00:02:41.420So let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about your journey.
00:02:47.460who you were in your 20s and what you thought your life was going to be like now in your 40s.
00:02:54.940So in my 20s, you know, I was still figuring out every single thing about my life. You know,
00:03:02.120where do I want to live? What kind of job do I want to do? And it sort of came with the bigger
00:03:07.300question. Who am I? You know, it felt like everything was still up in the air and it was
00:03:15.300sort of invigorating, you know, like, ooh, everything is possible. But it was also scary
00:03:20.240because I felt like every choice could be the wrong one and it would ruin my life, you know,
00:03:27.100in a way that only in your 20s you think that everything is forever. And so at the time I got
00:03:35.160really obsessed with the question of kids, you know, this was not something that was anywhere
00:03:42.060near the horizon, you know, not for me, not for my friends, but it came up a lot. And especially
00:03:47.680with my closest friend, Sigrid, because she knew that she really wanted to have kids.
00:03:55.340And I was pretty sure I didn't, but she tried to convince me. And it's not really like she had skin
00:04:04.700in the game, right? It was not like a propaganda move or something. It was just, I think it was
00:04:09.540more curiosity. Like, wait, why do you not want that? Like, you're such a loving person. You're
00:04:16.300good with kids. You know, I can see how maybe you would derive a lot of joy and fulfillment from
00:04:24.700that. And again, you know, like I didn't know either way. Maybe she was right. Maybe she knew
00:04:32.480something about me that I didn't, you know, in the way that your friends can sometimes see you
00:04:38.400more clearly than you can see yourself. Right, exactly. I mean, I feel like our friends are not
00:04:44.640only the witnesses to our lives, but they're also kind of a looking glass, right? Like they just,
00:04:53.140they can reflect back things that we aren't able to see. A hundred percent. I really think that
00:04:59.140friends can be a mirror, like a kind mirror. You know, the ones where like the mirror with the
00:05:04.840sticker that says, like, you look great. You know, I feel like friends are that, you know, ideally.
00:05:11.620And so my friend would, you know, because I would tell her, I don't think it's for me because
00:05:16.880I'm afraid of chaos. You know, like I like feeling like my life is sort of in control,
00:05:22.880like my home is tidy and my I know in the morning what my day is going to look like.
00:05:28.520and when I thought about you know having children uh that seems hard you know like I was pretty sure
00:05:37.000that my life would no longer be so tidy uh and she would be like but I think that once you are
00:05:47.000a parent there are a lot of things that you learn to roll with that maybe you can you couldn't even
00:05:52.820imagine before you know and I took her point like I understand that this is one of the greatest
00:05:58.680transformations that any of us might go through in our life and you see these these reports right
00:06:08.800about like a woman lifting up a car to save her baby like that is some supernatural power that
00:06:18.080clearly comes with parenthood. And so it made me doubt, like, what is wrong with me,
00:06:26.560you know, if we're not wanting this? Is that just fear? Could I do something about that fear?
00:06:34.660And things got really messy when I met the person that would become my husband,
00:06:43.000uh david so david knew from the start you know the first day we met basically that i didn't
00:06:53.620want to have kids and i told him a few times you know afterwards but there was never really
00:07:00.840a conversation like he just took in the information and and didn't push back or didn't
00:07:05.360you know, didn't question. And I, in hindsight, that should have been like a warning sign.
00:07:14.120But I was just like, well, I gave him the information he knows were good,
00:07:17.540you know, and I didn't really ask him, like, how do you feel about this?
00:07:21.980Right, right. And how and how old were the two of you when you met and got together?
00:07:25.920So when I met him, I was 28 and he was 34. And then we got married three years later. So 31 and he was 37.
00:07:41.320OK. OK. So you were still relatively young when you met. I consider 20s young.
