Welcome Katherine Newman to the Peripeteia podcast. I am so thrilled to have you here. As I said just before we hit record, it's like I started a podcast so I could trick people that I really admire into having a conversation with me and you said yes. So I'm thrilled. So I have had crushes on authors before for sure, but I don't think I've ever polled as hard as I have for you after reading sandwich.
And I think in part it's because of the salty snacks that you talked about all the time. Anytime now I'm having olives or potato chips, I'm like pretending I'm on the seaside. And just that like salty sea taste, smell, the whole thing. Probably a chilled glass of white wine, which we'll get into, right?
Because we're no longer partaking in alcohol. But I. The short bio for you is that you are of course, a New York Times bestselling author. You have memoir's catastrophic happiness and waiting for Birdie. You've also lived my dream come true by writing a middle grade novel, one mixed up night, a kid's craft book, stitch Camp, and then the bestselling how to books for kids, how to be a person and what can I say.
And then of course, novels. We all want impossible things and Sandwich. So I know you have, I'm a bit huge fan of your Substack newsletter, crone Sandwich. Highly recommend every read that. And you've been a regular contributor for publications like The New York Times and real simple. I was like a huge, real simple fan back in the day.
So I'm like, wow, you've written all the books for all the ages, all different kinds of writing that you can do. You've done. And you're into like recipes. You've been in O Magazine and Cup of Joe and all these great things. So thank you for taking time for me today. I really thank you so much for having me and thank you for saying my life back to me in that way.
It gave me, isn't it the good feeling, isn't it? Like when somebody has your buyout, you're like, wow, I did that. Wow. That is me. Oh, that's true. That does sound good, right? I did just have that. I was like, yeah, I was half listening to you and half listening to the fact that my cats just got a new scratching mat and they're like beside themselves and it turned out there's a little catn nip and now they're a little bit drugged and rolling all around.
But anyway, if you hear anything peculiar. It's just a drug experience unfolding line situation. This is an exciting day at the human house. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Cats are tripping. Tell, so tell me, will you back up and tell me like, did you always wanna be a writer? Did you know you were gonna be a writer?
This was your thing. I have to start with that, and then of course we'll get into the rest. Yeah. So I learned how to write in first grade and I learned how to read and write the same year. And I, it was definitely one of those keys to the castle moments where I learned to write, I learned to read.
Then all I did was read and write. So I filled, we got these composition notebooks that had these like brown paper covers that looked a little like leather. And I just. Filled them with my stories. And so I started to say I wanted to be a writer. And I will say, not to na, call out anyone in particular cough.
My parents cough. But I was made to feel that was not a reasonable goal. That it was like you play basketball and so you wanna be like drafted by the NBA. It was, I, it was like a pipe dream. Like I was gonna be an Olympic gymnast, and that I needed to have a actually practical idea of what I wanted to do that wasn't being a writer.
And I would say that idea was drummed out of me at almost every stage of my life. And I ended up going to college being an English major, but not taking a creative writing class till my second semester of senior year. And then I went to graduate school to get a PhD in comp lit with the. Idea of becoming like a professor and a literary critic.
And then after I did that, I started writing for a friend of mine who was working at Family Fund Magazine, and I was like, what am I doing? This is what I love. And even that was just like what they call service writing that was not like some artistic endeavor or an especially creative enterprise, but I just loved it.
And that was the end of every other career. And that was that was, I love that. So it was always your thing, your talent. You literally. As soon as you could learn to read you were writing. Yeah. You could learn write You were reading, you were already, you were grip. It was, yes. You couldn't ignore it really.
I think maybe that's right. And I got, actually, I got criticized as a graduate student for my dissertation being to too informal for it being basically too much. Like I was telling a story and they were like, this is not how you write a dissertation. There's a yeah. But it was, I was having too good a time writing it, and I thought, this cannot be what I devote my life to is trying to like color in the lines.
That feeling of where someone's got you boxed in. Yeah. It's interesting because it was your talent, it was an immediate passion, like you said, the keys to the kingdom. It lit something that you just had to do. It was your art. It had to come up and out of you. This was your form of expression.
It was your art but your parents were worried that couldn't be your livelihood. That those are different things, right? Totally. Exactly. And I, and by the way, like my parents have been incredibly supportive of me. And I don't mean to I think that they were reasonably that's not a thing you they were trying to protect you from being a starving artist.
They wanted you to build a solid life for yourself. I think that's right. And I totally get that as a parent myself. Where your kids have these ideas and you just have to. Stop yourself from, killing their dreams with your like ear, yeah. Were your, did your parents have creative pursuits or was that new to them?
Or did they not have space and capability? It's a really interesting question because in a different life, I think my mom would herself have been a writer. So she, that was not the way her life unfolded. She ended up being mostly working in the home, being a stay at home mom. I. But she is an incredibly multi-talented, creative person.
She's like a spectacular, she's English, so every garden she's ever touched, it looks like something from the cover of a magazine that effortless, you know the way those gardens look, those English gardens where it's like an effortless tumble of like roses and lavender, but if you try to do it yourself, it looks horrendous.
Yeah. Anyway, she just has a billion talents and and her life didn't, I don't think, afford her the opportunity to pursue any of them in that way. And maybe she wouldn't have wanted to. I don't mean to suggest that anything would've been better than what she did. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she did have these artistic talents and different ways of expressing them.
