How G’s Surviving Her Baby Leaving

Okay,

Pod Squad, here we are today.

I have been a little bit dreading this episode, to tell you the truth.

I keep pushing it off and off and off, and saying to the team, why don't we record something else today?

But here we are.

What we are going to talk about with you today

is,

well, we just dropped our

tishy off at college.

And

that has brought up lo, so many

feelings and existential dreads and love and

terror and

so many big feelings.

And so

the moment that I knew I wanted to talk to you all about this is

the moment right before we left Tish in her dorm room.

And

here's the thing.

I, when the kids were little, talked about them a lot to you all, to this community.

We were in the trenches together of young parenthood.

These

We were dripping with children and they were sucking us dry.

And the only thing that we could do to survive while we were being mercilessly pecked to death by chickens in our homes was to commiserate together.

And that was a beautiful thing.

And then

the kids got older.

And I started feeling a real strong sense of protection of them.

It's like when they get to a certain age, you realize that

they have their own story and they're living their own life.

And the Venn diagram of what is ours to share becomes smaller and smaller and smaller the older they get until there is no

overlap in terms of what is shareable.

Right?

I mean, that's how, I think that's very true.

I know, but that's too true to say out loud.

Yeah, but the reverse of that is, unless it, until there's nothing shareable by you, you know, like then they are the sharers of their own story.

So it's not like silence.

It's like you don't get to be the person anymore.

But that's lonely, right?

Because it's not like, oh, as the Venn diagram gets smaller, things get a shit ton easier.

It's

harder in some ways, but

you can't talk about it because it's more.

It feels more intimate and particular.

Whereas like toddlers are going to toddler and they're all the same, but it suddenly feels like they're specific

to their character or struggles or, and you can't talk about it anymore.

That's what it is.

It's particular.

It's like, nobody's going to be pissed at me when they're 30 because I mentioned that they were teething.

Because that is something that just happens to everybody or not sleeping or crying or whatever.

Just being a general asshole, three-year-old asshole.

Like it's different to be a particular 13-year-old asshole than a general three-year-old asshole.

Exactly.

And also, just as a side note, like it was just our consciousness changed so much.

I, you know, when our, when I was writing momastery and blogging, we didn't have a general consciousness about maybe we shouldn't put our babies' faces on social media.

Yeah.

It felt very like,

this is what we do.

This is how we love.

This is how we share our families.

Like, and then,

oof, that is one thing that I look at very differently now than I did then.

I feel like,

and I always wonder if, how, if our kids will ever understand that it really was a different consciousness or they're just like, why did you do that?

Anyway, side.

It's like when you see the pictures of your parents like smoking cigarettes at your

baby shower and you're like, really, y'all?

Yeah.

And they're like, yeah, really.

We weren't so sure about that.

Yes, I think, exactly.

I think of it as how I think about our parents with like diet culture.

Like, did you really not know better than saying those things?

No, they didn't.

And we really did not know better.

I literally had a cigarette in my mouth when I was four years old.

Oh, they took a picture of me.

It was not lit.

I was just like a, you know, a precocious little kid and I just had it in my mouth.

And like, I literally have that picture in my, in my, what is it called?

Well, your parents are glad they didn't have social media.

They would have been in big trouble.

But,

but i do think that is a similar vibe like they're gonna look at us like wait what so the point of this is that i many years ago many

six seven years ago really stopped talking about them completely

which

as you mentioned amanda is kind of this terrible part of raising older kids because the problems do get more complicated and it does get harder mentally.

It's physically more challenging as kid when they're little, and then just so emotionally and mentally challenging and scary.

And then you have less of a support system because their stories are theirs and you can't share.

And anyway, well, they have opinions about your feelings about them.

So, you know, when they're young, they don't know anything different.

And when they're older, they're like, I don't think that that's right.

And you're like, oh.

And they're usually right.

And it's not right.

Whoopsies.

But

I'm standing in the dorm room.

We've already been through.

I mean, when I say months of preparation for this moment, like we have sat together and talked about

over and ad nauseam, as you might imagine, two lesbian parents do with their daughter, just like circling the drain of existential dread of this moment and how she wants it handled and what we're, and in true

Tish fashion, she has has told us how she wants this handled.

She has said to us, here's what I want and eat.

You two are not going to cry in the room.

I won't be able to handle it.

You're not going to cry in the dorm room.

You're going to leave me and you're going to get in your car and then you're going to cry.

And I need you to cry.

When you get in the car, I need you to send me a video of you crying because I need to know that you cared enough to cry, but I need it to not.

So the orchestration and control of this moment just makes my little Al-Anon heart swell and break.

Or wisdom, wisdom of what she needs.

It's a very thin line between control and wisdom.

I think it was very a lot of foresight, a lot of vulnerability.

I need you to be devastated, just not devastated live in my face, but record it so I can refer to it as often as necessary.

I think it's brilliant.

