SUMMER OF SURRENDER: Let’s give up, girls

There is no shame in giving up, despite the fact that the #Girlboss from the 2010s in us all might be rolling over in her metaphorical grave at the thought. But if you’re anything like Nora, you’ve felt the pressure from… well, everywhere to have a plan for the summer. To make it the most magical summer for your kids. To juggle work and hobbies and friends and your health with ease even as we’re hit by heat wave after heat wave. To meet every make believe deadline you have created for yourself.

This episode, Nora’s introducing you to the Summer Of Surrender: The One Where We Give Up. It’s about letting go of that tight hold you have on to-do lists, deadlines, and plans. It’s about letting life take you wherever it may go. It demands that you step away from that email you’ve been writing, accept you are not the center of the universe, and surrender.

Come surrender with us.

 

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

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Hi. Hi there.

Hi.

Hi.

Hey, Nora.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Thanks For Asking, a call-in show about what matters to you. At the end of May, my children told me that they were having a horrible summer, and it was only May. I know, but I live in Arizona.

We are, I believe, 49th in per-pupil spending. So our school year ends a bit early. Their review of their first week of summer break, 2026, was basically that, and I’m paraphrasing here, we never have any fun, and we wish we were back at school.

This was completely fair of them. We had spent that week going to an expensive trampoline park. Not the one that we’ve had a membership for, unbeknownst to me, by the way, for the past year.

I’d taken each of them to hang out with different friends. We can’t call them playdates anymore. These kids are too old for that, I’ve also been informed.

We went to pool parties. I subjected them to truly heinous things like donuts, waiting for them at the breakfast table, snacks that were ice cream, popsicles, perhaps even a soda. Somehow, every year, summer happens.

It has been happening, but this is a time, a precious time where we are meant to pressure to, aim to, dream of enjoying ourselves.

It’s a precious time of year whether or not you have kids, but if you have kids, if you are a kid, if you were a kid, you have to know that while children are freed from the drudgery of routine and released into the care of their allegedly capable

parents, many of whom have scheduled camps and enrichment activities and planned days and weeks that are full of wonder and delight. These are parents who spent our own summers chatting in AOL chat rooms with strange old men, running feral through

the streets with our friends. Not an adult in sight. I don’t think I drank a single glass of water. I might have drank from a hose in moments of extreme thirst, but otherwise summer was ours.

It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like if it was going to be magical, it was because of everything that we didn’t plan. But things change. Now you must have a plan.

Now you must have a plan. If you have children, you were supposed to already make these plans many, many months ago. If you are an adult, you were supposed to make these plans many, many months ago because now you have to request paid time off.

Guess what? Too many people are out that week. Actually, you can’t go on that weekend trip up north.

You can’t go to the shore. That’s what people call it out east, I think. You can’t go to the beach.

You can’t go wherever because guess what? It’s already booked. Everything’s booked up.

We’re now, flights cost a billion dollars. Gas is, I think, $100 a gallon. It’s difficult.

We want to have a magical summer. I want to have everything all at once. I want a magical summer.

I want a productive summer. I want to have my cake, have your cake, eat both cakes, and suffer no consequences. But unfortunately, I have GERD and I also have to watch my sugar intake.

I was not ready for this summer, even though it happens every year. This summer is a little bit different for me. My husband, a stay-at-home dad for seven years went back to the paid workforce.

I say paid workforce because what I’ve realized is that oh boy, is the work of being home with your children, the most grueling of all kinds of labor. But I thought to myself, look, I’m self-employed.

Surely, I can juggle one summer with our darling children. I will be able to take the candle, light it at both ends, have a third flame form somewhere in the middle and everything will be fine. I can make a podcast.

I can keep my creative spark alive. I can entertain these children. I will rework my schedule and it will all work out just fine.

I can learn how to unload a dishwasher. I can learn how to do a load of laundry. Yeah, I haven’t done those things in seven years, but anything you can do, I can do better and of course, everything in marriage and parenting is a competition.

That first week of break, it was four days long, a short week, it made it clear that summer break was going to break me. There was no way that I could do any of the things. I got 10 minutes of uninterrupted work time.

10 minutes of uninterrupted work time. I called my mom after a particularly difficult day that turned into a difficult night. I said, this summer is going to break me.

She said, like any good boomer would, Nora, it’s not even summer, at least not meteorologically speaking. At least not meteorologically speaking, she said, I don’t condone elder abuse, but in that moment, I considered it.

Because I think what she meant to say, and I sometimes say this, what I think you meant to say, where we eventually landed was that the bar must and will be lowered, which I believe is fair for other people, but for me, no, no, no, I am a person who

must do everything, do it right, do it better than I did before, but I cannot, I mustn’t, I simply, I literally can’t. And so I called it, I declared this the summer of surrender. I am putting my hands up.

I am saying, okay, I’m going to go, I’m going to go with the flow. That’s not the kind of girl I am. I prefer to, I prefer to be the flow.

I will be the flow. I will control the flow. I will tell you where we’re flowing and you will go with me.

But I have been working on it since the end of May. This is we’re a month in, baby. Loosening my grip, lowering my expectations.

