18. We Will Find Out Together

Nora McInerny: I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay.

I hate surprises. Not even surprises, I hate suspense. Watching any movie or show with even a modicum of tension…I get tense and I will literally talk my way through it OR – if I know that will be unacceptable to my viewing companions, I will look up spoilers so I can just enjoy the ride comfortable in my knowledge of the destination. 

As a kid, on the rare occasion where we’d get to rent a VHS from Mister Movies and all settle in on our slipcovered sofa, I’d have a question the minute the movie began. Right after the title sequence, or halfway through the first scene, I’d ask aloud,

WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?

There were variations on this question. What’s happening? Who’s that? Where’s the going? What’s next?

I was raised in a family where talking during a movie just a hard no, but I couldn’t help it. Every fiber in my anxious little body needed to know what was going to happen next! 

And my dad used to say — aside from Nora, stop talking — 

We’ll find out together.

And oh man oh man, will we ever. I didn’t know how that family was going to survive living in a house filled with spiders in arachnophobia but I didn’t need to know…we found out together.

I didn’t know how Kevin was going to defeat the Wet Bandits or if they would actually bite off his fingers one by one for assaulting them with paint cans and hot irons…but we found out together that violence, in some cases, is the answers.

I didn’t know what was going to happen when my husband’s brain tumor came back right at the end of my first pregnancy and he went into brain surgery for the second time while I willed the baby not to be born even a minute early…but we found out together. It wasn’t a great ending, by the way, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.

I thought of my father and that saying – we will find out together – right at the beginning of Covid. The kids wanted to know when they’d go back to school. Matthew and I were wiping down our groceries with clorox wipes and I was sure that we’d end up losing everything because, ya know, podcasting isn’t exactly essential work and advertisers were dropping out. I didn’t have answers for the kids because nobody had any answers. There was nothing to do but Clorox everything and stay inside and try not to fall into a pit of despair. We didn’t know what was going to happen…but we found out together. 

And man, that sucked, so yeah, what happens is not always good! And the title of this show promises you that something, at least, will be okay. It is. Maybe not the big thing you’re dreading, or hoping for. 

I have the ability now to skip to the back page of the book if I want to, or to Google spoilers and settle in to enjoy the ride. Entertainment can be spoiled or adjusted to meet your stress tolerance, but life can only be lived at the speed of life, and no faster. 

And I have to say, I do not love this, still. I am not a zen prophet who meets every life challenge with a deep breathe, welcoming the discomfort because it is going to help me grow. I still have to fight my brain into submission, to convince myself that this is life, baby! We don’t know what’s going to happen today, or tomorrow, and that’s easier to swallow when your life is going smoothly than it is when you feel like you’re right on the precipice of ruin, or even when you can just feel that earth shifting beneath you and threatening to give way.

What’s going to happen? Who is that? Where are we going? How is this going to turn out? So many of us are still little kids on slipcovered sofas, tugging at our parents arms hoping they can give us some assurance that Kevin McAllister’s mom is going to get home to her son.

We will not all get the ending we want, and we never know what other middles or beginnings are in store for us. 

But whatever it is…we will find out together.

What I do know this: whatever it is, we will find out together. 

I’m Nora McInerny and It’s Going to be Okay.

We are a production of Feelings and Co., the same team who brings you Terrible, Thanks for Asking. This episode was written and recorded in my house. It was produced by Megan Palmer…[laughs] literally forgot her name it’s almost the same as mine, Claire McInerny. Our theme music is by Secret Audio. It’s Going to be Okay is an independent production and the ‘it’ in it’s going to be okay and it changes everyday. I do want to hear yours. You can call us at 612 568 4441 or email us at [email protected].