Okay, good, good anting.

So we're in the room.

I have brought with me

a can of sanitizing wipes.

Okay.

I am,

I come to my senses, right?

And I am scrubbing the entire bunk bed

with sanitizing wipes as if

this is going to save the world.

Like the sweat equity, the, the, I'm sweating.

I am, I am scrubbing.

I need you to know am not a clean person.

Like, I don't do this.

I am not a germaphobe.

It would be better if I were more like this.

So this is out of character.

Not your typical love language, the scrubbing.

It's not my love language.

I am scrubbing down.

And then I have this moment where I just look at the baby.

Craig's there.

He's working with some kind of little

wrench or something.

Wrench, a small wrench.

He and Abby are wrenching, just putting all of their energy and might into raising this sleeping situation a centimeter.

It's just none of this matters.

We're raising her bunk bed a little bit so she could put some stuff under it.

Right.

And I'm scrubbing with the sanitizing wipes.

And I just realize, because I look to my left through the door at the other room, and there's this mom in there.

And she is scrubbing with all of her might.

She is scrubbing.

Her daughter's looking at her and going, it's clean.

It's clean.

And the mother is.

Is that we're relevant to what we're doing?

Was that irrelevant?

And my heart

just exploded for

the parents in that moment because, y'all, we were, we had nothing left but these sanitizing wipes

to use to love our children into the next moment.

Like, we were scrubbing

like it was the one thing we could do

in this

crazy, scary world

that could still be of some service or use to our kids.

Like, worst-case scenario, you will not get sick in the first couple of weeks because this room will be clean.

Well, but it's also just like you.

I can't protect you.

I don't know if you're going to make friends.

I don't know if people are going to like you.

I don't know if it's going to be scary.

I don't know if you're going to get any disorder.

I don't know if bad things will happen to you.

And I don't have any defenses against any of them.

Yeah.

All I've got is these little sanitizing wipes.

And all the moms had them.

I kept looking through.

It's like, I think we maybe saw a TikTok about it.

Like, I don't know how we all brought these sanitizing wipes.

We all did.

The algorithm is like, empty nesters in grief.

Have you considered sanitizing wipes?

And they're like, okay, we'll try.

And all of these parents are in the hallways and I'm walking by watching them all do it.

And I just wanted, I thought so much of this community because I actually wanted to be like, you guys,

oh my God, are we okay?

Like, I wanted to call all the parents out of the hallway and be like,

I know they're bitching at you and they just can't handle this moment and we can't handle this moment.

And this, all this like snark and impatience and cleaning is all just love it's all just love and i just want us all to come out of the rooms and huddle up and hug each other but that would have made tish so embarrassing it is kind of interesting though because so i thought i'll just um

that's when i like stored it all up

to talk about it here because i know so many of us are just like sanitize wiping

our way through parenting because there's so little we can control.

And as they get older, there's less and less.

And so we just bring our little things and it's so fruitless and it's so beautiful.

Yeah.

It's funny because, you know, walking through the halls or just even walking around campus, all the parents are just trying to keep it together.

And so when you catch one of the eyes,

it's like this complete shared, we know what's happening here moment between all of us.

And nobody says anything.

Everybody just cut, it's like we're the walking grief.

Like we're all walking this like grief path.

And it's very bizarre.

It's a very solemn for half of the community.

And then the other half, these freshmen, are so excited.

It's like this, the dissonance between the two is unbearable.

Yeah.

And then it's like, and this is best case scenario.

This is the luckiest situation, you know?

So

I just

felt so much love and solidarity for all of us.

I think it's all heightened too, right now, just because of this moment in the country and what we're sending our children into.

And

the moment in the

scrubbing the rooms reminded me so much of the Good Bones poem, yeah,

which maybe we'll

pull up for the end.

Maggie Smithsonian.

Yeah, Maggie Smith.

So there was this one moment where

right before we walked towards the dorm, I just, we were all carrying all these bags.

It was me, Abby, Craig, Tish, Amma.

Chase was,

he had a trip.

And

Tish was like way ahead of us, of course.

And she was holding her guitar and and her book bag so she had her backpack on and her guitar and she was walking through this like

i don't know almost like canopy of trees towards the dorm and it just

stopped my heart because it was like a perfect image of her walking into her life because it was only her back And she wasn't looking at me to see if it was okay to keep going.

She was not looking back.

And she had her guitar, which is like half of her personality, and she had her backpack, which is her like student self, which is the other half of her personality, and she was just walking into her life.

And

I took a picture, I texted it to you, Amanda, and I just, the thing that kept playing in my mind was the line from Landslide, that song where it says, I'm afraid of changing because I've built my life around you.

That is just what kept

playing in my mind over and over again.

I'm not going to be able to keep it together.

Because it's like, it feels like a landslide, you know?

It's like

everything that you walked on, that you built, that you

arranged your life around is just whoosh.