00:07:46.400Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And so in my 20s, let me see, that friend that I just told you about, Sigrid, she had her first kid by then. So it did become something, you know, she's a few years older. And so it did become something that was real all of a sudden in my life, you know, not just like something that you can talk about, you know, while having a coffee with a friend, you know.
00:08:11.340And I love babysitting her kid, you know, like there was such a joy in seeing this little like sort of wild, free, open consciousness develop, you know, that like she loved dancing and she loved pretending to speak long before she could.
00:08:34.580You know, like there was just something so free to like open to experimentation about her.
00:08:41.220And I suppose most kids, right, that that really like filled me with joy about what life could be.
00:08:51.240And so that, too, I was like, hmm, does that mean that I want it?
00:08:55.660But when I met my husband and I told him that I didn't want kids, I think what started happening was I didn't want to mess with him.
00:09:09.400Like I was like, I'm like 85 percent sure that I don't want kids.
00:09:14.660But let me just say that I'm 100 percent sure because I don't want to confuse him and sort of give him reason to hope when I don't feel like that's, you know, very probable that I will change my mind.
00:09:29.160And so I always told him, no, I'm absolutely sure I don't have kids.
00:09:32.540And whatever doubt I felt, I kept it, you know, close to the chest.
00:09:39.400And once we got married, it was very interesting.
00:09:44.380It was not long after that he started trying to convince me.
00:11:08.140You know, it just became this big ball of confusion and then anger.
00:11:12.940So we started having a lot of fights, which was really hard.
00:11:17.280I think there was also a feeling of like, maybe like a bait and switch, you know, like
00:11:22.980that's a little exaggerated because I don't think that he was malicious at all.
00:11:26.960Like, I really feel like he thought he could live with it. And then I think the more our relationship became sort of solid and settled, I think it just started aching so much, maybe more than he had anticipated. I can't read his mind, of course, but that's that's sort of what I feel happened.
00:12:15.000And so I, again, naively thought this is probably the smartest way to go about it.
00:12:24.160you know, like, don't give him any rope. And again, this is not how you should do things
00:12:29.060in a relationship. I do not recommend this course of action at all, you know. But I think the moment
00:12:35.280that it really came to a head was during the pandemic. So that was, let me see, six years
00:12:43.500into our marriage um he worked in tech and didn't love his job um and i worked in media you know i
00:12:57.260was making these podcasts about books which really fills me with so much you know joy and meaning
00:13:03.800and you know i love connecting with people and reading so i felt really like oh well i am in the
00:13:10.720right place somehow. You know, so as I said, this was six years after I felt so lost and I felt like
00:13:16.140I didn't exist. So a lot of changed. And it was when I was so happy that he started slipping into
00:13:23.740what I now think of as depression. And he's we live in New York. We live on the Upper West Side
00:13:32.820in an apartment where you could just hear the sirens go by, you know, day and night. Like the
00:13:39.900pandemic was really bad in New York. So, like, death seemed to be really present. And David said
00:13:49.680one night, like, what's the point of life if all we do is work and then die? And for him, you know,
00:14:00.300the point of life was having a kid. And I think it was really in that moment that I saw how big
00:14:07.820this was for him. And how far it was from what I wanted. Because, you know, I didn't want a kid.
00:14:15.360I didn't have a kid. I wanted an interesting job. I had an interesting job. I wanted to be married
00:14:20.180to David. I was married to David. So it was like, for him, the biggest puzzle piece seen missing.
00:14:26.880And for me, the puzzle was complete. So I think that's really when it started freeing.
