May 20, 2024 • 35 mins
Nora McInerny is an author and the host of the podcast “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” She joins Danielle and Simone for a lively discussion about ephemeral tattoos and women naming their kids after themselves. Then, they dive into a deeper conversation about life after grief, our shared joys, and our shared joys. Would you name your daughter after yourself? Send an email to hello@thebrightsidepodcast.com and let us know!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey Bam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, we're
doing things a little differently. We have a special guest
joining us for the entire show. Norah Mcinernie is an
author and the host of the Terrible Thanks For Asking podcast,
and the podcast is going to be okay. We're talking
to her a little bit later about her journey through grief,
(00:24):
but first we're getting her hot takes, and she has
a lot of them. It's Monday, May twentieth. I'm Danielle Robey.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Simon Voice and this is the right side
from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Everybody's favorite human Norah Mcinernie. Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me, for so
happy to have you, Noura, this is such a nice
way to start my day in my week.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You're bringing the bright to the bright side. I wish
everybody could see your floral shirt that Simone and I love.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
My friend Chelsea sowed it for me because she is
one of those people who has like too many and
she's simply good at everything.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Okay, I want to talk to you guys about something
I came across on Instagram that women are naming their
babies after themselves. So, before I go down this whole
rabbit hole and tell you what this article was about,
you are both mothers. How did you decide to name
your children family names?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Everybody in my family is named for a family member,
and I knew when I was pregnant that I would
just be picking leaves off the family tree. I'd be
making a selection from names of people that I already
knew and loved.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I wish I had this really deep story for how
I named my two boys, Logan and Keenan. But we
literally just found them on lists and we're like, great,
we love it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I think that's good too. And also when I
was younger, though, I have a diary entry where I said,
in like middle school or something like that, if I
have a girl, I'm naming her Nora.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Wait, this is what we need to talk about, Nora,
because more women are doing this. There's tons of men
that we know in American culture, yes, that name their
babies after themselves.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
They're called juniors.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So like when I think of lebron James, he goes
by Bronnie, but he's a junior. I understand why he
wanted to change his name to not be Lebron James Junior. Yeah, literally,
big shoes to Phil. But it's sort of this patrilineal trend,
and now women are turning it on its head and
they're naming their daughters after themselves.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I also love names that are like Lori or Rory
or why my only naming rhyming names, you know, Like
I knew a boy named Carrie and I was like,
I'm in love with you. That's the hottest name.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Like a gender bending name, you like, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I love.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I met a girl named Michael once and I was like,
I want to be you. When I was named Nora,
it was like a gross old lady name, and I
wanted to be like a Danielle is very elegant. I
wanted to be like a Christen a Stacy, which was
really a popular girl name if you read The Babysitters Club.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh my god, I was obsessed with Stacy's also Stacy's mom.
That was such a banger when that came out.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I know, so I am here for it. I love
a woman naming her baby after herself.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I honestly can't say that I know a woman who
has done it.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Only Loralai Gilmore.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
True, and that was also very inspiring. I did know
this group of girls. They were all sisters that went
to my school. So imagine like five sisters and they're
all really cool, and they all had the same middle name,
and their middle name was their mom's first name. And
I thought that was cool too.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So I like that actually because I like a meaningful
middle name. The first name to me feels tough because
I think kids may feel like they have to.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Live up to that parent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
If your mom is Katie Curic, like tough to have
a Katie junior.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah. Yeah, but I don't think the men think about this.
The male name that was passed down in my dad's
family was Sheldon. There were a lot of and I
don't think that anyone ever thought about filling their father's
shoes or what the consequences would be if you name
them that. I wonder if that's an inherently female or
motherly thing that we're putting on it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, it feels like a point of pride. One thing
I always wondered about was when you're the junior but
you have other siblings, do they feel any kind of
way about it? Like do they feel left out or
less important because they weren't named after their parent.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
But you were Wait, that's such a good point.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I wonder if they feel like the favorite.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
I think I would a little.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh yeah, I would too. Wait, I want to get
y'all's thoughts on the most popular baby names of twenty
twenty three. So for girls it was Olivia, Emma, Charlotte, Amelia,
and Sophia. And then for boys they were Liam, Noah, Oliver, James,
and Elijah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Elijah feels like a sleeper hit, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It's like slightly biblical in origin and yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
But for Emma and Sophia to still be hanging on
is really impressive to me.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Well, I have a.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Theory about Emma. So Rachel and Ross in friends named
their daughter Emma, and it reverberated around the world. I
think we're still in a generation of millennial women naming
their daughters after that baby.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's true. Millennial women do love a pop culture reference
when they name their kids.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Aiden is a popular boy name, and that was because
of sex and the city. I remember my neighbors growing
up named their kid Aiden, and the mom took him
to class and she was like, oh my god, there's
seven Aiden's in his class.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Notably not on this list, Karen. Why do some names
just sound older, they sound vintage, like a Carol, A Debora.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think it's cyclical, though those names come back around.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think they will come back around. But I really
think that if you want to name your child the
most subversive name possible, you want them to be the
only one in their class. You go back to when
you were growing up and what the most popular names were,
and you name your kid that you give birth to
a Jennifer or a Jessica May twentieth, twenty twenty four,
(06:13):
She's going to be the only one in her class,
I guarantee you. And she's going to turn twenty and
people are going to be like, ooh, Jessica Wow. I
just like, never hear that, Jessica, Jessica wow wow.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You know it's just soak, it's so unique.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It's like where did your mom get that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Okay, so I have to run something else by you
that I saw on my algorithm. There's this thing called
ephemeral tattoos. Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay, so Nora you've heard of it. For anybody who
hasn't heard of this, it is a made to fade
inc it's by this company and that's their name, Ephemeral Tattoos,
and they promise that your tattoos will fade within one
to three years. And I saw someone getting one of
these tattoos, and I don't have any tattoos because I've
(07:00):
been really scared of the permanence of it all. But
now I'm like, I don't know, I could tattoo my
next era on my arm or something that sounds kind
of fun. Nora, do you have tattoos?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I have a lot of tattoos. I got one halfway
lasered off before it was too painful, and I was like, ah,
we'll leave it. And that was obviously my first worst
tattoo that I got from a man who was probably drunk,
unlicensed in Brooklyn. I certainly was not at my best
psychologically or otherwise when I got it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It was bad. Oh my gosh, Nora, I mean, I
have to know what it was. Are you able to share?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It's not like it's inappropriate, it's just so it's every okay.