Why am I taking everything so seriously? I’m a podcaster. No one’s having a podcast emergency.

No one.

6:43

And since I declared it the summer of surrender, I’ve been tested. I have been tested numerous times. I’ve tried to do live streams for our paid subscribers on Substack foiled, foiled by technology.

Completely, completely another utterly foiled. If you were there, you already know. Our daughter, home from college, was in a car accident.

She is fine. The car is totaled. It was 8 a.m.

She’s driving south on a street, right across from a school, I should say. She’s the right-of-way. She’s going straight through a green light.

Someone takes a left directly into her. It’s a tough hit. Like I said, the car was totaled.

The other driver is A-OK, except that the other driver is, I believe, you could smell the weed. Drunk, according to the police report, also 74 years old, which also makes me sad. There’s a lot of stuff at play there.

But a paid-off car being wrecked, not great. And also, we were letting it go. Summer of surrender, all I can do is fill out the paperwork for insurance, be glad that our daughter was not hurt, and we just let it go, baby.

We let it go. The kids are not having a fun summer. Okay, well, I’m going to find the two activities that you begged to do last year.

I’m going to sign you up. And when you complain about going, I’m going to say, okay, all right. Well, you got to get in the car because that’s where we’re going.

And they went and they liked it. And even on the days where they complained about it, they still go and it’s okay. I thought so stupidly, so, so stupidly that this would be a summer where I got ahead.

We’re going to work on fall episodes. I’m going to do so many interviews. No, no, no, no, no, I’m not.

No, I’m not. No, I’m not. I simply can’t.

I’ve had to set aside my dreams this summer, my foolish dreams of getting ahead of my work, whatever that means. I’ll tell you what it means. I thought I would just get so much done for this podcast.

I would be already working on Happiest Holidays or December Show. What? No, no, no, no, because the summer of surrender demands that you surrender.

It demands that you bend to its will. It demands that you accept that you and your plans, your ideas, you’re not the center of the universe. It says, please shut your mouth, you beautiful, gorgeous, crazy moron.

You’re not getting everything done. You might not get anything done. You will not meet every deadline, especially not the ones that you made up in your own head.

You will likely never remember to move the towels from the washer to the dryer, even though the washing machine sings a little song that you enjoy and look forward to.

If you forget that you are not on this earth to answer emails and tap at a computer and meet your made up deadlines at a made up job in a mostly made up world, the summer will whisper a loving threat into your ear while it ruins your plans.

Surrender. Surrender. And I know I’m not alone.

I know I’m not alone. I had a friend get ghosted for a job interview, fully ghosted. She cleared her schedule, showed up for a job interview.

Nobody else was there. But guess what? Did a little bit more investigating.

Turns out that company was kind of a scam, not aligned with her values. Probably better off that she got ghosted. It turns out many of us are surrendering this summer.

Many of us are saying, okay, all right, I give up. I give up not in a bad way. I don’t think in a way that just says we have to be realistic.

10:31

So let me go in, we go into our text and just share some ways that you all are surrendering. I’m letting go of unrealistic lists of projects that need to get done by the end of summer.

Yes, I want to use my time wisely, but that doesn’t mean I have to cram 800 things into every single day, or set expectations that I know I simply cannot meet.

I don’t need to feel like a fucking failure this summer or like ever, but I think that would qualify as an unreasonable expectation for myself. Yeah, I think, look, sometimes we’re going to feel like a failure.

We’re just not going to do it this summer. We’re going to take a little break from feeling like a failure, and we’re going to give up. And guess what I gave up on?

Oh, removing the paint from our fireplace. I gave up on that bad boy. And every day I look at just a maimed fireplace, that probably it would have been better to just leave the paint on.

But now it’s patchy. Let’s say that it’s patchy. Maybe I should have watched more than one TikTok video before I started, but who cares?

Who cares? I stopped tutoring over the summer. Sure, I could use the money, but I also value my sanity and rest, which are in dire straits as evidenced by my inability to follow directions.

Her inability to follow directions, by the way, was she DMed me on Instagram instead of texting the number. I said, she DMed me the same thing and I said, text it, DMs are where ideas go to die. She said, sorry, I’m a teacher.

I said, yeah, your brain should be off for the summer. If you are a teacher, turn your brain off for the summer.

I believe in my heart of hearts that every teacher deserves a base salary of 250K, bonuses for surviving the school year, your students being emotionally healthy, and just learning.

We got to stop with all these standardized tests too, unless teachers support them, in which case fine, you know what, I’m going to listen to you. Base salary for teachers, 250K. Take the summer off.

I’m glad you’re not tutoring, even though, guess why you’re tutoring? One, sure, guess you love kids, but also because we pay teachers so poorly. So yeah, take your time, take your summer.

Summer of Surrender became real two weeks ago when my husband died by suicide. Letting go of the wish or idea that my love was enough to save him or that my boundaries were too much and killed him. Baby, that is a real one.

That is a big one. And let us all remember that sometimes you choose the summer of surrender and sometimes it comes to you unbidden. Sometimes it just arrives on your doorstep in the form of a horrible tragedy that you cannot control.

