Kelly Corrigan

Kate Bowler: Hello, my dears. This is Everything Happens and I’m Kate Bowler. So today we’re going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to do a crossover episode with one of my favorite people on the planet, Kelly Corrigan and her podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders. So, here’s what we do. Today, we’re going to take a moment to do what so few of us just get a second to make time for: we’re going to look back not just at the highlight reels, not just at the things that look great on Instagram, but at the tough moments, too, because that’s the truth. Life is rarely all good or all bad. It has so much of both. So we’re going to start the year together by holding it all together. The beautiful, the terrible, the bittersweet, the “happies” and the “crappies.” And maybe, just maybe, find the courage to start again.

Kelly Corrigan: Well, it’s that time of year. Kate Bowler It’s that time of year. A little reflection and the happy and the crappy.

Kate: My gosh. I feel so primed to talk about crappy with you. Like, I feel the most ready.

Kelly: I know, it was a little easier this year to like whip off my crappies than my happies.

Kate: That’s right.

Kelly: Because I was like, keep going, keep thinking, what would it be?

Kate: Yeah. Pull out the gratitude journal, let’s dig into the—nope. This is… I won’t just say like off the cuff. This, just, we can pull this right out of our souls.

Kelly: Mmhmm. All right, so give me your first Ccrappy, which is a personal one. So we do four categories: personal, inner circle, work life, and then a bonus round where you could consider anything from the global to the intimate.

Kate: Well, let’s see. I think that the personal crappy would have to go to the ongoing this of the exact same problems I have continued to have for years and years and years, which at some point just sort of takes on like a Sisyphean quality in which you’ve just like tried to push that boulder a bill, and then you repeatedly feel like by the end of the day it is entirely rolled back over your human body. And you are, like, there’s just an outline of you pressed into the mud. So, I mean, and I can hear how apocalyptic and boring it is to me and to the people I love. I have the same health problems as forever.

Kelly: You do.

Kate: I just yeah, I’m in a research study now at Sloan-Kettering to try to dig into why I keep having the exact same problems. But it’s just been like… I’d say once every week there’s about 8 to 12 hours that’s just entirely consumed by not having a body that works terribly well. I mean, it’s like kind of staying on the rails, like parts fall off. I feel like I’m the world’s most inefficient car.

Kelly: Are you in pain?

Kate: I mean, that’s always back, I guess. But I solve some problems. Like I find a new physical therapist and I find a new stretchy exercise-y, try in the morning and at night routine. I found one very good doctor I really like. So I feel like I keep trying. And I keep finding some… Like, I’m trying every door handle and then some of them unlock. But then in the next room, there’s just another problem that looks very similar to the problem I have. So I would just say on the crappiness, it’s just the ongoing-ness of it not really getting easier. I’m happy when it gets different, but I wouldn’t say it’s getting like easier.

Kelly: Yeah, that’s like wrapped in a whole bunch of stuff. Like, I used to have migraines. And did you like the way I said that? Like, I’m really convinced that that’s over. And but when you have a big, urgent, searing pain like that, everyone has to respond accordingly. The whole house has to be on hush. You can’t be asked to do anything. Whatever was on the calendars, off the calendar. So you’re forcing like this ripple-on effect to roll through the lives of either your family if it’s a weekend or your workmates if it’s during the week. And I found a lot of times when I was in my head wrapped with ice and my hot pad on my neck and trying all my weird combinations to manage it, just to come down, you know, to try to get from an eight to a seven and try to get from a seven to a six. And that a part of what made me so upset inside my little black world that I had made for myself was, “I bet I’m driving them crazy.” That I’m just driving them crazy. I bet Edward’s so sick of this. He never does this. He never disrupts our lives with this kind of pain. Do you have that? Do you have the, “I don’t want to be perceived this way?” As this person who’s always got, like, a little bit of an issue?