Some with her homemaking, which I think homemaking is a beautiful way to express yourself. Absolutely. And taught me a million things about homemaking, which has been. One of the things I've most devoted my life to. And writing, you write about it. I love how you write about motherhood and all of it homemaking, all of it.
The sensory experience of everything. A vacation home, a meal all of it, a sandwich, right? So it's all, it's something as simple as a sandwich can be an entire experience. And when your mom is that kind of homemaker then it is in some ways, and you have that piece to see and appreciate that, and then the words to tell.
So that's cool. Thank you. Tell me, so you went and wrote for Family Fund magazine and you were like, this is the kind of writing that I wanna do. And that, so how did that turn your life then? I got paid, it was the first time I got paid to write, as a graduate student, you're basically paying someone else for the opportunity to write this epic thing that very few people are gonna read.
And I was like, oh my God. I could get paid to write. I was addicted, like mercenary. We'd been so broke for so long. We'd been graduate students for 10 years. We had a baby while we were living in a room in a house. That's, I cannot overstate our custom ness to not being paid to do anything.
And then I just freelanced, but really rigorously. I, the thing about freelancing is nobody has to hire you, so you have to make yourself indispensable. You have to be the person. Someone can call at the last minute and be like, Hey, can you write 1500 words by tomorrow about, spatchcocking a chicken and you're like.
Yeah, sure. I'd love to, when you're up all night, like in the kitchen, you're also hustling. There's a hu there's a big hustle. Hustle. I always, and just writing what people tell you to write so that I always call that part of my life. Whoring. It only ended this year actually. This is the first, so Horing, this is the first year that I am not just hoarded completely out to freelance gigs.
I'm not just living gig to gig. And that is new. And it's really having a little space to pursue writing. I don't wanna say as an artist, because it's not really how I think of myself, but to pursue writing in a more creative way without drowning in gigs, it is such a luxury. And. I am shocked that I'm enjoying like a particular phase of my writing life like this.
I'm so happy that you're here and also as an inspiring writer, it's a little depressing that you have all these accolades and awards and bestselling books and you're just feeling that way now, right? But okay, I'll spin it a different way, like a side job. So you can write the New York Times Hustle best sellers.
Lemme spin it a different way. Okay. Thank you. I'll spin it a different way. There's another way to spin it and that way is that because of the way I've lived and hustled, I have written so much. Truly, I always have something to do. I write every day because I have to pay the bills. I have never had the luxury of like writer's block, because I'm hustling so. That the discipline that writing life created for me was, I think tremendous and has had a huge impact on me as like a creative writer that I'm really accustomed to waking up every day and writing. It's not. And so I feel lucky in a way that I've had to do that. Like I think if I were independently wealthy, if I had just come into my adult life with a big sitting on a big pot of cash, I think I would've written like 10 words a week.
I just don't know that I would've had this fire under me. So the flip side is that I feel like it was really good. I have had a good writing practice. Yeah. And you get to do what you love. You're paid to do what you love. Totally. And I, yeah. And it's been survival for you then? Yeah, but also and just not to overstate the drudgery of it, because most of it's been amazing and I think about that real, I was the real simple etiquette columnist for 10 years.
So for 10 years, every month we would, reals Simple would send us, we got a billion questions a month from people, but reals, simple would pick five of them and send them to me. I would sit down with my husband and my two kids. This started when they were really quite young. And we would go through each question together and the kids would pour over the sort of ethical conundrum presented to us.
And I would write down everything everybody said. And I would, it was like this collaborative thing and I. By the time that 10 years was over. And to be clear, every month. So when my kids went to college, they had to zoom in with me to write my real simple column. I would be like family endeavor. I was like, it's our monthly Zoom.
I need everybody's input on these questions. And we would gather on Zoom. And I would be like, my daughter-in-law came to the dinner table in a string, bikini, whatever. Yeah. But it was such an opportunity to talk to the kids about ethical. Behavior. Like we did it every month for 10 years and you couldn't just do it with kids 'cause they don't wanna hear your thoughts.
Like I, we were in these conversations that were about all the important things, how you balance what you want with what other people want, how you deal with situations that make you uncomfortable. Like all of this stuff. And I just think, oh, we were so lucky that we got to do that. I love it and it's both.
What I'm hearing is it's both. It's do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Like I love writing. Writing is in my bones, it's in my family. It's what I do. And also it's a hustle. It's been both like I love what I do. It feels like a hobby. And there is a bit of like fire that has to be lit to keep it going.
It's a hundred percent both. Yes. Yeah. And you don't have to, luckily I don't have to decide which thing it is because I turned 50 and learned that you had to hold like things together that don't really go together and they're just all part of the same thing. It's just both weird things. The tapestry.
Yeah. It's the tapestry. Tapestry, yes. Thank you. I love that. Okay, so very quickly, real simple. Also had a cookbook. More than one probably, but I have one of their old cookbooks and I loved it. And you are such a great food writer. Can you tell me where that came in and how that part of your tapestry.
The food writing. It's really interesting. I've always been really into food writing. Even before I did any of it myself, I was this super weird kid, obviously, like that goes without saying. But I used to my kid, I wanted to sit by at lunch, by the way, but like my still do. To get the Williams Sonoma catalog.