This was the tattoo of every bartender, server, singer, songwriter
in Brooklyn from the year's two thousand and seven to
probably twenty fourteen, and then.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I guess, yes, okay, I have three guesses. The first
one does count okay, and I won't look at you A.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Butterfly, a dolphin, a music note.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And my fourth guess, oh.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, phoenix, Okay, you're so close it was.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And once I say this, you're going to time travel
back in time and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Silhouettes of birds in flight? Ah, yes, a classic birds
in flight up my back, like around my ribs, y know,
so you know, did heal properly?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Know? Did I take care of it? Also?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
No, is it the worst looking thing on my body?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Not by far, Danielle, What would you get if you
knew it would fade?
Speaker 5 (08:45):
So?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I have one very small tattoo. They call it microcatles.
It was so overpriced my mom found out and got
real set. The reason I bring this up is that
it's ephemeral by accident, because it's on my fingers.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
And I didn't know this.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
But no matter how expensive the tattoo is on your fingers,
it actually fades because your finger skin regenerates a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
So I say that, I'll just say.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I think tattoos are beautiful artistry. I've never been a
big tattoo girl. I think I'm scared so ephemerally I
would choose like a ton of tribal tattoos.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I'd be fully covered. But I don't know if I
trust that it actually works. Does it fade?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So here's the thing. I'm glad you brought that up,
because there was this whole controversy with this company. Initially
they promised that it would fade around fifteen months, and
then people were like, uh, my tattoo isn't exactly fading
in the timeframe that you promised me. So that's when
they expanded the timeframe to one to three years. I
mean that makes me a little nervous. I would need
(09:47):
a guarantee, Okay, I would need a refine guarantee that
it is going to fade. Yes, well, Nura, it's been
so fun having you around for our morning drip, and
Noura is sticky around to talk about finding joy after grief,
the dangers of comparing yourself to others, and what it's
like to make hard career decisions when you know it's
(10:09):
time for something new. That's after the break, we're back
with author and longtime podcaster Norah McInerney. I know I
speak for Danielle too when I say that we are
in awe of her journey and so blessed to have
her with us today. On the bright side, if you
(10:30):
don't know Nora's story, in twenty fourteen, she experienced three
of the most harrowing things that can happen to a person,
a pregnancy, loss, and the deaths of both her father
and her first husband, Aaron. It's the kind of devastation
that would cause most of us to give up, but
Nora did the opposite. Through her books, podcasts, and viral
(10:50):
ted talk. She leaned into the hard stuff and showed
us how to move forward in spite of it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So I want to set the stage for everyone. You're
in your twenty and you have several different jobs in
the corporate world, and you're dating, and then you meet
this guy named Eron, Yeah, and your life changed forever.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
What happened over the next three years.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I almost hate telling this story because it was the
most annoying love story that anyone could tell, which is like,
I wasn't looking, I gave up, I found him, things
were perfect, and then, in a plot twist that would
be too much even for a Grey's anatomy, episode, he
(11:35):
had a seizure at work, and the seizure was a
brain tumor, and the brain tumor was brain cancer, and
it was glioblastoma, which is the worst one, stage four.
And we were catapulted into this other world where we
needed to accept the reality that our love was not
(11:59):
going to be as long of a forever as we thought,
and also live the life that he still had, which
is a lot for a twenty seven year old who
has never been to therapy. But we got married and
we had a baby, and our third wedding anniversary was
Aaron's funeral. And when I tell this story, I can
(12:23):
hear all of your listeners being like, it's called the
bright side, It's called the bright side, What is happening?
The vibe is ruined, The vibe is ruined, And I
get it. And I also know that every single person
listening to this has something like that in their life
and in their life story, something that they feel like
is too big or ugly or awkward or horrible to
(12:47):
talk about, and so they just don't. And the reality
is that these things that we believe set us apart
from the world that make me so different, Like I'm
not like other girls. My husband died. These are the
things that make us a part of the world, that
we are all carrying something and that we're connected in
(13:07):
more than just our shared joys, but also our shared
sorrows and our shared survival.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's the thing about loss, right, Like you joked about
coming on the bright side and quote ruining the vibe,
which you could never do. But that's the thing about loss.
It's disruptive, right. And your Ted talk is one of
my favorite Ted talks of all time. Think you because
you talk about how loss is universal and it's something
that we're all going to experience. So even though you
(13:37):
experienced yours very early on and in this really immediate
and all encompassing way, it's something that we are all
going to experience too. But you made me laugh while
you were talking about grief and while you were sharing
your story, and I was like, Wow, what a superpower
she has that she's able to do this. I'm curious
(14:00):
what it's been like to grieve so visibly and so publicly,
both through your Ted talk and also through your podcast,
because you're you're normalizing grief for others as well.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, there's always going to be the part that is
just for you, you know. And I think that making
a show called Terrible Thanks for Asking, was a form
of almost like balancing the scales. And by that I
mean the weeks after Aaron died, I'm still on like
Instagram posting pictures of me like on a run. But
I'm not posting a picture of me at two am
(14:35):
in the basement desperately trying to find a CD that
Aaron mentioned, because if I can't find this CD, I've
lost a piece of him. And this CD is somehow
the most important thing in the world. And I'm going
to rip our house down to the studs if that's
what it takes. And I got so many messages from women,
mostly who had gone through something hard and would say like, oh,
(14:57):
I wish I was doing better. I wish I was
doing like you, and I would think, what, I'm actually
really not thriving. And I had a really hard time
admitting that. I had a hard time admitting it to
myself to the people around me, because we do like
a winner. We like when somebody can just immediately alchemize
their suffering into a self improvement project and come out
(15:19):
of it better. And I wanted that post traumatic growth,
and I wanted it immediately, and unfortunately it is not
that easy, Like you actually do have to grieve, and
the grieving that I did writing and the grieving that
I did making the podcast was helpful, but a lot
of it has to be private and is not Instagram
(15:41):
friendly and is really ugly and best done under the
supervision of a qualified therapist.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
You're so quick to point out the deep and painful
duality in your life. You don't shy away from the
messy truth. I'm curious you're almost ten years from that moment. Yeah,
what are the messy truths that you're learning to face now.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That it is okay to love what you have and
miss what you had. I don't know. I still need
to be reminded that my past is present and that
that's okay. I was really afraid after Aaron died that
I would lose every bit of him, and now I
(16:24):
know that that's impossible, Like I could never lose lose,
lose him. He is everywhere, and so is that love.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Nora. I want to circle back to something that you
said about how we feel this pressure to alchemize or
suffering into life lessons right away and when you said
that it made me think about us and our show,
because it's something that we talk about all the time.
Danielle and I are always searching for the bright side.