Kate: Yeah. Well, you said that to me, I mean, in, like, the most helpful way a little bit ago when you asked me how I was doing, and then I told you, but I was rushing. I wanted to kind of get through it, be honest, but not like let it land too heavy. And then you said, like, “Oh, hun, you clean up quick.” And I thought that was really a helpful. reminder. I can take time. I can let it… I can even believe the intensity of my own words if I get to hear them out loud. I think the overwhelming feeling that you’re just kind of always trying to live in concert with forces that you can’t control. But then, like, why is it that I want so much every new day to fully control my schedule? Like, how is it that I become repeatedly this delusional? I don’t know if I’ve ever learned the lesson that I say over and over again? Like, Hey, guys, we all we have a limited set of choices. Like we have to do our best inside the day we have. And instead I wake up, I’m like, eight-o-clock: conquered this. Nine-o-clock: be devastated by it.

Kelly: I know. Right. I just canceled today. I had said to somebody that I would have a very important conversation with them at 6 p.m.. And then my only mark of improvement was that I wrote back within eight minutes and said, I don’t know why I said that. I’m going to be so shot by 6 p.m.. I mean, typically I’m shot by like 2 p.m., so by six I’m going to be like a babbling fool and there’s no way that I can do justice to the topic that’s on the table with us at 6 p.m.. It’s like accept, accept the ways that you’re changing. And the limitations you find yourself with.

Kate: That’s good. I did think that getting an Aura ring would help.

Kelly: So many people did. It’s probably a great stock to own, if it’s even public, like that is such a winning, it’s like the latest in a long line, parade of products that’s like, this is going to be it.

Kate: Totally. And for anyone who has not like gone down the rabbit hole of optimization madness, they have this app that you download and then you put in all of your dreams like, do you want to be more healthy or do you want to feel less stressed? And then this and then this little robot ring goes on your finger and then it’s supposed to like it really mostly just tracks your temperature and your heart rate, as far as I can tell. But in my heart, it’s tracking my spirit and it’s tracking my, like ability to change. And I was trying to explain this to this very nice British man what the what this robot ring was. And he was like, “Oh, it’s trying to tell you the weather in reverse.”

Kelly: So good.

Kate: I thought that was very insightful. But it turns out that while I will meet my caloric burning goals. Because they put them at like 100, as far as I can tell, it’s like walking to the car and then walking my son to school. And then they’re like, “Congratulations, you’ve met your goals!” Everything else is like, it puts you on this quadrant of like how you’re doing and whether you’re optimized for like recovery. Ever since the moment I put it on, it says “You have a low…” And then it’s the ratio of like rest to rejuvenation, which is basically to say you’re getting worse and it’s happening every day.

Kelly: So I think the graphs and the trend lines and the quantification is going to kill us. I do. I think it totally ruins the idea of like walking like I just did steps and I used to have the little thing on my wrist and it would beep when I got to 10,000 steps and I’d be like, party on my wrist and I’d show whoever was around me at the moment that I hit 10,000. And this year at, TED, there was some guy on stage talking specifically about how the measurement of things changes your experience of them and how it goes from one thing, you know, it’s one thing to like go for a walk with a friend, it’s another thing to be like pursuing this achievement, this little micro achievement each day.

Kate: Yes.

Kelly: And to make sure that your little bar graph goes up, up, up every day. It’s a distraction ultimately, of what could be truly restorative, which is walking with a friend, being present, being in fresh air, observing and noticing whatever there is to observe and notice in yourself, in others, in the plants, that those wonderful people on the West Side Highway tend to year-round. Like we have the most beautiful landscaping right outside my door in New York City. And if I’m like doing my 10,000 steps, that’s where that’s front of mind. That’s the forward taste in my mouth, is “I am achieving something.” And if I’m not that forward taste in my mouth is I’m experiencing something. And it’s probably way more restorative to experience than to achieve.

Kate: Kelly. That’s so good. That’s such a good distinction. I remember when I was trying to write about the wellness industry in my book, No Cure For Being Human, because I was like, I was trying to convince myself like , dude, if there was a cure, you would have found it,  like calm the F down. And and it was a lot of like, like Kate, like, it’s so much easier to count things than to know what counts. And then, like, two seconds later, I bought an Aura ring. It’s just such crap.

Kelly: Right? Because that’s the externals coming back at you. I was like, measure it to tame it.

Kate: Right? That’s right. I met this man who is known as, like, the most measured man in the world, like he’s has the most sort of biometrics and things that he charts about his body. That’s like so far beyond weight and caloric intake and effort, he measures every single thing. My favorite thing that he he put it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, but he said, look, like there’s so many ways to optimize the human body. And like I you know, I try to have make sure that my last meal is early enough in the day that I can fully digest it so I can sleep really well. And then he shows you how long it takes for him to go to sleep, which is like it just feels like his head makes contact with the pillow and then it’s over. And so my question was like, okay, so like, when’s the last meal of the day for you? And his answer was 11 a.m..

