Commemorating Changes
Sophie is trying to process a bad breakup without her normal coping mechanisms available to her. Paige is commemorating the unknown. Kellian is commemorating the official adoption of her daughters. Katie Sue is moving....yet again. Sarah is recognizing it will likely be the last holiday season at her house with belief in a certain ho-ho-holiday gentleman.
Pantsuit Politics 2020 Holiday Gift Guide
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Transcript:
Sarah: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Sarah
Beth: [00:00:05] And I'm Beth.
Sarah: [00:00:06] We host a Pantsuit Politics, a podcast with a remarkable community of listeners
Beth: [00:00:10] Here on the Nuanced Life, we come together every week to answer your questions and commemorate your milestones and hopes of bringing a little more grace to every aspect of life.
Sarah: [00:00:25] Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Nuanced Life. We are so thrilled to be here with you today. Before we dive into our questions and commemorations of all of life's big changes, we wanted to share that we put together a little Pantsuit Politics Holiday Gift Guide. If you're looking to share the love with the other Pantsuit Politics listeners in your life, or if you want to prompt your significant others or family members to purchase something for you, uh, we have Have the Best Holiday Available to You shirts.
We have all kinds of fun gear and you can also [00:01:00] support the show by gifting a Patreon subscription for the year. There's the extra credit book club I'm currently reading Wintering, which is going to be our selection for the first quarter of 2021. And it's fabulous. So lots of options. We'll put the link in our show notes and you can check out that holiday gift guide.
Beth: [00:01:13] We're going to start today with Sophie, who is an undergrad student in Arizona. She was broken up with recently and it was not a pleasant breakup. And they shared a living space, her ex partner, rifled through her stuff and took some things out of the house while she wasn't there.
And she is just having a really hard time because normally she would cope with all of this by keeping herself really busy and surrounding herself with people who love her and obviously in a pandemic that is truly difficult to do. So she is asking do we have any advice for pandemic breakups knowing that the usual prescriptions are just not available?
Sarah: [00:01:55] Well, I thought about Sophie and I thought what I wanted to offer up to her [00:02:00] and I think when you're trying to grieve and heal and just feel your feelings, yes, being around people and being with friends is a great response. And you could do that, I mean, I'm sure some of the, your girlfriends would join you on zoom or sometimes just a nice long phone call1990 style can really make a difference.
I know that's where I go in moments of crisis cause my best friends don't live nearby. But a few years ago, the podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, which is one of my favorite podcasts, did a whole series on breakups, break up music, break up movies, because I think when you can't have people in person, the art people create around breakups is absolutely the next best thing.
So they put together this website called Breakup Survival Guide, G U I D. And it has the good breakup songs and the good breakup movies and I think sort of just an artistic deep dive. So you realize other people [00:03:00] have been through this and that you're not alone. Right?
That's what you want to feel in a breakup is when you feel rejected, you can get in a really spirally place where you feel so desperately alone. And since the pandemic prevents being in person and gathering with people to remind you're not alone, I think art is a really, really good next option.
Beth: [00:03:21] I think that's awesome. I would add to that and I would give you this advice in a non pandemic world, too, right? Pick a period of time for a wallowing, because I think it's really important to listen to the sad music and watch the sad movies and really feel all your feelings about this without lecturing yourself about how this is not the right response, because to me, we need all that stuff anyway.
And we drag it out over a really long period of time by arguing mentally with ourselves about whether we should be doing this, we should get up and do something more productive. Shouldn't we use this time to learn a language or whatever, right? Like our brain will [00:04:00] treat us so cruelly in a period like this.
And so I think it's helpful to be able to talk back to your brain by saying, no, these are my three designated wallowing days so I'm gonna really, while it doesn't mean you don't feel grief after that, but it means that for those three days, you just shut down that argument. When you hear it come up, you say, no, I planned for this. I gave myself the gift of these days. So I hope that you can have some of those days in addition to kind of figuring out what is next for your time and energy after that period.
Sarah: [00:04:32] When I was reading Sophie's question, I thought, Oh man, what expertise to have on this. I've been married for 17 years, but I realized it's the 20th anniversary of the absolute worst breakup I've ever been through.