Yeah. And I would read it cover to cover, like it was a book. Like I just, and there was a picture of an avocado cut in half filled with balsamic vinegar. This was 1985. I had never had an avocado, I had never had balsamic vinegar. I tore it out of the catalog and pinned it to my bulletin board. 'cause I was like, whatever that is, I want in, yeah. Your new heart prop, I was like, whatever. These two substances are beautiful. I'm in. And and like I read The Joy of Cooking and I read like I was really into food writing. I read restaurant reviews really from a strangely early age. So I was looking for a way into food writing and family fun.
I did some food writing for family fun in the family fund way of like how to make a Halloween snack that's like a cupcake that looks like a mummy wrapped and whatever. Yeah, did a lot of that. And then I had written something for Oprah Magazine about parenting, which was really the only thing I'd written about.
And my editor there, like Gia Grace, who I think of as this person who opened another door for me as a writer, she said, oh, I'm like editing these food columns. Do you have anything? Do you have any food you'd wanna write about? And the first food column I wrote for her was about rhubarb. Because I'm English, my mom's English.
And so I grew up with rhubarb as like a normal thing you would eat. And so I wrote this column for her with a recipe attached, and it set off this string of recipe writing for me. And it was a wonderful thing. I love it. I love it. Rhubarb's a sign of my dad who's no longer here. So I just feel touched that you'll touch that you said, ah, that's yeah.
Yeah. It's such a unique thing. So then you get to add this knowledge of food even into your novels and stuff, though. I love the way you write about food. I read cookbooks for fun, so I, okay, so same you get 'em out of the library. That's what I do. Yeah. Yeah. Everything. Oh, and I include it in good reads as the books I've read this year, as you should, right?
Yeah. Not totally. There are a lot of pictures, but I read every recipe. Okay. I know I'm totally the same. Yeah, they're some of them too Diana Kennedy, have you ever read any of her books about Mexico? Oh no. She writes this one book after her husband died and it's like a cookbook and a book about grief and it is the most incredible book.
But anyways, yes, I'm with you completely. Yeah, both and all in the tapestry. So let's talk about that. Your life, your tapestry, the things that can exist at the same time, and that make you become who you are. You mentioned turning 50 was something for, it was like a turning point for you or something when you acknowledge that you could hold two things.
Tell me more about aging and your crone wisdom, Katherine.
It's really interesting, I think, I really do think that is one of the most significant pieces of it for me is that. And maybe it's like you've had enough time in your life to assert your opinion about every single thing. And I'm still very opinionated. To be clear. I'm like suddenly worried.
My husband's overhearing me say that and is yeah, you're still really opinionated. But the idea of softening into stuff, not being totally clear that something could be one thing and it's opposite at the same time. And and that for me has only come with age. So Rocky, like someone was saying to me about Sandwich Rock, oh, Rocky, that's the main character.
She. Is just like the sandwich. She's just stuck between these impossible things. Her parents are impossible. Her growing kids are impossible. And I was thinking, oh, that's so funny. I think of it not really that way. I think of it as like she is madly in love with everybody. She has a lot of fear about losing people and people demand a lot from her.
A situation she has to some extent brought on herself. But the idea that somebody would draw the conclusion that it was a book about how hard it is to be in the middle of all of this. And I thought, oh, that's really not where I am. Where I am is this place of like, all of it. That everything everywhere, all at once, feeling of it.
And in some ways that's how Rocky remembers the kids being little too. This. Unbelievable fleeting tenderness of those years and how demanding they were. That It's both things. Yeah. I love that. A hard season, hard seasons, but gratitude. Yeah. That right? Yeah. Yes. Fleeting. It's all fleeting. It's all temporary, it's all fleeting.
I know I think that, and maybe as you get older and start losing people and anticipate more loss, that is certainly a huge part of aging for me, is like, what it means to me now to be 56, is that I've experienced some very significant losses, and obviously lots of people have from a incredibly young age.
But also I'm heading into a season of loss. I feel it. My parents are, my dad's 93. He's incredibly hail and hearty, 93 is pretty old. And so I think the fragility of it, it ins does inspire a certain amount of gratitude that, if you could have anything, you would really just have this, yeah. And we won't get this moment back. I love this conversation because my grandma just passed away in the last few weeks. Oh, Heather, I'm sorry. 101.7 years. Oh my God. It was the best case scenario. Okay. Really, I'm 49 years old and I've had my grandma all this time. Aw. And she was healthy and it was the best case scenario, but what I always say, she lived through two husbands and a long-term boyfriend.
All of her siblings, her parents, fr all of her friends. She continued to make new friends, but a lot of friends and two of her children. Incredible. And if you live to be 101.7, no doubt have a lot to lose. And I always say then if you're lucky, yeah. You have to lose. And I've had a lot of loss in my young life already.
I've had a lot of, and I feel like lucky that, I mean somebody, I was like, oh Heather, your life has been so filled with grief. And it's and then that makes me so lucky. That I've had so much to lose. Yeah. Oh, abso, I just wrote that down. If you're lucky, you have a lot to lose. So that is, so the essence of it.
