How’s It Going In There? 2022 Edition
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This episode is brought to you by The Hartford, a leading provider of employee benefits and income protection products that is dedicated to standing behind U.S. workers to help them pursue their goals and get through tough times. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com slash employee benefits. We've also got a link in our show notes. This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher.

a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

When I was a kid, I loved making time capsules. I would get a shoebox. I would put in a Lisa Frank sticker, a pencil with one of those fancy topper erasers that you could never actually use to erase anything because then the topper would be ruined, a note from myself, maybe a cassette tape. I'd bury it in our backyard. I absolutely should not have been digging without knowing where...

Things were buried. I guess I could have struck a gas line. Because I was digging pretty deep. You have to dig pretty deep to bury a shoebox. And then the next week, I would dig it up immediately because I had no patience. So this episode is like that. It starts with a time capsule of 2020. This is an episode that we recorded in March, right after Minnesota started shelter in place because there's this new thing sweeping the globe, a global sensation called COVID-19.

We were.

disinfecting our groceries with Clorox wipes. We were stockpiling basics. We were watching and listening to news of a horrible thing that was killing people all around the world. We were living in a dystopian novel or movie, I guess, and trying to pretend like it was all okay. It was all going to be okay. This would be over in two weeks, right? In the meantime, we'd just tie like a napkin around our faces, bandana style, or we'd stay home. It would be over. It was not over.

So we made this episode with help from our listeners in that time, and I actually did forget about it. Unlike those time capsules of childhood, I forgot about it until a listener messaged me on Instagram and said that this was the episode that they listened to over and over, one that they revisited often. And I thought, why? Why this one? This episode recorded in a time that felt so terrifying and hopeless and bizarre. And I listened back to it.

And what I hear is not only terror and it's not only bizarre, but it definitely is not hopeless. So we decided that we would revisit it. We'd make a couple updates, more than a couple. We made a lot of updates. It's a good episode. I'm Nora McInerney. This is Terrible Thanks for Asking. And this is How's It Going In There, 2022 edition. But first, we're going back in time to March 2020.

No, it's not going on the TV. It might go in the podcast. Do you know what the podcast is? Yes. What's it called? Still Kickin'. It's called Terrible. Terrible. Thanks for asking. There we go.

Hi, everyone. It's Nora McInerney, and this is Terrible Thanks for Asking COVID-19 Edition coming at you from my car. If you have been listening to the podcast, you know that we've been recording and interviewing from my noisy-ass house where I live with four children, a husband, and a shih tzu named Stacey.

Right now, it's quiet because I'm in my car in the garage, and I yelled at the kids not to stomp around in the house above me. But on an average day in the time of corona, our house sounds like this. Cute, no. Just, will you guys? Okay, let's... I'm going to snap soon. I've snapped many times, but, like, again. Okay. Boys, could you leave the room and shut the door? You can come back in. Why don't you go find my coffee cup and bring me my coffee, okay? Okay.

I have no idea where my coffee cup is. Oh my god, what the hell is it?

Truly, I never know where my coffee cup is, but I do know where my kids are. They're right here. They're always right here. And they're blessings. I mean, you know, what would I do without them? They're wonderful. They're wonderful. And also, please leave me alone. I know where my kids are. I know where you are. You're at home, unless you're an essential worker, in which case you're stocking our shelves, saving lives, dropping off tampons we forgot to buy before this nightmare started. Thank you. Thank you.

But the rest of us, we're at home. This better be recording. I'm Nora McNerney. I'm just wondering how's it going in there, everyone? How's it going in there wherever you are? We are in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. We're in our house where we've been for a while. We left the house to take a couple walks every day, but today it is gray. It is rainy. March is the most—

I think that it's in the kitchen or it's on my desk or it's in the bathroom. We've gone on a couple of walks. We send the little kids out on trips like I just described to them, which is right now they're on a hunt for my coffee cup. Who knows where I set it? So we are in the pink canopy bed of our favorite daughter, Sophia.

earlier today, you know, was just enjoying a nice little sob at the kitchen table. I have to say, it was a beautiful cry. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very happy that you think that. You're a cute crier. Thank you. Anyways, yeah, so you were crying. Why were you crying? Because this isolation is very hard, especially for someone who is an extrovert and very social.