And so we are sending you all of our love and be so nice to yourself. Be so, so nice to yourself while you’re going through this. Two weeks is a blink, a moment and be gentle with yourself.

This summer, I am letting people’s comments roll over my head. Eyes on the prize. Also, letting go of our country club membership for the public pool.

Long live, by the way, the public pool. I live for a public pool. I love a public pool.

And you know what? Yeah. Summer of surrender, lifetime of surrender, letting people just be dumb and wrong.

I don’t mean that in a let them way, okay? Now you can’t even say the word let them one after another without me absolutely cringing. Like I don’t mean it in a let them way.

It just, you know what? I think one of the best things when someone just says something absolutely dumb is just go, okay. All right.

And just move on from it. I’m still learning that one. So I’m proud of you.

And I aspire, I aspire. Summer of surrender, I’m letting go of shoulds. There are a lot of things I should do or people I should check in with.

If it’s not necessary or doesn’t light me up, then I probably don’t need to. I’ve just been thinking to myself, I will do blank because I’m going to feel really great after, or I feel really good talking to this person, so I’m going to call them.

I love that. There are no shoulds. As we said, so, so early on this podcast, don’t should yourself.

A message from Hans’s grandmother. May she rest in peace. I have to believe that after 10 years, she has to be dead.

No more obsessive planning. We need to roll with our feelings this summer. Feel like doing nothing?

Do it. Feel like the beach? Let’s go.

Feel like going to breakfast? On our way. Yes, I’m trying to do that as well.

The best laid plans are plans that I will forget about. The best laid plans are plans that I will somehow mess up. Anyways, note to self, got to move my dentist appointment because I booked it for a day where I will be out of town.

If you think I’m trying to get out of the dentist, absolutely not. I love going to the dentist. Shout out Dr.

Troy Stansberry in Phoenix, Arizona, Northern Smiles and not sponsored. I just really love this guy. I love that.

I love the dentist office. I love getting my teeth clean there. Everyone is so nice.

Why are we talking about the dentist? I have to shut up because we actually have three calls. We’re talking to three people about their summer of surrender.

All around, all around this big world of ours, there are people saying, I give up. Let’s talk to them.

16:58

Hi. Yes, yes, yes. Hi, Tori.

Hi, Nora.

Good morning.

I have to say, there is nothing more fitting for a summer of surrender episode than for one. At 8 AM, I was at this desk and my computer rebooted, and I said, I’m late for Tori. We’re talking at 9 actually.

At 9.03, I messaged you. This is me being like, oh, someone else is three minutes late. Don’t mind if I do.

But also, everyone’s been having trouble with the links today. That happened right before I talked to you. Someone else, app wouldn’t work, link wouldn’t work.

Then you text me back and you say, this is truly my favorite sentence to hear someone else say who’s not me. I totally forgot. I totally forgot.

I love when someone else totally forgets. I love it. I love it.

Because who’s always forgetting?

Me. I mean, you know what, I felt very safe saying that to you because I feel like knowing you from following you for so long and like, you know what, she will not be upset. She will be okay with this.

You know what, I’ve gotten more than one call from a daycare doggy and human that said, are you coming to get your dog slash child?

And I said, yeah, I did not forget. I just went all the way home and I’m on my way.

Okay.

Big deal. All right. I knew it was rather quiet.

Yes.

I didn’t forget the thought just hadn’t crossed my mind for a little while.

Yeah. It’s just also, it’s just, this is the kind of summer where it’s like things are happening. And then also things are just going to not happen because of that.

Tell me about your summer of surrender.

Okay. So I think I mentioned that I had surgery last week. And really what’s so interesting is like, I don’t know that I’ve ever really surrendered when I stop and think about it.

And I, last summer, I’ll kind of pivot back. I had a summer where my daughter was going to college, graduating, going to college. We had to do orientation in Idaho, and then we came back, and then I was traveling to England for work.

And then we got back, and one day later left for Indiana to visit family, drove, and I was not feeling well. Like I was just like, something is 100 percent not right in my body. And I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

Went to Indiana, came back, had a huge event, dropped my daughter off at college. My father-in-law passed away, went back to Indiana for a funeral, went to India for work. And like I just kept going and going and never stopping at all.

And then in December, I was diagnosed with endometriosis and some other stuff. And it was just like my body was so clearly asking me last summer to surrender and I just fundamentally did not.

So this year, it’s been one of those things with surgery, where it’s almost like a forced surrender in a way that I have truly never taken before. And I’m a week, a week and a few days out from from surgery.

But it’s been so incredible because like yesterday, my boss came over and brought me dinner and she was like, everything’s fine. And I was like, you know what? I haven’t even thought about it.

I don’t remember my computer password. I know you guys have it. And I am in full surrender.

That’s the only way to put it because I can’t do anything and I don’t feel like doing anything. And so I am just like, okay, universe, whatever you have for me, whatever you don’t have for me, I am just pretty much chilling right now.

Yeah, yeah. How does it feel compared to last summer of just pushing through?