When my first love from high school who followed me to college, cheated on me with one of our sorority sisters, it was so brutal. And it, you know, the, the thing about a breakup is it's I, you know, I can be right back there like this, [00:05:00] right back to those emotions and to those feelings. And I was thinking about how I really did depend on that time, that wallowing time, or I was listening to the same song over and over and over again, and how it felt so indulgent in a way at the time, but that it really, really did help as did feeling the feelings, talking to girlfriends.
And I learned so much about myself and it, even though it was two decades ago, those lessons and that insight I gained during that really, really difficult period absolutely made me stronger and are absolutely insights and lessons I still use today. And so that, that's just what I hope for Sophie.
Beth: [00:05:37] I hope so too, Sophie, I'm sorry this happened right now. And I also am sure based on what you've described that your life is going to be better without this person in it, in the long run. Not that that is helpful in this moment, but I can also imagine that the betrayal that you experienced at the end has you questioning lots of things that you experienced while you were with this person.
And [00:06:00] so I would just try to be gentle with yourself around that too, knowing this is both the best thing for me and this time has not been a mistake. I've learned a lot from it. I've become a different person through it. I will be a different person on the other side of it. And so I'm going to feel my feelings now, knowing that I'm going to emerge from them well later.
Sarah: [00:06:19] Next step we heard from Paige, who's a 25 year old California and she wrote in because she wants to commemorate the unknown. She says this one's a hard one for me to commemorate because typically when I'm sitting in the unknown, it's pretty uncomfortable. I'm one of those people who wants to figure it all out and fix the life's problems as soon as possible. I've noticed this in myself, especially with this career change. Initially, I made a massive to-do list and timeline of all my goals to make the switch sign up with that psychology class, move on with the informational interviews, apply to X number of jobs. Go, go, go, go, go. But I've had a change of heart. I've realized when I slow it down and make time to listen, I'm more aware of my heart's desires.
And in these times of the unknown, I feel myself growing and staying curious in ways that I [00:07:00] never could. If I knew how it would all turn out, I believe I've heard Beth mentioned a few times, she's gotten fairly good at being uncomfortable in the known. I'm curious how you both manage the unknown and find peace in it. If there's a year to commemorate the unknown, shouldn't 2020 be the year of all years? Isn't that the truth, Paige.
Beth: [00:07:16] So Paige is leaving the environmental consulting industry to pursue something in social services, but she doesn't know exactly what, and I think that's a position that people feel themselves moving into all the time and often back away from it because they can't answer that next question.
There's this sense of like, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do something in that direction, but I can't figure out what. And I think it's helpful to look at your career like a map when you feel yourself in that space and knowing that you want to move from Europe to Australia on your map, you know, can help [00:08:00] you figure out the direction to go.
No, you don't have to know which part of Australia yet. You can just say I'm headed in that direction. You'll learn more about where you want to be on the journey, but we don't allow ourselves that career-wise often, it's hard to say. I want to move from the environmental consulting work I'm doing to social services because people want to be like, well, and what I, my goal is to be a senior vice president at a philanthropic organization within five years.
Well, how on earth are you supposed to know that if all of your work so far has been in hard sciences territory or something, right? So just making the journey and allowing yourself to learn along the way is really healthy.
Sarah: [00:08:40] What I've learned about the unknown, and my particular response to it which I hope will offer up some insight to page as well, is that I really depend on anticipation and excitement to avoid feeling that fear [00:09:00] and trepidation of the unknown. I've realized when my journaling in the morning, I journal so many times, I'm excited about this. I'm looking forward to this. It's like, it's just one long list of things happening in the future. And I think I do that because it's easier than writing. I don't know what's going to happen.
I have this one thing I know what's going to happen so I'm going to focus on that instead of saying, I don't know what's going to happen with the vaccine and I'm feeling a lot of fear about that. I don't know what spring is going to look like for my family and I'm feeling a lot of fear about that. So I attach all this emotional weight to the things I do know, and the things I can anticipate.
And I think being able to just settle into the unknown and say, I feel fear. I feel trepidation. I feel anticipation. And just witnessing that if Paige can develop that skill, that's going to be way more valuable than any things she can put on a resume to her long time growth as a human being. So I think commemorating the unknown and recognizing like, it's hard, it's here, but I need to lean into my [00:10:00] reaction and my response to that instead of constantly sort of distracting myself or, um, giving the answer everybody wants to hear, or in my case, sort of leaning on the excitement anticipation of even small things in the future is really, really valuable.