What's hard about it? Not being able to be around the people that I really enjoy and like seeing my friends and being able to like touch them, which is like something that like you don't realize is really important until you can't have that. Like I don't get to like go to school and see my best friend and like just hang out and like

Have a good emotional talk. Not crying, but just talk about the stuff. And, like, give each other a hug. Like, very important and you don't realize how, like, how important it is and how much you need it until you can't have it from them. Mm-hmm.

I think when you describe not being able to go to school for a couple weeks, thank you, baby. I think most kids are like, yeah, that'll be freaking rad. But what's it like in real life? It's horrible. And as a person that actually does enjoy school, like when it's like most of the class and not every single class, but like I'm someone who does enjoy like getting to learn and being able to like

learn new things it's hard not being able to be there I just feel lazy and I think that like people don't understand like when you're in school you're like oh this sucks I just want to get out but then you get out and you have nothing to do except for play video games or try to like occupy your own time where in school everything is calculated

As I record this, we are going on, I think, a month of isolation, and it has gotten harder in some ways. Like, can you imagine being in eighth grade and being stuck with your family all the time? Well, imagine it, because that's just reality for teenagers now. And it's easier in others. Like, okay, I'm

Am I really homeschooling my children? Absolutely not. Not in the least. I mean, we are doing distance, quote unquote, learning, but mostly they are, you know, their teacher, their best friend, their mentor is the internet, specifically Disney+. We are taking regular breaks to play Mario Kart. God bless the Nintendo Switch.

We are eating ice cream every single night. We've done a couple puzzles. We've had several major breakdowns. We love each other, and we're also a normal family where our 13-year-old sometimes wants to, in her words, strangle her older brother. He just gets on my nerves. Like, I can't do it to the little boys, but Ian, I can. You cannot attack your little brothers, but your older brother? I mean...

do that? Like, I wouldn't kill him. I wouldn't hurt him, but like, would I just slap him? Maybe. Yes. Do I sometimes have the sudden urge to slap him? Yes. But then I'm like, oh my god, I shouldn't do that. It's like when you have, like, when someone's drinking water and all you want to do is just like hit the water bottle. Yeah.

The entire premise of this show is based on emotional honesty, on daring to tell the truth about how it feels to live in a world where life is really hard.

Kids are pretty good at telling the truth. I also, I interviewed my children because, look, I'm at home. They're accessible to me in this pandemic. I need something to fill the time. And if you're looking for a free idea on how to entertain your children, turn on your phone, use voice memos, and interview them. But be warned, if you interview one, you must interview them all.

I'm seven years old. My favorite color is blue. My name is Ralph. How is, uh, how's it going in here? Good. A little frustrating because mom keeps working and it takes a while. My big brother is just doing stuff so I can't play with him. We had this conversation at night. Do you remember it? And you were really, really sad when I got out of the shower.

And you said, I'm just not used to this. What are you not used to? Staying at home for a very long time because I want to go to school and see my friends and play outside. But I have to stay inside while I'm here. Do you know why we're staying inside? Because of the coronavirus and to protect other people from getting sick. Yeah. Yeah, I felt bad the other night because you were very, very sad. And you said you were having a hard time controlling your emotions. Would you believe me if I told you a lot of grownups have trouble with that too?

Yeah. What do you think grown-ups are worried about? Them getting sick and their children getting sick. Are you worried about anything? I don't really know. That's good. Yeah. I don't really know either. Worried about everything. Worried about nothing. So, we'll be right back. ♪

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We're back and I am done talking to my kids for this episode and also in general. I just need to be alone. I'm sitting in a car just trying to be alone.

Right now, life is hard for all of us. A bad thing is happening to all of us. And yeah, it is harder for some than others. And yeah, we're all in this together theoretically, but in practice, some people are taking on a lot more of the burden. Some people are going to be much, much more affected than other people. Some of us are experiencing tragedy, and some of us, like me, are experiencing a light tragedy.

to mid-inconvenience. All of us are stuck in this strange in-between where the lives we had are no longer the lives we're living, where the things we counted on are no longer count-donnable.

This episode, you'll hear from fellow TTFA listeners around the world who are all going through it right along with you. We put all the questions we ask them in the show notes so you can do this exercise on your own too, because sometimes the person that we need to give a straight answer to is us.