We're always looking for life lessons. Yeah, but you're someone
who has so much wisdom to share on this and
(16:54):
you've walked through it. So what is the alternative? What
should we be doing in stead of that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I think that this is another thing that I feel
like I'm not a bummer generally, Like I strongly believe
that you can have sadness in your story, and that
does not make you a sad story. You are not
the sad things or the bad things that happened to you,
Like you are more than all of that. And we
did find so much brightness in this experience, Like the
(17:25):
moments of brightness shined harder than they would at any
other point. I think when the lights are all shut
off someone striking a match of any kind, it feels
like you've never seen light before. And I had so
many moments like that. The part where it turned unhealthy
for me was when I wanted to only see the
(17:48):
good stuff at the denial of the pain, which just
needs to be felt, like there is no way to
fast forward through that. And that is something that's important
for me to show my kids too, not that they
just have to immediately get up and dust themselves off,
but like they can feel the pain without ignoring the
(18:10):
joy around them.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Okay, we have to take a quick little break, but
we'll be right back with author and podcaster Norah Mcinernie.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
And we're back with Norah Mcinernie.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
You're making me think of something that I read in
your book Bad Vibes Only you say that you're highly
suspect of this era of personal development and influencers and
like self help gurus.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And I was giggling because I love self help.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But I as I was reading that, I was thinking,
like that is my version, right, Like when I don't
know what to do, I turned to Oprah's book What
I Know for Sure, and it's like it's an anthology,
and I flipped to a chapter when you were in
the thick of it?
Speaker 4 (19:02):
How did you nurture yourself poorly?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So badly? I did not take good care of myself.
I drank a lot, I did not sleep, I lied
and told everybody I was fine when I wasn't. And
it took me a really long time to even go
to therapy, and a part of that was I had
never really been. It seemed impossible for me to find
a therapist, call them, make an appointment, go to it,
(19:28):
talk to them, and then continue. That cycle was so
overwhelming for me.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I feel like I don't really know how to be
a good friend whenever someone is going through grief. I
think there have been times when I've done an okay job.
There's times when I've failed miserably and I just didn't
know what to say or do. So I kind of
pulled back, Yeah, what does it look like to be
a good friend and walk alongside someone who's experiencing loss.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
That's normal and it's not too late even now. I
he also was bad at it. One of my friends
lost his dad. We were in our early twenties, and
I did all the things that I was taught to do.
I went to the wake, go into the funeral. I
maybe cooked a hot dish, I wrote a card, done,
and then I never asked about his dad ever again. Ever.
In fact, I didn't even talk about my own dad.
I was like, we just won't talk about dads. You
(20:18):
won't ever be sad about it. Great, and when my
dad died. I called him right away and I was like,
I can't believe I never asked you about your dad.
Oh my god, I can't believe you're walking around this
world without a dad. It's the weirdest thing in the world.
You cannot overestimate the power of just showing up and
shutting up. You don't have to know what to say,
just showing up and being like, I'm sorry, I don't
know what to say, but I'm here. Don't ask what
(20:41):
can I do that gives that person a job, But
just do a thing and risk them not appreciating it.
I had a friend who texted me and was like,
I'm at Costco and I'm buying you butter milk, paper towels,
and I'm gonna leave it on your backstep. You don't
have to open the door, so I didn't have to
say yes or now, you know, because I would have
said no, even though I probably had nothing in my
(21:03):
fridge at the time. And she kept doing that, and
she sat with me and allowed me to just exist.
And I still think about that, like she just did
a thing, just a thing that she could do, and
that she did do.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
There's such an underestimation of being a witness to somebody's pain. Yeah,
you know you're remarried to your husband, Matthew. Yeah, And
I love the serendipity of how you met.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Will you share that story with people?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, I gotta say I never would have met him
on a nap because I just simply would have not
swiped right on a five eleven divorced dad of like
a teen and a tween. I would have been like, no,
thank you, no, no no. But I was in the
backyard of my friend Moe, who is also a widow,
(21:54):
and we were burning things, you know, phils from our husband,
explanation of benefits from an insurance companies, just burning that
kind of stuff in the backyard and her back gate opened.
It's like fifty weeks after Aaron has died. I'm so
stressed out. I can't even turn my head, Like my
neck has just totally locked up. And now there's this
(22:16):
guy in the backyard and I'm like great, And he
sat down. She had those plastic ad her on deck
chairs from like Ace hardware, and it just like flipped
backwards and his feet like went through the air. He
had a glass of wine which was just like an
arc of wine. And I laughed so hard I had
not laughed in like a year. And he went inside,
(22:37):
got cleaned up, came out, and then he just listened
to me in mo talk for like three hours about
our feelings, and he just nodded and listened. And then
finally I was like, what's your deal. I didn't think like, oh,
I'm going to fall in love again. I wanted to
be around him, but I didn't know why. And now
I'm around him all the time.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So I love that story.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, you have another podcast that you're behind the scenes
on called Refamulating. So what does refamulating mean and what
are the rules of refamulating.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Refamulating is the process of rebuilding or redefining what family
means to you. So the rules are basically that there
are no rules. There was a Pew research study that
I think came out in twenty fifteen that said that
(23:29):
there's no longer a dominant family structure in the US.
So when I was growing up, it was two parents,
a mom and a dad, two and a half kids,
a dog, and now it could be anything. This is
the first time in history that there is no average family.
And so the family that you have that you think
(23:52):
is like so weird. In my case, a divorce, a
and a widow getting married, blending two and one and
then a little runt to round it out to four.
That felt so unusual, not something I would have ever
imagined for myself because I grew up in a Catholic
(24:12):
community where I don't think any of my friend's parents
were divorced, and so refamulating. The show is about celebrating
the many ways that people can create or define or
redefine their family. So it's featuring real stories of real families.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think that's so important to see. Well as if
you needed just another job, we're going to throw one
more in there. You're also working on a new podcast,
It's going to Be Okay. I started working on It's
going to Be Okay just as a personal project. Twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty two were really difficult, like
(24:51):
really really dark times for me.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed by everything all the time.
I truly just felt nothing and everything and like I
was just engaging with the world through like a wall
of glass brick from the nineties, And my therapist asked
me to write down something okay about your day, just
like write down doesn't have to be the best thing.