00:14:32.080let's take a really quick break and when we get back i want to talk a little bit about what
00:14:41.300happens next how how you decided to end your marriage and move forward with what seemed like
00:14:51.140it would be a completely different life right yes absolutely
00:14:54.700okay we are back so the two of you just finally come to a standstill he wants kids
00:15:10.220you definitely don't want kids the marriage can't continue after that where do you go from there
00:15:17.180yeah you know when he he was the one who finally decided um I can't do this anymore like I I
00:15:28.100realize now that you're never going to change your mind you know we'd been married for eight years
00:15:33.300and he had been trying pretty much for eight years and he told me that he had to go do this
00:15:41.480thing. He had to find someone else and have a kid. And it was when he left that my world sort of
00:15:50.760started collapsing, you know, because I had moved for him to the U.S. Yes, I had friends and now I
00:15:59.120had a job that I liked. But still, you know, my family was all back home like he was my family,
00:16:05.180you know, and all of a sudden I didn't have him anymore. I didn't have this feeling of
00:16:10.600an anchor anymore. And so I just felt as if I was free falling. And I tried so desperately to
00:16:22.440grasp onto things, you know, just like, why did this happen? It's interesting because I thought
00:16:30.740that because I had been talking about so much with my friends and because this had been an issue for
00:16:37.960so long, you know, almost two decades at this point, I thought that I had figured out the kid
00:16:44.900question. But it was when my husband left that I realized, oh, I have not figured it out. All I've
00:16:52.860done is presented sort of a unified front, you know, and been very clear and sort of believed
00:17:02.420myself because that's the thing, right? Like once you start saying something enough, you start
00:17:06.140believing it. So I didn't think there was room for doubt. But then the moment he left and I felt like
00:17:12.980the person that I had moved for was gone. What am I doing here? Who am I? Why did I make this
00:17:21.940decision? Is it really worth it? You know, like if I can't even tell you exactly why I don't want
00:17:28.820to have a kid, maybe there's something to look at, you know, and maybe I will find that actually
00:17:35.960it is, who knows, you know, fear. And if I just go to a therapist and I address the fear, then maybe
00:17:42.480I can do this thing, you know? So it really, it set me on this road where it was almost like I
00:17:53.000had to go back to square one, you know, and ask myself questions that I thought I'd answered.
00:17:58.780But now I could answer so much more honestly because I didn't have to defend myself.
00:18:05.960Right, right. And do you think that so much of this self-doubt has to do with the fact that we are faced as women with a lot of societal expectations that you should want children, that you should want to be a mother? We do not see that many role models outside of that rubric, right?
00:18:28.140Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's so true. The pressure came from all sides. You know, it was really both my closest friend, well, my husband, as I said, but also my closest friends.
00:18:43.960And strangers. It's so wild to make hours.
00:19:35.640But he was by far not the only person who said something like that.
00:19:41.820And I think it was just years and years and years of that message, right?
00:19:46.420like this is such a special kind of love people would say things like you won't understand what
00:19:54.520life is about you're putting yourself outside of sort of the the circle of life you know uh
00:20:02.200it felt pretty big and like it can't be that everyone is wrong right so like that that's
00:20:11.440what I started thinking like if both my friends who know me really well and my husband who knew
00:20:17.900me really well and these strangers who don't know me but do know what this experience of having kids
00:20:26.000is like at least for them if all of them agree oh how can I be this sort of stubborn nope you know
00:20:36.060it's still not right for me because after all you can't know right like this is only a thing that
00:20:41.100you know when you do it right so yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah and then and then regretting
00:20:48.660having kids that's gonna suck I absolutely and I don't even know like for who it's the worst you
00:20:57.480know like is it the worst for you the parent or is it the worst for the kids like you don't really
00:21:02.400want to do that to a kid right like they didn't ask no I think that that would be terrible for
00:21:07.320everyone yeah yeah yeah so so how did you move forward so you decide you're like okay now now
00:21:14.540I'm really doubting myself which feels like some major gaslighting uh by society in so in so so