A lot of us watching the news back in February and March, we saw what was happening in Italy, but we didn't really understand that we were staring at a crystal ball. And if you're like, I did, you dummy, good for you. But a lot of us were watching the news oblivious that we were watching footage from our own terrible future. We got this message from Italy, from Nicole in Bergamo, Italy. Bergamo? Bergamo? Who knows? One of the hardest hit cities. ♪

We've had a death in the family and the funeral was really different from what we're used to because there are so many folks who have died. The funerals are quick and no nonsense, one right after another, about 15 minutes in length. Nobody touches anybody. Everybody is six feet away from each other and it's just boom, boom, boom, one after the other.

There's a limit as well as to how many people can attend the funeral, and it's four. So, yeah, not everybody gets to grieve in the way that they want to.

Soon, this wasn't just happening in Italy and it wasn't just on the news and it wasn't just news stories. It was a part of our daily lives, interrupting and complicating how we live, how we interact, how we die and how we grieve. And we have never been great at grief here in America. We typically give people maybe three to five business days of bereavement leave. Go ahead and check your policy right now. But you can usually count on having a funeral, a

on gathering all your loved ones close, real close, maybe too close, honestly, to say goodbye to the person who died. Just like you could count on having a goodbye and being able to hold your person's hand while they cross to the other side. ♪

One of the illuminating parts of isolation is a new appreciation for gatherings you take for granted. When someone dies, you have a funeral. And when someone is born, you celebrate before that baby is even here. Or we used to celebrate. I'm about six and a half months pregnant with our first, and it's become very isolating. We had to cancel the baby shower. There are no more maternity classes or support groups anymore.

And I have to go to all the prenatal appointments alone. And especially with the sonograms, it's really hard. My husband and I got legally married earlier than we planned because we wanted to start having children a bit earlier so that my grandparents would be here to meet them. My grandmother and my grandfather aren't in the best health. And so we thought that this would be a way to make sure that they can meet their great grandchildren. And on Sunday, my grandfather suddenly passed away. Um...

Because of the pandemic, we couldn't take a red eye to the West Coast to be with them. We couldn't go visit family and friends. Now for comfort, we can't hold a funeral and don't know when we will. So to go through pregnancy and grief at the same time is already strange and painful. And I feel like I don't really know how to do it alone, especially. So it's tough because

The isolation in New York is almost kind of like an old-fashioned prescribed period of bereavement, you know? But it's indefinite. And I guess the rest is waiting for a little while, you know, sitting with the feelings, sitting for the next, you know, three months of my pregnancy as the baby, she's a girl, you know, kicks and reminds me that she's still here. And sitting with the rest of the country as we kind of wait this all out.

We're waiting it out, waiting to cross some kind of finish line that separates this reality from a future where we can hang out and hug and go sit in our cubicles and complain about the guy who cuts his nails at his desk, which has never happened in my time at APM, but happened at every other place I ever worked. Why do we do that? When we come back from this pandemic, let us all bring our best selves to work and let us all leave our nail clippers at home.

For some of us, this virus was a full interruption to a nicely lived life. The virus was the bump in the road. And for some of us, this virus is an extra scoop of stress on top of a Sunday of anxieties and stuff that has gone wrong. It's extra guac on a plate of disaster nachos. All my examples are about junk food, but it's really an extra F in a series of WTFs.

I have not worked now in about six months because I'm also a full-time caregiver to my husband. I was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is like Nora would put it, just a fancy word for stage four brain cancer. We have had many ups and downs with this diagnosis, but COVID-19 is definitely bringing everything to a new low.

Having our kids at home all the time is making it very hard to have some alone time that I need so much to stay sane. When the kids aren't pulling me on one side, my husband is pulling me on the other. I stay up at night thinking this is what's going to kill him, not the nasty cancer he's been battling for the last 15 months. I stay up at night wondering what happens if I get sick. Who's going to take care of the kids? What happens if he gets sick?