(25:17):
You don't have to be looking for, you know, gold
every day, but like find a shiny penny somewhere. And
I started doing it and it worked.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It really did.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Attune me more to the okay things I think sometimes
I get into black and white all are nothing, thinking
pretty easily like, well, things are good or they're bad,
and mostly they're just kind of okay.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Would you give it a percentage?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Eighty percent of my days are average and forgettable, I really,
you know, like and then and then ten percent are
wonderful and ten percent are like awful, and most of
them are just nothing horrible happened, right, nothing great happened,
like that was an okay day. And I started writing
them as like little scenes more than anything else. And
I thought, Okay, let's just start a daily podcast that's
(26:06):
five minutes long where we just explore the okay things
in life, and we'll just do it for thirty days.
And then we did it for thirty more and now
it's been a year of okay things and our first
episode Aaron's prayer card for his funeral, who wasn't religious.
So I had my friend Chelsea Brink design it, and
(26:29):
it was the sentence that he said to me all
the time before he got sick, When he was sick,
when he was literally dying, he would say, it's going
to be okay. And I would say, in my head,
you're wrong and dying and also on morphine, like what
are you talking about? Like you're about to die, it's
not going to be okay. But he didn't say everything
(26:50):
would be okay, did he. He said it, and he
did not specify what it was. So it could be
the fact that there is a hum bird right outside
my window, humming along, hanging out, and that could be enough,
you know, that could be enough for today.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I really love the pod.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I didn't know it was named after a saying that
he always said, so it's even more meaningful.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, you've been making terrible things for asking for seven years,
and you just recently announced this March that you're gonna
go on hiatus. I don't want to put words in
your mouth, so I'm not calling it hiatus. I just
love the idea of quitting things. I think quitting things
is so underrated.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I think so too, So I want to.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Hear about your choice to step away for now.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, you know, when I started making it in twenty sixteen,
I started working on this not thinking, oh, this will
be my career. I thought, this will be ten episodes
of a podcast that I make and then do something else.
And because of being in the right place at the
right time when there were only ten thousand pods and
(28:00):
not ten million podcasts, and I guess making something that
resonated at the right moment, it turned into something that
I wasn't expecting, something amazing, something wonderful. I get to
go on tours and do these beautiful live shows for years,
and I got to meet people that I would have
(28:21):
never met, like all these amazing people who are just
walking amongst us carrying some big, incredible story, and I
got to tell their story to millions of people. And
first of all, it's the longest I've ever held a job. Second,
you know, like it's a lot to really put yourself
in the path of so much pain for so long.
(28:42):
I reported on and did an episode once on secondary trauma,
not thinking could I be experiencing this. I don't know
how many times you have to google like burnout, Do
I have it? Before you realize yes. And one of
the symptoms is googling burnout Do I have it? So yeah.
I talked to the whole team and I said, who
else is really tired? Like, who else is really tired?
(29:04):
And who would feel relieved if we weren't on this
constant churn of creating beautiful, meaningful and hard to tell stories.
And everyone raised their hand and I was like, we
have to hit the boss button. We have to find
a way to make our jobs sustainable financially end emotionally.
(29:28):
It's one thing to burn your own candle at two
ends and also in the middle a third location that
you didn't know a candle could be lit at. But
it's another thing to bring other people into that with you.
So once I said it out loud, it was pretty obvious.
You know, It's pretty obvious we all need some space
to just exist and feel things and see what else
(29:53):
comes from the quiet.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well, now that you have some quiet, and now that
you are in fighting joy and okayness into your life
through your other podcast, what does the bright side look
like for you? Now?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
The bright side is presence, like actually being places and
not being so worried about what ball I am dropping
or where I'm supposed to be next, or what I'm
supposed to be doing next or the next thing I
could be doing. The bright side is truly just stillness,
(30:30):
and that's a really unnatural way for me to exist
as a child who is described by her mother as industrious,
you know, not like sweet or like cute, industrious, like
a worker.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, go visit.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Your Grandpa's gonna have you moving a pile of bricks. Like,
I'm not used to just existing. Obviously I'm working, right,
I'm working, but I'm just not like when I tuk
my kids in their hamsters wake up because hamsters are nocturnal,
a great pet for children, And I'll be laying in
bed with a kid reading a story and the hamsters
literally wake up and like turn on and leap onto
(31:07):
a wheel and start running. And I would look at
them and be like, oh, that's me, baby, like just
they're not even going anywhere, They're just like then they
jump off like drink some water, and then they're back
on that wheel, and I was like, oh my god,
that's me.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I am that.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Hamster, big hamster energy, big hamster energy. Okay, like bag,
oh god. So now I'm trying to be whatever. What's
the opposite of a hamster koala maybe.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, that's an animal that's just purely runs on vibes.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Eucalyptus and vibes. That's all they need to be happy.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah. The bright side for me is knowing that I
actually don't have to wake up and leap onto a
hamster wheel, Like I could just ride the hamster wheel,
because so much is happening that I could miss out
on simply by not being present for last week are old.
This kid graduated from college, like is an adult in
(32:03):
the world. Now we've got a kid who's about to
start college. And now we have a kid who's like
an adult, and he got into a graduate school program.
And now I am counseling an adult on how to
take on student loan debt.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I have to be honest, Nora, before you mentioned your
son's college debt, I was sort of thinking you sounded
like a self help guru.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
You were sounding very inspirational. But the debt is kind
of a downer.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
The debt's kind of a downer. Yeah, But you know what,
it's wild to me that that happened in ten years, Like,
in ten years, we went from having this weird little
like blending family and me being like, Okay, what are
fourteen year.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Old boys like?
Speaker 5 (32:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I don't know, Like what's their deal? And so much
has happened in ten years. We have a kid now
who's joining college, a kid who's graduating high school, we're
going to have a middle schooler, We're going to have
a second grader. And I'm also trying to make choices
for the version of me that exists ten years from now.
I'm trying to actually imagine her, because I couldn't picture
(33:16):
her ten years ago. I couldn't picture this version of me,
And so I'm trying to make choices that make future
Nora's life calmer and more peaceful and more sustainable.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
What do you think Erin would think about this version
of Nora.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
I still have conversations with him. I can still hear
when I am being irrational. Erin was very chill. When
I am not chill, I can feel him being like, stop,
this is not the thing to worry about. But I
think you'd be so happy, And I think I don't know,
it feels like he is a part of it. But
(33:53):
I think you'd be really, really proud. I think you'd
be really proud of us.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I feel like It's going to be Okay, so too, Nurah.
