.png)
Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
Grief, Love, and Self-Discovery // Sarah Gormley's "The Order of Things"
What shapes who we become? Is it the milestones we achieve, the people we love, or the pain we endure?
Sarah Gormley's "The Order of Things: A Memoir of Chasing Joy" offers no simple answers, but instead invites us into the beautiful messiness of one woman's journey toward self-acceptance and self-love.
When Sarah returns to her family farm to care for her dying mother, she's at a crossroads. She’s burnt out from a corporate career that never fulfilled her and haunted by a relentless inner voice telling her she's worthless despite her external success. What unfolds is far from the typical grief memoir. Between caring for her mother as she dies, Sarah unexpectedly falls in love with her brother's childhood friend, Camillus, and begins dismantling the protective walls she's built around herself.
The book's non-linear format mirrors life's unpredictable nature. It jumps between Sarah's childhood memories, therapy sessions with the insightful (and amazing!!) David, raw moments at her mother's bedside, and all the ways Sarah's life is still expanding. We witness her unraveling the origins of her perfectionism and my friend, Colleen, and I discuss our own personal parallels to Sarah’s journey. We chat about our core beliefs, finding and accepting love, and more.
Through grief, love, and persistent self-examination, Sarah eventually learns to silence her inner critic and open herself to joy—not because she's earned it through achievement, but because she finally recognizes she deserves it simply by existing.
Ready to reconsider your own timeline and the voices you've allowed to define your worth? Dive into this transformative memoir that reminds us all that the most meaningful journeys rarely follow the order we expect.
Content advisory: we do discuss Sarah's eating disorder
Support the show:
On Patreon
Buy us a book
Buy cute merch
Have you read “The Order of Things"? Share your thoughts with us! Connect with us @babesinbooklandpod or email babesinbooklandpodcast@gmail.com.
If you leave a kind review, I might read it at top of show!
Buy “The Order of Things” by Sarah Gormley
https://sarahgormleygallery.com/
Support two wonderful organizations aimed to help women:
kherut.org
tostan.org
Learn more about Richard Rohr
Transcripts are available through Apple’s podcast app—they may not be perfect, but relying on them allows me to dedicate more time to the show! If you’re interested in being a transcript angel, let me know.
This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
Technical editing by Brianna Picone
Theme song by Devin Kennedy
Special thanks to my dear friend, Colleen. You are our happy monster. Xx, Alex
Hi and welcome to Babes in Bookland. I'm your host, alex Franca, and today my friend Colleen is with me to discuss Sarah Gormley's the Order of Things, a memoir about chasing joy. But before we get to it, here's a review from rbrookmead on Apple Podcasts. I typically don't listen to many podcasts, but I am really enjoying this one. Have put several books on my TBR list already. All right, brooke, get ready to add another one, because here we go. Hi Colleen, hi Alex, thank you so much for coming today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to be here. Yes, okay, so tell me, what did you think about the Order of Things?
Speaker 2:Well, I personally loved it. So, first I read it and then I actually listened to it.
Speaker 1:Does Sarah narrate herself?
Speaker 2:No, okay, no, she doesn't, I don't remember the name of the narrator, but I liked the style. We're not that far I'm 58 right now and I just felt like I resonated with her a lot. I felt like I was sitting with her having a glass of wine, so it was nice. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Yay, very good. I really liked how varied the chapters were. Some were long, some were short, there were lists, there was poetry, there's even a false ending, which was a first for me in a memoir. Her memoir, like life, like grief, like understanding, isn't linear, it jumps around a bit. You can feel her figuring some things out as you read along and it's very raw and vulnerable. In that sense, I like art that pushes expectations and boundaries. I think Sarah does accomplish what she set out to do tell her story in a really moving way. You ready to get into it? I'm ready, okay. So Sarah's book was published in 2024. And this is her dedication for mom.
Speaker 1:So we start every episode with quick topics. So Sarah went viral. For her, martha Stewart fired me cookies after 38 batches and a little sea salt, which is really the trick. I think she felt she nailed the perfect chocolate chip cookie. We baked some today and I attempted to do a little Instagram cooking show. It's in my reels on Babes in Bookland podcast, if anybody wants to check it out. Do you want to eat one? Why not? Okay, and you're going to try one right now. Live on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, the pressure.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I want to Okay Ready.
Speaker 2:The salt it makes it. Yeah, it's perfect. It's probably the best cookie I've ever had. I mean thank you.
Speaker 1:I was really unsure. I thought, okay, this woman went viral for these chocolate chip cookies. Everybody thinks that their chocolate chip cookies are the best chocolate chip cookies these really like truly they really are.
Speaker 2:It's got that chewy center, that salt. I mean, if a cookie doesn't have salt on it or in it, I'll actually sprinkle it on top.
Speaker 1:So the salt is the deal dude. So, Colleen, you work in the dessert world. Tell us a little bit about what you do, and then what's the craziest flavor combination you've come across? Either that worked or didn't.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, involved in my business is we make a lot of gelato, we train people how to open up their own gelaterias, et cetera, et cetera. In the United States we bring equipment over from Italy, but that's boring.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's fascinating and delicious, but sure.
Speaker 2:And we do add salt to some of our gelato recipes, by the way, and yes, it does add some kick, but the craziest flavor we ever made was menudo gelato. And for those of you who do not know what that is. It's a traditional Mexican soup made out of the cow's stomach.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:What? And we garnished it with tripe. What?
Speaker 1:Why, why?
Speaker 2:We had a lovely couple in, we were talking to them, they were up, I can't remember, somewhere in Northern California and they came in to see us and they had a really amazing traditional Mexican restaurant. They just made everything the authentic way. And Tom, my husband, is very creative and we've been doing this about 30 years and we're quite bored with traditional flavors. So he thought you know, I'm going to drink, I'm going to give this a shot. And he did and it came out pretty darn good.
Speaker 1:Walk me through it. Did he take the finished soup product?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then just immersion blend, okay. And then it's all about balancing the recipe. And, believe me, if you have an open mind, you can make gelato out of the craziest ingredients. I just told you one of them. Wow, now would you put it in a gelateria and serve it to your customers? Probably not, but it was a fun experiment.
Speaker 1:It would bring people in. I feel like if you had wacky flavors like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a lot of businesses that kind of do that. They thrive on the wacky flavors. We don't necessarily train people to do so, but that is the craziest flavor we ever made. Okay.
Speaker 1:That's cool, and I didn't know that story because I never knew to ask you this question.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that story because I never knew to ask you this question Exactly.
Speaker 1:I love that. Okay, next quick topic. So in this article that I shared with you, sarah says that she paid $4,000 for a matchmaking service that didn't work. She writes I paid a shit ton of money to learn that you can't force attraction through a set of criteria.
Speaker 1:And looking back, I can see why I made my lists. I wanted what I thought love was going to do for me. I can see why I made my lists. I wanted what I thought love was going to do for me. I was trying to fix myself by outsourcing what I needed to do on my own to somebody else, which I think is just so self-aware and self-reflective. I love that. So Sarah writes a list of all the things she wants in a partner fresh out of college. Then he comes along and while he checks all the boxes, he also sleeps with one of her friends. So not good. Okay, colleen, I definitely was guilty of kind of making a list. I blame the movie Practical Magic, cassandra Bullock, as, like the young girl, makes the list of the perfect man because she can't fall in love with him. Do you know that movie?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Okay, basically, the women in her family are cursed Anybody that they love dies a horrible death. So she's like I'm going to create this man who's going to be my true love, but he won't exist because he has one green eye and one blue eye and all these things right, and then he comes into town. Okay, I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but because of that movie and just you know, being a young girl and I think it was a thing that we all did we all made lists of what we thought our future partner should be or would be. Did you ever do that? Never.
Speaker 2:You're like, um no, I'm just being honest, I never did that. I never did that. I was also never the little girl that wrote my name and my future husband's last name or anything like that, or dreamed of even a wedding per se. I just don't remember doing that.
Speaker 1:I blame 90s rom-coms for my entire generation doing that.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. I blame them too.
Speaker 1:But do you feel like your husband? Did he surprise you in any way when you met him and you were like, wow, I didn't see that coming?