Kelly: Oh come on. Come on!

Kate: Right. I was like, oh we’re robots.

Kelly: Yeah, like, You win. Great. Like, I don’t know what you won, but you, you may have the prize. Oh my God.

Kate: I think I think about him like, way more than I should.

Kelly: What about all the Spaniards eating dinner at 10 p.m. and like everyone… ugh, hate it, I’m not into it. Okay, here’s mine. My personal crappy is that I don’t have parents anymore, and I hate it. I totally hate it. And the way it comes up, it comes up all the time and all these different ways, But like, a really stupid way that it came up was that Georgia, my 23 year old, ran the New York City Marathon. It was her first marathon, it’s the most fun day in New York City. I did a little podcast about it, but what I didn’t mention there was that I felt that it was just excruciating to not be able to call my parents and say, Georgia finished. She got 4:03. She was so happy crossing the finish line, you should have seen her. Like to not be able to send a little video of Georgia crossing the finish line to my parents who have just been so delighted by it. I felt nearly enraged in some little part of me like, this is so awful. And then I saw this woman who I love so much, who was my dad’s old, old, old friend’s wife. She’s 93, Katsy Swan, and she’s a completely delightful person. And I left my visit with her and I thought I, I cannot believe I cannot call my parents and say, “Oh my God, I just had lunch with Katsy Swan. And let me tell you, you know, she is like up and about. She’s serving. She’s got great stories. She’s like her same gorgeous self. Her hair’s fantastic, she had cool jeans on…” Like just to not be able to share my little dumb world with them is horrible. Because what you come to realize is nobody really cares that much about your cold or the fact that you lost an earring, you know, or that like Edward had a big meeting. Like nobody holds that the way that my mom did, for instance, these last nine years since my dad died. And, you know, she would just hold it. She’d just be holding it until you gave her an update. Did you find the earring? Did you call the hotel? Call the hotel? Maybe they should— it’s like, that’s so amazing that you care about my earring. You know?

Kate: Yeah, yeah.

Kelly: And “Oh tell Edward we say good luck with the meeting,” you know, like that kind of tracking. Is, I think, unique to that relationship. And I don’t even think it’s in every relationship. I actually think probably the most pain that parents sometimes cause children is to not really take that kind of deep, consistent, ongoing interest in the minutia of their kid’s life. But I had that and I miss it.

Kate: Lovey.

Kelly: You know?

Kate: I used to have this friend Mary, and every time she did something dangerous, I would yell, “I will be a witness to your life!” In like a very ominous way. She knew that I was both a friend and a possible, you know, like third party police testifier. But it’s the little witnessing that, it’s just such a specific kind of loneliness to be not seen, like not watched, not, you know.

Kelly: And you’re you’re just not that special to anyone else. Like, I’m not even that special to Edward. Like, he’s a lovely person to be married to and in so many ways. But it’s like, you know, if I told him I had a cold, like, he might not remember, like four minutes later.

Kate: Yeah. Totally.

Kelly: You know? If I told him I lost an earring. Like, no way. He wouldn’t even, he wouldn’t know that 10s later, he might not have even heard it. It might not even gone in. And of course, your kids are on the flip side of that. And so my only like, option, which is a good option, just like a good move for me, is to remind myself, like, you’re the giver now. So you used to be like a giver and a getter. You used to get this special attention, and then you give the special attention. And now I’m just a giver of the special attention. And, you know, believe me, I’ve had plenty of love and attention in my life. Like, I should be able to stand on my own by now, Kate. But the absence is is really foremost in my mind these days. I’m just getting used to it. I’m just getting to not having them.

Kate: Makes me want to sign you up for like a very nosey neighbor. Just like an obsessive, potentially stalking-like, acquaintance, turned obsessive friend.

Kelly: It is true. Like in the wrong hands, that kind of interest in your lost earing could be absolutely infuriating.

Kate: It’s like the beginning of a few horror movies where, like, there’s an unknown neighbor.