And you

have to kind of start over.

Jesus.

Which is so interesting because the landslide song,

that has been a recurring song.

I wrote about that.

That is the song that was on

Playing in the House the moment I found out I was pregnant with Chase.

And I wrote about it in Love Warrior.

No way.

Yeah, because it kept that line about, Can I handle the seasons of my life?

And then she just says, I don't know.

I love that so much.

Probably not.

But it's very,

I've been thinking a lot about why it's so visceral and so deep.

And

it's because

all of these moments, I think there's something at the ache, there's something at the heart of all of our pain and fear.

There's like one thing

that is the ache.

And that is the idea that we're all going to leave each other.

Yeah.

Like that's it.

That is why we start wars and hate each other and get addicted and are miserable.

Like it's this one basic human universal pain, fear, truth, which is we are all going to lose each other.

And this, these moments

where you watch your baby walk away and you cannot go with them

is like a rehearsal.

It's like a dress rehearsal for the ultimate moment.

That's why it strikes such an

incredible

nerve because it's like me watching my baby walk away and knowing I can't go with her and knowing in lots of ways she's on her own now and hoping that I've done what I could do to prepare her and hoping and hoping and hoping

when all that's really left is hope because all your scheming is over

is

exactly what that moment when we leave them for real will be.

And I think that's why

it

strikes up everything.

It's like

yeah.

I don't like it.

Right.

Yeah, I don't like it though.

I don't like it.

I was just like, geez, I got to figure out how to be a person again by myself.

And here we are

contemplating mortality and death.

And

yeah,

that's the truest thing.

I don't want to know that yet is what I'm saying.

Like, I don't, I'm, I'm just like, whoa, okay, how am I going to,

how am I, I'm going to start baking.

I mean, that's what I'm going to do.

There's your sanitizing wipe, Sabby.

You just start baking.

I like thinking of it like that because it's dramatic and

of course, because I am dramatic and it's it's heavy, but it's it's not heavy in the way of like, I think it's beautiful that life gives you these moments where you can kind of experience it and then think, okay, what would I do differently if this were the ultimate moment?

What would I have wished I had shifted or done differently?

Because oh my God, what a gift I get to do that now.

Like it's not over.

And now it's it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to We Can Do Hard Things for free.

You know what we don't talk enough about?

Sleep.

I mean, we spend a third of our lives doing it, and it literally impacts everything.

Your mood, focus, workouts, even how you show up for the people you love.

But here's the thing.

Not all sleep is good sleep.

That's why I'm obsessed with my Coop Sleep Goods and my Coup adjustable pillow.

It is revolutionary because it's an adjustable pillow where you can remove or add fill to fit your sleep needs.

Back sleeper, side sleeper, stomach sleeper, this pillow actually adapts to you, not the other way around.

I got two of these king-size original adjustable pillows after I completed the short sleep quiz, which I highly recommend everyone do.

You can ensure you're buying the exact right pillow for you.

I love it.

I love being able to take out the fill until it was perfectly adjusted to my neck and spine.

You can feel the difference and I want all of our listeners to try this pillow.

Upgrade your sleep, visit coopsleepgoods.com/slash hard things to get 20% off your first order.

That's C-O-O-P sleepgoods.com slash hard things.

Much like the rest of our bodies, our hair changes over the years.

You may have heard me talk about how after my daughter Alice was born, suddenly my hair was wavy, even curly.

If there are any scientists listening to this that can tell me how that happened, I would be grateful.

That's when I found Curlsmith.

This brand actually understands curly, wavy, coily hair.

And they meet your hair exactly where it's at.

hydration, frizz control, volume, definition.

They've got you.

They even asked their community, and 95%

of curlies said they feel happier with their hair after using Curlsmith.

I can confirm I am one of them.

What really helped me was their online quiz.

It's quick and actually fun.

You answer a few questions.

It's about like your hair type, thickness, frizz, the climate you live in, and Curlsmith gives you a customized routine.

My personal game changer has been the Weightless Air Dry Cream.

It's leave-in that smooths, detangles, and locks in moisture, giving me that glossy look I didn't even know I had in me.

If you're ready to embrace your natural curls, it's time to join the Curlsmith community.

At Curlsmith, we're celebrating curls and we know it's a curls world.

Find your curl confidence and take the curl quiz at curlsmith.com to get 10% off your first purchase or shop CurlsmithNow at Ulta Beauty.

As you all know by now, I have struggled with eating disorders since I was 10 years old.

It is really something

how much disordered eating can steal from us.

Not just our health, but our joy and our relationships and our peace.

Given the prevalence of eating disorders, it feels criminal how inaccessible treatment can be.

Accessing treatment just is a sea of navigating wait lists, insurance, and trying to find any care that actually works.

If you're worried about yourself or someone you love, I would like to introduce you to a resource called Equip.

Equip is a fully virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home.

