to prepare.

So really,

even though we can't go back, repair literally means to make ready again.

So

I think that we can

let go of

other people, the people that we've hurt making the past different for us, but we can within ourselves

make

ready again in our own lives.

That's so good.

So we can't always go backwards and repair, but we can prepare ourselves for different patterns, different ways.

I think the best way to apologize is to become the different person you wish you were

so that you don't make those same mistakes.

And can you apologize without bringing that person back into

the narrative of that story?

Because it is an ego thing.

There's lots of apologies that are actually burdens.

Yeah.

I mean, I've talked to so many people because of my

experience in the recovery world and community who have received amends from people.

And the amends is an unburdening for the addict,

but traumatic as all hell

for the people who, and look,

I know that this is complicated, but that is, I'm just telling you, that is a story I've heard over and over again.

Great.

You've walked into my life and done your duty so you can walk away now unburdened officially.

And now you've reopened this trauma in my life

and told it because an apology is kind of a story.

It's like, now I'm going to tell you a story about how it really was.

And now when I leave, the deal is that we're both going to agree to this new story that I've just told.

Oh my God, this is actually how you fight.

I know.

I know.

I didn't know that you were going to put that together as I was.

This is how you argue.

And by the way, this is where we begin from again.

Yeah.

We've all agreed now that this is the place.

This is the story now.

Oh, that's so interesting.

So an apology is often like,

can we both agree on this narrative I'm about to present to you in which I look better and feel better?

And it's an ask.

An apology is often an ask.

Yeah.

It can't be an ask.

It cannot be an ask.

It can't be an ask

to

put something on record of how things went, right?

Which is what you're saying.

You know, back 20 years ago, when this happened, this is what happened.

So it's like offer and acceptance.

If you accept my apology, you accept my version of what happened, right?

And it can't be any kind of ask of any unburdening of you.

So, what is it?

Like, what is a good apology?

I think it's an acceptance and acknowledging the order that was.

I mean, if forgiveness is giving up hope that the past could be different, an apology

is

acknowledging

what was during that time and

not

asking them to relieve you of the responsibility for it.

And I think you're exactly right of your point about kind of putting too much detail around it or any kind of just like, I did this because of this, or I did this because of whatever.

It's just saying,

I want want you to know i mean this happened recently with me and a very early

very early boyfriend of mine that there was a lot messed up in that relationship and it was an early formative relationship and it was really it's one of those things you know that sometimes like flashes of really old relationships go through your uh your mind and you're like that was fucked you actually find yourself shaking your head like i yeah I have flashes of life because of all of my drinking all my years.

That's my entire memory is just flashes of, oh, is that real?

Oh, shit.

Oh, and it's, and I shake my head to get over to move on.

But it was so normalized.

Like, I mean, nothing, it's only, it's, it's like, it's like the matrix, you know, any relationship is like the matrix where you're in it.

It all seems perfectly normal.

And then when you're out of it, you get flashes of it.

And you're like, wow, that was strange and odd.

So

this

guy came back just and reached out and

apologized

to me.

And

I actually thought it was beautiful and validating of all the things that kind of

unraveled for me in the years that followed.

And I always kind of wondered, like, did he think that was normal in retrospect?

I think probably the most

generous, kind apology is

it has been years since this happened.

I want you to know that I

think often

of

how

much I wish that I would have treated you better.

I regret what I did.

I regret the way I handled it.

I am so sorry for the pain that I caused you.

Do you think that that there is a cause for

asking

if

this kind of apology would be a form of an apology?

Like, is there a way you can ask somebody, hey,

I would like to apologize and I want to make sure that that wouldn't be something that would trigger you or open up Pandora's box?

Like, I know that where I'm getting into the weeds here.

You're asking, is there like an apology consent?

Yes, we need like an apology consent form because I've had people that have come into my life like you, like this sister, that it was not okay to me.

I've had people that show back, showed back up in my life, not since I've met you, babe, don't worry, but that have

reopened a wound that I hadn't really quite healed yet.

So I don't know, like, what is the line here?