Will he get his treatments in two weeks? Is he still a priority? If he doesn't get his treatments, then the cancer will kill him. What if he gets a seizure? What if I need to call an ambulance? I'm scared for my husband's doctors that I've come to know so well. What if they get sick? And my ultimate worry is, what if one of the kids gets sick? One of the things I thought when Quebec started to slowly ask its residents to stay home was

and had daily press conferences was that everyone was kind of getting a taste of life with cancer or another deadly diagnostic. You have to be careful when you go out. You don't have answers about everything. You live with anxiety and stress like you've never felt before. The future's uncertain. My days are filled with worry while trying to raise good and balanced children amid the chaos. ♪

It's all these things, not just worry about health and staying alive, not just worrying about funerals and diagnoses and ventilators. It's worrying about holding together your jobs and your home and your families and all of the many, many things that make a life together work.

So there's that level of terror of not knowing who will survive or what you'll do, of not having health care in a country where, honestly, do I need to go on another health care rant? And then there's this other side of the spectrum where things aren't totally falling apart, but they're also not great. I work in a non-essential field, right?

in a job that can be accomplished from home. So I've continued to work throughout this pandemic and it feels really weird. Everything I do feels trivial. I'm so riddled with anxiety all of the time and in the middle of it I'm expected to stay productive and to continue doing my job and it's just very strange. I realize there's quite a bit of privilege to even having a job right now but

It does just feel so exhausting to have to act like everything's fine and normal when it's not. I have a tip for this, actually. Don't pretend it's normal. Don't do it. Resist the urge to try to dress up this pandemic like a staycation. Acknowledge how weird and awful it is. Say out loud to yourself and your children, I hate this. This is the worst. And then keep going because...

It's not normal, and it's not okay, but it's happening. None of us have done this before. None of us know how to be or what to do. So make sure you're honest about how it's going in there and know that, like everything else, your feelings are subject to change without notice. I wouldn't go so far as depressed yet, but numb. Mm-hmm.

I think depressed is a very strong word to use. And I like, like I'm in the mood to just eat a bunch of chocolate chip cookies and ice cream and marshmallows. But I know like it's not good for your health. So I'm surviving a day at a time in this strange reality where it feels like time is standing still. And I am having faith that it will not always feel like this.

and gratitude for the things and the people that are still here. Here in New Zealand, there's a saying, which is kia kaha. It's Māori for stay strong. And I really hope that you can take that message on board from us and that you're going to be okay. So how's it going in here? Resigned, worried, but also looking forward, cautiously courageous.

How's it going in there? Well, trying to hold on, trying to survive like a lot of people are doing these days. The world is changing. I just don't know how or when. I just hope I'll be able to get back up again when it does. Stay safe, everyone. And also, don't forget to check on your friends. Friends you've not seen in a while. Friends you've not heard from. Friends who left your podcast to go work on the daily, maybe.

Hi, this is Hans, long-time listener, first-time caller. That's not true. I am the former senior producer of Terrible Things for Asking and current fan and excited participant. I mean, excited might be a bit of a stretch in this moment. I mean, how excited are any of us? So I'm trying to do things. I'm trying to learn the piano. I've tried many times in the past, but it's going to stick this time.

I'm trying to spend a lot of time snuggling my dog. Trying to spend a lot of time appreciating small things. Watching things that allow me to laugh and allowing myself to feel that laughter. I'm trying to send messages to my family and friends who are working in care situations or testing situations and about whom I'm genuinely concerned. And I'm trying not to predict anything. I'm trying not to assume what I'm going to be like or what the world's going to be like or what we're going to think or feel or need.

Even though it's kind of my job to do that, I'm trying not to be too predictive and let things just be what they're going to be when they're going to be it. But, you know, that's hard. All right. I love you all. You all are amazing. Keep up the amazing work. Be strong. Be safe. Talk soon. We'll be right back.

Hi, it's Nora with a little bit of an update. Terrible Things for Asking is on an indefinite hiatus, which means that for the foreseeable future, you won't see new episodes in the main feed. But if you want to support the work that we've done, get access to our entire back catalog with no ads, you can do that by clicking on the link in the description.

You can join us on Patreon at patreon.com slash ttfa or on Apple+. We are still making two episodes a month for subscribers, which is a sustainable workload of

for us emotionally and financially. There are still plenty of episodes here for free on the main feed, so no pressure. But if you want to join a community of Terribles, come over to Patreon. And if you just want more Terrible, join on Apple+.