Every Equip patient is matched with a multidisciplinary care team that includes a therapist, dietician, medical provider, and mentors.

I will tell you that is what it took for me and continues to take for me is an entire team.

And you also get a personalized treatment plan that's tailored to your unique goals and challenges.

Equip treats patients of all ages and all eating disorder diagnoses, and it's covered by insurance and there is no waitlist.

If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder, don't wait to get help.

Visit equip.health/slash hardthings to learn more.

That's equip.health slash hard things.

You know, I was thinking a lot about

some things that I would do differently and it was in

I left Tisha Letter

and

in it, I was writing about how

one of the things that amazes me most about her is her absolute refusal to abandon herself and her absolute trust in herself.

She always kind of just knows what she needs, and then she asks for it and does it regardless of what everyone else is doing.

She's like not super

susceptible to peer pressure.

And,

you know, she, when she was going into preschool,

she was four, and she was like, I'm not ready for this.

And it wasn't like a,

i don't know the level of stress is just not gonna work my my body

is not ready to acclimate to that environment exactly she was like oh so see i just got here like four years ago so it's a fair point yeah i'm not going to that place with those people so

i don't know how to explain it other than

When she made a decision like that, it just felt rational and important.

It was just like, yes, that sounds right.

I mean, we, that's when I started a preschool in my house for our neighborhood because it was called Dreams Preschool.

It was the absolute best.

Through the best.

That's so sweet of you.

And then when she,

and then one day she was like, all right, I'm ready.

Let's go.

It was the next year.

And she was.

She's like, I know, like, the teacher.

Can we actually preschool?

She was like, I'm going to actually need an education, it turns out.

So she went and she never looked back.

And then this year, right after high school, the same thing happened.

She was like, actually, I'm not ready to go.

I'm not ready to go to college.

And so she took a gap year

and

it was amazing for her.

I mean, it really,

I think sometimes when you're just going and going, I feel this energetically for myself too, when you're like on a treadmill that.

that the culture has put you on and you're just going and going and going and you're like, you know, on to the the next treadmill.

Just that's where the culture told me to go.

So, on to the next.

It actually,

there's a lot of benefits of just getting off completely and

thinking about what you actually want

and not just defaulting into the, you know, jet stream of

like really being intentional about what you want next.

I think she went in this year because of that intentional space with much more clear desire and gratitude and excitement.

And she was older.

She went through a lot in the gap year.

She missed her friends and she was experiencing a lot of FOMO from her friends who were posting all about their freshman college experience.

And going through some of that turmoil and kind of friction inside of her, honestly, it made her really make the, like, like really choose school.

Yeah.

And then,

and then just just the maturity level.

Like, honestly, like, my body was so much more relaxed than it would have been had she had not taken the gap year.

Totally, can you imagine?

Yeah, yeah, like, I felt like, oh, yeah, you do have yourself, and you're ready, yeah, you know, yeah.

I think it's really, really cool that you're talking about this because I

feel like there's a

because this is so typical,

such a typical experience, like many, many families go through this, that there's this kind of conflation of typical

with

normal or regular.

And

so I was at a dinner this weekend, and it was

John and me and two other couples.

And one of them had just dropped their firstborn off of college.

And we were like, how

did it go?

You know, the usual like

small chat stuff.

And they were like,

absolutely awful and traumatic and crushing.

And we are in such grief.

And they talked all about it.

And it was so refreshing and beautiful because I feel like there's this idea.

I mean, not dissimilar to when you lose someone in life.

There's like things you're supposed to say.

You're supposed to be like, well, you know, we had a beautiful service.

And, well, you know, they were sick for a while.

And well, you know, like things that make it palatable.

And they were like, it's absolutely not palatable.

We go, the things they were describing, all of his friends, they work at the place

where we go every week.

And we keep going there and we keep looking for them.

And they're not there.

And we have to remind ourselves that they're not there and they're never going to be there in the same way.

And, you know, on Friday night, we were waiting for him to get home and tell us about all of the like crazy shit they did and hear the stories.

And we're not going to get that.

And, and this whole like ecosystem of the four of us that we have spent 18 years building with their younger sibling will never be that again.

It will be different.

It may, maybe it'll be more beautiful, but it will never be that.

And that's what the

landslide is: it's like that thing,

similar to everything else in our life, like you're building meticulously with care, and it's there, and it's in front of you, and you see it.

And then one minute, it is gone and irretrievably so.

It will never be that thing again.

It will be different and lovely if you're lucky.

And

but I just think it's odd

that we don't talk about this as

the incredible grief

that it is.

A lucky grief, but a real

yes, a lucky grief.

It's just hard though, because I think,

like,

parents, like the way that I experienced this in my body,

like I kept having to remind myself not to center myself.

This is not my experience.

Yes, I am having an experience, and this is making a big impact on my life.

But in the dorm room, I just remember being like,

this is not your moment.

This is Tish's moment.