I mean, it feels good, actually. I’m surprised. But I think I know I mentioned this in my text, but I drive so much value and like the good feedback from work and have for so long.

And so when things are hard in other areas or, you know, things are going on, I think I just kind of like lean into work and make it a little bit of a badge. Cause it’s like, well, I have to do this for work. And that has been my MO for so long.

But now that I’m not doing it, it’s like, I enjoy not waking up and looking at Slack, email, WhatsApp, like filtering through all my apps just to see like what’s happened overnight.

And things like this where it’s like, I don’t have anything on my calendar minus being paid for this. It feels good because then in the morning I’m just like, okay, this is what we’re doing.

And it’s not something that’s been like rigorously planned out, way in advance or that is just responding to something that’s popping up in that moment that it’s like, okay, now I have this thing I just have to do.

So it’s surprisingly kind of shockingly nice. And I thought I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Like I kept saying that like, oh, I’m gonna need all these like little odds and ends hobbies and things like that.

And actually I don’t want to, I haven’t even been watching TV. Sometimes I just like lay in my bed and not do anything. And it’s so nice.

Oh, I love it.

I love it. Honestly, that’s why I was so happy to hear you say like, I forgot, oh my God, I’m still in my pajamas. No one’s gonna see me, right?

It’s like, no, this is great. It’s great.

This is exactly where and how you should be and what a, it’s strange to say, and I wonder if this is even how you feel, but it’s almost like the gift of something awful happening to you to slow you down and get you re-acclimated.

Oh, for sure. For sure.

And whenever I was planning to go out, I was thinking about how I’ve even on vacations and years prior or like when I had my daughter, I would just start to feel a little bit bored or feel a little bit like I wasn’t getting that like dopamine hit

from doing. And so I’d be like, well, I can, I can log into this call. I can do this or that. And it’s just, my boss said basically like, take the time even if you don’t need eight weeks or whatever it is, it’s approved.

Like just allow that to be some time that is just for you. That’s not like you just immediately hopping back online. And I was like, haha, you know, when she mentioned it.

But now I’m like, oh no, I think that I probably will.

Okay. I love your boss.

She’s incredible.

I love your boss. I love your boss. World’s Best Boss Award this year, 2026 goes to Tori’s boss.

Good job. Come on down. Bringing dinner over and then also being like, don’t worry about it.

Take your time. What? In America in 2026?

This is wild.

I know.

Wild is beautiful. You and I do have the same disease. And we are recovering from the same disease.

Because when you said like, oh, you know, like I had my daughter, I’d be on vacation. I just sort of like feel that it’s same. Same.

Let me just check a couple of emails. Let me just log on. Let me just see if I can bang this out real quick.

For what? Let me see if I can shovel more sand at the beach, but only metaphorically work-wise while my children are literally begging me to shovel sand with them at a literal beach. Like what the heck?

I know.

It’s such a weird thing to admit to. And I think, I was talking with someone, I’m like, I know I’m a good mom and I know I’ve been present.

I’m not negating that, but I also think back on all the times where you pick up your phone, you do something when you really didn’t have to do it. And I just asked myself like, why was I doing that? I just, for the life of me now, don’t know.

And my kids are a little bit older too, so it’s easier to look at that and say like, okay, at this stage, moving forward, there is nothing more important to me than being there for my kids when they need me.

And because of that, they’re at an age where they’re just going to observe that I’m on my phone and not beg for it. I have to be a little bit more intentional about my time and all of that stuff.

Yeah. And even kids aside, I’ve been thinking about the times, the ways that I’ve been like, oh, sorry, and just sort of disengaged a situation with people I really cared about in moments that were probably special. They were special, right?

But I was like, I just have to do this thing real quick and say, did I? Was it a podcasting emergency? Was it really?

Was it? Was it urgent? Was it urgent?

Did I really have to do this? And yeah. And you know, I’m not going to, I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

I spend enough money on therapy. I don’t need to do that. But I’m going to be more aware of it.

So what are you going to do with the rest of your day? Will this be a lay in bed day? Will this be a maybe go get a treat day?

Okay.

So this is the first day I’ve been home without any driving adults. So my daughter, my younger daughter is here with me. My goal this morning was to submit my disability paperwork, which is what I was doing when we messaged.

So that’s my morning goal. And my afternoon goal is to post a few things on By Nothing that are sitting in front of my door that need to go out the window.

And then my daughter and I started a show last night, Good Girls Guide to Murder or something like that. And I think we’re going to binge.

Sounds so good. That sounds so perfect, honestly. I love a By Nothing group.

I love Facebook Marketplace Free. I put an entire pile of stuff outside my home. I post one photo and say, don’t message me.

I’m not telling you what’s still there. Just drive by and see it. Come look.

Come take a gander. Can I tell you something exciting that’s coming up? Yes.

Yeah. Something thrilling. Thrilling to me.

I booked, through the city of Phoenix, they used to have them just on special days. Now you can book them whenever you please, a bulk trash pickup. Oh, yeah.

A bulk trash pickup. And I am, everything that is in our shed is going in it, okay? Every single thing that my family and I have saved, like, you know what, there’s a lot of things in there.