But don't you think when you're asking for consent that that horse has left the barn?

Yeah, you know, like if you're, first of all, there's also this weird kind of manipulation factor for it.

If someone's trying to gain re-entry into your life, yes, through an apology,

I mean, I think we can safely say no in-person apologies, no desires to have the hooks back in anyone through a connection through an apology,

you know, like nothing like that.

But I think, I mean, it's an interesting point you raised because I think

if I were

to get an apology

from a different

ex.

It would

kind of jack me up.

Yeah.

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I, I'm, as you're talking, I'm going through all the people who probably I I could apologize to or should apologize to me.

I don't want to hear from any of them.

I just, I'm not mad at anyone.

For me, there is a desire to fix things, like you were saying before, so that you recast yourself constantly as the good guy.

We think of our lives as like stories.

Our lives are stories.

But we always have this desire to.

be the good guy, to have been the good guy.

Our kids call it the main character.

Like, am I, I'm the hero main character right now like when they're walking down the street like so

what i know is that there are plenty of times in my life and relationships i've been in where i was for sure the bad guy

and no amount of rewriting a narrative i mean right now i'm thinking of this person i was kind of friends with in college like i was the bad guy

and There's nothing that I'm going to do.

Like, it's just a fact.

That is the history of it.

In that point of my life, I was the bad guy in that narrative.

I think it's okay.

I really do.

I think it's okay

to have been, to let go of the idea that you are going to turn yourself in certain relationships and in certain parts of your life from a bad guy into a good guy because of the way you apologize or because of the way you repair or because of the way you recast it.

And actually, that's not fair.

That's a double trauma.

to the person in your past who you who knows you were the bad guy.

So now you want to have mistreated me and you want me to give you permission to recast yourself as a victim when I was the victim and you were the bad guy.

So let's just move on.

What if we just started

not calling them apologies, but acknowledgements?

Acknowledgements.

Like there's, there's something about apologies that

suggests this

mutuality of agreement or some or that

suggests some reciprocity of anything.

Apology, accepted.

Apology, accepted.

Yes.

acknowledgement.

What if it's an acknowledgement?

Yeah, that's good.

But even I'm sorry, what does that mean?

Like,

and

when we were, I mean, the reason this worked is because when I was with this person, I was like 14 years old through 16.

You know what I mean?

Like, there was no long harboring, but it was a formative time.

And it's like acknowledging

that that

was

jacked up, some of that stuff, right?

And And there was no ask of you.

Yes.

An apology is an ask.

Like, I'm asking you.

It's not an explanation.

There is no explanation in an acknowledgement because an explanation also requires a rewriting as something from the other person.

I agree with this whole conversation of to a large extent that a lot of offers of apology are actually requests for forgiveness.

Yes.

And I believe that forgiveness can only be given to yourself.

Whether you're the person who needs to forgive or whether you're the person who needs forgiveness, it is only a thing that can be granted to yourself

when you accept that the past can't be different.

I think it's important to recognize that.

But I do think there is something in this acknowledgement.

I mean, I think there's a lot of us running around trying to make sense of our lives, wondering, was that only other person who was there,

Do they have any understanding of the situation as I understand it?

You know, what, and so there is something in that of like,

it's been a lot of years since this, and I just want to say

there's a lot.

It was rare.

I was there.

I remember it all too well.

That's what that song's about.

It's about, I was there.

It's about wanting to have a witness to say, to acknowledge that that thing actually happened.

Yes.

If your acknowledgement is an affirmation of someone else's humanity that you failed to affirm during your intersection with their lives, I think that's of value because you can never get enough.

affirmations of your humanity, especially when it's been denied in your intimate relationships.

If it is anything other than that, then it is a, it's an ask for an agreement to something with a not, by definition, safe person.

That's right.

And it's, it's, if it's not that, it's a, tell me it's okay.

Yeah.

I need you to tell me it's okay.

And we just as human beings have to be okay with some of our past not being okay.

Yes.

It's not okay

the way I treated many people.

in my life.

It's not okay.