00:21:21.400many ways right and so you're like okay how do I figure this out how does a person figure this out
00:21:27.340without actually having a child and then maybe making a mistake yeah this is such a difficult
00:21:34.500question, right? And it's also why I made like an eight part show, like I needed that much to
00:21:38.480figure it out. And I think my answer is not sort of the golden ticket that I wish I could give,
00:21:47.360you know, like, it's not like, oh, I figured out the formula and all you have to do is apply it
00:21:52.000to your own life. A few things happened. One was that, you know, I started in trying to answer
00:22:02.340this question right I started to process by journaling but instead of journaling on paper
00:22:07.860I would like talk to myself sort of on my voice notes app and I would record conversations with
00:22:13.780friends and I would record interviews you know with people who had a similar situation like oh
00:22:19.720they knew they didn't want kids and what was their life like you know like I tried to look for
00:22:25.120any input and then record it so that I could listen back and really sit with it rather than
00:22:34.540just have a conversation and you pick out the things that resonate and you sort of drop the
00:22:38.060rest you know and there was something about being able to listen back that got me thinking about
00:22:44.200this question in a new way and I think the biggest change is that in talking to my friends
00:22:53.080I realized that this story that I had been telling about myself, right? Like, oh, I have all these
00:23:00.120fears. And if only I get sort of past those fears, then I can see the real me. And maybe the real me
00:23:10.160does want to have a kid, you know, because not wanting a kid, that must mean that there's
00:23:15.080something wrong with me. And talking to my friends started sort of shaking that idea because they
00:23:22.240told me okay I'm sure that you have fears you know don't we all but we see you as a very brave
00:23:30.580person like who moved to the other side of the you know like who moved across the Atlantic right
00:23:35.140like who started over in a field you know in in media that's not exactly straightforward you know
00:23:42.420So they gave me a different image of myself that I had a hard time integrating.
00:23:56.960You know, I was like, wow, but you don't know how dark it is inside, you know, like you'd think I am brave, but really I'm screaming all the way through.
00:24:06.740But they would tell me like, yeah, but that's what bravery is.
00:24:09.480It doesn't mean not being afraid, right?
00:24:11.920It's being afraid and doing it anyway. And so because they showed me over and over again
00:24:20.620who I was in maybe a fuller way, a kinder way, I started getting further away from that thought that
00:24:31.360there was something wrong with me. And I started seeing this feeling that I had that I didn't want
00:24:37.380kids as much more valid. You know, like, oh, it's not a sign of all the ways in which I am broken.
00:24:45.500You know, it's just what I want. And that's OK. That's one thing that happens. The other thing
00:24:52.780that happens is that I talked to someone, interestingly, because you just mentioned,
00:24:59.220you know, that really, let's try not have a kid and regret it, right, for everyone's sake.
00:25:07.380I talked to someone who had a kid and regretted it.
00:25:11.520And the first several years were very, very hard for him.
00:25:15.920But then something changed and he, you know, it was just the work of showing up for his kid every day and seeing them change and become like a full person who has opinions and loves riddles and like, you know, likes to swim.
00:25:33.220that that made him sort of change himself. And now he no longer regrets it. So I felt like he's
00:25:42.260a good person to give it to me straight. You know, like he has been on almost all sides of this
00:25:48.800equation. You know, like he, like all of us, once did not have kids. Then he did have a kid. It was
00:25:56.620bad. And then it was good. So I felt like he knows everything, you know. And so I'm going to ask him,
00:26:03.220And. The the thing that he said was, first of all, there is no right or wrong answer.
00:26:12.800Second of all, you will be disappointed either way, which I thought was funny.
00:26:17.360But as soon as I was like, oh, yeah, I get that up, that pessimist view, he was like, no, no, no, no, it's not pessimist.
00:26:23.040Like. You will always look at the other side and think, what if, you know, like there's just no way.
00:26:33.220So I asked him, you know, like, should I have a kid or not?
00:26:38.160Like, just give it like, tell me what to do, because I'm so sick of asking myself these
00:26:47.060First of all, there is no right or wrong answer.
00:26:49.560Like you can have a kid and think, wow, this is amazing.