And I’ll say they’re mostly my projects, mostly my whims, that don’t belong on the Buy Nothing group, don’t belong on Facebook Marketplace Free. They literally just belong in the trash.

And by the way, once I lay it out there for a bulk trash pickup, someone will come get it. It’s so exciting. I love, love, love, love to get rid of stuff.

But more than anything, I love laying in bed and binging a show with any number of my children. So I’m excited for you and the day you’re gonna have.

Yeah, it’s gonna be incredible.

It’s gonna be incredible. Well, thank you for spending some of that time with us. And may we all heed your, you know, not necessarily weren’t, but it’s like, yeah, listen to your GD body, okay?

It might be trying to tell you something.

Yeah. Don’t wait until you are in terrible pain and unable to continue your function before you say, I’m actually surrendering not because I have to, but because I want to, because it’s good to do that in life.

Like that has definitely been the lesson for me. And it’s not all about productivity and go go go and do do do. And yeah, receive help, ask for help, all the things.

Yeah.

I also I would not wish endometriosis on my worst enemy.

Yeah, me either.

Would not. Would not. Would not.

And also just knowing that like, you know, the treatment is so barbaric. We just got to say that even the surgery is so barbaric. It’s so wild.

And even just to be diagnosed, they’re like, I don’t know, maybe, could be. I don’t know. Do you really want to know, though?

I mean, I lucked out in that the first, like the first specialist that I saw, like, she was basically like, oh, you’ve had silent endo for years, you know, with the first, you know, thing that she did.

And then she did a few more tests, but she scheduled me for surgery that day. So I had a different experience.

Oh my god, I love a woman doctor. God damn.

I know. She’s incredible. And like people fly from other states to see her.

So I had to wait for six months for the surgery, but I felt very validated in my experience and never like it was like, you know, I had to really fight for it. And I know a lot of people do.

Yeah, a lot of people. I would say most people. All right.

Thank you. You’re amazing, Tori. Thank you for sharing this with us.

You got to get back to filing the paperwork and then listing things on by nothing. And then doing nothing and laying in bed and bingeing a show, which I love for you.

Love it. Well, you’re amazing, Nora. Thanks for chatting with me today.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

31:16

Jamie, good morning.

Good morning.

Jamie, I want you to tell me about your summer of surrender because you’re having one too.

We have a plan. We want our children to be able to roll with things. We want us to be able to roll with things, even though I know myself.

I’m not a roller. The person goes with the flow. I want to be the flow.

I want the flow to follow what I planned.

I will control the flow.

The flow is me. I am the flow. I will go where I want.

I might flood you is what might happen.

Yes.

That’s not happening. I am in the process. When I say summer of surrender for me, I mean, I have to.

I have to. Every single day, this summer, I’ve had to say like, okay, well, here we are. Here we are, and now we just got to go with it.

Yet, when I look down, my hand is clenched tightly around how I wanted that day to go. I wanted the summer to go, how close we got. So, yeah, how are things in your neck of the woods?

Yeah.

First, I want to just say, though, too, how you said how you wanted things to go. And one of the things about summer, and it is unfathomable to me that you live in Arizona, where it’s hot all year round and that’s crazy.

Yeah.

I don’t know why people choose that, but.

Some of us are lizards, so you’re actually, you’re offending the lizard community. Exactly. Some people have cold blood.

Exactly.

You were born in Minnesota, but somehow, you were born in the wrong place. You’re a changeling, right? All right.

So you were saying summer, how you wanted summer to go.

How I wanted summer to go, but I want to first say one of the reasons why summer is so painful is because it is so precious.

So especially in Minnesota too, I mean, it’s got to be the same even in Arizona, right? But we have a couple, we’ve got this window of warm weather, and these memories of childhood of using those summer days of just like, it’s like a blessed time.

It’s this magical golden time. And for your kids, so for myself, I still have the 40-hour-a-week job, whatever, I sit at a desk all day.

I’m dealing with my feelings of what summer means for me, but in my head, I’m like, okay, we’re planning for what joyous, wonderful, brief summer my kids are going to have. And unfairly, we need to plan that in January.

It turns, the year turns, and it’s time to start competing with other parents to get your kids in camp, which I resentfully do every year. So what’s going on for me right now is in January, I got my girl signed up for all these camps.

My 12-year-old was very prescriptive about exactly which camp she will go to because they involve a bonus trip to a sleepaway camp various places. But I had it all planned, all whatever.

The reality of my situation when Summer rolls around is in that time, my 12-year-old has exhibited some extreme anxiety that I would say came out of nowhere, but didn’t come out of nowhere.

We’ve always been on watch for her, but it showed up in a, there was no gradual increase. It was all of a sudden here, and it was one of those situations where you’re like, wow, this is impacting your life.

Not only is it sucking the fun out of my kid’s life, it’s also sucking the fun and the oxygen out of the family’s life. It’s like, it’s significant, right?

So, we’re already dealing with that, and we’re like, well, negotiating that, figuring out a therapist, all those things. Still getting her to camp. It’s been months of dealing with this anxiety, and managing a family, blah, blah, blah.