Beth: [00:10:15] I also think that just getting a certain amount of change under your belt helps because then you feel a sense of confidence. Yes. This can change, but I will be okay. Yes, this can change, but I will figure it out and so maybe you look for some small places to start to kind of build up that change something little that makes you kind of nervous, but isn't that big of a deal and you do it and you see that it's okay. And then you just keep building on that.
You heard from our long-time listener and friend Kellian. Kellian has been to so many of our live events and [00:11:00] part of what has been so devastating about 2020 is that we have not seen her anywhere yet. So true. But she is commemorating the adoption of two girls who she is cared for in foster care. The oldest was placed in care with her and her family on February 20th of 2018.
And then her sister came into their care after six weeks in the NICU in April of 2018. So after being together as a family for 856 days, they finally were able to unite as an adopted family and she says it's bittersweet because she recognizes that their adoption means that the girl's parents and family members weren't able to care for them.
It also means that she and her spouse are their forever home and parents for life and that they are managing relationships with other families who have siblings of their children. They're forming bonds with new family members who are the cousins, aunts, and uncles of these children. She says it means looking hard at privilege and race [00:12:00] because the girls are a different race than I am.
It means trying to give grace and respect to people whose life you do not understand, but are now your family. It means trying to find the right resources for when the hard questions about why couldn't my mom take care of me surface, or why are my mom and dad's sick? Am I going to be sick like them? You aren't my real mom. You can't tell me what to do.
Kellian says, there will be days when they experience things I will never know because I do not look like them. It means passing out grace like candy on Halloween as y'all say. So really love Kellian's perspective on this. And I'm so happy for this family, especially because Kellian is willing to lean into the hard questions that surround it and the hard issues that will be part of it.
Sarah: [00:12:44] You know, we use the word commemorate specifically on the Nuanced Life because there are so few things in life that involve pure celebration and commemorating is something a little bit deeper, right? It's [00:13:00] not just saying aren't we so excited this happened. We're saying that things worth having happen almost always contain this bittersweet mix of celebration and grief.
And I think Kellian's journey into adoption and fostering is just the truest, most beautiful reflection of that, that she is just open-eyed and openhearted about that. There is grief here as well as celebration that there is something growing and that there is something that will always need tending, right?
That is not necessarily dying, but changing in real fundamental ways in her daughter's relationship with their birth parents and the people who can face the real intensity of that tension with adoption and [00:14:00] fostering and just being within the system at all, are the people that have the most wisdom to offer to the rest of us.
We have another commemoration from Katie Sue , which is a little cute, his name. She is on her and I just hope you all, everybody is sitting down. If you're not sitting down for this next statistic, just go ahead and do it cause it's going to take your breath away. This is her 16th move in the last nine years of marriage.
Katie Sue, that's a lot of moves. That's a big number. So they've had two kids, uh, many, many jobs they're in a current city for a job that she took that went horribly wrong and she says, I learned that just because I worked for churches doesn't mean my boss can't be a sexist jerk. She quit after three months and they have been miserable.
They hate the city. They have never felt that way about anywhere else, but they have struggled socially, financially. And that was before COVID. So she's found a new job in a new [00:15:00] city and it's a 12 hour move, but she is stressed to be ending this chapter of dread and as it new year's, and with some hindsight, she's very proud of herself.
She made it, her kids made it, her marriage made it. And so she is saying goodbye to this horrible experience and hello to a new phase with this 16th move. I mean, maybe she should like write a book or at least an email for our newsletter, because she's got to be a dang expert at this point, but it sounds like she's an expert in lots of things like how to survive tough times and see them as impermanent. Right? All those struggles are impermanent. One day, things will change and I'm so glad that they are changing for Katie Sue.
Beth: [00:15:35] It also takes a lot of confidence to recognize that a miserable job is a big deal. And I think a lot of people, especially people who've moved a lot. I mean, all the circumstances Katie Sue has described, it would be easy to say, it's just a job.
I can do this. And the fact that she is like, no, I will not do this is such a gift to her family and to her [00:16:00] kids and to herself and to her friends is just important when you're in a bad career situation to make that change even when it's this hard, let Katie Sue be the example.