And I am okay

with that because I'm going to go back and put a double burden on them and a double trauma with we went through that thing and now I need you to tell me that it's okay.

Yep.

Because we have the wrong, yes, because that's not our job.

Our job is not to make things okay.

Our job is to repair, to make ready again.

Yes.

Our job is to accept and acknowledge the order that was, including the order that we contributed to, that was totally effed up

and

make ready again for a different way forward.

Okay, let's hear from Dee.

Hi, Gwen and Abby and sisters.

I'm going to call myself Dee for the sake of staying private and asking this question, but my cousin introduced me to Untamed and I read it in a day.

Then I found your podcast through the Queer Freedom episode and made the mistake of listening to it on my way to class and cried the whole way through.

And now I just sit in awe of all your wisdom and the way you take life by the reins.

My question is, how do I combat internalized homophobia and explore my sexuality freely?

How do I decide that I deserve to be happy when that could result in a lot of people close to me not loving me anymore?

Growing up, I always wished that I could just check the first box, be fully and authentically into men, and live a life that my family would accept.

Now I'm in college and I feel like I'm being ripped in two, deciding whether I deserve to be happy or I deserve to be loved by my entire family.

How do I choose when I can't choose both?

Oh, D.

Probably so many people listening can relate to this story whether or not it's about queerness in them.

Most of us have a struggle to desires, right?

The desire that tragically in our culture are seemingly opposed, like mutually exclusive, which is, can I be held by my people or can I be free to be my individual self?

And we have created

groups, families, where we usually do have to choose one or the other because there's these rules, these guidelines, these cages in our family that we have to stay in in order to maintain belonging, approval.

acceptance.

But D, I would suggest to you that there is a difference between acceptance and love.

Okay, so what you are saying to me, Dee, is you are saying,

I feel like I'm being ripped in two deciding whether I deserve to be happy

or I deserve to be loved by my entire family.

And what you're really asking me, Dee, is, do I choose being happy or do I choose being accepted by my entire family?

Because love

does not seek to control or change someone's humanity.

If you do not fully accept who you are in all your gorgeous queerness, whoever you are on the inside, if you do not choose that, you by default are not choosing love

because it's something else, okay?

It's acceptance and we all know it.

It's not rocking the boat.

It's choosing your family not to

be angry with you, not to not misunderstand you.

But

love

is by definition to me, a radical acceptance of who someone else is at their deepest humanity.

And so

if you choose to ignore who you are, you are also choosing not to be loved.

So

you can keep their acceptance.

and abandon yourself.

And if you choose that, you will have neither yourself nor the true love of your family.

Or

you can choose

radical exploration

and self-love of who you truly are.

And then you might lose the acceptance of your family.

But it is the only way you will ever

even have a chance at the true love of your family.

Because if they cannot see you, they cannot love you.

I also just want to say, to clarify, some people choose not to

tell their families about who they are out of safety,

out of real safety issues.

And

those folks,

I think, sometimes have it the worst.

And I mean, the question you ask is, how do you deal with your internalized homophobia?

And the truth is, the only way you can actually start dealing with it is to become the queer person that you likely are inside

and

learn how to, at every turn, when that homophobia comes up inside of you,

to work on it, because it's still happening to me.

And I've been outwardly gay for most of for my whole adult life.

and so this isn't something that just

I can say I'm gonna no longer have internalized homophobia something I deal with on the daily

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So we want to

end

this

episode talking about what I think the holidays kind of bring about in us the most.

I know that

a lot of people think that the holidays bring out joy, and I think that is partly true.

But the way that I would describe what the holidays bring out in me is what I call the ache.

I describe this ache in a million different ways, but I think

it's an awareness of the tenderness.

It's an awareness of the tenderness, is all I can say.

I've had it since I was a little kid, and it has scared me.

I just feel like I am a great ache a lot of the time.

And you know, people have asked me,

why are you sad?

And I think that's the strangest question.

Like, I'm always sad.

I will always be sad.

It's the sadness.

I'm also joyful.