Speaker 2:I think that's a great question, because was he what I was looking for? Yes, he was what I was looking for, but I didn't know it until I met him. And that's just the bottom line. Once you meet the one, all of a sudden all the boxes are just checked. It's just you go oh, that's what I was missing, so that's what happened with me. So in a way, the list was complete. She finds love a little later in life. That's part of her.
Speaker 1:you know the order of things maybe not being the order of what she felt it should be, but she's also kind of figuring out who she is and that's when she feels she's ready and able to accept this love that she finally deserves. Last quick topic Sarah starts her memoir off with this Mary Oliver poem, and this poem seems to be floating around everywhere these days, so I wanted to share it. It's called Don't Hesitate. If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate, give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise and not very often kind, and much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything but very likely. You notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. I love Mary.
Speaker 2:Oliver.
Speaker 1:By the way, I have her book Devotions so beautiful. What does this poem make you feel?
Speaker 2:Well, it's just about living in the now and making the most of every moment. I loved that the book started off with a Mary Oliver poem. By the way, one of my favorite quotes from her is what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And my favorite spiritual teacher, richard Rohr, often references her. So beginning the book with a Mary Oliver poem was promising to me.
Speaker 1:All right, well, let's dive deeper. So to me, sarah's memoir is about the intersection she experiences in her life the death of her mother and the acceptance of loving herself. Or, as she puts it, quote liking myself and the way I show up in the world. She writes I'd started therapy which slowly helped me understand my attachment to success, but mom's cancer provided the shock of perspective on how badly I wanted to change my life. And yeah, it's interesting sometimes how it happens like that, like you don't even realize you're going through the motions until something forces you to stop and look and reflect and you know. Fortunately Sarah was in a place financially kind of where she could do that. Not everybody even has that privilege to be able to go back home and spend those last moments with their mother. Now that thought occurred to me how lucky she was that she could do that. Not everybody even has that privilege to be able to go back home and spend those last moments with their mother.
Speaker 2:Now that thought occurred to me how lucky she was that she could do that.
Speaker 1:So she starts the memoir with the line I was 29 years old and desperately wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. She writes about how she had turned to books fiction and nonfiction alike to feel seen, understood, examined, and it didn't work. She writes I felt let down when I couldn't find the answer I was searching for. I didn't feel the aches of sadness and despair that people suffering from depression experienced. I could see and appreciate the splendid tapestry of the world around me, even at my worst, and yet I was mired in thick and unrelenting self-loathing that accompanied me through every step of my day, no matter what I accomplished externally. I couldn't quell the voice that told me over and over that I was a failure, an absolute piece of shit who wasn't good enough. While I personally don't think that my negative, critical voice was ever as strong or as bad as Sarah's because that sounds really intense I definitely have had many, many moments where I haven't felt good enough. What about you? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Many times. But I agree with you. I mean, my inner voice wasn't as critical as hers. It didn't out and out call me a piece of shit. Yeah, but it alluded to it many times, sure, you know. She's just very raw and honest about how she felt about herself so sarah tries therapy when she's younger to squash this voice.
Speaker 1:She is, as she's writing the memoir, currently in therapy, but she tries it much younger and she writes. The therapist looked at me when I entered his office and said you're thin and attractive. What could be bothering you, infuriating? Which, like what the fuck.
Speaker 2:That's a reminder right there that therapists are people too, unfortunately. I'm sorry, but to think that you're just going to be so vulnerable with someone who just might not have the best training or just isn't that good at it it's like a doctor that's just not that good at it you just don't want to find that doctor.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a part of you that thinks oh, they went through all this schooling. They must be great, yeah, but at the end of the day, they just have to pass tests.
Speaker 2:They don't have to necessarily. Let me tell you something the older you get, the more you will demand for that professional to be professional. When I was young, I wouldn't have had the nerve to stand up to the doctor, and if your gut says something's wrong, then it is. So listen to your gut. There's a reason why it's called a gut feeling. She's speaking to you, so that was really. Yeah, you're thin and attractive. What could be bothering you, please?
Speaker 1:Sarah writes that she's writing her memoir, to quote, show me that I wasn't alone, a woman who appeared to have it all together but was suffering beneath the surface. I wrote this book largely to understand what happened to me, but I also wrote this book for the younger version of me, the one looking for all the answers. So, as I mentioned before, sarah's memoir isn't exactly a linear, chronological memoir, which was fine. It was easy enough for me to follow. I know some people like really get stressed about that. It doesn't bother me, I like it when they jump back and forth.
Speaker 1:I know I am going to try to make it as linear as possible for the podcast, but you know we'll jump around a little bit here and there too. I wanted to share this quote how do we become who we are? In what order? There's an order of time, chronology and calendars and what happened, but there's also the order of magnitude what happened that made a difference, and how one moment matters more than four years. I'm learning that the order changes continuously, which makes it hard to tell a neat and tidy story. Who truly knows what things are casual versus merely correlated when it all comes to our identities? What if the thing you think mattered most isn't what mattered at all? Oh, I know it's so good it's so good.
Speaker 2:I just feel like growing up hopefully means coming to this conclusion. It's really interesting to learn about our egos and our false selves and how much those parts of us are steering the ship. But the sooner we can let it all go, the happier we'll be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the more that you do realize that truly, when it comes down to it, life is about connections and love and time spent with people that you love and with yourself in a loving way. And I think Sarah's big battle that she also struggles with and she kind of comes to the conclusion about is what does success mean to me? Right right, is it financial success? Is it the titles? Is it? You know the level of the floor that my office is on?
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:Or is it something else? Yeah, which is something that I've personally struggled with too, so I love that part.
Speaker 2:It's fair.
Speaker 1:So Sarah does eventually go back to therapy and she finds a great therapist Yay. She writes therapy changed my life period. And she credits her current life, writing the memoir and beyond, to the work she did in therapy. Her therapist is David, but it wasn't easy getting back into it after her disastrous first attempt. She's afraid of what she might uncover about herself if she goes back down this road. But she's pushed to a breaking point. It's her 40th birthday and she's surrounded by friends in Nantucket and she cries all night. She writes I was crying because I couldn't take another 40 years of feeling the way I felt. I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know what caused the pain or where it came from. I just wanted to feel better and stop the running tape on a loop telling me that I was a failure. Talk to me about your therapy journey.
Speaker 2:I've been to about five different therapists in my life, all for different reasons. The catalyst was probably the death of my dad when I was 14 and the circumstances surrounding that the loss of a child and some other things. I believe in therapy and if you can find a good one, it can change your life. I resonated with Sarah. Being hesitant to try therapy after the first one was disastrous, because I too have had therapists that were just plain and simple bad at what they do. But when you're younger you don't know, or not even so much younger, it's just when you're inexperienced with the whole process, you're not self-aware enough or even, I think, courageous enough to be able to say you're not working for me.
Speaker 1:Well, you don't have nothing to compare it to, so you don't know what therapy is supposed to be like right, potentially, and so if that's your experience, then you're just kind of like I guess this is how it's supposed to go.
Speaker 2:Sure, and if you do have a bad experience with the first one, you're more inclined to stop and never start again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the unfortunate thing, because you don't feel safe and vulnerable to open up.
Speaker 2:It's not like trying to find oh my dentist was bad, so I have to find a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, sitting down with someone and being very vulnerable with them even with a friend, for heaven's sake is hard enough. But to do this in a professional setting with someone you don't really know and trust yet and again, you don't have to do that with your first therapy session by any means. You can just get to know someone and start on the journey. But it's a very sensitive thing and I feel for people who have had a bad one, like she did. So I applaud her for sticking with it and finding a new one.
Speaker 2:By the way, I need to take my own advice right now, because I just shared with you recently that I need and I want to get back into therapy. I'm not actively in therapy right now, but I've realized that I really am dying to get back into it. I'm looking forward to the process and I've come to a lot of my own conclusions on things, but I have been completely procrastinating on this whole thing, so I just need to take my own advice and get back into it.
Speaker 1:I watched a TikTok where this person suggested that you treat therapists like speed dating and that you really should, before you settle down with one, just tell yourself. I'm gonna try three or four with the consultation. So many of them offer free consultations and I think you can figure out pretty quickly what someone's vibe is. And also one thing that I've discovered in my therapy journey is there are a lot of different approaches and techniques and ways to go about therapy, that you can do your research on that beforehand. So back to Sarah.