Yeah. So that's what we're going. But Crohn, what does Crohn mean to you? Because it means if we continue to age, we're gonna continue to lose. The older we get, the more we have to lose. Yeah. What does Crohn, what does that mean? So Crohn is the older we get, the more we have to gain is the Crohn vibe for me.
Opposite of L loss. Yeah. Crohn. So there were a couple different moments where I was like, oh I'm gonna write a novel about this. And and there were different elements. You could see it in the novel sandwich that there's the menopause piece and the mothering peace and the aging parents feast and there's secrets and there's the reproductive, some, the bodily reproductive history piece.
There's all these different things. But there was a moment, a really distinct moment, and it's in the book, but in real life, I was sitting on the beach in my swimsuit. I truly don't care what people think. And I have grown to understand that, especially at my age. Nobody thinks anything. Nobody cares what I look like in a good way.
I people experience it differently. And maybe if I were looking for love, I would feel different about how invisible I am. But in my particular life stage, I love it. And I was eating a tuna sandwich, like cross-legged sitting on a towel on the beach. Like my hair's wet 'cause I've been in the ocean and a blob of tuna fell onto my leg and I scooped it up with a potato chip and ate it.
And my daughter said, nice mom. And, but not even mean, she was just like, you are living your best life. And I really felt that. I was like, wow. The years I didn't go in the water because I was nursing and I felt like my boobs were gonna look terrible in my swimsuit or whatever. Stupid stuff I cared about how I looked or what people might think or, and I have never cared overly about that stuff.
And nonetheless, I cared. It turned out, which I really experienced when I stopped caring, I was like, oh, I have been wondering if somebody's like looking at my jiggly white thighs, like I'm so over it. So for me, crone has that vibe of witchy power. Yeah. Yeah. Shit I have, I the power of who gives a shit.
Yeah. I feel very, I feel really witchy and I, I, here's a tiny example of this. I. I don't even really know how to describe this. But anyway, I was at a protest march the weekend before last. And I had made this, I always try to channel like, what am I really thinking? Like how do I feel? I made a protest sign that said sorry if this is crude.
You can always edit this out, but I, oh no, the crude, a protest sign that said suck a Tesla full of dicks. You fascist, like oligarch losers or whatever. I can't quite remember. And then there was a picture of a Tesla and I had cut out all these like little penises out of construction paper and glued them all on.
I had a really good time making this. I loved cutting stuff out with scissors. I really enjoyed making the sign, I loved carrying the sign. I posted a picture of the sign and a man wrote. All these women were like, that's the best. Someone made like a button of it, someone sending me a t-shirt they made of the sign and a man wrote I can't imagine anything more childish.
And I literally laughed out loud. I was like, oh my God. That presumption that I give a single shit, what this guy thinks is so comedic to me. Like I showed it to my husband and he was like, oh no. Gosh, you gotta stop carrying that sign like idea. But someone's rogue judgment at this point has any power over me is so comical.
And it was a one of those occasions where you just mark how grown you are as a person, like how solid you feel in your way of being. Yeah, that your response to that would be actually laughter and more play. You had fun making it, playing it, holding it, carrying it. Now other people are having fun making buttons and stuff, and that his response just adds to the, it's thank you.
Obviously I'm playing no, and this is my survival right now and I still know how to play like a toddler. Isn't this isn't this, thank you for that compliment. I shoulda read that. Honestly. I was just, I, so anyway, there's still tons of judgment coming at me, is all I'm trying to say. Yeah. And that has been true for my entire career, that I've been judged for every single thing.
I used to be judged about my parenting decisions. I've been judged publicly. I've been judged through the etiquette column and I just really don't care. Yeah. So there is a shift from, I. I feel this in aging too, living for other people. Approval, affirmation, attention feedbacks, even if it's subtle. All of us, I think, do we want to be liked, adored, revere, loved all of that.
And the more the better. And if people agree with us and certain, like people, we want to agree with us, our inner circle or people we admire or whatever. And then it comes to a time where you're not living for that. You're living for, does this make me happy? Yeah. Not to please all the other people in my life.
Yeah. To be clear, I'm still a pleaser. I just wanna be transparent and I love to be loved. As people do. Yeah. So it's not even that I've given up that it's more like I know who I care about maybe or what my, or even who my people are. Like, I'm not gonna waste a moment's concern about a blustery.
Got it. A stranger that's not in the arena with you. Yeah. Like some narcissistic, blow hard. I don't, I just, yeah. Anyway, I only offer that as a corrective because I don't wanna sound like somebody who's given up. Like I still, it matters to me to be like liked and yeah. Thought well of, but only by people I care about.
Do you feel you know yourself better now though? God, than in your Oh my God, yeah. So you know who you are, so that's a little bit different than when you were still trying to figure it out. Maybe It's so true where you don't feel as much as like I'm not just a sailboat blown this way and that by the winds of like opinion, I definitely feel like I have a.
Like a pretty clear, true north about what matters and what I think is right. And that's, that feels good. And the flip side of that is I'm also very quick to consider the fact that I might be wrong about stuff. And that's new to age too. I think that's, I think that's another benefit maybe of confidence is that I don't always have to proceed in my correctness.