It's an awareness of the fragility,

danger, loss,

separation, inevitable separation.

It's love.

That's exactly love.

But love

is a double-edged thing.

It's like the more powerful it is to you.

And the more you feel it, the more you also feel the inevitable loss of it.

The terrifying nature that it can maybe not exist.

And it will not exist.

I know.

Well, no, I don't want to believe that.

It will come and it will go and we will lose.

And, and that is what makes life so beautiful.

And that is what makes love so unbelievably valuable.

And so it is this ache that I live with and that I know a lot of us live with.

And so I think that is what the holidays bring.

And that's why it's confusing.

And that's why it is not, it's, it's nostalgic in some way, because, but not nostalgic for something old that we had before.

It's, it's nostalgic for something we've never had.

Yes,

nostalgic for something we've never had.

That's beautiful.

We have it and we know that it at any moment it could go.

And so we don't really have it at all.

We have, we're yearning for the permanence of the thing that we only have in fleeting doses.

Yes.

And that's the ache.

And so

who this, I'm just going to read something.

and this is for anyone and everyone who experiences the ache

this holiday.

Fast forward 10 years, I have three children, a husband, a house, and a big career as a writer.

I am not just a sober, upstanding citizen.

I am kind of fancy, honestly.

I am, by all accounts, humaning successfully.

At a book signing during that time, a reporter approaches my father, points towards the long line of people waiting to meet me, and says, you must be so proud of your daughter.

My father looks at the reporter and says, honestly, we're just happy she's not in jail.

We are all so happy I'm not in jail.

One morning, I'm in my closet getting dressed when my phone rings.

I answer.

It's my sister.

She is speaking slowly and deliberately because she's in between contractions.

She says, it's time, sissy.

The baby's coming.

Can you fly to Virginia now?

I say,

yes, I can.

I will come.

I'll be there soon.

Then I hang up and stare at a large stack of jeans on my shelf.

I am unsure of what to do next.

During the past decade, I've learned how to do many hard things, but I still don't know how to do easy things, like book a flight.

My sister usually does easy things for me.

I think and think and decide that it is perhaps a less than ideal time to call her back and ask if she's aware of any good airline deals.

I think some more and begin to wonder if anyone else's sister might be available to help me.

Then the phone rings again.

This time it's my mom.

Her voice is slow and deliberate, too.

She says, Honey, you need to come to Ohio right away.

It's time to say goodbye to grandma.

I say nothing.

She says,

Honey, are you there?

Are you okay?

I am still in my closet staring at my jeans.

That's what I remember thinking first.

I have a lot of jeans.

Then,

the ache becomes real and knocks on my door.

My grandma Alice is dying, and I am being called to fly toward

the dying.

I do not say, I'm fine, mom.

I say, I'm not okay, but I'm coming.

I love you.

I hang up, walk to my computer, and Google how to buy plane tickets.

I accidentally buy three tickets, but I am still proud of myself.

I walk back into my closet and begin to pack.

I am both packing and watching myself pack and my watching self is saying, wow, look at you.

You are doing it.

You look like a grown-up.

Don't stop.

Don't think.

Just keep moving.

We can do hard things.

Surprisingly, now that the ache has transformed from idea to reality, I feel relatively steady.

Dealing with the dropped shoe is less paralyzing, apparently, than waiting for that shoe to drop.

I call my sister and tell her I have to go to Ohio first.

She already knows.

My mom picks me up at the Cleveland airport and drives me to the retirement home.

We are quiet and soft with each other.

No one says she's fine.

We arrive and walk through the loud lobby, then through the antiseptic-smelling hallway and into my grandmother's warm, dark, Catholic room.

I pass her motorized wheelchair and notice the gray duct tape covering the high-speed button.

which she lost her right to use when her hallway velocity began scaring the other residents.

I sit down in the chair next to my grandmother's bed.

I touch the Mary statue on her bedside table, then the deep blue glass rosary beads draped over Mary's hands.

I peek behind the table and see a small calendar hung there, the theme of which is hot priests.