00:26:53.660I should have done this 10 years ago and had three kids, you know, or it can be bad
00:26:59.640like it was initially for me, you know.
00:27:01.940but what he told me was doubt is inevitable because whatever you do you know you can only
00:27:11.940live life once but you can question it an infinite number of times and I never thought about it that
00:27:20.760way that there truly is no way to eradicate doubt and that it's more sort of a question
00:27:30.720of learning to live with it. And I understand that that is, I mean, it was for me very uncomfortable.
00:27:36.280I was like, okay, but I want to be sure, you know, like, how do I know that I'm never going to regret
00:27:42.220it? And hearing him say that very simple, like, you can live life once, but you can always question
00:27:53.780it, it changed something. And it made me see that I can both choose not to have kids and be very
00:28:04.020happy with that decision and have moments of doubt, you know, have moments where my heart
00:28:09.640shrinks a little when I see a very cute kid with sunglasses or, you know, like a kid that is
00:28:15.400learning to speak and they make sentences with their own idea of what grammar is supposed to be,
00:28:21.260you know, like before I would see that and feel an ache and think, wow, am I making a colossal
00:28:31.500mistake? And now I think that is cute. Really, that is, you know, I want to just squeeze their
00:28:39.640cheeks and, you know, be like every sort of aunt who is like, oh, God, it's so big. But it doesn't
00:28:49.320mean that I need to have a kid like both of those things can be true I think that you can adore
00:28:56.620children and want to be in their lives and want to be a big part of their lives like I said
00:29:02.620my friend Glynis is the godmother to my children she's the godmother to many children she's been
00:29:08.760present at many births she does not want own children and so again I think that society has
00:29:15.140really created a binary for us to say you're either a mother or you're not able to mother
00:29:22.320or you're not able to care give. And again, I think that those are myths that we just have to
00:29:28.420blow wide open. A hundred percent. It's really that binary, I think, that messed me up for so
00:29:35.800long because I was like, well, if I can't be a hundred percent sure, then I'm not there yet.
00:29:41.680But I think you're right. It's society imposing this on us. I don't think anything in life is completely black and white. And there's such, you know, I think the violent rhetoric against women who don't want to have children, right, that we're like the downfall of society and we're selfish and we're, you know, all this.
00:30:06.700i think of course it makes you defensive right and of course it's going to be like no my life
00:30:13.780is amazing and like every day is a party and look at me like going to you know travel the world and
00:30:21.540like look if that's your life okay great i'm happy for you but that is not my life and i
00:30:29.560am not happy every day of the year right and i think that's okay like i think uh this this sort
00:30:41.900of um posturing is what i'm very tired of like i don't think either like i even hesitate to say
00:30:51.500side but like parents are not happy every day of the year and non-parents are not happy every
00:30:57.800day of the year and that is okay and I hope that when people listen to my show that if they
00:31:07.220themselves struggle with like oh why can I not figure this out I keep having doubt
00:31:11.820that they feel less alone with that and that they feel maybe less this this sort of need to
00:31:18.580pick a side even though of course you do you do in a sense have the choice right like oh sorry you
00:31:24.620do in a sense have to choose but like you say you can have so many kids in your life that you see
00:31:32.260grow up and that you have a relationship with that is different from being their parent and I think
00:31:39.200very valuable you know like there's inevitably going to be an age where kids are like oh mom
00:31:45.380you're so embarrassing and then maybe they can come to you you know because you're not as
00:31:51.560embarrassing you haven't like you know changed their diaper and and still see in their teenage
00:31:57.300self sort of the helpless little baby that they were that they once were and now they so desperately
00:32:03.320wanted to be taken seriously fabulous let those you know rowdy teenagers come to me uh i'm so for
00:32:11.720it you know so i can't wait until my friends kids are at that age where i can really feel useful
00:32:20.160exactly exactly give it all to auntie come on absolutely yeah yeah all right let's take one
00:32:29.120more quick break and when we get back i want to talk a little bit about the show about creation
00:32:34.460okay we're back this show is so good i mean i'm such a narrative audio junkie
00:32:49.720And you have so many incredible recordings where you're really mining your own feelings, in some cases, things that are often traumatic for you to recount on the microphone.