Speaker 1:Sarah cries a lot at their first meeting. So back to Sarah. Sarah cries a lot at their first meeting and she tells him she feels like shit and that she's frustrated with herself for feeling like shit when her life is so good, which makes her feel like an even bigger shit, which we've all been there. He tells her quote I'm not here to give you answers. My expertise is to help guide you through understanding why you might be feeling a certain way, try to recognize patterns and come up with tools to help you manage some of those feelings. So listen, if a therapist says that to you in your first meeting, probably on the right road. Yeah, I know he's a jackpot therapist. I wonder if his real name is David.
Speaker 2:I wonder too.
Speaker 1:I wonder if people are going to be like trying to find him, yeah, okay. So Sarah agrees, but she has one request. She says I'm not going to blame my parents for all this. David just tells her they'll see how the next sessions go. I mean because, let's be real Parents have a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2:That's another. I mean, that's a huge subject. Yeah, there's, that's another whole podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, we will find that book and we will discuss it. We're going to find that book. I mean, we will kind of discuss it today, sure, here though too, for sure. So it's this really interesting thing, right? She loves her parents. She can acknowledge they're not perfect, but she doesn't want to lay blame on anyone, and I think the truth of it is, even if you had amazingly kind and wonderful parents growing up, there is always something, because we are shaped by what our caregivers do. Don't do, say, don't say. Even the smallest things children take in, they soak up like a sponge. I think another big thing that Sarah's memoir had me reflect on was what are the core beliefs I hold because of how I was raised, and do they serve me or do I need to rewire some things? What are the core beliefs that you think you developed from an early age because of your parents' influence.
Speaker 2:It's interesting about core beliefs, I mean, if it's what you're, the message that you're receiving right from home from day one, so to speak. I suppose my core beliefs about self was that I was expected to be fun and lovable all the time. Wow.
Speaker 2:And how did you come to that conclusion? I mean that's Because I think the studious and serious roles were already taken by the time I came along and when you come, I have two siblings, I have two older sisters who are both, you know, lovely, as you know you know them both very well. And I just feel like I was the stereotypical child, the third child who came to party. You know, I was the one that came to like shake things up. I'm pretty sure I was not planned.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure of that.
Speaker 2:Not that they would have ever told me that one way or the other way, but I also truly believe that we are who we are already from day one before any of those other external factors have a chance to set in.
Speaker 2:I really believe that. Also, my mom drummed that into our heads from day one. It was just something my sisters and I heard all of our lives that you three couldn't be more different. Yet you're all only two years apart, but you are all so different and so individual and so unique. She was really good at that, by the way, of really individualizing each and every one. At least I feel that way. Anyway, my parents were very accepting of our different personalities. I don't think I would have felt less love if I was less fun. So to speak.
Speaker 2:Okay, and by less fun I mean just not the serious one, the one that wanted to put on a show, the one that was always active. I was the one climbing up to the top of things, like with no regard for any safety. I just, and I kind of took that through my life for a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you weren't the look-for-you-leak situation.
Speaker 2:I stayed that, exactly, exactly. I had a lot of adventures that way, but I do think I gained love and acceptance that way, in the way that it shaped my core beliefs about myself.
Speaker 1:I totally agree with you. This idea of so many things about one's personality is just inherent who they are and I loved getting to know who my children were as they have gotten older and changing even more, from one to two and from six to seven. It's all fun, but it is really interesting because when I think of core beliefs, I also think of this voice that Sarah talks about inside her head, and one of her core beliefs is that she's a piece of shit, she doesn't deserve things, and so it's kind of like man. Where does that voice come from Exactly?
Speaker 2:Why did I believe that I had to be always on for people? Yeah, why was that? And I know I took that into my friendships, into personalities. Later it was all good.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I'm not. This isn't even a negative connotation, so to speak, it's just more. I remember I think probably in my late 20s I finally started going. I don't have to be on all the time for people Listen, I'm just not going to be. I remember making a conscious effort to be like I am just not going to be fun tonight at dinner or something, not that I'm always fun, please don't get me wrong here.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that Listener she is, but I'm saying it's like an actual thing that you can do to stop being a certain way Right. You have to make an effort to say, but you had to change your core belief almost.
Speaker 1:Yes, you had to kind of convince yourself, and this is Tara's journey, obviously, is convincing herself that she's not a piece of shit. But yeah, it's just. It's a question that is on my mind as someone who is trying to instill strong, positive core beliefs in my children, totally Meeting them who they are, where they are. But what I want them to walk away from their adolescence with is resiliency, confidence, grit and an understanding that they are capable, and an understanding that they are capable and to not value success in monetary terms or with titles, the way that I think Sarah somehow was taught to value success, and we'll get into it.
Speaker 1:I do think she gives us clues. I think she comes to those conclusions With therapy, with therapy, and then shares those experiences with us. Sarah writes about an experience she had growing up, a core memory that I think she shares it because she recognizes that it might have something to do with her core beliefs. She writes about being around five or six when her father became extremely frustrated with her older sister for not knowing the answer to what he felt was a really simple math problem. He yells at her, he tries to calm himself, but the damage is done. Sarah writes what I do know is that right then I figured out how simple it would be to make my parents happy, and to me she feels like she always has to know the right answers, and that equates being good.
Speaker 1:Hence her quest for being perfect. Hence her quest for being perfect, exactly. And it's hard to be a parent. I mean, I felt two ways about this, one as Sarah, the child, and as Jane, her sister. The completely unfair feeling that this brought up in me. Have patience, literally. When I read this thing you know it's hard I was like be more patient with her, like she's trying to figure it out. But also, this is just one snapshot, it's just a moment in time, unfortunately for everyone involved. A moment that had big consequences for Sarah and she learned how she needed to exist in the world, a core belief that would ripple out the rest of her life, causing intense inner turmoil. But as a parent I thought, damn, just that one moment shifted everything Again that's the pressure that I feel.
Speaker 1:And again, we don't know. She shared this one moment. There could have been many. I get the feeling that dad probably.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm thinking that too, because one moment doesn't I don't think it can.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't. Oh God, I hope so I am promising you, I really am.
Speaker 2:Otherwise, how would any of these children stand a chance? We're all human beings, as parents, it's true. No, I think children are much more resilient than that. Yeah, but I think she gives an example, a core example, of what might have been going on. She never painted her father as even close to abusive or anything like that, or even having anger issues or anything.
Speaker 2:And her mom certainly sounded extremely strong and so the father sounded lovely, but that was about the father's fear when your child can't get it, can't get it, can't get it. He was going. You know, deep down, that's always what it's about. It's about your own insecurity if you can't get it, can't get it, he was going. You know, deep down, that's always what it's about. It's about your own insecurity if you can't have the patience with the kid. But we've all lost our temper with our kids and we all look back, no matter how. You know, mine are 31 and 29. And I look back and go, oh God, I wish I never did that.
Speaker 1:You know, and yours turned out okay, all right, you fine. But yeah, it's just you know. Especially when you read a memoir like this, where this woman is going back and trying to pinpoint why she thinks the way she does, you're just like, yeah, parents, man, parents, and now I have a parent, ah, fuck no, and how he deserves his own book. But man, she remembered that moment, she chose to share it with us and so, yeah, I mean, you're right, we're all fallible, imperfect humans, and the faster we let go of perfection, the easier our life will be, the better time we'll have, yeah, and the easier for our kids.
Speaker 2:By the way, if our anxieties are all wrapped up and trying to be perfect, if you think that's not coming across to the kid too, so there's no easy answer here and the sooner we're honest that we're not perfect with our kids I think I am jumping ahead because I think I made a note about this actually, but the better off our kids are, they can relax too. They don't want to see mommy trying to be perfect. That's stressful.
Speaker 1:And I express that to them and especially my daughter because she is very similar to me. I can already see she's a little mini me and she is an elder daughter, which we all know. Now those figures carry a certain burden that people are starting to discover and I just keep telling her I'm not perfect, no one's perfect. Please don't try to be perfect.
Speaker 2:Keep that up, don't try to be perfect.