Before I get into the conversation with my kids, I want to say this. All of us are someone's kid. All of us are former children. And all of us, every single one of us, has been through a lot. There is a lot going on in the world, and most of it is not great. Honestly, recording this, I'm like, well, we are on the verge of World War III, but time to make a podcast. The world depends on it.

So on a Monday night after school, but before dinner, I called the kids into my room. By that, I mean my new office. Yay. One by one to see what they had to say about the last two years. First was Ralph. The last time he was on the pod, he was seven years old. He had just left first grade for spring break and never went back. And now he is a big guy with big questions. Okay. Okay. So tell me your name.

My name is Ralph. And how old are you? I am nine now. And how do we know each other? Because you're my mom. You're my mom. And do you know what podcast you're about to be on? Terrible Thanks for Asking? That's right. Can I swear? Can you swear? I would prefer if you don't swear, because again, a lot of people are going to hear this, and some people really don't like swearing. Can I just say crap? You can say crap. Okay. Yeah. And right now, if you want, you can say whatever swear word you want to say. F***.

Jesus, Ralph. God. Those are like really bad ones. It's like the worst ones. Ralph. Oh my God. Okay. No more of that. Okay. No more of that. Can you tell me what COVID is? COVID is COVID. COVID is a

Virus. Like a computer virus just for humans. And COVID changed your life a lot. Yeah, it did. Because now I like sometimes, you know, when you're so people out there, this happens to a lot of people, especially me, because I get claustrophobic sometimes, not all the time, sometimes. And I when I am so when I put on the mask for like an hour, my mouth will get really hot.

And my teacher would yell at me just for like doing this so I can like get some fresh air and then stop. But I'm like, okay, I'm ready. What's been the hardest thing about COVID? The hardest thing would probably be, let me see. We'll be right back after this quick message. Let me think. Oh, my, the worst thing? You making me read books to pass the time.

I know, everyone. It's okay. Stop applauding. It's okay. I'm just funny. I'm just funny. I'm just funny. It's okay. But you also, I mean, you did, you left your classroom in first grade and you never got to go back. Yeah. It's okay if I cry. Mm-hmm. Okay. And you know you did a very brave thing, too.

which is you started second grade and I couldn't go to your classroom with you. So you had to walk up to a building that you'd never been to ever before in your whole life. The first day I was actually out there for a very long time just looking for my classroom. And I had 10 minutes to prepare, so I was like, get ready, get ready. Because I wanted to make friends that day and I sat alone in the corner of the room eating lunch.

For fairness, I included our littlest in this episode because when he was three, he couldn't really participate. He just heavy breathed into the mic or antagonized his older siblings. But now he's five. This is what he had to say about the past two years. Do you know the name of the podcast you're going to be on? No. What's the name of your mom's podcast? I don't know. That's pretty close. Do you know what COVID is? Yes. What is it?

It's where you get sick a lot. And how do people get COVID? By not wearing masks. And do you wear a mask? Mm-hmm. And you wear it to school? Yep. And does everyone in your class wear it? No, Fred doesn't because he's fully vaccinated. So are you.

At this point, the conversation hit a lull. He was distracted by the pleasure of having a microphone in front of him while digging deep into his nostrils. He is a nose picker just like his mama. I'm so proud. But honestly, also, COVID has been 40% of his entire life and probably close to 100% of like his conscious memory.

So we switched topics and I asked him about his favorite thing to talk about. Can you tell people about scorpions and what they need to know about scorpions? Baby scorpions are the most dangerous type of scorpions on Earth because they don't know how to eat their venom and they could probably kill you with their venom. How many boogers are you going to eat during this interview? Yeah.

All. Okay, cool. Okay, and finally, our third and final guest. Only because our oldest moved into his own apartment. Yay. This is Sophie. She is a high school sophomore, and the last time you heard her voice, she had just left eighth grade for spring break and also never went back.

Okay. So let's talk about how COVID has, I mean, here's what I thought when I listened back. Like we really thought it was going to be like a couple weeks. Yeah. I mean, I remember just being in eighth grade and all of a sudden like being at the end of the day and everyone being like, see you never. And I was just hoping that that wasn't true. So I kept saying, no, I'll see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Like

And then the notice came that we weren't coming back to school. And we moved later during COVID, so I genuinely never saw those people again. Tell me about starting ninth grade. Oh, boy. It started online, and I knew absolutely no one because I was new to the state, new to the school, which everyone was new since his freshman year. But I talked to one girl. We became friends online.