00:33:06.060I think that this is the kind of show where audio is at its best because it reaches inside of our ears and our brains and just touches us in a way that I think a lot of other mediums cannot.
00:33:19.720Totally. It's so immediate, right? And like the show is me telling the story. So that means that
00:33:28.280I sat there at my computer and thought about what happened and what sentences can I use,
00:33:35.280right, to sort of express this story. But a lot of the show is, as you say, tape that was recorded
00:33:43.040in the moment so the moment that my husband left I think maybe two or three days later
00:33:49.920I recorded a message for my close friend you know like a whatsapp voice message
00:33:55.320and you hear everything in my voice like you hear the anger that you know he's been sort of
00:34:03.600walking around this for so long and why did it have to get so painful and then my my fear of
00:34:11.220being alone and then my sadness for him because you know he's alone right like it's not like mom
00:34:18.440he leaves and now he has a kid and so to hear that raw emotion and and sort of this quick evolution
00:34:26.940in even in a message that's maybe just three minutes long I don't think there's any other
00:34:33.560medium where you could recreate that like sure on camera you also capture stuff but I think a
00:34:41.780camera is so it's not subtle you know what I mean like you can't really forget that the thing is
00:34:48.260there whereas with when it's just you talking to your phone you forget it really quickly and you're
00:34:55.040like exactly who you are in that moment and I feel so grateful to my friends and you know everyone
00:35:02.900close to me who has allowed me to record everything you know for like three years
00:35:10.140they were very patient with me and I of course I didn't know like oh what am I going to use
00:35:15.920and I did run it by everyone so I'm not publishing things that they haven't heard
00:35:22.560but it is they've trusted me in a way that I am really grateful for.
00:35:31.120And you don't shy away from things that are often hard to talk about. You're very open about your abortion when you found out that you were pregnant with your husband. You're very open about talking about getting a sterilization procedure and exploring that option.
00:35:53.220when, you know, both of these things are often really loaded for so many women, for so many of
00:36:02.400us, because our culture has heaped so much guilt and shame on these ideas. But you go there. You
00:36:10.460go there in the podcast. Yeah, you know, I think people have asked me that, like, how is it that
00:36:18.080you were able to be so vulnerable um and i think the answer is i pretended as if nobody ever would
00:36:26.380hear this show you know like i was just making this for myself i'm just trying to work something
00:36:30.820out and you know towards the end uh when the deadline was approaching and and i had to have
00:36:38.440these like promo meetings you know with the the cbc the canadian broadcaster who brings it out
00:36:44.800They were like, OK, so we'll send it to this podcast and to that newspaper.
00:36:49.980And I just got like panic attacks, you know, because just the thought that this thing that I was like, I was lying there on the proverbial operating table cut open, you know, from my neck to my groin, just like, oh, everything is on display here.
00:37:07.020And now people are going to come in and see this.
00:37:10.240I just couldn't. I had to really, like, sort of dissociate from that and just tell myself, like, no one's going to listen. Your mom, your best friend, the end, you know. And it's very interesting. The moment that it actually, you know, was launched into the world, it was no longer mine.
00:37:33.240and like I'm not the queen of letting go you know like this is really not sort of a skill that I
00:37:38.640possess in heaps but it was as if I had made a ship and I love building ships but it's up to
00:37:48.880someone else to make the voyage you know like I'm not gonna go take it to the sea and do my
00:37:53.800sailing stuff like let someone else enjoy it or not you know but either way it's not for me
00:37:59.640And the beautiful thing that I found is that this show that is so, I mean, it's wild. It's like eight episodes about me. And like, I'm not a very extraordinary person. Like my life is not so, you know, story worthy or whatever, or not more than, you know, most people.