I think I said, as summer started, I was briefly going to get a breather from my wonderful daughter’s anxiety.

Her dad was going to take her to see relatives just for fun, where he’s from, and they were just going to have a daddy-daughter trip and see the cousins, really fun. Husband got so much work that he actually could not go.

He’s freelance, so you know what that’s like.

You got to take it when you get it.

Yes. Is it there? Well, you take it.

We’re like, okay. She’s home with her anxiety and nothing to do. We’re like, okay, and then I’m solo parenting because the work is so intense for my husband, but it’s like, all right, my summer is working all day.

I’m dealing with intense anxiety of my daughter, trying to figure that out, running a household, that kind of stuff. We’re like, okay, not so different. It happens, right?

Blah, blah, blah. I’m so grateful for the life I have, all that stuff, and it’s a lot, right? Listen, I can be grateful at the exact same time.

I can see it all and I can feel it all. So grateful, so lucky, so exhausted. So then we come to the real tipping point was, we finally come to one of these weeks where my daughter is about to get ready to go on a super fun sleep away camp.

All of her friends, they take all the other 12, 13-year-olds, ship them out somewhere, and they have a great time.

I’ve been working and she’s been working really hard, practicing the coping skills, making sure she can be away from home and have a great time, working with the therapist. I’ve got an accommodation letter that’s two pages long.

I’m like doing all this stuff. Dad’s gone again because a very important loved relative passed away, so he’s gone. Solo parenting again, working on another daughter, two dogs who are with me right now, two drones who are very stinky right next to me.

And then the day, the day, oh gosh, two days before, maybe one day before, I can’t remember, it was this week. The daughter who’s going away to sleepaway camp, all of a sudden, she hadn’t been sleeping, all of a sudden she actually is sick.

It’s not in her head. She’s actually sick. The day, like right before it, I’m like, okay.

No, you’re not.

Okay.

Okay. But we didn’t plan for that. We’ve been working on your coping skills.

We weren’t working on you not being sick. And also, where did that come from?

Where did you get your immune system?

Yeah.

Okay.

We did see some toddler cousins right before that. So she’s pretty sure who to point the finger at. But so, you know, it was just so much.

It was like all of a sudden, we were just like, but your opportunity, your opportunity, your fun, crystallized moment of like going away to camp. I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re not going to get in. You don’t get this again.

Not like this. Yeah.

Not like this.

Not like this. And also, we were going to get a little break. But mostly, it was, but mostly it was, this is your, but we, we wanted you to have fun.

We wanted you to go be away from your phone and just be a kid at a camp where there’s nature and pools and way too many nice things, but no air conditioning. And so I just was like, I can’t, I don’t like that’s not fair.

And I had to be good about it. I had to be a good example, right? And I had to say, okay, our strategy is we’ll plan for you to go and just understand.

So we’ll pack, you’ll rest, we’ll plan for you to go and then we’ll see what happens in the morning. And it’s just, you know what? And I gave her this lovely like, this is like me not following my own advice, right?

I told her finally, I was like, here’s the life lesson. She hates my life lesson. But I said, all right, here’s the thing.

Nothing in life is certain, and all we can do is prepare for what we can, and then we see what happens. I also told her, I’m like, hey, and this is only one example of this is going to happen in your life. This is why she doesn’t like my life lesson.

She wants reassurance, and she wants to be told it’s all going to be okay. She wants that. She wants me to tell her that stuff.

She gets really mad at the uncertainty, and when it’s something she wants, it’s reasonable. So I gave her that.

I get it.

I gave her that, and then we did prepare. She was nervous, but she was like, well, we’ll see. She woke up feeling great.

She felt great. She was fine. It was a miracle.

It was a miracle. She did try on the way to the drama to change her mind. Her anxiety showed up and she’s like, I don’t want to go.

And I was kind of like, that’s BS. You do want to go. You just have to say all the things and be mean because you’re 12.

And like be awful and act out for like this split second while you can, before you get on the bus and have to be good with everybody for days. You know? And I’ll add one more thing that I just, you know, I have such great advice, Nora.

Doesn’t mean I can follow my own, but this little, it’s not a little thing, it’s a thing. At the exact same time where I’m like, okay, we’ll prepare, but nothing in life is certain and you deal with it, right?

That same night that my daughter’s sick, I just get an email from her coach, and her coach is not coming back next year.

This is like her team that she loves, and it’s just a huge thing for her, and it’s a huge thing for us because it’s exercise for a girl with anxiety, super important, but she loves it, and loves the team, and this coach isn’t coming back for very

reasonable reasons. He’s young. Why is he even a coach right now? I don’t know.

But I couldn’t handle that change, so I didn’t tell her that she doesn’t know yet. She doesn’t know yet, but I was like, I can’t handle this. I can’t handle it.

What if the new coach is mean? What if my daughter never wants to do this sport again? Because he’s not going to be there, and the next one’s mean, and then she’ll spend the rest of her life not being active.

So that’s where I went.

And then she’ll never move again. She will actually be couch bound for the rest of her life. All because a coach left.

Forget camp.