Speaker 1:Keep that up, you can't do it. I'm just going to write it on her wall and, like big markers, you are not perfect and that is okay. I love that. Do it. Sarah writes from that scene on. The thing that became most important to me was the report card, proof of how I compared to others. Although my parents didn't reward us or even express overt praise when the report cards came, I knew the grades were a measure of me and if something could be measured, I knew what success looked like. All right, colleen, what were the expectations for you growing up with the grades? So you already said you were the fun one and you weren't necessarily the studious one, by the way.
Speaker 2:I just really am uncomfortable with that. I'm going to make you all t-shirts. That is hilarious, okay.
Speaker 1:You self-labeled I was just repeating your labeling, but were you expected to also have like straight A's, you know?
Speaker 2:it's funny. I don't remember my parents sitting me down and having that talk by any Nope. Okay, no no, it was expected.
Speaker 1:It was expected Good. And then so with your kids. How did you navigate that?
Speaker 2:So same thing I wanted them to do their best. We emphasize the importance of good grades much more. That actually was a conversation we had at home in my house, but I really think we were healthy about it Because I knew that not everyone is a scholar and, hey, some of the most successful people in life didn't do fantastically well in school. So I just wanted my kids to try really hard, do their best and know that they were worthy no matter what, but they needed to give it their all. That was the emphasis.
Speaker 1:Okay. So getting back to Sarah, the desire to be perfect also triggered an eating disorder for her. She writes about how thinness fit her idea of success. She writes my decision to lose weight was entirely pragmatic. This is what the world wants and what gets rewarded. Therefore, I will be skinny. And she writes that she's really good at being anorexic Heartbreaking this section was heartbreaking for me.
Speaker 1:She writes I felt responsible, powerful and in control. I wanted to feel the pain of hunger so I could feel the pleasure of denying it. I wanted to succeed. I found comfort in the hunger and the feeling of emptiness. And she writes that no one seemed to be worried about her, even when they commented on how skinny she was, because she was just someone that you never needed to worry about. She also does write that her mother was thin, and quote what I learned and what society reinforced was that mom wasn't a beautiful woman who happened to be thin. She was a beautiful woman because she was thin. Her mother also tells her and her sister to suck in their stomachs all the time so they can look better. So it's not hard to connect the dots here on how and why Sarah felt that way about herself.
Speaker 2:I don't remember my mom ever talking about the importance of my weight, or even my physical appearance, for that matter. To her credit. So, it just wasn't a thing. Dexatrim, I think, was the name of the pills that the girls were taking in high school in my day, okay, and so it was definitely a thing, taking in high school in my day, and so it was definitely a thing, but I didn't have any friends that were bulimic or anorexic even at that time.
Speaker 1:What about for your daughter?
Speaker 2:So I'm really, actually really proud of this because I was super conscious of this raising my daughter and it came really easy to me because of the way I was raised, about my body, my being.
Speaker 2:I was raised by a feminist and big ERA supporter, so I mean there was no talking about how I was supposed to look in my body, my being I was raised by a feminist and big ERA you know supporter, so I mean there was no talking about how I was supposed to look in my jeans, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Being raised the way I was, I didn't have to unlearn any harmful patterns. I raised my daughter the way I was raised. I only focused on her being strong and healthy and never skinny, and she had a couple of friends who were definitely receiving the opposite message at home. So when they were around, I really tried to reinforce what I was trying to, you know, have my daughter learn as well and just give them that message whenever possible. It's just so important for young women to get that message early on and when mom looks at you in a disapproving way or just starts to make offhanded comments in any way, shape or form, it's heartbreaking to me. I mean I remember a couple of friends commenting about my daughter's appearance in front of their daughters, complimenting my daughter for being so small.
Speaker 2:Did you pull these women aside after and say hey, don't do that I remember talking to one of my friends who I was really really close with, and I go, I just want to make sure that there's. You know you have to be careful, though.
Speaker 2:That's a fine line, because you also don't want to embarrass or cause any kind of rift or something like that, or by any means, try and tell a friend how to parent, but yeah, you just have to be super, super careful with that. So but you know, my daughter and I talk about this to this day. She still thanks me. She also went through a ton of, especially from college, on a ton of different looks and even at one point came close to shaving her head.
Speaker 2:And every single time she did. I told her she was beautiful. I don't care, I truly don't. I just want her to be happy, healthy and secure. I really, really mean it. So, that part was easy.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting for me, because my mom was constantly dieting, constantly. She was on Metabolife. She would do the cabbage soup diet but, to her credit, she never commented on my body. I will say, though, as an adult, there have been many times in my life where I've had self-hate thoughts in my head of I need to lose five pounds, I need to lose 10 pounds, I need to. It's hard. I'm in the film industry. You get that message.
Speaker 2:For Sarah this was her thing, right. But for many others it's something else. It could be drinking, it could be anything. You name it. Insert problem. Here I'm with you.
Speaker 1:I think we just all have to go with man. Let's just start loving and accepting each other and ourselves and our bodies Back to not being perfect, all shapes and sizes Back to not being perfect Back to not being perfect.
Speaker 2:All shapes and sizes Back to not being perfect Back to not being perfect.
Speaker 1:It's the subtitle of this episode.
Speaker 2:Yes, back to not being perfect.
Speaker 1:I like that. Back to Sarah. She has an episode one evening. She feels lightheaded, her heart is racing, her hands are shaking. She was trying to write a paper, but she couldn't even think because she was full of self-hatred for being weak. Her mother just pulls her onto her lap and helps calm her. Sarah doesn't tell her what's really going on. She writes what I feared most was the possibility that by allowing my parents to see me hurt, I would in turn cause them pain, and that was unbearable to me. What I didn't know was that, from a young age, I was so focused on pleasing them that my real identity didn't have a chance to fully form. My commitment to becoming the right version of me was so strong that I actually succeeded. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:I don't know why, but it made me wonder what went on in my childhood home that shaped me.
Speaker 2:It made me wonder how because she's obsessed with not wanting her parents to see the pain and disappointing her parents.
Speaker 2:So I came up with that from a very young age I was obsessed with wanting security and order in my life. That's really what came up for me, and then possibly I didn't have a chance to fully form because so much disorder was happening. I craved it at a level and I think that that's what really set in. It wasn't all bad, don't get me wrong, but I think that shaped my unhealthy behavior patterns later on. So for her, you know, whatever stemming from seeing the disapproval in the dad, knowing that the daughter can't get the answer right, that you know it, plants a seed of I must be perfect and other things. Whatever was happening in Sarah's life For me, I have come up with, over therapy and things like that and thinking about this all these years, that the biggest thing I can pinpoint for my childhood is not having the order that a child needs in order to fully form and therefore be able to move forward with the self-worth that she should have at the early age?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and do you feel like you kind of being the not as cautious like? Rebel without a cause was almost sort of like rebelling against your desire for order, absolutely yeah. It's interesting how you don't always necessarily react in a way that you would think, because if you were to tell me I was a kid who craved order and security as a child, I would say, okay, are you super type A and were you just super introverted?
Speaker 2:Exactly, you would think that.
Speaker 1:Right, we never know what we're all dealing with, but we're all I mean.
Speaker 2:Sarah's anorexia was just her symptom, that was really all it was yes. It was a symptom. That's what I meant earlier, when we could just insert our thing here. Her thing was anorexia, but it was just a way to tangibly control the fear that she had going on in her life. I mean, I'm not a therapist, but that sounds like what was going on. So it's really, really interesting to see how each one of us, how it manifests in our life.
Speaker 1:Okay. So after telling us all of this, sarah circles back to this idea of blaming your parents, asking wasn't everyone's mom on a constant diet? Didn't everyone's parents want them to succeed? She writes what I'm trying to figure out is why I reacted to my set of circumstances the way I did. Sometimes, what you believe, our causes, are really just symptoms waiting for a cause to emerge, which is exactly what you said, and I think it's marrying these ideas that we've been talking about. Like you are who you are, we all have certain triggers. Yes, I think Sarah, in her attempt to not blame her parents, did she put too much blame on herself?
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely Was what I was wondering. I love when people take accountability. I think more people should take accountability. But sometimes we have to take into the account that, like, we are a product of nature and nurture 100%. Into the account that, like, we are a product of nature and nurture A hundred percent, okay. So her mother eventually takes her to a Dr Porter, a psychiatrist, who had actually diagnosed her mother with depression and started her on Prozac.