I can stop and say, wow, I might be wrong about this. Or tell me more about what you're thinking. I may fight about it first. I'm, especially in my marriage I'll be like, so you're only saying that because your husband's in the other room editing? Honestly, I think he's like outside replacing some weird piece of mold on the house, but like I can still be really like bullheaded about stuff, but I am just.
I'm not like, terrified of being wrong. I find some relief actually, and especially when my kids will point out something or be like, oh, I don't know, I don't think that, and they'll explain their point of view and I'm like, wow, that might be like, I might think that too. And then it's such a relief to get a break from yourself in that way.
Wow. I love that. I wanna know more about that. I feel like for me with age, like I thought there always had to be agreement in everything and I had to be right about everything and everybody had to agree. And now I feel like I can go, okay, you can think that way. And I can think this way. They can be different and we can both be right.
And it doesn't matter. And I don't need buy-in or agreement from everybody. It doesn't have to change the way I think. And I don't need you to think the way I think either. See, that's a, that's amazing. But do you come up against the limits of that when it's something that's really important and someone has a, an opinion that like offends you?
Like just obviously in a marriage, I always wanna be the right one. I want everyone to see it my way. I want my husband to see it my way. But getting, try to stay curious instead of defensive is what I try to do. Be curious. But you said your kids and like parenting I love to know about this, that you can stand corrected with your kids.
So when they're, this has changed through the ages too. 'cause when they're little they better listen to you and you're right. And you know everything because they're two and three and four. And now Yeah. Although even then I will say. There's something about falling in love with your kids that brings, can bring out for me, can bring out the best part of me.
And I, I remember even when they were little being like, oh, I was wrong about this. A thing I used to occasionally say to them, not all the time, but occasionally, they would be losing their absolute mind about something, right? We'd left a store when they were still trying to count up the candy bars or whatever.
The way kids are just like, they have a different thing that they're in the middle of and you're always just dragging them away where it's okay, now we're leaving the store. And I remember saying to them on occasion I didn't realize how important that was to you. And taking them back to finish the thing they were doing.
Now, I don't mean all the time, and I don't mean because they were screaming and crying, because there were, because they were dependent on me and there were times where I had made a bad decision about something that didn't account enough for their, the fact that they were, are people living their own young lives as important as my older life, and so I think in a weird way, the kids started that for me, of the stakes were so high to the pressure I thought was great to really bend when bending was called for, to not just stick with something because it's what I had first said to consider that they were right, or, and sometimes I would consider it and.
We would still leave the party or, that's so sad. Yeah. Have things for dinner, whatever. Yeah, I hear you. I love that. I feel like I've done that with my kids too. I bet you, I feel like that makes such a beautiful mutual relationship of love and respect. And in fact, I feel like it's been great that I don't nec not that I haven't yelled at my kids, but I wouldn't, I could say things softly and because I was respected, because I respected them.
There was this mutual understanding and even for discipline and teaching, it could be in a softer way and in a mutual respective way versus an author authoritarian way. And isn't that amazing? Yeah. When you say that, I just think that's a worldview for sure. The thing. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, please. The thing that brought me most to it, which I wanna chat with you about too, is sobriety. So I, my marching orders in early sobriety was changed. Behavior is the best apology. And so I had so much shame and regret from drinking over drinking and having my kids witness that on more than one occasion, that the shame of that was enough to make me wanna keep drinking, right?
There's no way out of that. I just wanted to pour alcohol on that feeling. And I just kept saying changed behavior is the best apology. I'm just not gonna drink today. I'll figure the rest out. I'm just gonna keep not drinking and I will figure the rest out and I will figure out the relationship with my kids.
And someday they'll believe me that I'm not drinking. I'm now over seven years alcohol free. They're my biggest cheerleaders, all this great stuff, right? And I continue to say to them like, I'm sorry. And in fact, on my five year anniversary, I had this milestone sometimes bring meltdowns for me. I had a complete meltdown and I was like a pretty high functioning drinker too.
I don't have a rock bottom story or any of that, but just like completely started seven to me. If there's anything you want me to talk about, you can talk to me. I am open, I can handle it. If there's anything that I did or anything you have to say, my whole family is we're okay. It's okay. We get it, it's fine.
It's over and you've changed. It's okay. And I'm like, but I'm here. If there's anything you need or anything you have left to say or they're like, mom, it's all fine. But I have this thing beautiful though. Yeah. So I want, for them to be, to have a place to share and to let them know this was never their fault and it was never about them.
And I don't like the Mommy WinCo drink because of the kids. It wasn't the kids that made me drink or anything that, sobriety has been the ultimate oh, I've made a mistake, I've done wrong. And, or, and I've, it was me surviving. I also have a lot of compassion for myself. Yeah. But in a I don't have to be Right and perfect all the time.
That has, and as a perfectionist, because that's a form of protection, right? Like sobriety is the ultimate I've gotta make a change. What I'm doing isn't working. I can know better. I can do better, I can learn. And you've gone, you've had a sober journey now, which maybe came unexpectedly. I'd love to hear about that.
Yeah. Yeah. That is such an amazing story, by the way, just so I'm really inspired by the way you talk about sobriety. I I'll back up and tell my story too, but I was thinking when you were saying that just of what a gift to give yourself, this life of. Being so much more deliberate about your relationships, like not just, I don't know, being drunkenly bumbling through them, which is now what I, it's so weird.