No coach.

Forget camp. That’ll be the last time she leaves the home.

Yeah, probably.

Coach left.

Everything fell apart from there.

One of three coaches.

And who do they blame? The mother. One of three coaches, Jamie.

No, the other two are assistant coaches.

Okay, one of four coaches. Those are assistant coaches who are excellent, but he was the head coach.

Who cares about head? A head coach? You talk to head coaches.

What if a jerk shows up and it’s not, and the girls don’t want to do their sport to see how I’m very careful to not give specifics of the sport.

You’re so good.

You’re really protecting your children’s privacy. You know what parenting children with anxiety has really given me? An insight into how difficult, exhausting it was to raise me.

Because I don’t even think my kids have maybe half of my level, right? I just would go like zero to 100. I’m a little better now, but everything you said makes a lot of sense to me.

And also, I can hear my father’s voice saying one of the least helpful things. That’s also, it turns helpful once you really think about it, once you have a prefrontal cortex, I should say. So don’t say this to your children.

As I’m writing it down right now.

Say it to yourself.

My dad would go, I don’t know, what if the moon was blue? And I was like, what, you know, okay, like, and what if, right? Okay, so what if?

And, you know, it’s all the stuff we always tell ourselves, right? Like, well, we’ll figure it out. And then, you know, if it comes to that, blah, blah, blah.

But it is so stupid and temporarily soothing, but also horrible for our nervous systems and our bodies to be like, let me just follow this rabbit down the hole to hell and see.

Do you know?

See where we’re going.

It was two, three years ago. So we go to a lovely resort, as you’ve been there, Cavani Place, magical up north. And we’ve been going there for a few years.

You have your week that you go and you sign up with your family. And it’s lovely. One year.

It was kind of more in the pandemic time, but there was one year I kept checking the weather and kept checking the weather. My one precious summer, my one precious cabin weekend. And it was the weather was cool.

Cool. It was like July in Minnesota and it was like maybe too cold to get in the water kind of cold. Like, gosh, gee, yeah, my unreasonable anger at the forces of nature was so great.

Doesn’t matter. I knew better. I understand better.

I was like, this is my one, this is my one precious week. And who can I yell at about the weather? Old lady shakes at the clouds, right?

You know that Simpsons? That Simpsons, that old man yells at clouds. That was me.

Now I will pray.

Who can I yell at about the weather? Anyone. Put them in my path.

They’ll find out. They’ll find out.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, yeah, last vacation my dad and Erin ever took was to that very resort, and it was the end of August, and it was freezing cold overcast rainy.

Oh, did people fill water ski or was that done for the year?

It was horrible. It was just truly. I was just like, and I was like, I have someone’s going to pay for this.

I’m going to Arizona.

Someone’s going to pay for this.

I’m going to Arizona. I’m moving. With that, I bid farewell to the state of Minnesota.

46:12

Can I offer you and our listeners a book recommendation? I guarantee you that it will be available on Libby at your library, because it was available right away at mine, and therefore it has to be available for everybody.

It was given to me by my friend, Dr. Anna Roth, a licensed psychologist and a genius, she gave it to me many years ago, right?

And I like read it, I was like, okay, I get it, I listened to it right at the beginning of the summer of Surrender, right as I was truly just being like, oh my God, but I just really need to get all this stuff done and how can I do it?

And it’s called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. I listened to it, I listened to it four or five times, you know, 1.5 speed, it’s a slow narrator.

I listened to it as I was falling asleep, I listened to it as I was just like, going about my little activities for the day. It’s gonna help, I’m telling you, it’s gonna help everybody.

Okay, The Untethered Soul.

The Untethered Soul, it’s a lot of Zen Buddhism, right?

It’s if you like Pema Chodron, you’ll like this book, but there was just something, it hit me at the right time, it was the right message at the right time, and it has really helped get me to a good-ish place this summer, a good-ish place.

But you know, I was still, yesterday, I thought I had the whole day, like plan to the minute, Jamie, plan to the minute. I realize Ralph has a guitar lesson that has fully fallen off the calendar.

His guitar lesson ends five minutes before Q’s Jiu-Jitsu class starts. They’re five minutes apart from each other. We should be able to make this work.

I pull up to Ralph’s guitar lesson, he does not walk out the door at 4.25, he does not walk out the door at 4.26, he does not walk out the door at 4.27, I text him, walk home, peel up the street, Q is still one minute late to Jiu-Jitsu.

That is a sign of great disrespect in this sport. So he’s upset and then I’m a bad mom, and then I got to drive all the way back, I find Ralph walking up the street with his very heavy, it’s an electric guitar that belonged to Aaron.

It’s like pulling his arm out of his socket, he looks like a man who’s been on the road for a long time, he walks like a block, but it’s 103. Yeah, he’s fine.

He’s a drive-in.

He’s fine. It’s honestly pretty, everyone’s been saying, what a nice, cool summer we’re having. So, and I was like, and then I was like, who cares?

Who cares? I’ve been saying to the kids when they’re frustrated, I’m like, who cares? Okay.

Who cares? Who cares? Okay.