Speaker 1:Sarah didn't learn this until after college. That was interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. The things that I mean Sarah writes us being a child trying to protect her parents from, and then the things that our parents try to protect us from she writes. Looking back, I can see her need to tell me it was because she trusted me but also somehow wanted my approval as her friend. I wonder if she understood or felt guilty about the possibility that I might be depressed too Guilty. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that's really interesting. Yeah, okay. So we're going to go. We'll continue on when Sarah's in college. But back to high school, her mother has taken her to see this doctor because she finally is recognizing Sarah is very thin Finally. But Sarah is able just to tell the doctor no, I'm totally fine, and you know he hears what he wants to hear.
Speaker 2:That's not surprising to hear that back in that era. I know right.
Speaker 1:Oh no, you're fine, sure. And she assures him that she doesn't have an eating disorder. And that appears to be that. She writes about this character that she's created cool in control, sarah. And she reflects back on this Sarah while writing her memoir. She writes I was so good at playing her, that other me, the real me, a young woman who was sad and hurting, who had no idea why or what to do or where to turn, didn't stand a chance to develop, to grow up, to get to know herself. When you create a version of yourself and that version becomes who you are, how and when do you ever figure out who you were meant to be? She writes that she wishes her mother would have spoken with Dr Porter about her pain, because then maybe Sarah would have felt that she could too. She writes we were both in pain. We both presented versions of ourselves to the world.
Speaker 2:Also, dr Porter seems to be real quick with the meds and like not real quick about talking about things. That maybe was also the deal back then. Well, to our medical culture as well they're just. You know, slowly but surely we're getting more and more functional medicine. Doctors that are aware of talking about you from head to toe. What's going on in your life, you know, and what's your diet? Like All those things?
Speaker 1:During one of her therapy sessions with David. He asks her so you've said there's a voice inside your head. What does it sound like? She says it's just on a loop constantly criticizing her and it's exhausting. David suggests naming it quote because even if it's coming from you, it's really just a side of you. And she remembers this shit little bully from second grade named Scott Kennedy. That was so funny. Rip Scott Kennedy, if that's your real name. And David encourages her to stand up to Scott Kennedy. That was so funny. Rip Scott Kennedy, if that's your real name. And David encourages her to stand up to Scott Kennedy and basically tell him to fuck off. But Sarah can't do this. She writes I didn't know how to feel something other than what I'd been feeling for so long. She didn't feel she had the right to tell him to fuck off. And then David tells her to think about how the people that love her would describe her. Does she believe them?
Speaker 2:I thought oh, that's such a good. Do you believe people when they give you any kind of compliment?
Speaker 1:Sometimes it depends what the compliment is. It depends what kind of mood I'm in. My husband tells me I'm beautiful all the time, like without makeup on. I always roll my eyes but I'm also like thanks.
Speaker 2:And when you don't hear it, you're all excuse me, I'm like hello, don't I not look beautiful today.
Speaker 1:What's happening? So, sarah writes what I didn't know yet was that, even if you understood something intellectually, it can take years to let yourself believe it and even longer to let yourself feel it. Ain't that the truth? I feel like I'm in the intellectual place with quite a few things and then, yeah, it's almost just like anything Like. The more that you put these beliefs and these thoughts into practice, the more that you try to shut down that negative voice or try to hype up that it is a practice, and I think that that's what sometimes people maybe get disheartened about. I know I've been disheartened where it's like no, I just wanna be more confident, I just wanna be more optimistic, I just wanna wake up. And the flip has been switched and now I am and it's like no, honey, you've had X amount of years of thinking this way about yourself. It's not just going to be some magic solution, it's a practice that you have to put into practice every day for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. You can't just expect it to happen. By the way, when we say practice rightly so my first reaction is well, how do you do it? And, honestly, the thing that I've learned in growing up and continuing to grow up and we're never going to be there. We're never going to be there.
Speaker 2:That's not the point. The whole point of life is to keep growing up, is to sit and be quiet with those thoughts. It's actually to let those thoughts come and go and try not to resist them anymore. Let them wash through us, Call it meditation, call it contemplation, whatever you want to do, but otherwise we're never going to get there by saying don't think that way. Pema Chodron, one of my favorite.
Speaker 1:Buddhist nun.
Speaker 2:She tells a lovely story in one of her books about a friend who had all these bad dreams and she kept running from the monsters. Running from the monsters. And her friend said, well, what do they look like? And she said, I don't know. I'm always running from them. And she said, well, why don't you look at them? And so the next time the friend had the dream, she looked at the monsters, stopped dead in their track and turned around and looked at them and they all stopped dead in their tracks and kept jumping up and down and one looked like this and one looked like that, but they became smaller and smaller and they couldn't hurt her anymore. It's the same metaphor. It's allowing the thoughts right and not allowing them to become bigger than we are and therefore, all of a sudden, they don't control us anymore, but sitting and being quiet with these thoughts is quite something.
Speaker 1:It is and also it feels like the privilege of time Sometimes people just don't.
Speaker 2:I certainly wasn't doing that when my kids were young and I was, I don't know, in some rat race, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, Building the first half of my life. I wasn't sitting down and contemplating anything. I was going I have to pick them up three. Yeah right, let's go. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, but that's something that I've learned too is like you make time for the things that matter in life. Yeah, and it's like okay, instead of my thoughts, or I could keep watching Buffy, because she also helps me feel more like a more confident woman.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, buffy contemplation, buffy contemplation.
Speaker 1:Maybe a little bit of both, but honestly, these memoirs do that for me so many times, sure, so many times, so I feel really lucky. If I could turn this into a career, that would be golden, okay. So back to Sarah. Everybody like, yeah, exactly, please, like and subscribe, please. So she's around 44 and her father dies, and then the next year she's 45 and she and her family are told that there are tumors up and down her mother's spine. Sarah writes somehow we all made it through losing dad and we felt like a team, always with mom at the center. Dad died just last year and part of the gut punch of potentially losing mom was the cruel timeline Without mom to ground us. How would we ever be a family again? How would we even know what to do? Was it a shift when you lost your mother?
Speaker 2:It was a shift. When I lost my mother, we were completely blindsided and she was seemingly healthy, literally died out of nowhere. I mean, she didn't show up to work and she was found in her kitchen, passed away. So it was. I had talked to her two days before that and so there was no taking care of her. We didn't even see her sick. Just polar opposite. I mean, we saw so much with my dad's illness I mean more than a child should ever see.
Speaker 2:And then with my mother, she was the matriarch of the family and she was still working a very important job Her of the family and she was still working a very important job. Her life was so full. I mean we had to just go through a huge emotional and logistical process to unravel her huge life. So in some ways I always knew we weren't going to end up taking care of her, though I can't explain that.
Speaker 2:But her will was so strong to not be dependent on anyone ever in her life which I kid you not that it is a podcast in and of itself Her life was so fascinating and why her independence was so at the core of who she was. But I almost feel like she willed herself to die when she knew something started to happen. She knew we figured things out much later, but she knew something was going on. She'd fallen a few times and I won't go on too much longer but the bottom line is the shift when my mom died just could not have been more different than when my dad died. I was 49 when my mom died, so I had my own life going, obviously, but I'm still learning to shift my life without her because there was absolutely no preparation and there was too much.
Speaker 2:well, a different kind of preparation with dad.
Speaker 1:Back to Sarah's story. She writes about arriving at her family farm and she sees her mom and she just yells fuck. And her mom yells back fuck. As loud as they both can, they're just yelling fuck back and forth.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:I felt that moment that was so right. That's exactly what I would do.
Speaker 2:Totally, me too.
Speaker 1:She writes we don't laugh. The yelling helps us survive, at least this moment when we see each other and know what each of us knows. So Sarah decides to leave slash. She like sort of gets fired from her job at Adobe. She writes that they do fire her, but she was going to leave and like not in that petulant way where it's like I'm going to quit before you fire me. Like you could tell she felt like this was not the right fit for her, Not quiet quitting. She didn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Quiet, quitting, exactly, exactly. I just learned that term too. So she comes home to the farm to help her mother, first through her treatment, and then ultimately to say goodbye, she writes, standing there in front of the same sink that leaked slightly at the base of the faucet. Since I was a little girl, I realized I might be coming home to help her die. And she calls this her grown-up gap year. And again she does touch on like the privilege that she has to be able to do this.