And so it's like this, this like magician trick that parents have to do in their mind to not center themselves.

And so then when you get into the car, you've held it all together or tried to at least.

And then We know what our reality is, but our kids aren't thinking, what is this like for my parents?

You know, like, right.

they're not worried about us in any way, shape, or form.

And so it's like this weird thing that we do feel this grief and it is hard and it is life-upe ending and it is confusing and it and it is and it is and it is.

And I think that's why I wanted to do this episode.

Yeah.

Because I was like, this isn't for her.

Right.

But this is a thing for us.

This is a thing.

And we shouldn't have to just stick to the script.

And when we're together as parents in this phase, we should be able to talk about because it's about the landslide of

what you've built, of your identity, of your community.

For me, it's very much a landslide of the only place I've ever felt real belonging.

I don't go around feeling belonging in groups.

This is the only little group I've ever truly felt safe in,

relaxed in, seen in.

And that, so, so that is a big loss.

But then there's another thing that I think has to do with

not just grief for self, but a confusing grief, which is just watching your baby enter the complications of adulthood.

I was, you know, I've been rereading To the Lighthouse this week, and there's this part about

where Mrs.

Ramsey just looks at her little girl, or notes at her little boy, and just thinks,

feels this internal grief.

and the words that come to her mind are you'll never be this happy again

and I don't think we talk about that enough like why is it that we feel such

reluctance or a grief or fear of allowing their world to become bigger and them going out into the world and I think it's because we know what it's like to be human because

One of the reasons that it's so adorable and feels so cozy, although it's exhausting to have a three or four year old is that you know

you got them and like all their little grief, they might be crying for six hours because they can't find their passy, but like

you know that you can handle that grief.

But

you're creating your own culture.

Yeah.

You're like, this is our culture and I am the maker of it.

And then you're like, unfortunately, I'm submitting you

to

that

external culture because I can no longer curate your culture.

Yes.

And all of the,

all of what comes with being a human being on the earth.

So I'm watching Tish walk away through the tree canopy with her little backpack.

It's not about you're going to college.

It's about you're going to.

adulthood.

Like you're going to, no matter what, you're going to experience such heartbreak and such loss and such delusion and such joy and and such magic.

And hopefully, it's you know, the 51% thing is just a little bit better than the, but you do know

that that's where they're headed towards every single up and down and

pain and beauty that you have walked.

And it just

makes, I kept thinking, it's not sad is not what I'm feeling.

I kept saying to Abby, it's just the magnitude.

It's not sad, it's just so big.

I think one thing for me,

I don't know,

this

may not make any sense whatsoever, but

when I first got into this family, there was an actual real-life thought that I was like, okay,

I know that I've got 10 years

with these kids.

And the next thought is, oh, that's like, that's a pretty good amount of time to not have to worry about thinking about other things.

Like kids are such,

they allow you to not have to think about the hot loneliness of yourself.

They're like a North Star.

They're a good

blocker.

They take up a lot of time and space

that you don't have to actually fill the void with of yourself.

And so when i

you know amma's a senior in high school now and so the big one is coming next year and i i keep having to think well we should just start doing generational living

i think when they're done with college they'll just move back with us a lot of cultures could do that thank you this is very american that we just think you got to be out on your own you're independent whatever it's also very american that they will all come back and live with you for six years because we don't have any options.

Yeah, so good news, bad news.

Yeah, good news, bad news.

But truly, I do think that they're a good

way to not have to think about maybe our own shit.

100%.

You know, and so that's something that I'm feeling in my body, like, okay, like...

Maybe that's part of this grief and fear of like what we are personally walking into

aside from them.

About your own life.

That is what when when you were saying

like the ache at the center of everything and that's that we're going to lose everyone, in my head I was like, oh, I know what she's going to say.

And it wasn't that.

It was like for me, for me, my

ache at the very center is just this gaping emptiness,

which is the same thing as we're going to lose everyone.

The same thing as like there's nothing there, there that will stay.

And what is the center?

and

is it and and i think that's why we just like

fill fill fill because like if you keep filling there will you'll never have to face the emptiness and so when i think about like empty nest i'm like empty nests like the idea that like when it's going when there isn't something

to love, to fixate on, to pour into, to fill, fill, fill, fill, filling them up, filling them up

it's filling them up right and and and you of course are fulfilled somewhat too but like then you're just left with your own

emptiness and you've got to figure that shit out or get take a pickleball or something i don't know what you do but like there is

that's a real

scary prospect

yeah but and it's so funny because it's like i think at the core of things,

it does come down to what is like, what does gives us meaning?

Is life worth living?

It's all that because

basically

if we don't, if we think that the state of being human is just emptiness, that's what makes the walk away so hard because it's like, that's what I'm passing on to you.

That's what I brought you here for.

Like that.

is can't be it.

That just cannot be it.

Otherwise, none of this is worth it.