I'm a, so I'm a year and a handful of days. Just love that. Yes, I love it. It keeps getting better. And I will say in case any of your listeners are considering it and not to be like a spokesperson, which obviously most sober people really are, which is, should have queued me sooner. Accidental evangelist, where it's like you don't hear a lot of regret about sobriety.
Like sobriety is an I. I love it so much now, but there's, was not always the case that I love. Oh no. That I, sometimes I'll be somewhere and I can't believe people are drinking. I think it's I, I feel a little sorry. Same. I go, oh, that's too bad. You have to have that and then do act like that.
You have to numb out or dumb down. Even though eight months ago I was just jealous and I was like they're so lucky. Like what? I wouldn't give, to have a drink. So I was a big drinker. I have been a big drinker for a lot of my life. I love historically, loved to drink. I drank a lot. Big girl.
I could hold a lot of liquor. I would, whoever was drinking the very most at any party I would pace myself to that person. I. Drink alone. I high, super high functioning. I did not drink during the day ever. I, whatever. I like, never drank before. Five. I never missed a day at work like I was sober during the day.
But I look back at my drinking and then I had to quit drinking because of a health thing that I won't really go into in this space. But I was advised to stop drinking because of a really bizarre autoimmune illness. And because of I don't wanna die, there is nothing like fear to motivate me to be like my best self.
So I was terrified that I was being handed this kind of death sentence. And I. Had already cut, drinking way back, I was drinking much less already because I hadn't been feeling well. And then I just stopped drinking altogether. And I can't even tell you when I say that no one could believe it. I, this is just to indicate how much of a drinker I was.
I was the last person in my friend group. Anyone would've imagined would ever stop drinking. Like I, my parents who enjoy a couple of drinks every night, could not believe I had stopped drinking like my kids. But tons of support. Like my husband is, he's, his mother was an alcoholic. And he's always been very supportive of my drinking and then was incredibly supportive of me not drinking.
He has had three drinks in the last year himself. My kids have been incredibly loving and supportive, and the truth is, it's its own reward. I wake up and feel great and I can work at night, like I don't love to, but if I need to, I can. I used to organize all my evenings around drinking.
Someone would be like, oh, hey, can you pick me up at eight 30? And I'd be like, doubtful, like by eight 30 I'm gonna have had, I tell my clients, there's a whole world that happens after dark out there. Some people go to Target, it's like at 8:00 PM what? I'm like, it you can, it's possible. You knows, like at 8:00 PM I've had three beers I'm not gonna drive to Target.
And I just, so that's the least of it obviously is like my evenings being freed up. Now I can drive, I don't even drive that well at night, sober whatever as well. I know that is one. Exactly. It's just, there's so many parts of it. And I got I ground through the first seven months with non-alcoholic mocktails.
I had every non-alcoholic beer ever made my fridge full of canned, non-alcoholic stuff. And I really took it seriously. I spent money on it, like non-alcoholic drinks. Now, honestly, I just don't even care. I love to have one. If someone wants to make me a Shirley Temple or a mocktail or whatever, like I'm so into it and I love it and I love the thoughtfulness around it, but I just don't, I just really don't even care.
I can just have water. I'm like, I can't even believe that a year in, I just feel so transformed. It doesn't dominate my thinking of like, where am I gonna be when I can have a drink? Who am I gonna be with? Which restaurant are we going to and what do they have for IPA on draft, like the amount of mental space that opens up.
It's amazing. Yeah, that's the thing. It's not even about the alcohol, it's about the thinking about drinking and you're no longer thinking about it. And like you said, the feeling good starts to fuel itself. It feels good to feel good. I know. And the further it goes in the rear view mirror, the better you feel and the more you wanna feel good.
It's incredible. And I don't wake up in the middle of the night like gasping with shame. Yeah. Which I will say, when I look back at all those years, I would say maybe once a week I would wake in the night and be like, oh shit, what did I say? Yeah. People know that feeling of like oof. Either something embarrassing or something hostile or Right.
Who's mad at me? I would wake up. Who's mad at me? Yeah. What did I do? What did I say? My mad at me today. I gotta test it. Did I say that? Poke at? Yeah. And I do feel. I will say this is one downside for me is that what I have learned is that I'm an introvert and I was self-medicating some of my introvertedness.
Yeah. And that was really hard. 'cause I had, I used to have, when I was drinking, I had a life of the party personality. Yeah. I was very funny. I was very outgoing socially. And it turns out that was not like who I really am is shy, kinda like more listening than talk. Not with you apparently, but as a rule.
Anyway. So that's been hard for me. Like I've had to deal with, like there'll be events I'm invited to and I think, I don't think I can handle that sober, so I'm not gonna go. Yeah, I hear you so much. So I think I'm more of an extrovert anyways. In fact, people would be like, you don't have to drink 'cause you're already that funny person.
You would be that you're that way with or without drinking. And but the best thing is either way, you let yourself be yourself. And that's the difference. Yeah. Is so I even, I let myself be myself and guess what I mean? I love puzzling and scrabble and reading and being at home with my dog too.
So I don't, no, you don't go into those situations and be the life of the party. You just don't go to those situations. 'cause you have to pour alcohol on it to tolerate it like. Your body's, your anxiety about that, let's say social anxiety, let's say that's your body's warning light to say, this isn't a safe place for you.