Each month's priest wears a full vestment and a smoldering smile.

This calendar is a fundraiser for something or other.

Charity has always been important to my grandmother.

My mother stands several feet behind me, giving my grandmother and me time and space.

I have never in my life felt the ache more deeply than I do in that moment, as my mother stands behind me, watching me touch each of her mother's things, knowing exactly which memory I'm recalling with each lingering touch, knowing that her daughter is preparing to say goodbye to her mother, and that her mother is preparing to say goodbye to her daughter.

My grandmother reaches over, rests her hand on mine, and looks at me deeply.

And this is when the ache becomes too powerful to resist.

I am out of practice.

I don't stiffen.

I don't hold my breath.

I don't break eye contact.

I unclench and let it take me.

First, it takes me to the thought that one day, not long from now, these roles will shift.

I will be in my mother's place.

watching my daughter say goodbye to my mother.

Then, not too long from then, it will be my daughter watching her daughter say goodbye to me.

I think these thoughts.

I see these visions.

I feel them too.

They are hard and they are deep.

The ache continues to take me with it, and now I am somewhere else.

I am in the ache.

I am in the one big ache of love, pain, beauty, tenderness, longing, goodbye.

And I am here with my grandmother and my mother.

And suddenly, I understand that I am here with everyone else else too.

Somehow, I am here with everyone who has ever lived and ever loved and ever lost.

I have entered the place I thought was death and it has turned out to be life itself.

I entered this ache alone, but inside it, I have found everyone.

In surrendering to the ache of loneliness, I have discovered unloneliness right here.

inside the ache, with everyone who has ever welcomed a child or held the hand of a dying grandmother, or said goodbye to a great love.

I am here with all of them.

Here is the we that I recognized in Josie's signs.

Inside the ache is the we.

We can do hard things like be alive and love deep and lose it all because we do these hard things alongside everyone who has ever walked the earth with her eyes, arms, and heart wide open.

The ache is not a flaw.

The ache is our meeting place.

It's the clubhouse of the brave.

All the lovers are there.

It is where you go alone to meet the world.

The ache is love.

The ache was never warning me, this ends, so leave.

She was saying, this ends, so stay.

I stayed.

I held my grandmother Alice Flaherty's paper hands.

I touched the wedding ring she still wore 26 years after my grandfather's death.

I love you, honey, she said.

I love you too, grandma, I said.

Take care of that baby for me, she said.

That was it.

I did not say anything remarkable at all.

It turns out that a lot of goodbye is done in the touching of things.

Rosaries, hands, memories, love.

I kissed my grandmother, felt her warm, soft forehead with my lips.

Then I stood up and walked out of the room.

My mother followed me.

She shut the door behind us and we stood in the hallway and held each other and shook.

We had taken a great journey together, to the place where brave people go.

And it had changed us.

My mother drove me back to the airport.

I boarded another plane to Virginia.

My dad picked me up and we drove to the birthing center.

I walked into my my sister's room and she looked over at me from her bed.

Then she looked down at the bundle in her arms and up at me again and she said, Sister, meet your niece, Alice Flaherty.

I took baby Alice into my arms and we sat down in that rocking chair next to my sister's bed.

First, I touched Alice Flaherty's hands, purple and papery.

Next, I noticed her gray blue eyes, which stared right into mine.

They looked like the eyes of the master of the universe.

They said to me, hello, here I am.

Life goes on.

Since I got sober, I have never been fine again.

Not for a single moment.

I have been exhausted and terrified and angry.

I have been overwhelmed and underwhelmed and debilitatingly depressed and anxious.

I have been amazed and awed and delighted and overjoyed to bursting.

I have been reminded constantly by the ache.

This will pass.

Stay close.

I have been alive.

And with that,

to our beloved pod squad, to every single one of you who has been brave enough to live inside the ache.

To every single one of you who has lost this year and loved this year and

lived this year.

We love you.

We're going to stay in the ache with you because we really do believe that it's the clubhouse of the brave.

We'll see you next time.

I love that story.

Bye.

Bye.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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