Speaker 1:She's not too upset about leaving her job at Adobe behind because it's not working, and she writes. With my therapist's help, I realized that there's the real stress of work, but also the more significant stress of not changing your life when you know it's time. My job was not my life, but I couldn't figure out what my life was without my job. And, as we spoke about before, sarah's self-worth is tied extremely tightly into how successful she is in the corporate world, much to her detriment. Okay, so do you attach any of your self-worth? I mean, we've talked about how you want order and security. How has that played out with your career and your self-worth tying into your career?
Speaker 2:Well, when I started my career in the hotel industry, I found out what I was good at, so I think that's probably the first time I could really pinpoint. That's where I received my true validation from people that were not my family. I started as the assistant to the GM's secretary. I was a baby. I was 18.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, who knew that the GM secretary needed an assistant? But there you go, you do at that hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my self-worth got wrapped up in that big time and I'm glad it did. When we're building that part of our life, I think, in a healthy way it's supposed to, I think that's okay. As long as we don't end up staying in that box, then I think that it's a good, healthy thing to do when you're in that first half of life I keep referencing. By the way, little tiny things I reference are Richard Rohr's, my guy, my Catholic priest that I stalk Sounds so awesome.
Speaker 2:Richard Rohr, my guy, my Catholic priest that I stalk.
Speaker 1:Sounds so awesome.
Speaker 2:Richard Rohr people R-O-H-R.
Speaker 1:Now you've talked a lot about how your mother was this independent woman and I know that her career was very important to her and she kind of like broke ceilings and she sure did All that stuff. So do you think that she was a big impact on you and the way that you wanted to live your life, career-wise, specifically?
Speaker 2:I always admired her for her success and I know a large part of me wanted to emulate that. I never had grand visions of being successful in the same way that she was, but I do know that the bar was set high for us to be successful in whatever we did. One thing I learned not to do from her was to burn the candle at both ends.
Speaker 1:Because you saw her doing that, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, I mean once after working at the office past midnight she fell asleep at the wheel driving home and was in a car accident after that. I was pretty insecure as a kid, begging her to come home from work sitting at the end of the corner, you know, at the end of the block waiting for her car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, little things like that. Because you're scared. You're scared your parent isn't going to make it home because they're working too hard. So I was a hard worker, but I always knew I was not going to be the person at my desk at 2 am or even 10 pm, no. And when I became a parent, I was going to have a job or hopefully no job for a while, but a job that was going to allow me to be home with my kids.
Speaker 1:Okay. So back to Sarah. She continues therapy while she's at home on the farm. So cute. She talks about how like she'll drive to a parking lot and she does it in her car. Yeah, she does write about this heartbreaking part where she sees a sticker for a rescue dog. You know that classic who rescued? Who, and she desperately wants to be rescued from this situation. But I just you know when you need other people to tell you that things will be okay and then you realize I have to be that person for myself.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:So David just encourages her to go slowly, face each painful part one at a time. And that's such good advice, I think. Sometimes in these circumstances we feel like we have to have it all figured out or like you know, I don't know, deal with everything all at once and it's like, okay, just deal with the first thing right in front of you. So her mother starts chemo. She tells Sarah that she really doesn't want anyone to know what's going on, but it's a small town, so Sarah's not quite sure that that's a reality. We learned that this also isn't her first time that her mother's been diagnosed with cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, post-menopausal. But quote, beat it. Breast cancer, postmenopausal, but quote, beat it. Her situation this time is different. But she forges ahead with chemo. Sarah writes I now believe mom only agreed to start any treatment at all because she wanted to make the rest of us feel better.
Speaker 1:And while Sarah's at home taking care of her mother, she reconnects with her brother's good friend, camillus. She's grown up knowing him, but this trip something is different. He and Sarah click in a way they hadn't before. Camillus is fresh off a divorce, but Sarah writes I liked his smile and figured some sex with somebody as sparkly as Camillus might be good for my soul. She writes. For the first time in my life I didn't have the energy to be what I thought other people wanted me to be. Camillus was seeing me at my worst and somehow I didn't care. I just felt like that's such a lovely feeling when you lay it all out for someone.
Speaker 2:She had her list earlier it didn't work out for her. She didn't have a list anymore and boom, she didn't have the energy for a list.
Speaker 1:No, why would she Totally. And I think also it feels like because Camillus was fresh off of his divorce, there were no expectations. She wasn't there to meet someone, she was there to be with her mother. Yeah, that's that weird, saying that life happens right when you least expect it, or?
Speaker 2:whatever, or when you're busy making other plans.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's the saying that I actually meant. Yes, life happens when you're busy making other plans. Okay, so I know that you first started dating your husband. You had some parts of yourself that you knew you needed to share with him, but weren't sure how he would accept them. Can you just you don't have to share what they were. But can you take me back to that moment when you unburdened your, would you call it an unburdening Sure?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely An unburdening. Okay, and I don't mind sharing it all. Okay, so on what was probably our second date, wow, I mean fast.
Speaker 2:Right away. You knew that this was something that he needed to know, and if he wasn't cool with it, then see ya, absolutely. I told him I'd had a baby four years earlier and I had decided that adoption was the right decision for the baby, and I also made it clear to him that I made it clear to the child, in a letter actually, that my door was going to be open and that I really wanted the child to eventually find me. So I just knew, when I met the one, that I would tell him immediately, because it was going to be a deal breaker if they weren't okay with that fact. Tom handled the news beautifully and while it was too early in our relationship for him to say it, I'll welcome him to one day. That was the implication, so yeah, it went quite well.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's so good, yay, okay. So back to Sarah. I thought that this part was really sweet. She writes I love that he said my name often and he liked hearing himself say it.
Speaker 1:After a wonderful afternoon together, sarah decides to kiss camillus. She's ready to have some escapism fun with him. But he pulls away. He smiles at her. It's not quite rejection, sure enough. A few days later, camillus tells sarah that he's ready to give them a shot.
Speaker 1:Quote despite the long list of reasons not to, despite the mess of our individual lives, we would take the risk. So yeah, now she's got the list not to instead of the list of. There you go. And it does feel like a risk to Sarah, because she's worked really hard to be successful at many things in her life, but dating was not one of them. Remember the article we discussed in the Quick Topics? Remember the article we discussed in the Quick Topics? She writes I kept choosing men whose only common denominator was that they weren't good for me. She writes about some doozies. She writes about a married guy Yikes, someone who invited her to a wedding in Miami and flew first class with her back in coach. That would be a deal breaker for me for sure, are you kidding A guy who told her to meet him at a restaurant and the restaurant had two locations. And she was like which location? And he was like you figure it out?
Speaker 1:And she still put up with it. I know and I can't believe people like this exist. That's the other thing too. It's like who was raising these men? What the absolute hell. So do you have any? Why did I date this guy for so long stories? I wish I could just be so like no, never.
Speaker 2:But yes, I was with one particular guy for 10 months and it was the longest 10 months of my life, of my life but not healthy in any way, shape or form, in fact. I'm so not proud of this, but I broke up with a really nice guy for this one, for this bad guy.
Speaker 2:I just simply had to be a rebel, and I still don't know quite why I needed to make this very unhealthy decision for myself. But it did happen for a reason. Because here I am, having learned the lesson from that experience and let's say I didn't do that Would I be sitting here right now? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Who knows, man, you can't have regrets about life, I think.
Speaker 1:You just can't If you're okay with where you are Right. You know. You have to just say hey, I had to go through some of the bumps in the road. Sarah does write about finding a great guy once, but she broke up with him because quote I didn't know how to receive love and didn't yet know that people can be kind to themselves and other people too. But now she feels maybe she's ready because Camillus is this shining light in this dark moment in her life. But Sarah acknowledges that she did a lot of work to be ready to accept this love when it came along. She worked hard to like herself first, because then she could really believe that Camillus loved her. And that is so important, isn't it? Yes, I mean, how can you even be in a relationship with someone if you don't believe that they love you? Why?
Speaker 2:would anybody love me? And if you don't, yeah, it just means you don't love yourself. So if you can't get there, you're not ready for the good one. It's a tale as old as time man.
