Terrible, Thanks For Everything!!
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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. Do me a favor and fast forward 30 to 40 seconds if you're bored of hearing the origin story of this show.

But we started making Terrible Things for Asking in 2016. I was an unemployed, somewhat recent widow. I was secretly pregnant with my newish boyfriend's baby. And I was about to publish my memoir about my husband dying of brain cancer. I had an inbox full

filled with stories. And I had a rejected book title that I wanted to use for something. Terrible Thanks for Asking, I was told, was a little too negative for a book about my husband dying. I wanted to use that title for something that something became this show. Seven years, over 250 episodes, over 200 million downloads.

Tours, where I have met thousands of you, hugged thousands of you, probably apologized to everyone who came into contact with me for my BO, which is honestly out of my control and is out of control. This show has been...

the most meaningful work of my life and also the job that I've held the longest, which is really not saying much because my average before this was about 18 months. 18 months and I was like, I think we've both gotten what we can out of this experience. Let's part ways. I have said...

numerous times that I could make an episode of this show every day for a hundred years and never tell the same story twice because as universal as our human experiences are, every story is also truly, truly entirely unique. And I could make an episode of this show every day for a hundred years if I was a robot. And sadly, I am not a robot, even if

I treat myself like one sometimes. And I do actually do that most of the time. I put in minimal care. I expect maximum output. And as the podcast market has changed over the past seven, eight years, so did the expectations and the output. So what was meant to be a seasonal show, 10 at a time show,

suddenly, it felt like, became always on, which means at least 40 episodes and bonus content and more production and faster. At one point, I think in 2020 or 2021, I can't remember which, we made over 70 episodes in a single year and not with a bigger team, not with a bigger budget. There are a lot of themes that

in our TTFA episodes, but one of them is that we each own our own story. We are not the worst thing that ever happened to us or the biggest thing that happened to us. We are not what we've done or what we've had done to us. We deserve empathy and compassion and respect and the ability to decide what our experiences mean to us

and what to do with them. The story of TTFA is one that I am so proud of. This was work that helped me heal, that helped me grow, that challenged me in ways that I didn't even know I needed to be challenged. And yeah, I could still tell a different story every day. I could do this forever, or at least until all the listeners quit listening and my butt melded into the fabric of this

cheap desk chair, but I would rather be in charge of choosing my own adventure and in charge of deciding when and how terrible things for asking comes to an end. And even though I have spent the last two years trying to come to a different conclusion, I have realized that I've just been circling the same answer, which is that nothing lasts forever.

And I would rather choose my own ending than have it chosen for me. Which means this, that it is time for me to take a break from Terrible Thanks for Asking at the end of this season, which is April 2nd, 2024. And even though typing that sentence, saying that sentence out loud is

I can feel my body feeling those words. I also know that even a hard decision can be the right decision and that I do need to follow the advice that I've given to so many other people and listen to the fact that my body and my spirit are profoundly burned out. Maybe you picked up on that on the last tour where I had a 20-minute bit about

Praying I would get hit by a car so I could enjoy a coma. Enjoy a light coma. I don't want terrible things for asking to burn out with me. I want the story of the show to be that we built something beautiful and meaningful together. That...

We took all of this wreckage of so many terrible things and we just flicked on the light for one another and we walked these paths together. And underneath the sadness of this decision, there's also legitimate excitement. I'm excited to give myself time and space to just exist. I'm excited to see who I am outside of terrible things for asking.

I'm excited to continue It's Going to Be Okay, the daily podcast that has truly helped me get through the past year by tuning me into the little okay things about this big, overwhelming world.

I'm writing a weekly newsletter that I've been doing since May regularly. I've literally been writing every week since May and it has reminded me I'm a writer and that I missed writing and I can't wait to write more and who knows what I'll write about, but I know I can't wait to do it and I hope that whatever it is, I will see you there because I do think, I do know that we have more in common than just our terribles.

Some of you have been here since the very first episode, since before that first episode when I was on Tumblr. Tumblr. Some of you I know by face, by first name, by first and last name, by the outfits that we have in matching colors. Some of you I haven't met yet, but I've been in your cars a

or your homes, or my voice has, I should clarify, that's not like an admission of breaking and entering. I'm not like, some of you I found, and then I just followed you from a distance. I want you, all of you, to know, new listeners, old listeners, in-between listeners, occasional listeners, that it is really a mind-boggling honor to be a part of your lives. And I will appreciate that,

deeper than you will ever know for as long as I live. So the last episode of TTFA as we know it is April 2nd. If you stay subscribed to this feed, you'll get updates on any other projects, terrible or otherwise. I'm really proud of the episodes that we have coming for you for the rest of the season. And no matter what, we'll always be terrible.

Thanks for not asking. Thanks for asking or for not asking. I'm Nora McInerney. This has been a little update episode of Terrible Thanks for Asking. We are a production of Feelings & Co. and we will still be making work that is centered around feelings in all kinds of places. Our team is Marcel Malikibu, Claire McInerney, Michelle Planton, and Grace Berry. Our theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson.

When's the last time you thought about your employee benefits? I know you probably don't want to think about that right now, but they're important because you are important. Because people matter and so does technology, which is why the Hartford is so committed to providing a benefits experience like no other. Putting care and compassion into the technology behind benefits to create a better benefits experience for everyone. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.