The negative always sticks. I can clearly hear the words. I remember the time of day. Where I was sitting. The way the light was hitting my desk.

I was talking to a woman. We’d been connected by a celebrity acquaintance. Someone I'd interviewed who liked me. Who wanted to help me. Who said; you should meet this woman.

It felt like a stroke of luck. Finally, I thought, things were going my way. I had everything for this meeting. The pitch deck. The first two episodes. The structure, the outline, the themes for the following ten.

The gist was this: A podcast with no video. No celebrities. Just normal women… talking about real, honest, hard things. Women talking about divorce and marriage and kids and the choices that define and change us.

The conversation began with small talk. She was in New York but thinking of moving to Philly. She asked how I liked it. I told her the good neighborhoods and the ones to avoid. We spoke of our mutual friend. Then she asked if she could be honest with me.

She said she listened to the first episode. She said the sound quality was terrible. She said without microphones and sound engineers, it would never be up to the level for distribution. Yes, I know, I said. But I can’t ask these guests, these women, who are working or raising kids, these busy, normal women, to have microphones. She ignored that.

I told her the editing was rough because I was doing it alone. Hence, why I was hoping for distribution (aka help). I needed someone to believe in it. She ignored that too. She then told me that Instagram followers don’t convert to Podcast listeners. Oh, she said. And the name wasn’t good.

When I had this conversation, I was pregnant with my second daughter. I was still working my corporate job, still managing well enough. I knew I had a lot on my plate, but I was excited about it. My own agent had been telling me to do a podcast for years, but I never felt the pull.

I didn’t see the point. I had my newsletter. My book. My job. My kids. I didn’t need to sit and talk into a microphone. If I’m going to do a podcast, I told myself, it will be something else. Something different.

Then, I had this phone call. Even though I could do it, even though I still believed that we can do anything, I couldn't do it anymore. I lost my enthusiasm. That’s what happens when you hear negativity. You believe it. And without that belief, difficult things become impossible.

Thankfully, not many people knew about it. My next failed venture. I told one or two close friends, but overall, I had been quiet about it. The only women who knew, were the ones I interviewed for those first two episodes.

Those first two episodes…they sat on my drive for a year and a half. I got a few emails from women asking what the status was, which I ignored or deleted, removing any trace of the failure.

Yet when my MacBook officially ran out of space six months ago, and I took it to Apple to upgrade to a new one, they asked if I wanted to hand it in there and wipe the drive. I told them no. They said I could keep my old one for two weeks, before trading it in. I remember this moment as well. Sitting at my desk. The same light hitting the corner. I remember pulling the files to my drive, while simultaneously telling myself it was pointless.

Then life kept happening. Fights with my parents. My husband. An unfinished manuscript. Another difficult call with my own agent. Holiday breakdowns. Panic attacks in my closet. My new therapist. Couple’s counseling. SSRI consultations. The vortex of my life, my choices, my pain. And then, I got an email.

I get these emails. People asking me to be on their podcast. To talk about myself, my book, Words of Women. I usually say no. Because I don’t have a microphone. Because I don’t want to be on camera. I ignored her email.

The she emailed again. I responded and told her I would think about it but I was very busy (aka struggling to survive). She followed up and I ignored her again. Sorry, I thought, I don’t have time for this. I don’t owe you anything. I forgot about it.

A few weeks later, she emailed AGAIN. This time, she said, she met a friend of mine. They were at some networking event. She said my friend was the only woman to talk to her at this event. That they started chatting and somehow, Words of Women came up… and the connection was made.

This email got my attention. Because I love this friend. This friend is one of those bright light people. And, I felt the pull. The importance. Women helping women.

If this girl wants me on her podcast, if it will help her, I can do it. I emailed her back. I told her I loved that friend. I asked her if the podcast had to be on video. She said yes. I told her I didn’t love that, but as a favor to her and my friend, I would do it.

I told her not to send me the footage. I didn’t want to see myself. She was nice about it. The conversation was great. I felt good. I forgot how nice it was to just talk. Then she posted the interview. I reposted it and deleted it because I hated the sound of my voice. I hated my lips and my eyebrows and everything about my disgusting self. I untagged myself. I don’t owe her that, I thought (while also thinking of that woman’s words – Instagram followers don’t convert to Podcast listeners.)

Then life kept happening. Pain, joy, pain, pain, pain. Then I got a notification. I was tagged in another clip. This soundbite from our interview was getting a lot of feedback. It was towards the end. When we were done talking about my career and writing and influences and she was talking about this newsletter and my life.