Speaker 1:It is, but it's true. It's true. And Sarah's surprised by the love she finds with Camillus, surprised that she was ready for it, willing to accept it, surprised that it was with him, her brother's friend, who she grew up with, this horrible moment that was really the part With her mother.
Speaker 1:She writes about the difficulties of taking care of a sick parent, and the funny moments too. She writes I loved her as much as I could ever recall loving her. I wanted her to stay alive as long as possible, not because I needed her, but because I wanted her in my life and wanted to keep getting to know her. Oh, that was so cool.
Speaker 2:That made me cry.
Speaker 1:I really loved that. She wanted to keep getting to know her.
Speaker 2:Because it's really cool getting to know your mom when you're an adult. Yeah, and for that to be robbed of you is really sad. Yeah, because that's the fun part you get to hang out with your mom. And see them as a person instead of as a parent. So many times when she was talking about her mom, I would well up, and it's such a good way. That's why I liked listening to it so much, because it was just like talking to a friend and having them remind me how I felt about my mom.
Speaker 1:That was really cool, yeah, oh good. So unfortunately, chemo doesn't work. Her mother entertains a more aggressive form of treatment to appease her children, but ultimately she decides no, she's ready to say goodbye and she isn't afraid to die. After this point, she starts deteriorating really quickly. There's this really lovely moment where Sarah asks her mother quote what's the one thing you've learned your most important life lesson? And her mother says be nice. That's really it. The answer to just about everything Just be fucking nice. And I love that. I think that that's great advice. I also oddly oddly maybe loved this part.
Speaker 1:Sarah writes about how people would tell her oh, your mom is just ready to be with your father. She misses him and Sarah, instead of just being like uh-huh, you're so right, she refuses to give into this. Like prettified version of things. She answers mom loves life. She's not ready to die because she wants to be with dad. She's ready to die because she has cancer all over her body. And she writes that she's learned to accept that life is messy and hard and not try to make everything end in a bow.
Speaker 1:Sarah does have a great community that comes into her life. At the end she writes about the wonderful end of life nurses that come into their lives and their home, especially Sonia. Sarah's college friends come into town and this buoys her mom a little bit and she says one word to Sarah later lucky, I know Sarah takes us to have a lot of meanings. One that her mother feels lucky that they had each other and also that Sarah is lucky to have such amazing women in her life. Quote their presence reassured her. Now I imagine a handoff taking place, as if being able to assign me to them made it easier for her to get closer to death. I know you've had a group of friends throughout your life that have really like, seen you.
Speaker 2:They showed up. A slew of them showed up in a very big way when my mom died. I mean, there's been multiple times where my girlfriends have just been there and shout out to all of them, if you're listening. I could not be more grateful for my friends, sisters, you know they just. Could we live without them? No, not at all. I mean, I'm so lucky I have two sisters, biological sisters plus.
Speaker 1:I get to have a bunch of friends that I feel like are sisters. Yeah, I mean, it goes without saying that my girlfriends have shown up for me in a huge way by all agreeing to be my guests on this podcast and really sharing vulnerable things about themselves.
Speaker 2:They probably do on the onset, probably do want to do this for you, but, speaking for myself, it ends up really being, quite, I don't know, a therapeutic experience in a way.
Speaker 1:You are not the first person to say that your daughter has also said that.
Speaker 2:Love that so much and it brings us closer to you and we learn more about you, you learn more about us. I mean it's wonderful, thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, back to Sarah. She writes about that final night how she laid next to her mother, told her she loved her, how glad she was that she was her mom. Sarah curls up next to her and falls asleep. She writes at some point after midnight Sonia's voice woke me up from where I was curled up next to mom Sarah. She's gone.
Speaker 1:Sarah writes after years of therapy, I could start to see mom for who she was, rather than the myth that grew around her. She was real and complicated. A woman who could be infuriatingly judgmental when she didn't approve and infinitely kind when she thought you didn't have somebody rooting for you. A mother who admitted to me over drinks at a spa that she wasn't always sure she should be a mother. A wife who got jealous when dad flirted with other women at the club. A dutiful daughter to her own mother who never told her that she loved her. Mom was so much more than her myth. I'm very guilty of mythologizing my parents and I've spoken about this before on the podcast and with my friends. This realization and I'm unpacking a lot of that, and we've talked about your mom and I feel like she has been mythologized for a lot of really good reasons. But have you had any unpacking to do in regards to that relationship?
Speaker 2:I totally resonate with that. I've definitely mythologized my mom Also. When someone dies instantly, there's much more of an exaggerated response to their death, so the tendency to mythologize is even stronger. It's really not fair, but society does it and we all do it. As far as unpacking the relationship, I was very close to her and had a friendship with her, and I like to think that we had our own private sense of humor together, just like Sarah talks about in her book. I'm guilty of putting her on a pedestal, but at the end of the day I thought she deserved it. I do know that she was just a person and she was not supposed to be perfect. There were some decisions she made in her childhood that I look back on in question, but I try to do it without the benefit of knowing what I know now. So she was just doing the best she could at the time.
Speaker 1:So much of life is perspective. It is Okay. So back to Sarah. She writes mom and I were always more like friends than a mother and daughter. We always relied upon each other, confided in each other and, yes, loved the shit out of each other. But now I see I didn't always get what I needed. The love between a mother and a daughter is no tidy thing. Sometimes it can feel like a betrayal. Right To acknowledge sometimes that you didn't get what you needed from your parents.
Speaker 2:Sure, it does feel like a betrayal. It does, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And well, it's why she walked into David's office and said I'm not going to blame them.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel really guilty about. Anytime I think about something that I disapprove of and that happened in our childhood or whatnot, because my parents are gone. So I really feel guilty.
Speaker 1:But then I just say no Because there is no reconciling it with them. There's no conversation to be had. There's no their point of view that you can try to understand.
Speaker 2:There's no their point of view, but I have plenty of conversations. Call me wacky, but I have them.
Speaker 2:And it's helpful, it's really helpful to kind of believe that the consciousness still goes on, because then you don't have to feel like this finale. You can feel that those who pass, like maybe when we pass we're going to like learn all the lessons, we're going to know it all. Then For the ones left here, why not have a conversation? It's kind of like giving Scott Kennedy the space in your head. If you're going to say that, then why not talk to the parents after they're gone? So when I do I feel that guilt, I'll say oh, I'm so sorry, mom, I know you were doing the best you could, but you know, and I'll just talk to her. But I do a lot of talking to myself, do you?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I do a lot of talking out loud. Sometimes my husband will joke and be like okay are you? Trying to talk to me, or are you just talking right now? And I'm like, yeah, I'm just talking.
Speaker 1:I'm doing that thing, again Doing that thing again that thing that you love so much about me. It's fine, it's totally fine. One of the reasons I got a dog when I lived alone was so that it at least felt like I was talking to my dog. Someone to absorb, someone to absorb. Someone to absorb the noise. Exactly as she writes her memoir, she reflects on how she really struggled with this idea of unconditional love. She writes I thought I had to earn love by accomplishing things rather than be loved simply because I woke up in the morning and I know you give your children such unconditional love. It feels like you feel you had unconditional love from your mother.
Speaker 2:Your father seems like a complicated thing, but still, and I still felt unconditional love from both.
Speaker 1:Good. I think that's really important. She writes what if she had loved me different? What if I had not deduced by age five that I could do certain things to make my parents happy? Why couldn't she get out of her own way to be the mother I needed so I could become the real Sarah, rather than the version of Sarah who hated herself for so long? I believe that she loved me in the best way she could, but that she had limitations.
Speaker 1:I believe mom was in her own pain and perhaps didn't quite know how to love herself, which probably made being a mom pretty fucking hard sometimes. And I thought it was really interesting that, like she starts off her memoir with, like you know, telling David, I don't want to blame my parents, and then she goes through this really life-changing situation with her own mother and then she does kind of come to the conclusion like there were some things that my mom, like I don't need to martyr my mother to still love her and honor her. In fact, maybe by like recognizing these things about her her faults, potentially her failings of me as her child is still honoring her. Sure, it's just honesty. It is just honesty, it's her being honest with herself and she's writing about this past-.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean she doesn't love her, right? That's the thing that people have to get past. Just because I have constructive criticism about someone doesn't mean that I love them any less.