Thank you for sharing your time with us on the
bright Side.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Thank you for having me. Naura mcinnernie is an author
and podcaster. Her two podcasts are It's going to Be
Okay and Refamulating.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That's it for today's show.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Tomorrow on the show, figure skating icon and ambassador Michelle
Kwan is here talking all about pivots and second acts.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Subscribe and listen to the bright Side on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever else you get your podcasts. I'm Simone
Boye and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok
at Simone Voice.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
You can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Danielle
Robe ro b a y.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Well, see you tomorrow, Yeah,
Hey Bam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, we're
doing things a little differently. We have a special guest
joining us for the entire show. Norah Mcinernie is an
author and the host of the Terrible Thanks For Asking podcast,
and the podcast is going to be okay. We're talking
to her a little bit later about her journey through grief,
(00:24):
but first we're getting her hot takes, and she has
a lot of them. It's Monday, May twentieth. I'm Danielle Robey.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Simon Voice and this is the right side
from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Everybody's favorite human Norah Mcinernie. Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me, for so
happy to have you, Noura, this is such a nice
way to start my day in my week.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You're bringing the bright to the bright side. I wish
everybody could see your floral shirt that Simone and I love.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
My friend Chelsea sowed it for me because she is
one of those people who has like too many and
she's simply good at everything.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Okay, I want to talk to you guys about something
I came across on Instagram that women are naming their
babies after themselves. So, before I go down this whole
rabbit hole and tell you what this article was about,
you are both mothers. How did you decide to name
your children family names?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Everybody in my family is named for a family member,
and I knew when I was pregnant that I would
just be picking leaves off the family tree. I'd be
making a selection from names of people that I already
knew and loved.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I wish I had this really deep story for how
I named my two boys, Logan and Keenan. But we
literally just found them on lists and we're like, great,
we love it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I think that's good too. And also when I
was younger, though, I have a diary entry where I said,
in like middle school or something like that, if I
have a girl, I'm naming her Nora.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Wait, this is what we need to talk about, Nora,
because more women are doing this. There's tons of men
that we know in American culture, yes, that name their
babies after themselves.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
They're called juniors.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So like when I think of lebron James, he goes
by Bronnie, but he's a junior. I understand why he
wanted to change his name to not be Lebron James Junior. Yeah, literally,
big shoes to Phil. But it's sort of this patrilineal trend,
and now women are turning it on its head and
they're naming their daughters after themselves.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I also love names that are like Lori or Rory
or why my only naming rhyming names, you know, Like
I knew a boy named Carrie and I was like,
I'm in love with you. That's the hottest name.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Like a gender bending name, you like, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I love.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I met a girl named Michael once and I was like,
I want to be you. When I was named Nora,
it was like a gross old lady name, and I
wanted to be like a Danielle is very elegant. I
wanted to be like a Christen a Stacy, which was
really a popular girl name if you read The Babysitters Club.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh my god, I was obsessed with Stacy's also Stacy's mom.
That was such a banger when that came out.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I know, so I am here for it. I love
a woman naming her baby after herself.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I honestly can't say that I know a woman who
has done it.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Only Loralai Gilmore.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
True, and that was also very inspiring. I did know
this group of girls. They were all sisters that went
to my school. So imagine like five sisters and they're
all really cool, and they all had the same middle name,
and their middle name was their mom's first name. And
I thought that was cool too.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So I like that actually because I like a meaningful
middle name. The first name to me feels tough because
I think kids may feel like they have to.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Live up to that parent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
If your mom is Katie Curic, like tough to have
a Katie junior.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah. Yeah, but I don't think the men think about this.
The male name that was passed down in my dad's
family was Sheldon. There were a lot of and I
don't think that anyone ever thought about filling their father's
shoes or what the consequences would be if you name
them that. I wonder if that's an inherently female or
motherly thing that we're putting on it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, it feels like a point of pride. One thing
I always wondered about was when you're the junior but
you have other siblings, do they feel any kind of
way about it? Like do they feel left out or
less important because they weren't named after their parent.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
But you were Wait, that's such a good point.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I wonder if they feel like the favorite.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
I think I would a little.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh yeah, I would too. Wait, I want to get
y'all's thoughts on the most popular baby names of twenty
twenty three. So for girls it was Olivia, Emma, Charlotte, Amelia,
and Sophia. And then for boys they were Liam, Noah, Oliver, James,
and Elijah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Elijah feels like a sleeper hit, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It's like slightly biblical in origin and yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
But for Emma and Sophia to still be hanging on
is really impressive to me.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Well, I have a.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Theory about Emma. So Rachel and Ross in friends named
their daughter Emma, and it reverberated around the world. I
think we're still in a generation of millennial women naming
their daughters after that baby.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's true. Millennial women do love a pop culture reference
when they name their kids.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Aiden is a popular boy name, and that was because
of sex and the city. I remember my neighbors growing
up named their kid Aiden, and the mom took him
to class and she was like, oh my god, there's
seven Aiden's in his class.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Notably not on this list, Karen. Why do some names
just sound older, they sound vintage, like a Carol, A Debora.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think it's cyclical, though those names come back around.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think they will come back around. But I really
think that if you want to name your child the
most subversive name possible, you want them to be the
only one in their class. You go back to when
you were growing up and what the most popular names were,
and you name your kid that you give birth to
a Jennifer or a Jessica May twentieth, twenty twenty four,
(06:13):
She's going to be the only one in her class,
I guarantee you. And she's going to turn twenty and
people are going to be like, ooh, Jessica Wow. I
just like, never hear that, Jessica, Jessica wow wow.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You know it's just soak, it's so unique.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It's like where did your mom get that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Okay, so I have to run something else by you
that I saw on my algorithm. There's this thing called
ephemeral tattoos. Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay, so Nora you've heard of it. For anybody who
hasn't heard of this, it is a made to fade
inc it's by this company and that's their name, Ephemeral Tattoos,
and they promise that your tattoos will fade within one
to three years. And I saw someone getting one of
these tattoos, and I don't have any tattoos because I've
(07:00):
been really scared of the permanence of it all. But
now I'm like, I don't know, I could tattoo my
next era on my arm or something that sounds kind
of fun. Nora, do you have tattoos?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I have a lot of tattoos. I got one halfway
lasered off before it was too painful, and I was like, ah,
we'll leave it. And that was obviously my first worst
tattoo that I got from a man who was probably drunk,
unlicensed in Brooklyn. I certainly was not at my best
psychologically or otherwise when I got it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It was bad. Oh my gosh, Nora, I mean, I
have to know what it was. Are you able to share?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It's not like it's inappropriate, it's just so it's every okay.