Because when you're walking, when you're watching your baby walk away, you want to be thinking and knowing in your bones: yes,

you're going to have so much pain, and yes, you're going to have emptiness, and yes, you're going to,

but

also,

this is worth it because what's going to come with that is going to make all of that

almost okay.

Yes, but I think, like, for my crazy brain,

it's like I don't feel, I don't feel the fear of emptiness for them.

Why not?

Because I feel, and this is how crazy I am, I feel that what I have done and built with them somehow gives them an immunity.

Like that has been my purpose to try to give to them a different way.

So when they go,

so goes my purpose so goes my

yeah um

i am left

with not the effort to try to make sure they don't have the whole of emptiness but just with my own emptiness oh so you feel like you when they walk away they will have like a pail full of water that you have poured into them, but you will be left with not no liquid.

I mean, you have not

filled for yourself.

So is that what it feels like?

Like you will be left with then no nothingness?

Well, just with like figuring out

both a

like I have to figure out if my

life

is enough,

is

is

full is

because it's not a question if they're there, right?

Like I don't ask that question of myself.

But then when I think about them not being there,

it's not as,

it's not an easy question to answer.

And it leaves you with all the other questions.

Like I know, I have so many friends who honestly really don't like their partners.

But it doesn't matter almost when

you're in in the trenches of parenthood you're so busy you're so you're just dividing and conquering you're so and I think there's a lot of dread in that that people are like oh my god now I'm stuck with you for 30 year more years or without even a mission

there's why there's like 40% more breakups it more divorces right after kids leave for college because you're not even looking to that if you're finding your fulfillment over here you're not even looking over there and then people look over there and they're like, What the fuck?

And then you look at the siblings.

There's that thing.

I mean, I can't even

start about that.

How are Chase and Amma doing?

Well, a beautiful thing is that our oldest actually graduated from college last year and came home.

And when we talked to him about why he, how long he was going to be home, and he actually came home to help Emma through losing Tish to college, because

which is so beautiful, I can't even, but

those two girls.

I mean, Abby and I were talking in bed the night before we left, and we were like, This probably for our youngest is more

earth-shattering than the divorce

because your siblings are who is there with you in the trenches, no matter what.

Like, the divorce happened so early for Emma, but her one constant, her two constants until Chase left, says have always been her siblings.

So

I don't don't know.

I just know that

it's really, really tough.

Yeah.

I'm the youngest.

I'm the youngest of seven.

And so I experienced it six times where somebody would leave and then a few years later, somebody else would leave.

And then it came down to the last one.

And it's like

It's kind of a weird thing

because then you are just like left with your parents.

And who wants that?

You know, nobody.

It's just like

your parents and just one of you.

Like, it's just kind of weird.

And all their angst and love is just pointed straight at you, like a beam of sun that's going to burn you into like oblivion.

So it's so beautiful that our oldest has decided to stay at least for a little while to give Emma a little buffer.

You know, she's going in whatever seven to ten months.

Oh, goodness.

Oh, God, Jesus, Abby, you didn't say that.

Yeah.

And now it's time for our ads.

I am a big fan of the sunshine.

I need the sun in my life like my body does photosynthesis.

And despite all of that, I somehow am deficient in vitamin D.

And for a minute, I had no clue what to do next.

There's a ton of supplement brands out there and they're all making big claims.

But if you're looking for transparency, it's ritual all the way.

Ritual put their Essential for Women 18 plus multivitamin through a university-led clinical trial.

In just 12 weeks, participants saw vitamin D levels increase by 43% and omega-3 DHA levels by 41%.

I love it when I can tell what's in the bottle is backed up by trials.

Because, and I know this is revolutionary, I want to know exactly what I'm putting into my body.

That's why ritual stands out.

Every morning I take my ritual multi-just two capsules, they're delayed release, so the nutrients actually get absorbed where they're supposed to.

It's perfect and easy addition to my morning routine.

No more shady business.

Rituals Essential for Women is a multivitamin you can actually trust.

Get 25% off your first month only at ritual.com/slash we can do hard things.

Start ritual today and add essential for women to your subscription today.

That's ritual.com/slash we can do hard things for 25% off.

Okay, team, here's a stat for you.

6,000 people hit menopause every single day.

6,000.

And yet, how often do you see menopause talked about?

Almost ever.

That's where the 19th comes in.

They're an independent nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, policy and power, and making sure stories that matter to women and LGBTQ plus people actually get told.

Because let's be real, when those voices are missing in journalism and in leadership, the coverage is not complete.

Now the 19th is launching something new, a menopause newsletter.

It's all about paramenopause, menopause, and the cultural experience of navigating middle age, plus all the expectations society piles on during that time.

Each week through the end of the year, the 19th will be connecting with experts to break down symptoms, decipher new medical research, and share real stories.

It's about feeling more informed and a little less alone.

Check out 19thnews.org slash hardthings to sign up today.

One thing's certain about the business world, uncertainty.