This isn't a comfortable place for you. And instead of going shut up body, drink your Chardonnay or get your IPA or whatever, it's like you listen to yourself. That's so true. That's I think that's really true. And allow yourself to say no, which is also just a thing I'm growing into, yeah. Saying, wow, that sounds amazing and I'm gonna skip it, yeah. Yeah. So you're just letting yourself be yourself and your relationship with yourself improves too, because you're not I always say, it's really hard to have a good day when you just wake up and beat yourself in the face first thing.
And with that middle of the night, wake up call or early morning what have I done? It's like, how do you expect yourself to go be amazing that day when you're, when you start with you suck. Why'd you do that again? Everybody's mad at you. That takes up so much head space and you get to be free.
The freedom from that body is an identity shift. You're a drinker your whole life and now you're sober Sally in your cloning. What the heck? What the heck? How does that fa in your family, in your social circle? Like your immediate family has been supportive, but it's different, right? You're not gonna be the one to pull out the, I honestly, I think my friends are bummed.
They've been so amazing and we definitely spend more time like running or going for hikes. Like I think I'm not the person everyone wants to spend their evening with, which is so real. Because I also think there's a way sobriety holds up a mirror and it's really uncomfortable. Yeah. And I'm so with that, my friend, who I most loved to drink with, she was sober for a big chunk of one year, and I was like secretly devastated by it.
I was like, what is that? No, we're drinkers. This is what we do. I'm okay. You're okay if we're both and we're drinking the same. Totally. We're both okay. We're both okay. Totally that, so I mostly find incredible support. I went to this I got invited to a writer's residency and I'd never been to a writer's residency and I'd always like, I, we just had mixed FOMO about it, but I wasn't sure.
And then I thought, ugh, I got invited and now I'm sober and this is gonna be too hard. And I went and there were nine of us writers in this house. And the most amazing experience, it was like falling in love for 10 days. Like I was so happy to be there. And four out of the nine of us were non-drinkers.
Most, I think all four of us with stories about not drinking, not just casually never started drinking like we were non-drinkers, people who were practicing sobriety. And I just felt oh, we're everywhere. I don't really need to worry anymore. Like anywhere you go, there's people who don't drink and you can always find those people if you need to.
It's such a, it's funny, this is literally the most I've talked about it, like talking to you now about it and it's funny to hear myself be so like, preachy about it, almost not. Not in the judgmental sense, but in the knock. I'm here to share the good news. What have I become?
Yes, I'm back from the other side to tell you. Yeah. But it's just a huge surpris. I wouldn't have seen it coming. I would've thought that I would always be someone who was like a bashed and apologetic about not drinking. That I would just be I know it's a warring whatever, and I just feel so I just want everyone to get on the boat with me.
Like we're just gonna float higher and higher. It's so tremendous. That is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me. I love it. I love it so much. The first thing I did when I quit drinking was went and apologized to everybody I drank with that I was really sorry I wouldn't be drinking with them anymore and that this is terrible and I'm so sorry.
And I hope we can be friends. And I know it's all my fault and I've been such a bad drinker that I have to do this now. You know what I mean? And it's look at me now, shouting from the rooftop. Same. It's, and it must make people laugh from my hometown, like the party girl. She's sober whatever now.
But it's like I've been the best surprise in my life. Same surprise of my life. Same. And to be clear, I don't know if I clarified this when I was telling the story, but I did not think I was stopping because I drank too much. Yeah, that's, I stopped because I had a medical situation that was unfolding and I was like, ah, bummer.
Like me of all people like. I have such a good relationship to alcohol. That's not completely true. I did not actually think I had a great relationship to alcohol, but I certainly really, now in hindsight, I'm like, woo, could have really stood to give that up a little sooner, yeah. Like when you know kind of situation.
But it's for you and now I can't, it's funny, I wrote something for Cup of Joe, for Joanna Goddard about not drinking and weirdly, I wrote it for her when I had cut back to four drinks a week. There was a long stretch where I wrote, where I was drinking four drinks a week, which was dramatically less than I have been drinking by some unspeakable number of drinks.
And I wrote about like my great joy in drinking four drinks a week, which was real, like I loved. That was a good amount. And in fact, if I were better at sobriety, perhaps I would do that. Somebody wrote, why are you doing that? Give them up. You won't believe how much better it is to give it up altogether.
And I thought, you don't know me like you're totally wrong about this. Actually, this is my perfect thing. And now that I'm drinking none, I'm like, oh, I see what they meant. Where instead of wheeling and dealing all the time of okay, I have four drinks. It's Monday, I'm seeing this person on Thursday, Saturday, I'm gonna wanna have two.
Like the amount of chatter, alcohol, chatter. It's gone. Just gone. Yeah. That's how I always say, I know I had a problem with alcohol because I, how good I feel sober. Like it's not because the drinking was looked problematic in any sort of way. Yeah. It's because this feels so freaking good to me. This is free, this is aligned.
This is me to me, like I've got it now. Alcohol was in the way of everything. Mostly my confidence. Yeah I just completely hear you. And like alcohol, even in small amounts, this is the thing that's not always advertised is it's brings you down. It's still bringing you down even in those moderate amounts.