This was the tattoo of every bartender, server, singer, songwriter
in Brooklyn from the year's two thousand and seven to
probably twenty fourteen, and then.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I guess, yes, okay, I have three guesses. The first
one does count okay, and I won't look at you A.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Butterfly, a dolphin, a music note.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And my fourth guess, oh.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, phoenix, Okay, you're so close it was.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And once I say this, you're going to time travel
back in time and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Silhouettes of birds in flight? Ah, yes, a classic birds
in flight up my back, like around my ribs, y know,
so you know, did heal properly?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Know? Did I take care of it? Also?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
No, is it the worst looking thing on my body?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Not by far, Danielle, What would you get if you
knew it would fade?
Speaker 5 (08:45):
So?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I have one very small tattoo. They call it microcatles.
It was so overpriced my mom found out and got
real set. The reason I bring this up is that
it's ephemeral by accident, because it's on my fingers.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
And I didn't know this.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
But no matter how expensive the tattoo is on your fingers,
it actually fades because your finger skin regenerates a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
So I say that, I'll just say.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I think tattoos are beautiful artistry. I've never been a
big tattoo girl. I think I'm scared so ephemerally I
would choose like a ton of tribal tattoos.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I'd be fully covered. But I don't know if I
trust that it actually works. Does it fade?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So here's the thing. I'm glad you brought that up,
because there was this whole controversy with this company. Initially
they promised that it would fade around fifteen months, and
then people were like, uh, my tattoo isn't exactly fading
in the timeframe that you promised me. So that's when
they expanded the timeframe to one to three years. I
mean that makes me a little nervous. I would need
(09:47):
a guarantee, Okay, I would need a refine guarantee that
it is going to fade. Yes, well, Nura, it's been
so fun having you around for our morning drip, and
Noura is sticky around to talk about finding joy after grief,
the dangers of comparing yourself to others, and what it's
like to make hard career decisions when you know it's
(10:09):
time for something new. That's after the break, we're back
with author and longtime podcaster Norah McInerney. I know I
speak for Danielle too when I say that we are
in awe of her journey and so blessed to have
her with us today. On the bright side, if you
(10:30):
don't know Nora's story, in twenty fourteen, she experienced three
of the most harrowing things that can happen to a person,
a pregnancy, loss, and the deaths of both her father
and her first husband, Aaron. It's the kind of devastation
that would cause most of us to give up, but
Nora did the opposite. Through her books, podcasts, and viral
(10:50):
ted talk. She leaned into the hard stuff and showed
us how to move forward in spite of it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So I want to set the stage for everyone. You're
in your twenty and you have several different jobs in
the corporate world, and you're dating, and then you meet
this guy named Eron, Yeah, and your life changed forever.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
What happened over the next three years.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I almost hate telling this story because it was the
most annoying love story that anyone could tell, which is like,
I wasn't looking, I gave up, I found him, things
were perfect, and then, in a plot twist that would
be too much even for a Grey's anatomy, episode, he
(11:35):
had a seizure at work, and the seizure was a
brain tumor, and the brain tumor was brain cancer, and
it was glioblastoma, which is the worst one, stage four.
And we were catapulted into this other world where we
needed to accept the reality that our love was not
(11:59):
going to be as long of a forever as we thought,
and also live the life that he still had, which
is a lot for a twenty seven year old who
has never been to therapy. But we got married and
we had a baby, and our third wedding anniversary was
Aaron's funeral. And when I tell this story, I can
(12:23):
hear all of your listeners being like, it's called the
bright side, It's called the bright side, What is happening?
The vibe is ruined, The vibe is ruined, And I
get it. And I also know that every single person
listening to this has something like that in their life
and in their life story, something that they feel like
is too big or ugly or awkward or horrible to
(12:47):
talk about, and so they just don't. And the reality
is that these things that we believe set us apart
from the world that make me so different, Like I'm
not like other girls. My husband died. These are the
things that make us a part of the world, that
we are all carrying something and that we're connected in
(13:07):
more than just our shared joys, but also our shared
sorrows and our shared survival.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's the thing about loss, right, Like you joked about
coming on the bright side and quote ruining the vibe,
which you could never do. But that's the thing about loss.
It's disruptive, right. And your Ted talk is one of
my favorite Ted talks of all time. Think you because
you talk about how loss is universal and it's something
that we're all going to experience. So even though you
(13:37):
experienced yours very early on and in this really immediate
and all encompassing way, it's something that we are all
going to experience too. But you made me laugh while
you were talking about grief and while you were sharing
your story, and I was like, Wow, what a superpower
she has that she's able to do this. I'm curious
(14:00):
what it's been like to grieve so visibly and so publicly,
both through your Ted talk and also through your podcast,
because you're you're normalizing grief for others as well.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, there's always going to be the part that is
just for you, you know. And I think that making
a show called Terrible Thanks for Asking, was a form
of almost like balancing the scales. And by that I
mean the weeks after Aaron died, I'm still on like
Instagram posting pictures of me like on a run. But
I'm not posting a picture of me at two am
(14:35):
in the basement desperately trying to find a CD that
Aaron mentioned, because if I can't find this CD, I've
lost a piece of him. And this CD is somehow
the most important thing in the world. And I'm going
to rip our house down to the studs if that's
what it takes. And I got so many messages from women,
mostly who had gone through something hard and would say like, oh,
(14:57):
I wish I was doing better. I wish I was
doing like you, and I would think, what, I'm actually
really not thriving. And I had a really hard time
admitting that. I had a hard time admitting it to
myself to the people around me, because we do like
a winner. We like when somebody can just immediately alchemize
their suffering into a self improvement project and come out
(15:19):
of it better. And I wanted that post traumatic growth,
and I wanted it immediately, and unfortunately it is not
that easy, Like you actually do have to grieve, and
the grieving that I did writing and the grieving that
I did making the podcast was helpful, but a lot
of it has to be private and is not Instagram
(15:41):
friendly and is really ugly and best done under the
supervision of a qualified therapist.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
You're so quick to point out the deep and painful
duality in your life. You don't shy away from the
messy truth. I'm curious you're almost ten years from that moment. Yeah,
what are the messy truths that you're learning to face now.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That it is okay to love what you have and
miss what you had. I don't know. I still need
to be reminded that my past is present and that
that's okay. I was really afraid after Aaron died that
I would lose every bit of him, and now I
(16:24):
know that that's impossible, Like I could never lose lose,
lose him. He is everywhere, and so is that love.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Nora. I want to circle back to something that you
said about how we feel this pressure to alchemize or
suffering into life lessons right away and when you said
that it made me think about us and our show,
because it's something that we talk about all the time.
Danielle and I are always searching for the bright side.