And when we met in person, we were so excited. And I remember going to the bathroom and walking out and us facing each other just out of random occurrence. And I was like, is that you? And she's like, Sophia? And then we just started crying and hugging because it was the first time we'd seen each other in person after talking for months. Yeah. And...

It was such an odd experience, but it was also so magical because I hadn't been around people my age for almost a year. And coming face-to-face with my new best friend in a new state at a new school, it was an amazing experience. But it was definitely interesting my freshman year because we'd have classes that were like

In person, like, we'd be in person, but we'd also have Zoom open so that, like, the people online could still participate in the class. And I honestly really applaud those teachers for making that work because that must have been so hard to, like, be able to teach, like, in person and, like, have a whole class of online students. And there are so many people that just never showed up. What do you think adults need to know about kids who are living through this? That we're trying our best. And, like...

We got handed a shitty set of cards to play with. Like, everyone has their own problems, but this is something that everyone's going through. And it's also nothing that, like, it's nothing that our generation has experienced yet, and your generation hasn't gone through parenting it. So really, I think it's just patience on both ends on, like, there are going to be times where, like,

COVID's going to affect friendships and like you're not going to agree about different political views and just like see more patients not because your kids are going to have differing opinions not in everything but like I know we have our differing opinions I'm like I don't know like genes genes yeah yeah the craziest most bananas thing about the past two years is that

You're still here. I'm not just saying that either. All of you, all of us experienced this worldwide tsunami of suffering compounded by our own life experiences, changes, losses, heartbreaks, all of the normal things in life. And none of us were spared. And so many of us did not make it through. But you're here. And in these past two years, I hope you also found little moments of beauty, just tiny flashes of light in this long, dark hallway.

There was so much garbage going around at the beginning of the pandemic. You know, like, you know, a lot of niceties, a lot of platitudes. But I remember seeing things like, if you don't come out of this lockdown with abs, what are you even doing? Well, to answer the question, I was eating bowls of ice cream with knockoff Lucky Charms marshmallows in them every night and wondering if we'd still have a job, if we would all live through this. You know, oh my gosh, it just...

just worrying not only about my own family, but your family, every family on this earth, every person, and just mentally spiraling because all the kids were at home and some parents couldn't do that. Some parents just didn't have jobs or they could also homeschool and like, could I homeschool?

school? No, I was terrible. I yelled at Ralph once for not knowing how to right-click because I was stressed about work. I was stressed about a podcast. Was I really stressed about the podcast or was I stressed about the idea of job security because are people even going to want to listen to a podcast called Terrible? Thanks for asking when the whole world is falling apart and podcasts only exist if there are enough advertisers and advertisers were pulling their dollars and nobody knew what the future would hold. And Ralph, how do you not know how to right-click? Well, he didn't know because he was in first grade. Okay? He'd barely ever clicked, let alone right-clicked.

And it felt bad to feel bad because some people had it worse. And it felt bad to feel good because how dare you? How dare you? When we think about the past two years, it's so bizarre that we are all walking around and posting on TikTok or Instagram and picking out outfits and eating dinner and driving our cars like the world hadn't just ground to a halt.

Like we didn't miss out on weddings and funerals and graduations and proms. And for everyone who says who cares about graduations or proms, you did. You did when you were a kid. You probably did. And we missed out on first dates and we missed out on the kismet of walking into a restaurant and seeing a long lost friend. And you know what I missed?

I missed eavesdropping. I miss sitting in a crowded space across from my husband and being like, zip your lip, buddy. We're not on a date. We're on this date next to us. Okay. And I'm about to hear the minutia of somebody's day. I'm about to hear somebody make the best pitch for themselves. And you can tell that this date is circling the drain, but he just tried to order a bottle of wine for the table. Oh,

I missed hearing about the minutia of strangers' days when they were just, you know, having coffee with a friend and I was just sitting next to them pretending to do my work. I missed people. I feel like we all missed each other. A few weeks ago, I went on a hike and...