Speaker 1:Right. So Sarah's writing about this past moment in time, right, saying goodbye to her dying mother after years of doing work in therapy, also while falling in love, but in real time, as she's writing her memoir about this moment. To me she still seems to have some unanswered questions that she's grappling with and I hope that, sarah, since you know writing the memoir, it's so interesting to like how do you know a memoir is done, and even she's like how do I end this memoir? Memoir is done, and even she's like how do I end this memoir? Like here's my false ending. I hope that she's continued to explore that relationship and her feelings with her mom and like not judge herself if she gets mad at her mom or angry with her mom, because we already know that she doesn't want to judge. You know, blame her parents for how she quote turned out, but I don't know. I feel like therapy is exploring all of that, even the dirty, dark parts, sure.
Speaker 2:Especially the dirty dark parts. Sure, especially the dirty dark parts.
Speaker 1:Especially the dirty, dark parts. And she writes that she thinks she took on her mom's pain as her own and that's really heavy. There is something to unpack there. She writes untangling myself from mom is something I will keep doing for the rest of my life. Her memoir has reminded us that nothing is linear. There's no order. You don't have to have all these things figured out. We exist in a constant process. We are always becoming. She finishes her section about her reflections on her mom with she was the best mom she could be, the woman who taught us how to live when she showed us how to die. Getting to know Sarah through her memoir, I feel so grateful that she was able to have this final moment with her mom.
Speaker 2:Because not everybody has that. It was such a gift.
Speaker 1:Okay, so just a little bit more about therapy before we wrap up the episode. I really do adore how much a proponent of therapy she is. She has a great metaphor for it. She equates therapy to ducks waddling in circles in a pond, not climbing a mountain. Because, like, when you think of ducks, they think that they're you know, you think that they're just swimming along smoothly, but underneath their little feet are going so fast, so fast, so fast, and you just go in a circle and just going in circles. Yeah, sometimes that's what it feels like, but you are making progress. She gives us great examples of her conversations with David, and he truly seems like a gold star.
Speaker 1:We wink, sarah therapist. I had to get one gold star reference in there. She writes about coveting gold stars, but it's because of therapy that her life changes and she likes to like her and she starts to like herself. She makes a list of things she likes, which can be so hard to do. So okay, colleen, tell me five things that you like about yourself. How dare you.
Speaker 2:Okay, I laugh unabashedly. I'm a good friend, I'm a great friend, I'm really interested in spirituality. I love that about myself. I'm up for an adventure and I've got really good feet.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I love that. Was it hard for you to write that list?
Speaker 2:It was. It was also really fun. It was fun to sit back and go all right, come on, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, listeners, I'm encouraging you.
Speaker 2:What's your turn? Yeah, oh, my turn, oh I didn't do it.
Speaker 1:I didn't do the list. Five things I like about myself. I like my work ethic. I have a really good work ethic. I love how much I love my children. I love my. I have really weird quirks. I think that I like can be really like weird and goofy and silly sometimes. I like that about myself. I love my freckles, which that has been a big. That's a back and forth thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I've only got one more, and there's like a million that I can think of. I kind of want to say my feet too.
Speaker 2:I like my tiny little feet Okay.
Speaker 1:I have tiny little feet and I like them.
Speaker 2:Full disclosure.
Speaker 1:We can see Alex's feet and not mine and hers when they're darling.
Speaker 2:That was fun and sort of it is hard to do. It is.
Speaker 1:I encourage all the listeners to do that, just like for yourself. You don't have to share it with anyone, but you should know what you like about yourself for sure. Okay, and then? So while we don't want to mythologize our parents, we can memorialize them, and Sarah writes that writing this book about her experience and relationship with her mother was really hard and painful, but that writing might save her. So how were you able to memorialize your mother, because I know that was a big thing.
Speaker 2:In a couple of really cool ways. So one way is we went to Senegal on a Judy Miller Memorial well, I just said her name, judy Miller Memorial trip and we went to visit her favorite humanitarian organization called Tostan. Their work is dedicated to teaching human rights and eradicating FGC and child marriages.
Speaker 1:And FGC stands for Female.
Speaker 2:Genital Cutting and it was incredible, really, really incredible, memorializing her on this trip. And secondly, I started a book club in my mom's honor and that's still active today Yay, and I'm really proud of that. So that slew of women that showed up after my mom died, we all did it, together with my sisters as well, of course and for the first several years we raised over $30,000 for Tostan said organization and now we've pivoted to an organization called K-Root that helps women who are victims of trafficking. So helping girls and women were my mom's passions and we've carried that on. So I'm really, really proud of that and that really is in her honor.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That's amazing. You guys should discuss the order of things in your book club. We will, it's a great idea and we will link both of those organizations in the show notes, that'd be great Wonderful. So if anybody out, there wants to learn more. Make a donation Good, that would be incredible.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Let's wrap up this episode. Sarah writes this tomorrow will occur After the death of her mother. Sarah continues on, she works on the farmhouse, falls deeper in love with Camillus, she travels, she continues to talk with David. She writes. We kept going and I recognized myself more every day. God, what a beautiful feeling. Finally, she feels ready to leave the farm, ready to see what the next chapter will unfold for her. Here's our false ending. I cut an epilogue on page 194 of a 230-page book. It was really fun. Honestly, it was, and I wanted to see where she was now. I wanted more.
Speaker 2:I did honestly. It was and I wanted to see where she was now.
Speaker 1:I wanted more. I did too. I needed it, and she has this lovely analogy about Russian dolls. The rest of the story of how we're becoming is the largest Russian doll, which I thought was really cool. You're just constantly adding that bigger Russian doll Exactly, I love it.
Speaker 1:She settles in Salt Creek, ohio, and opens an art gallery. She has loved art since college. She had asked her grandmother to buy a piece that she had adored as a college graduation gift. She writes. In May 1994, I became the owner of a real piece of art. 25 years later I opened the Sarah Gormley Gallery, and though she has learned to like herself, it's not always easy, especially being in a relationship.
Speaker 1:She writes. Being in a relationship with Camillus is fascinating on many levels and I continue to be amazed by how quickly things can unravel if just one of the two people in any relationship is emotionally off, not to mention both. At the same time. I spent a lot of time working on my own calibration and wondered if other people have to try so hard to maintain themselves or if at some point it just comes naturally. I love that she used the word calibration there. I thought that was really cool because I hadn't really thought of it like that before. She writes becoming and being emotionally healthy is exhausting, like endless marathon exhausting, but the payoff is everything. And in the end Sarah leans into joy, joy of knowing, accepting and loving herself. And so that's why she writes like she kind of had this title idea right, the Order of Things, and then she wanted to add this subtitle, a memoir about chasing joy, even though that kind of comes in towards the end.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah. I think the Order of Things was such a great, appropriate title yeah.
Speaker 1:But then that's what she wants to leave us with.
Speaker 2:Sure Is chase joy.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So how do you chase joy Colleen? Well, not to be cliche and choose joy, I guess.
Speaker 2:How do you choose joy? Chase it, choose it not to be cliche and steal from Mary Oliver hey, but honestly, by trying my damnness to stay in the present. It's the only way I can do it. My most unjoyful moments are spent in the past or the future. And one other way is by playing with my grandkiddos, because, because nothing on this earth brings you into the present like that does.
Speaker 1:True that True dat. As we used to say back in the day, Kids do keep you present. It's so true. It's so true. Well, we hope everyone continues to chase and choose joy. Colleen, do you have any last thoughts about Sarah?
Speaker 2:Gormley's book. Just I recommend it. I think everyone should give it a listen and if you don't have time to sit down and read, just listen to it. I love listening to books. You know you can do it while you're making dinner. It was truly enjoyable. The book and, honestly, just this time with you has been amazing, I think it was just such a good reminder to have compassion for yourself and grace for yourself.
Speaker 1:You do deserve to feel good about living your own life, getting rid of those critical voices inside your head. It can take a lot of work, but what are you going to do if you don't?
Speaker 2:You're just, and don't get hung up on the order of things and don't get hung up on the order of things.
Speaker 1:All right, let's go eat some more of these cookies. Bye, colleen, bye. Thanks for listening to Babes in Bookland. To access the full version of this episode, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or support us on Patreon. Visit babesinbooklandcom for more information.