We're always looking for life lessons. Yeah, but you're someone
who has so much wisdom to share on this and
(16:54):
you've walked through it. So what is the alternative? What
should we be doing in stead of that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I think that this is another thing that I feel
like I'm not a bummer generally, Like I strongly believe
that you can have sadness in your story, and that
does not make you a sad story. You are not
the sad things or the bad things that happened to you,
Like you are more than all of that. And we
did find so much brightness in this experience, Like the
(17:25):
moments of brightness shined harder than they would at any
other point. I think when the lights are all shut
off someone striking a match of any kind, it feels
like you've never seen light before. And I had so
many moments like that. The part where it turned unhealthy
for me was when I wanted to only see the
(17:48):
good stuff at the denial of the pain, which just
needs to be felt, like there is no way to
fast forward through that. And that is something that's important
for me to show my kids too, not that they
just have to immediately get up and dust themselves off,
but like they can feel the pain without ignoring the
(18:10):
joy around them.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Okay, we have to take a quick little break, but
we'll be right back with author and podcaster Norah Mcinernie.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
And we're back with Norah Mcinernie.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
You're making me think of something that I read in
your book Bad Vibes Only you say that you're highly
suspect of this era of personal development and influencers and
like self help gurus.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And I was giggling because I love self help.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But I as I was reading that, I was thinking,
like that is my version, right, Like when I don't
know what to do, I turned to Oprah's book What
I Know for Sure, and it's like it's an anthology,
and I flipped to a chapter when you were in
the thick of it?
Speaker 4 (19:02):
How did you nurture yourself poorly?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So badly? I did not take good care of myself.
I drank a lot, I did not sleep, I lied
and told everybody I was fine when I wasn't. And
it took me a really long time to even go
to therapy, and a part of that was I had
never really been. It seemed impossible for me to find
a therapist, call them, make an appointment, go to it,
(19:28):
talk to them, and then continue. That cycle was so
overwhelming for me.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I feel like I don't really know how to be
a good friend whenever someone is going through grief. I
think there have been times when I've done an okay job.
There's times when I've failed miserably and I just didn't
know what to say or do. So I kind of
pulled back, Yeah, what does it look like to be
a good friend and walk alongside someone who's experiencing loss.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
That's normal and it's not too late even now. I
he also was bad at it. One of my friends
lost his dad. We were in our early twenties, and
I did all the things that I was taught to do.
I went to the wake, go into the funeral. I
maybe cooked a hot dish, I wrote a card, done,
and then I never asked about his dad ever again. Ever.
In fact, I didn't even talk about my own dad.
I was like, we just won't talk about dads. You
(20:18):
won't ever be sad about it. Great, and when my
dad died. I called him right away and I was like,
I can't believe I never asked you about your dad.
Oh my god, I can't believe you're walking around this
world without a dad. It's the weirdest thing in the world.
You cannot overestimate the power of just showing up and
shutting up. You don't have to know what to say,
just showing up and being like, I'm sorry, I don't
know what to say, but I'm here. Don't ask what
(20:41):
can I do that gives that person a job, But
just do a thing and risk them not appreciating it.
I had a friend who texted me and was like,
I'm at Costco and I'm buying you butter milk, paper towels,
and I'm gonna leave it on your backstep. You don't
have to open the door, so I didn't have to
say yes or now, you know, because I would have
said no, even though I probably had nothing in my
(21:03):
fridge at the time. And she kept doing that, and
she sat with me and allowed me to just exist.
And I still think about that, like she just did
a thing, just a thing that she could do, and
that she did do.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
There's such an underestimation of being a witness to somebody's pain. Yeah,
you know you're remarried to your husband, Matthew. Yeah, And
I love the serendipity of how you met.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Will you share that story with people?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, I gotta say I never would have met him
on a nap because I just simply would have not
swiped right on a five eleven divorced dad of like
a teen and a tween. I would have been like, no,
thank you, no, no no. But I was in the
backyard of my friend Moe, who is also a widow,
(21:54):
and we were burning things, you know, phils from our husband,
explanation of benefits from an insurance companies, just burning that
kind of stuff in the backyard and her back gate opened.
It's like fifty weeks after Aaron has died. I'm so
stressed out. I can't even turn my head, Like my
neck has just totally locked up. And now there's this
(22:16):
guy in the backyard and I'm like great, And he
sat down. She had those plastic ad her on deck
chairs from like Ace hardware, and it just like flipped
backwards and his feet like went through the air. He
had a glass of wine which was just like an
arc of wine. And I laughed so hard I had
not laughed in like a year. And he went inside,
(22:37):
got cleaned up, came out, and then he just listened
to me in mo talk for like three hours about
our feelings, and he just nodded and listened. And then
finally I was like, what's your deal. I didn't think like, oh,
I'm going to fall in love again. I wanted to
be around him, but I didn't know why. And now
I'm around him all the time.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So I love that story.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, you have another podcast that you're behind the scenes
on called Refamulating. So what does refamulating mean and what
are the rules of refamulating.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Refamulating is the process of rebuilding or redefining what family
means to you. So the rules are basically that there
are no rules. There was a Pew research study that
I think came out in twenty fifteen that said that
(23:29):
there's no longer a dominant family structure in the US.
So when I was growing up, it was two parents,
a mom and a dad, two and a half kids,
a dog, and now it could be anything. This is
the first time in history that there is no average family.
And so the family that you have that you think
(23:52):
is like so weird. In my case, a divorce, a
and a widow getting married, blending two and one and
then a little runt to round it out to four.
That felt so unusual, not something I would have ever
imagined for myself because I grew up in a Catholic
(24:12):
community where I don't think any of my friend's parents
were divorced, and so refamulating. The show is about celebrating
the many ways that people can create or define or
redefine their family. So it's featuring real stories of real families.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think that's so important to see. Well as if
you needed just another job, we're going to throw one
more in there. You're also working on a new podcast,
It's going to Be Okay. I started working on It's
going to Be Okay just as a personal project. Twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty two were really difficult, like
(24:51):
really really dark times for me.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed by everything all the time.
I truly just felt nothing and everything and like I
was just engaging with the world through like a wall
of glass brick from the nineties, And my therapist asked
me to write down something okay about your day, just
like write down doesn't have to be the best thing.
(25:17):
You don't have to be looking for, you know, gold
every day, but like find a shiny penny somewhere. And
I started doing it and it worked.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It really did.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Attune me more to the okay things I think sometimes
I get into black and white all are nothing, thinking
pretty easily like, well, things are good or they're bad,
and mostly they're just kind of okay.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Would you give it a percentage?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Eighty percent of my days are average and forgettable, I really,
you know, like and then and then ten percent are
wonderful and ten percent are like awful, and most of
them are just nothing horrible happened, right, nothing great happened,
like that was an okay day. And I started writing
them as like little scenes more than anything else. And
I thought, Okay, let's just start a daily podcast that's
(26:06):
five minutes long where we just explore the okay things
in life, and we'll just do it for thirty days.