Are we doing our best? Are we trying? Yes.

So, Jamie, who cares? What if the moon was blue? Enjoy your week.

You’ve got a whole week. You’ve got a week with one less thing on your shoulders. So, I hope you do something lovely and wonderful for yourself, like, I don’t know, a sensory deprivation chamber.

Well, actually, so you know I’m doing artist way.

Just, you know, I remember doing that very bad at artist state, like just like the last thing I’m going to do.

It’s so bad. It’s so hard.

There’s no time for that. And I could sing it. There’s no time for that.

But with my husband being out, one of my kids being out, I did one of the exercises. I was like, hey, I can do something.

My artist state was at home, but it also, it marries into something else that you were talking on a podcast with, I don’t know, an author.

Elizabeth Cot.

No, I did listen to that one. That was when I went and found artist way in my attic of all places. Anyway, no, different one.

I don’t know.

Janine Roth.

Gosh, starts with an M. Last name starts with an M, author.

Courtney Mom.

Yep, that one. Anyway, I found out, I’m a big Tom Waits fan, and I figured out very late in the game that there is a concert performance compilation, wherever they do for concerts and things like that, that he did in the 80s for Big Time.

And I was like, I’m never going to get access to it. And then I got access to it. And I was like, well, shoot, I’m having a glass of wine and I’m watching Tom Waits Big Time.

And it was wonderful. But I mean, just he’s just such a, I don’t even know what I don’t even know what. But I thought of in some of that, I thought of you had a conversation about AI with your author friend.

And I was kind of like this, this performance and this even this compilation of whatever they put together was so strangely and oddly human. It was so bizarre and beautiful because I’m a huge Tom Waits fan. It was wonderful.

But there’s no way AI could even come up with that level of bizarre. And just like, it just doesn’t work that way. And so I just, that’s the tie-in.

So that, you know, weaving some of the threads of your podcast topics into my life. But recommendation for Tom Waits big time. I love it.

Also, yeah, an artist date, as Elizabeth Cot will tell you, does not have to be, you know, a big to do.

It can be taking a walk on a route you’ve never taken. It can be, you know, just like cooking a new recipe you haven’t cooked before. Like there’s a lot of flexibility in that.

And am I good at giving that to myself? Hell no. Of course not.

Of course not. Of course not. No, no, no, no, no.

That’s for other people. That’s for other people. All right, Jamie, thank you so much.

You are an angel. I hope you have a beautiful, wonderful, relaxing day.

No, all right. Well, thank you, Nora.

All right. Bye, Jamie.

Bye.

All right, everybody, that is it for today’s episode. This is Thanks For Asking. I’m Nora McInerny.

I am your podcast host. I am a remarried widow. I’m a tall, left-handed woman, a key part of my identity.

I am the author of several funny books about sad things, including It’s Okay to Laugh, Crying is Cool 2, which just had its 10th birthday. No Happy Endings and the Essay Collection, Bad Vibes Only. This is an independent podcast by Feelings & Co.

For people who have feelings, maybe you’re one of them, we could not do this without you. So thank you for every rating, every review, for texting us. I love, love, love getting texts from you.

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But speaking of credits, we thank first and foremost, Marcel Malekibu, we thank Grace Berry, we thank Geoffrey Lamar Wilson who created our opening theme music and my youngest son, Q, who created the closing music that you are hearing now.

We thank our supporting producers for making this show possible.

So big thanks to Rachel, Annalise Chaney, Augie Book, Joy Heising, No Name, Nancy Duff, Jenny Medellin, Kathleen Langerman, Jordan Jones, Ben, Jess, Beth Derry, Sarah Garifo, Kathy Sigman, Sarah David, Mary Beth Berry, my high school gym teacher.

Hello, thank you.

Sheila, Crystal, Kaylee Sakai, Virginia Labassi, Lizzie DeVries, Rachel Walton, David Binkley, Lisa Piven, Michelle Toms, Nicole Petey, Melody Swinford, Caroline Moss, my best friend, Michelle O, Andra Brzezinski, Amanda, Jess Blackwell, Abby Arrows,

Crystal Mann, Bonnie Robinson, Lauren Hannah, Jacqueline Ryder, Patrick Irvine, Shannon Dominguez-Stevens, Kathy Ham, Erin John, Madd, Christina, Emily Ferriso, Elizabeth Berkley, Chiara. Chiara, how are you? Chiara was on today’s podcast.

So hello to Chiara. Monica, Alyssa Robison, Kaylee, Kate Byers-Jean, Courtney McCown, Jeremy Essen, Lindsay Lund, Jessica LeTexier, Lexi-Leanne Watkins, Joe McDonald, Robin Ruhlard, Alex Gotieri. I don’t know why I’m giving everybody.

I don’t know why I’m speaking sometimes in Italian, sometimes in French, I don’t know. Dave Gilmore, my best friend since college, Grace Allendorf, Laura Savoy, Chelsea Siernik, Kelly Conrad, Jen Grimlin and Micah. Thank you guys so much.

We have bonus episodes every other Friday. Reminder for that and otherwise, we’ll see you back here on Tuesday.