So we have this idea of problem drinker, big drinker, normal drinker. And it's even somebody who's drinking, I always say like, why do you wanna like dumb yourself down moderately, or even a low level depression or even like low level anxiety, it's still negative consequences that you don't understand can take up to two years actually to completely refigure everything.
Wow. And so every time you're drinking even just a little bit, it's like continuing to have negative consequences even in moderate levels. That's interesting. But certainly drinking moderately. Feels a lot better than drinking a lot. Like I'm just an advocate for any amount of whittling that consumption.
Oh yeah. I always drinking less led to me drinking none. And that was your story too. I've always a fan. I used Bath for it and I wouldn't have been able to, I think I wouldn't have been able to do it without the app. Even now I log in my drink free days on the app because it gives me this body of accomplishment behind me and I can feel how much I wouldn't wanna interrupt it, by having a drink.
Yeah. Even if I've never had another drink, I'm too fixated on this. And if I did have a drink, let's say I fell and had a drink, I could just go back to not drinking. It truly would be fine. But I, there's the app is like this accountability for me and I, it's been incredibly helpful. Accountability and gold stars and a dopamine hit.
All of it. And a streak. And a streak in a your competitive streak. Exactly. Completely. And community. I use two different apps and one of them the app, I am sober. I don't know if you've looked at that app, but that app tells you what your next kind of milestone is and tells you how many other people share it on the app.
Yeah. And boy does it remind you that you're in community. It'll be like in, it'll be 400 days and 15 days and 7,000 other people will celebrate that milestone. And I think, wow, I am just in it with people, let's go team. Yeah. But I love that it just makes me feel like I have this invisible community of people who are just in it.
We're just in it together. And even those people that you met at your writing residency or retreat or whatever, it's like you, you immediately link arms and there's immediate depth to your relationship knowing you've been through that. Yeah. There's certainly a story like, whether or not you hear the story, there's a story and there is something about that feels really connective.
And I think also that, I don't know, I just, I think confronting my own in hindsight, confronting my own like addiction and fallibility just has made me more compassionate or, I just see it more boy, are we struggling as people? It's really hard. It's just incredibly hard. You turn, you stood up to face your relationship with alcohol and in that you learn, you're learning how to face everything, right?
Yeah. That's already the hardest thing is to completely change your identity, your social, like your, like this habit that you've always had and always done. When you can change that, there's nothing you can't do. So it just, I feel like every, everything I learned in sobriety taught me how to live my life.
That's so now know how to do all the things. I love that. See, I partly feel like I learned how to be sober from doing cold swimming, which is my other thing. I do really obsessively and polar plunging how, told me how to wade right into something that hurt. Yeah, it's like yoga, get comfortable with the discomfort.
Exactly. That and how to compartmentalize and just where I'm just like, I'm gonna walk right into the water until I'm up to my neck and I'm not gonna stop and I'm not gonna groan about it. And I'm. I'm just gonna walk right in. And I was already doing that when I quit drinking and I approached quitting drinking with the same I am not gonna I'm just not gonna think about it a lot.
I'm just gonna That's so the cure for the pain is the pain. It's that is so good. Yeah. I'm writing that one down. I know. I'll send you notes on every brilliant thing you've done. Thank you. I do see you taking notes. I appreciate it. Please trademark whatever. I know. Oh my gosh. Thank you. We are right at our time.
Catherine, I wanna talk to you for obviously four more hours and then a weekend and then even more. What's lighting you up right now? Let's end up with that. With creatively or personally or spiritually. What is lighting you up right in this moment? I'll tell you what's lighting me up right now is the fact that it is spring and I have this feeling, I remember this during the pandemic actually, where I.
I'm in a moment in our like history and political moment where I feel really panicky and a lot of despair and anxiety about what's happening in the country and in the world. And when I go outside and like the lilacs getting ready to bud and the daffodils are up, I have this relief about the parts that we don't control.
This feeling that spring is just unfolding, the trees are doing their thing and I love it. I just really love it. I love that. Thank you so much. I just wrote an article about daffodils and sobriety, but pushing up through the muck. Wow. And that's what we're doing. We're pushing up through the muck right now.
Okay. Where can we find that article? Oh, an after magazine. I'll share it with you. Of course. Yes. Thank you, Catherine, for your time. Thank you for your work you so much for listening to yourself as a first grader and knowing that you had to write and you had to share your writing, and you had to push through all the things and all the vulnerabilities and all the, honesty with yourself and putting your words out there for us to read. It's made a huge difference in my life. And you continue to do that with your substack. Thank you for being honest about sobriety as not a real sober evangelist or sober coach or anything. As somebody who just, like I said, accidentally okay, fine, I have to fine.
I have to quit drinking. Said doctor, like that would be helpful for my health status. But maybe a little begrudgingly, like why? 'cause I don't really have a problem with alcohol. I actually really like it. And for you to be singing the praise of sobriety, it's really cool. We need people like that. So keep doing that.
Thank you. Thank you Heather. It was such a joy to talk to you. I appreciate the kind of sparkle and intelligence you bring to conversation. That was really a pleasure. And I'm gonna find a way to meet you in person. Look out for that stalking soon. I'll let you know. I'll let you know when I'm gonna sitting near you.
Okay. Thank you for everything. Thank you.
Therein