My family crossed paths literally with this older man and his older dog and our little Chewini, Meredith Gray, was all up on this guy's dog, just like sniffing, yipping, being a one-year-old. And this man and I exchanged hellos and then we were just talking. And when we were done, 25 minutes later, I knew that his wife was dead and that he had four kids, a butcher, a banker, a Home Depot employee. Forget what the fourth kid did. Fourth kid was a cop.

Okay, I knew that this man goes on this walk once a week, and he also used to go hunting with his friends, quail hunting. But, you know, as you get older, you lose friends because of life, or they die. And when I tell you I wanted to give this man my number and commit to hiking with him once a week...

I wanted to. I did not do it because I'm learning boundaries, baby. But when I go back on that hike, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for him because he made my day too. He did. Hearing all of that, just being reminded of like the humanity that is so up close to us. It really did. It just made my day. And the strangest thing about being alive is that the biggest things you experience personally and as a society are someday just going to be history.

There'll be memories in a journal or like the cloud. There'll be events that our grandkids study and memorize and try to dissect and make sense of. And maybe they'll look back and see how some of us were trying to turn a stay-at-home order into a staycation or get really into baking or knitting or how we showed up for each other or how we turned away from each other or turned on each other.

Even the most privileged among us have been living for two years in a near constant state of heightened stress, ingesting a constant fire hose of uncertainty and human suffering at a mass scale that our parents have never had to do, our grandparents, our great-grandparents. It makes sense for all of us to be struggling right now. It makes sense to need a tranquilizer and a weighted blanket to fall asleep at night. That's what I use. And it makes sense that, yes, you wake up with a knot in your chest or feel like, oh, God, ah!

I don't know, maybe getting out of bed is overrated. And it's also, and I really do mean this, okay if you're doing okay. Really, it is okay if you're not at the end of a rapidly fraying rope right now. It's not as though struggle is some weight that can be redistributed. And what I mean is, if you're okay right now, that's not...

actively making someone else less okay. It's not as though you struggling would make someone else's load any lighter. And I've said this before, I will say it again, your suffering is not a self-improvement exercise. You do not need to come out of this experience or any other experience a better version of yourself. You do not need to alchemize this into something meaningful, something shiny, something worth it. It is

Okay, more than okay, amazing really, if what you did in the past two years is survive. If you woke up and did your best or even didn't do your best and just got through it, we are not meant to be constantly striving, constantly optimizing, constantly reaching and clawing and accomplishing. It is more than impressive enough to just survive.

At one point, I was talking with our friend Hannah Mecock Ross about our daily lives, and she said, natural as anything, well, I wouldn't call it thriving. Just rolled off her tongue. And I laughed and I said, no, I wouldn't either. We do not need to be thriving right now. That is okay. And I'm going to do something absolutely vile and read a part of a poem to you. It's by Mary Oliver. It's called Wild Geese. I'm only going to read part of it because

And maybe I'll read the whole thing. I'm going to read the whole thing. And if you don't like it, just skip forward 60 seconds. And, you know, hopefully you won't hate me for this, but I'll risk it. Okay, I'll risk it. You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting.

over and over announcing your place in the family of things. That is all for this episode. You do not have to be good. You do not have to be better. You still have a place in the family of things.

I love you guys. I really do. Every once in a while it just hits me like I've been doing this for almost six years and some of you are new and I love you and some of you are, you know, have been here since day one, Lloyd Elmore and others. And it just really does. It means a lot that we get to do this work and we get to do it because you are here. So this has been terrible. Thanks for asking. I'm Nora McInerney.

Terrible Things for Asking is a production of APM Studios and American Public Media. Executives in charge are Lily Kim, Joanne Griffith, and Alex Shaffert. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman. Our team includes me, Marcel Malikibu, Jordan Turgeon, Jacob Maldonado-Medina, and Megan Palmer. Our theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson. I sincerely hope you look him up.

And I recorded this in my closet where I realized there is so much street noise and it is cold. I've already complained about how cold my closet is, but you know, it's important that you all know that, you know, podcasting is just not glamorous. It's hard, hard work. I get, you know, every day I wake up and I just, I work so hard at typing and thinking and, um, yeah, man, oh man, man, oh man. Um, yeah, that's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's a joke. Um,

And that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it.

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