00:38:18.840But because I went so deep, the response has almost uniformly been like, wow, I see myself.
00:38:32.620Even people who do have kids, people who, you know, have never had a speck of doubt, like even people where what they recognize is not even to do with kids or no kids.
00:38:46.380it's something to do with can you listen to yourself what does it mean to do something that
00:38:53.720maybe goes against society and will make some people very unhappy but it feels true to you
00:39:00.120like how do you stand up for that and I think it's because I held nothing back you know and
00:39:10.340as you say, like, yeah, I really went there with the abortion, with, you know, yeah, mental
00:39:18.740health stuff. Like, I talk about sort of very dark chapters in my life. And I'm so grateful
00:39:27.060that this show that is all about me turns out to be a mirror.
00:39:33.640Yeah, I love that. I mean, you answered my next question for me, which was going to be,
00:39:37.640what has the reaction been? I've gone on book tour with Glynis and I have watched women come1.00
00:39:43.880up to her after reading both of her memoirs about living a child-free life out loud and truly
00:39:50.640loving her life and herself. And I have seen women come up to her and burst into tears.
00:39:57.040What has the reaction been for you? Yeah, I mean, that's really, really what it is. And it's so
00:40:03.380beautiful because you know people after having listened to the show or you know only only four
00:40:12.400episodes are out now but all eight will will be out at some point but after having listened to
00:40:18.220however many episodes of the show people think they know me but of course I don't know them
00:40:22.800and so they start talking sort of on a tone that is almost as if we've been friends for decades
00:40:30.700which is very beautiful and a little overwhelming I have to be honest you know because I can't I
00:40:36.940don't have the time to to give everyone what I feel like they deserve you know which is like
00:40:42.640a response that is as carefully crafted and as heartfelt but yeah what I try to say in one
00:40:51.440form or another to everyone who shares their story is like I'm so glad that you know you don't feel
00:41:00.340so alone in this because I felt really alone for a very long time. And seeing the way people
00:41:08.420respond and connect has made me feel like we are a community without knowing it, you know?
00:41:20.940And I think like, of course, there are communities, right? There are Facebook groups and there are
00:41:24.920maybe offline groups, you know, for people who don't have kids. That's great. But I don't belong
00:41:28.740to one I'm not much of a joiner you know and I think that's a lot of us right like it's not an
00:41:34.660automatic community and I think making the show putting it out there hearing other people's stories
00:41:41.080has made me feel like we are linked in ways that we would never know if we don't reach out to each
00:41:50.380other I completely agree I completely agree and I truly believe it I do I want to say something
00:41:58.720too. When you said, I don't think my story is that extraordinary. I hear that from women a lot.
00:42:06.620And I think that all of our stories are extraordinary, especially when they're kind of
00:42:12.660rooted in the ordinary. I think we need to hear more stories of more women's lives. And that is
00:42:21.320the way that as a culture, we're genuinely going to change. And so I just have to applaud you.
00:42:26.780Thank you. I mean, if I can shout out the person who helped me do it, because my idea of the show was very different. I thought, OK, I'm embarking on this life without kids. Let me find other people who have done that or like are doing that and are further along. And let me talk to them and take notes and learn. Right.
00:42:46.820And so I had all these interviews. I had been traveling across the country. I had asked, like, friends of friends of friends. Like, I had roped so many people into my project and they had all kindly, you know, given their time and their, like, you know, their feelings. Like, they had shared all kinds of stuff with me.
00:43:02.780And then when the show got bought, right, someone was going to help me make it, the CBC, they assigned this editor, Veronica Simmons.
00:43:12.420And she looked at my outlines and she listened to some of the tape and she was like, yeah, it's nice, but I am really interested when it's about you.
00:43:23.040Like you tell your story and then you sort of move on to someone else.