But what if you could replace the guessing game with real-time data and insight?

One word, NetSuite.

Over 42,000 businesses have already future-proofed their operations with NetSuite.

It's the the number one AI cloud ERP, bringing together accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, all in one seamless platform.

Instead of juggling disconnected systems, NetSuite gives you one source of truth.

That means visibility, control, and the ability to make smarter, faster decisions.

With real-time insights and forecasting, you're looking ahead with the data you can actually act on.

Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.

And when you can close the books in days, not weeks, you are free to stop obsessing over the past and focused on what's next.

If I were starting a business and hey, who knows what life will bring, I would have booked that demo yesterday.

Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash hardthings.

The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash hard things.

Netsuite.com slash hard things.

It's wild because

the first essay that I ever wrote that really went viral and started this whole thing, honestly, was this essay called Don't Carpe Diem.

And it was about now this has been

the versions of this have been written a million times, so it it won't feel new, but it wasn't, it felt new at the time.

It was this like phenomenon that kept happening to me where I would be in a line, probably at some grocery store or something.

And, you know, I'd have the baby in one arm and the toddler like grabbing the lollipops and the five-year-old begging for the thing, and they're all yelling in the line.

And I wanted to just melt into the floor.

And

inevitably, some

well, I would have described her back then as an older woman.

Okay.

So someone of a marriage.

A middle-aged woman.

Who at the time I was like, this person is, you know, elderly,

would

come over to me and like have this soft look on her face.

The face did not match the situation as if there was not carnage around.

And her face would get really soft and she would say, oh, honey, it goes by so fast.

Enjoy every moment.

And I would always think, this one?

You want me to enjoy this moment right now?

And I would always, and I would get a little annoyed about it because I felt like perhaps you're not reading the room.

Like, perhaps, perhaps

what's not needed in this moment is an extra layer of shame that not only should I not be just surviving this moment, but I should actually be cherishing this fucking moment.

Like, I just couldn't understand what was being required of me by the older, elderly women who were probably 10 years younger than me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Now,

from where I sit now,

I

feel,

I feel so jealous of those women in the grocery lines.

Really?

Yeah,

but I don't want to be them for like a long period of time.

And I definitely don't want their kids because their kids look a mess.

What I would give for just one, this is what I think about sometimes.

I don't want more babies ever.

I don't want anyone else's babies, I don't want more babies.

But I would, if I could have one wish or time travel, I would love to just be like, okay, just give me like one day when they were like five and two and zero, like

just to like snuggle them.

and anyway

so

I think I feel both ways like I feel when I see those women in line dripping with their babies wanting to melt I feel

I can remember how hard that was I can I would never actually go up to them and say enjoy every moment like what I would do is maybe be like can I hold that baby while you look for your change in your purse?

You know, like I might

want to step in and help.

But I also feel

like parenting has been this situation where it feels like a roller coaster.

The first, I want to say like eight years, it's just, you know, when you're on a roller coaster and it's like that first big hill.

And you're just, it's like, you're going up the hill

and so effing slow, like you're never gonna get to the top and all it's doing is building anticipation and terror and that is how early parenting feels like it's just

I mean I remember

being so exhausted and

feeling like

looking at at Chase on the floor when he was like 10 months and then looking at the clock and it was like 830 in the morning And I was like, oh my God, we have 17 more hours.

It's been six years since we woke up.

Like that.

And then

this thing happens.

It's like there's a crest.

For me, it was like right away when they were eight or nine.

And all I can tell you is now it feels like I blinked.

This ride took off.

And now we're like in that part at the end.

And Abby and I and Craig are still in our seats, like trying to figure out what just happened.

And we're just, our kids have gotten out of the car and they're just walking away and all we can see is their backs and we're just like wait what happened it's like you also have this idea that you're gonna like

have enough time to like fix some things

there'll be time for edits right we're gonna get another pass at this like those products always have this feeling that i'm just about to figure it out that like i am who i am today but like

I'm about to like nail this and and for sure I'm gonna nail it before it's over.

And then they're walking away and you're like, wait, but I thought there would be more time to like get some things right.

And then you're kind of just left with your people on the little cart just staring at each other.

I mean, Craig and Abby and I just stared at each other, just like

wide-eyed, just like,

is this it?

Did we do it?

Is what do we do now?

We're just like in the cart

staring at each other, watching them walk away, hoping

that it was enough, and wondering what the hell we're supposed to do now.

Yeah, definitely wondering what the hell we're supposed to do now is creeping in.

I think that

I have a different feeling about it in that I also feel equally as excited as I do sad.

I feel equally as excited because

my hope is that I live so long that I get to know who they continue to become and like their adulthoodness and their

and what they like struggle through and what they are trying to

like I'm ex I'm curious as to like what what will happen with them you know like that is almost equally as exciting as it is to think about like what now we we are walking away from in a way

um

And I

understand

it's just nostalgia, you know, it's like this idea of how can I replicate, how can I hold on to, how can I, like this, the world is ever moving and it doesn't stop.