She said she was in her thirties and single and appreciated my honesty about motherhood. I told her I was pissed. That no one told me. What it meant. What it would do to my marriage, my identity. That we needed more honest conversations about the reality of motherhood. That it’s not always love, love, love.

I remember watching this clip, on repeat, in my closet. I remember watching myself and hearing my voice and not hating it. Or rather, not caring. I really just remember thinking, there’s something there.

So last month, almost two years later, struggling, overburdened, exhausted, I decided to release those first two episodes. Who cares, I told myself. I can always just stop doing it. I told myself to just make one more episode. See if I could get momentum.

And then, even though I have no time, even though I can barely breathe some days, even though it takes hours and doesn’t make money and probably will do nothing in terms of my career or monetary success, I found myself feeling better.

Talking to women. That’s what I told myself therapist. That’s what’s helping me. Random women who are willing to connect over zoom. No microphones. No equipment. That’s how I’m healing myself. And while editing all these interviews as my daughters sleep, while the dishes pile up, I have found meaning.

Because I’m a writer, I am in a unique position to say that my career makes me lonely. And that loneliness makes me feel isolated. And that isolation exacerbates my pain. And that while I will try this SSRI and keep going to therapy, I believe that talking to other women is the true way out of this pain.

Talking is what normalizes all of this and makes me feel like I’m not alone, like I’m not failing, but rather that I am just PART OF IT. Part of what every other woman is going through. And the more we talk, the less alone we will feel, and the less alone we feel, the more we will heal.

I don’t care if the quality is poor. This is for me. And THESE WOMEN… each one has helped me. There’s a thread to this small but important thing. I can’t define it or connect it yet, but I feel it. And I don’t care anymore if it takes time. If people (my family) are inconvenienced by it. This is what I need to do. This gives me joy.

And even though it's not important, even though it's not about the downloads and streams, I have also found validation. Because despite it being unprofessional and poorly edited, it's gotten more downloads in its first week than top 5% of podcasts.

-Quote of the Week-

"Optimism is saying 'everything is going to be fine. Don't worry about it.' But you don't do anything to make it so. Hope is a muscle. Hope is you're going to fight for something, no matter what you think the outcome will be. Because it's important to do it."

— Jane Fonda

-Thought of the Week-

“The Best of Betty,” from Jenny and the Jaws of Life, Jincy Willett.

-Read of the Week-

“Why do you do interviews? How do you decide which interviews to participate in? Are there rules you follow? Why not let the books exist without the interviews? Are you ever going to stop doing interviews altogether? Why not now?

―I no longer follow any rule. The main thing is that it doesn’t seem to me that I’m giving interviews. You think that we’re doing an interview? I don’t. In an interview the person being interviewed entrusts his body, his facial expressions, his eyes, his gestures, the way he speaks—an often-improvised speech, inconsistent, poorly connected—to the writing of the interviewer. Something that I can’t accept. What we are doing resembles, rather, a pleasant correspondence. You think about it and write me your questions; I think about it and write my answers. It’s writing, in other words, and I like/am fond of all occasions for writing. In the past it seemed to me that I was unable to come up with answers suitable for publication. Either they were too succinct, a yes or a no, or a short question became an occasion for reflection, and I wrote pages and pages. Now I think I’ve learned something but not necessarily. So no, I don’t give interviews, to anyone, but I find these exchanges in writing increasingly useful—for myself, naturally. It’s writing that should be placed beside that of the books like a fiction not very different from literary fiction. I’m telling you about myself, but you too—a writer, I read one of your books in Italian, which I loved—with your questions are telling me about yourself. I talk about myself, as do you, as a producer of writing. I do it truthfully, addressing not only you and our possible readers but also myself, or at least that substantial part of myself that considers it completely senseless to waste so much time writing and needs reasons that justify the waste. In short, your questions help me to invent myself as an author, to give form, that is, to this unstable, elusive part that I myself know little or nothing about. Something that I imagine has happened to you too, as an author, when you have formulated the questions.”

―'Be Silent, Recover My Strength, Start Again': In Conversation with Elena Ferrante

-Movie of the Week-

I watched as much as I could of this on the flight back from Florida with the kids and all I can say is...it brought me back to life. This is what FILM IS SUPPOSED TO BE. A beautiful, raw, story with humor and passion and the best thing I truly have seen in years.

Synopsis: A young sex worker from Brooklyn life takes an unexpected turn when she meets and impulsively marries Vanya, the impetuous son of a Russian billionaire. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.