Sarah: [00:16:11] Right. You know, Anne Helen Petersen has been writing about this, this idea of job block that because of the precarity of so many finances and health insurance, and so many things, people feel like they can't quit.
And I think, you know, the ability to quit for one thing is a moment to be grateful. I mean, like that's the pivot, right? You can say I had to quit because of this terrible situation or, and you can say, and I have the ability to quit. I can quit and move on.
You know, I can have that space of confidence that like life is too short and I have the resources and ability and I'm going to use them and get the heck out of Dodge, any, you know, I think she's like totally right that if you're in that sort of situation, it can, it just infects everything. And in fact, even the way you see the like actual city you're in and that [00:17:00] just can weigh on you. So. So much.
Beth: [00:17:04] And I also think there's something really wonderful in the textured life experience that people who've moved a lot have and I do hope that Katie Sue finds a place that she loves and in this next phase is exactly what she wants. And I hope that she and her family settled into that in a way that lets them appreciate all the richness of having lived lots of different places.
Sarah: [00:17:38] Can I have a quick holiday commemoration before we wrap up this episode?
Beth: [00:17:41] Yes, please.
Sarah: [00:17:43] Well, okay. First of all, warning, if you're listening around children, we're going to discuss a certain holiday tradition with transparency and honesty about a [00:18:00] certain gentlemen, turn it off now, do you know what I'm, you know what I'm laying down here.
Okay. I am commemorating. What I believe to be will be my last holiday season with a Santa believer. My baby Felix is almost six, you know, he's definitely on the cusp. He has two older brothers who've graduated to team Santa that's. I love that letter. That's what I do at my house when they're really close, I give them the team Santa's letter and say, now you're on team Santa. Are you so excited?
And it's, it's really like, it's worked really well, but I'm not to mention we took him to gremlins, which I had not seen in a long time and forgot very openly has this very, very dark story completely irrelevant to the plot where Phoebe Cates talks about that there's no Santa, but we very quickly were like, well, let's just a movie. It's not real.
And he's like, Oh yeah, totally not real. But I definitely think it's it's the last year. I might eek out one more. And it's just kinda making me a little sad to see that part of [00:19:00] parenting wrap-up. I mean, it is a lot of pressure, but, and stress and I'm so intrigued by like cultural conversations about like, should we do this at all?
Or should we just tell them the truth the second they ask, but it is, it's just, it's like sort of like leaving all the baby stuff behind. It's just, it's just another milestone that reminds you, like they're growing up and they're growing up real fast.
Beth: [00:19:20] I've been thinking about the same thing. You know, I have kids in the age brackets of yours. And so I think that's probably happening here too. I think there is a real healthy skepticism about it here this year anyway, and that everyone's just kind of leaning into it because it's fun to lean into it.
I've been reading these articles too, and I've also been thinking about just how very difficult all of this is exponentially. So because we're all here all the time. And let me trying to pull off the tooth fairy right now is miserable and always miserable. There, every time somebody loses a tooth here, I'm like, who started this? This is the dumbest.
[00:20:00] And so, I don't know. I think a lot of things are going to shift in the way that we parent around traditions like this over time. Like we, the big we, because of change needs in the world. And I do think that since we're living in a time where truth is so fragile, we probably need a big shift in this area.
It probably is a bigger deal to have so much mythology present in the family relationship maybe than it used to be. So I'm open to all of that. We have really enjoyed it here. And I also, I feel both a little bit sad and really happy to be moving into the next phase because I just, I see so much in my girls of what it's going to be like for us to have a more sophisticated relationship, I guess, as they get older and more mature. And so it's bittersweet.
Sarah: [00:20:54] It is, all parenting is bittersweet, man.
Beth: [00:20:56] It is, every single moment.
[00:21:00] Sarah: [00:21:00] Well thank you for joining us as we commemorate our own bittersweet parenting struggles and the big changes in all of your lives. We will be back in your ears on Frida, over at Pantsuit Politics. We're going to be talking about vaccines with an expert from John Hopkins.
So if you're looking for a little bit more information, a little bit more in depth information about the coming vaccines for COVID-19 head on over to Pantsuit Politics on Friday.
Until then, or until we talk to you next week, here at the Nuanced Life, keep it nuanced, y'all.
The Nuanced Life is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Beth: [00:21:44] Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah: [00:21:46] Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
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