And then we did it for thirty more and now
it's been a year of okay things and our first
episode Aaron's prayer card for his funeral, who wasn't religious.
So I had my friend Chelsea Brink design it, and
(26:29):
it was the sentence that he said to me all
the time before he got sick, When he was sick,
when he was literally dying, he would say, it's going
to be okay. And I would say, in my head,
you're wrong and dying and also on morphine, like what
are you talking about? Like you're about to die, it's
not going to be okay. But he didn't say everything
(26:50):
would be okay, did he. He said it, and he
did not specify what it was. So it could be
the fact that there is a hum bird right outside
my window, humming along, hanging out, and that could be enough,
you know, that could be enough for today.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I really love the pod.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I didn't know it was named after a saying that
he always said, so it's even more meaningful.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, you've been making terrible things for asking for seven years,
and you just recently announced this March that you're gonna
go on hiatus. I don't want to put words in
your mouth, so I'm not calling it hiatus. I just
love the idea of quitting things. I think quitting things
is so underrated.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I think so too, So I want to.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Hear about your choice to step away for now.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, you know, when I started making it in twenty sixteen,
I started working on this not thinking, oh, this will
be my career. I thought, this will be ten episodes
of a podcast that I make and then do something else.
And because of being in the right place at the
right time when there were only ten thousand pods and
(28:00):
not ten million podcasts, and I guess making something that
resonated at the right moment, it turned into something that
I wasn't expecting, something amazing, something wonderful. I get to
go on tours and do these beautiful live shows for years,
and I got to meet people that I would have
(28:21):
never met, like all these amazing people who are just
walking amongst us carrying some big, incredible story, and I
got to tell their story to millions of people. And
first of all, it's the longest I've ever held a job. Second,
you know, like it's a lot to really put yourself
in the path of so much pain for so long.
(28:42):
I reported on and did an episode once on secondary trauma,
not thinking could I be experiencing this. I don't know
how many times you have to google like burnout, Do
I have it? Before you realize yes. And one of
the symptoms is googling burnout Do I have it? So yeah.
I talked to the whole team and I said, who
else is really tired? Like, who else is really tired?
(29:04):
And who would feel relieved if we weren't on this
constant churn of creating beautiful, meaningful and hard to tell stories.
And everyone raised their hand and I was like, we
have to hit the boss button. We have to find
a way to make our jobs sustainable financially end emotionally.
(29:28):
It's one thing to burn your own candle at two
ends and also in the middle a third location that
you didn't know a candle could be lit at. But
it's another thing to bring other people into that with you.
So once I said it out loud, it was pretty obvious.
You know, It's pretty obvious we all need some space
to just exist and feel things and see what else
(29:53):
comes from the quiet.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well, now that you have some quiet, and now that
you are in fighting joy and okayness into your life
through your other podcast, what does the bright side look
like for you? Now?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
The bright side is presence, like actually being places and
not being so worried about what ball I am dropping
or where I'm supposed to be next, or what I'm
supposed to be doing next or the next thing I
could be doing. The bright side is truly just stillness,
(30:30):
and that's a really unnatural way for me to exist
as a child who is described by her mother as industrious,
you know, not like sweet or like cute, industrious, like
a worker.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, go visit.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Your Grandpa's gonna have you moving a pile of bricks. Like,
I'm not used to just existing. Obviously I'm working, right,
I'm working, but I'm just not like when I tuk
my kids in their hamsters wake up because hamsters are nocturnal,
a great pet for children, And I'll be laying in
bed with a kid reading a story and the hamsters
literally wake up and like turn on and leap onto
(31:07):
a wheel and start running. And I would look at
them and be like, oh, that's me, baby, like just
they're not even going anywhere, They're just like then they
jump off like drink some water, and then they're back
on that wheel, and I was like, oh my god,
that's me.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I am that.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Hamster, big hamster energy, big hamster energy. Okay, like bag,
oh god. So now I'm trying to be whatever. What's
the opposite of a hamster koala maybe.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, that's an animal that's just purely runs on vibes.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Eucalyptus and vibes. That's all they need to be happy.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah. The bright side for me is knowing that I
actually don't have to wake up and leap onto a
hamster wheel, Like I could just ride the hamster wheel,
because so much is happening that I could miss out
on simply by not being present for last week are old.
This kid graduated from college, like is an adult in
(32:03):
the world. Now we've got a kid who's about to
start college. And now we have a kid who's like
an adult, and he got into a graduate school program.
And now I am counseling an adult on how to
take on student loan debt.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I have to be honest, Nora, before you mentioned your
son's college debt, I was sort of thinking you sounded
like a self help guru.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
You were sounding very inspirational. But the debt is kind
of a downer.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
The debt's kind of a downer. Yeah, But you know what,
it's wild to me that that happened in ten years, Like,
in ten years, we went from having this weird little
like blending family and me being like, Okay, what are
fourteen year.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Old boys like?
Speaker 5 (32:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I don't know, Like what's their deal? And so much
has happened in ten years. We have a kid now
who's joining college, a kid who's graduating high school, we're
going to have a middle schooler, We're going to have
a second grader. And I'm also trying to make choices
for the version of me that exists ten years from now.
I'm trying to actually imagine her, because I couldn't picture
(33:16):
her ten years ago. I couldn't picture this version of me,
And so I'm trying to make choices that make future
Nora's life calmer and more peaceful and more sustainable.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
What do you think Erin would think about this version
of Nora.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
I still have conversations with him. I can still hear
when I am being irrational. Erin was very chill. When
I am not chill, I can feel him being like, stop,
this is not the thing to worry about. But I
think you'd be so happy, And I think I don't know,
it feels like he is a part of it. But
(33:53):
I think you'd be really, really proud. I think you'd
be really proud of us.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I feel like It's going to be Okay, so too, Nurah.
Thank you for sharing your time with us on the
bright Side.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Thank you for having me. Naura mcinnernie is an author
and podcaster. Her two podcasts are It's going to Be
Okay and Refamulating.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That's it for today's show.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Tomorrow on the show, figure skating icon and ambassador Michelle
Kwan is here talking all about pivots and second acts.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Subscribe and listen to the bright Side on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever else you get your podcasts. I'm Simone
Boye and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok
at Simone Voice.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
You can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Danielle
Robe ro b a y.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Well, see you tomorrow, Yeah,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.