And like, how can I hold on to a moment and then also make them also hold on to the moment?

Because think about us.

I don't have any like,

I have like very few memories of my childhood.

Oh, I can't even think about that.

Do you know?

That's why I oversend them pictures constantly.

I just want to keep front and center all I've done for them.

Let the record show.

Can you go through the actual goodbye with Tish and what happened?

Like walk through the steps?

Because I was fine.

I know you were.

Until Amma.

Oh, God, Amma started crying and holding on to her.

And that was just, I don't want to tell too much of it because it's hers, but that was really something.

Craig was all teary-eyed.

Tish was crying.

You guys hugging just absolutely crushed me.

I left her when she went to preschool finally.

She.

After her first gap year.

I was kind of hoping she would, like, she, because she let me start Dreams Preschool in our basement so I was kind of hoping she was gonna like let me start dreams college in our basement dreams middle school here we come

it was real though you guys we had like kids from the neighborhood at our preschool we like very real it was very it was a serious school um

oh god that just reminds me so we used to do these crafts every day you know and we used to do a lot with glitter and anyone who's a teacher knows that the glitter is just oh my god, if once you introduce glitter, it's just gonna live with you forever.

And Tish, I had cleaned out the basement, put her to bed after the preschool.

All the kids went home, and I had cleaned out all the trays and dumped the glitter in the toilet because that's what you have to do with glitter.

You can't just trust me.

Preschool teachers know.

And

at dinner that night, Tish, she was four.

This is if this is not Tish in a nutshell,

she is eating her dinner and she goes

you guys

today

I was pooping oh my god and sprinkles came out of my butt

because she thought she pooped looked in the toilet saw it filled with glitter and thought yep that's about right of course I shit sprinkles

Can't wait to tell them because they haven't believed in my fairy powers, not once.

This should close the case.

I don't think I corrected her.

Every little girl should really believe that they should sprinkle.

I pooped and sprinkles came out of my bottom.

Yes, I remember that.

That's what it was.

I pooped and sprinkles came out of my bottom.

That's what it was.

Yep.

I know that because we have it on a mug because my dad makes mugs of all of the kids' wildest sayings.

So we do have a mug that says, and then sprinkles came out of my bottom.

Anyway,

the day before she actually went to preschool, we read the book that so many of us read our babies before they go to school, which is called The Kissing Hand, which is like about this mama raccoon who sends her baby to school.

And then she, before the baby goes to school, she kisses his hand so that when he misses her, he could put his hand on her, on his cheek and feel her love.

So with my letter, gave her another copy of The Kissing Hand.

And before she left, before I left, I just kissed my hand, and oh, it was a whole thing.

Um, oh, I didn't know that.

You didn't tell me that you kissed her hand.

I had to, I left because when Emma started crying, I had to actually, I said, I love you.

I gave her a hug because I was holding it together, and I got in the stairwell.

And she lives on the seventh floor, and you weren't allowed to use the elevators, only the people moving in could use the elevators.

And so I was in the

stairwell shaft and just bawling, like,

just crying.

And by the time I gave myself seven floors by myself, and as soon as I got down to the bottom floor, because I didn't want Amma to feel

like this is going to be the way that I'm going to like, I didn't want her to feel guilty.

It'll be real fun at home, y'all.

Yeah, and so I gave myself seven floors to cry it out.

And I got downstairs and I ran down because I needed to give myself a little bit more time before you guys could make your way down.

So I didn't know how your goodbye really went.

Yeah,

that's it, you guys.

I don't really have a lot else.

I just wanted to,

I just wanted to just talk about it a little bit out of love for not just our kids, but for each other and like what we did and what, and how hard it is to have a job where your entire

where success is putting yourself out of that job and where

the thing that is required is the letting go of the thing that you love more than anything.

It's a freaking hard ask.

Yeah.

Well, it's not exactly all there is because

we have a little surprise for you

and

Abby, and that is that we have a little

video message from Tishi

that

is coming here now that we asked her to said we were gonna do this

This episode and asked her to send whatever she wanted to send for it.

So this video is filmed by my lovely roommate And the question is what's something that I want you guys to know about my experience here so far that maybe I haven't told you and I want to tell you

and I think that I want you to know that every time I think of you and think of home, I really don't get sad anymore because I just am reminded

what I have to fall back on whenever I need to, and I know I will need to.

And I think that means that you did something right or everything right.

Who knows?

But I guess we'll find out as I embark on this new chapter.

And I love you guys so much.

Bye.

Okay.

Okay, can we end now?

Yes.

Okay,

okay, love you.

Bye.

We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production brought to you by Treat Media.

We make art for humans who want to stay human.

Forever Dog is our production partner and you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram and at We Can Do Hard Things Show on TikTok.