412. Spot the Difference

A few years ago, Nora was in a dark place (mentally, not a dark room), and today she shares the progress she’s made since then.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay, which I would not have really believed a few years ago. A few years ago, I  was laying, not laying. I was on a bed in Vegas with my head buried in pillows. I was having pretty much a mental breakdown in a hotel room. That was not on the schedule that my friend Caroline Moss and I had agreed upon.

We were there to do what we do in Vegas, which is put on headphones, work quietly,  work quietly until the room service arrives, um, after we’ve ordered no fewer than three cans of potatoes, and then reward ourselves with some time at the slots. But I was about to go on a book and podcast tour in a matter of days.

I had not written the live show. I’d be performing in 10 cities I’d committed to performing in over the course of 24 days. 21 cities in 24 days and I was in the middle of a dark time. But of course I didn’t think of it as a dark time because no one was  except me in my fantasies. Oh boy.  Two years later.

I’d be back in Vegas with Caroline  regularly. It wasn’t, wasn’t the first time I’d been back. I’d been back a few times, but  almost two years to the date.  I’m there  and I’m wearing actual clothing. We leave the hotel to go to the sphere, which honestly I was not a fan of, but that’s not the point. I was not having a mental breakdown and no part of me was fantasizing about dying.

While you might be thinking, hmm.  Those are two different experiences. Yeah. You are correct. 

Now, you know.  Yeah. Now, oh, okay. I need to adapt this in some way. If I’d held those.  Okay.  I have photos from each of these trips and side by side, you would not need me to describe them to tell you that things were different. Okay. If you did, you would probably,  I have photos of these two trips. And if I put them side by side and said, spot the difference, and then you would, you’d be able to spot the difference, but you wouldn’t be able to spot the internal difference.

Okay.  And now you do. Now you could. Now you know. Now you know that when I’m unwell, I will truly hide my head in the sand or high quality pillows at a luxury hotel and I will scream in agony until Caroline pauses Law Order SVU and is like, are you okay?  And now you also should know that I am not that woman screaming into the hotel pillows anymore and that making some changes helped me make A lot of changes over the past few years.

I found a new therapist. I let a few people in and locked a few people out. I realized that I had been the architect and builder and general contractor of a life that did not feel good to me probably because those are specialized jobs that require some level of training and I am a woman who lacks bascials,  and I am a woman who lacks basic spatial reasoning and has run face first into a screen door that she herself shut. 

I made a lot of choices that were hard to make and that had real impact. I slammed my foot on the brakes.  And I let my forehead hit the dashboard. I cancelled last year’s Happiest Holidays tour and honestly, I got ditched by my agent. I probably won’t ever be able to book another tour. I cut way back on producing Terrible Thanks for Asking.

I prioritized the health of the team over the grueling production schedule that we’d been on for years, even though not one business person would say like, yeah, you should cut back. Um, so if you feel  overwhelmed if you feel I  have a lot of empathy and a lot of sympathy for the woman that I was in 2022 Who felt like everything was out of control and everything was just too much and if that is how you feel I want you to know that  Uh, it’s real.

It’s real and that your life is not a runaway train  Not everything is in your control. I’m not blaming you or past me for feeling this way, but you are allowed to switch tracks or fully derail. I don’t know how trains work. In movies they just jump off of it and onto a horse or a convertible that’s driving alongside at the exact same speed.

They do it and it looks very cool and not that hard. But of course it’s hard.  But whatever you’re feeling right now, imagine that you are hearing the feelings of a very small precious child or the person you love the most in this world. Your very best friend.  Whatever you would tell them,  Tell that to yourself. 

And also go to your photos app and look up who and how you were two years ago. I want you to take a minute to look at how far you’ve come and be proud of yourself today.  I’m Nora McInerny.  Things are hard guys. I know it’s hard for everybody right now, but it is going to be okay. Not everything, something.

We are going to find the okay thing and when we cannot find it, we will be it. And when we cannot be it, we will let somebody else be it for us.  We can do this.  This is a small independent podcast by Feelings and Co. We are just a bunch of people who have a lot of feelings and like to talk about them.