Kelly: Right. How you doing? How you doing over there? I noticed you didn’t leave for work this morning until 9:30. You feeling okay? Got a cold? And then they like zero in on her weird eyes. And the fact that she’s holding, like, gardening shears that are just a little too big.

Kate: We’re going to be right back after a break to hear from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere.

Kelly: All right. Tell me what your inner circle crappy was.

Kate: Well, I tried making family memories. I guess, like, since we last spoke, I would say that the highlight of the like pretty interminable garbage season was related to an attempt that I had to make family memories where I thought, because—

Kelly: It’s always bad idea. Terrible idea.

Kate: Well, and you start using the word vacation when lo and behold, it is in fact a family trip. I thought it would make the most sense if I tried to structure the things I need to do for work and then my home obligations in the middle of Canada, and then podcast guests who don’t always live in the same, you know, and like, wouldn’t it be nice to tape it in person? And actually we could just take the, we have a Airstream trailer and we’ve like loved to rehab trailers. And wouldn’t it be fun to just take that on the road and make these incredible family memories and like, isn’t it so nice to be in basically a moving soup can and learn to operate as a team and you can see your son start to develop like outdoorsy qualities and all of a sudden you’re working as a unit? And it’s a beautiful thing? And things that happened on that trip: one, I’m pretty sure we all got scurvy because like not a single person cough cough my husband cough had planned any of like the meals required to not just eat ground beef on the road. Second, every camping ground had something genuinely terrible wrong with it. But the one where I finally had six hours off was next to an E coli outbreak. And I could hear myself out loud saying like that. We walked up to the lake. This is like sweet little Zach in a swimming trunks and Toban and I like hauling all the chairs and all the things. We go over to the camp beach and then there’s a, we realize that the entire body of water is like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle green, and it smells like sulfur. And then there is a huge sign that says warning there is like waterborne diseases. Please check this website to see how long this infection will last. And you could hear me, because I was so desperate to have any time off, go like, it seems treatable. So every single stop was, it was too hot. There were no outlets. There was E coli. I looked truly homicidal by the time I pulled up to my event, my live event, in which I only had a couple hours to like get on stage and share some hospitality.

Kelly: Get shiny.

Kate: I really felt like it was one of the dumbest choices I’ve made a really long time. I was like beyond ragged. I was. It was the beginning of a true crime documentary.

Kelly: Aw. I am so empathetic to the the build up of expectations and the fantasy of this future moment where you’re looking back together at some photos on your phone and your little guy looks up to you and says, “That was amazing, Mom.” And it’s like, no, it was. It was horrible. It was still horrible. However, I must say that like, some of the the kind of the, quote, best family memories we’ve created have been telling the stories of our mutual disasters over the years. Like it’s really fun to let them go to town on us now and say, “Mom, like, what were you thinking?” Remember? Claire just reminded me that one Halloween morning she came down and she was distraught because her costume didn’t turn out the way that she had it in her head. And I was like, “Well, get ready for a lifetime of that, hun,” because, I mean, that’s what we’re talking about, right? Yeah, the whole story in your head. And then you have the reality that is different and worse. And so anyway, I, I looked over and I saw our clue game and I was like, “No problem. You can be Miss Scarlett.” And, you know, I like, basically spun around in this old red fabric and I was stapling like cutting up the clue game and stapling things to her. I was like, This is working. It’s coming together. Take a look. And that’s what, that’s our family memory. And it’s so great. You know, it’s such a great, hilarious, ridiculous and freeing in memory. Like it’s not a bad thing. Actually, I’m going to turn this into a happy dammit. It’s not a bad thing for it to be the case that it didn’t go well? Everybody can have a laugh about it and everybody can lower their expectations for the next run or for their own attempts at parenting when it’s Zach’s turn down the line. It’s like it’s all kind of a cannonball run, and that’s part of it and it’s great.

Kate: It just reminds me of my mindset.

Kelly: Am I just doing like, no total toxic positivity on that?

Kate: No! I like that because it is by my best, worst memory of my family trip with my mom and my sisters was she used to take us, she did these singing tours. She’s a medieval folk singer and I think half the luggage was this one sateen ballgown that she would have to wear that was like very forest green, off the shoulder early 90s. And she would like sweep in to these really very castle-y experiences in Germany and what was at the time Czechoslovakia. And my strongest memories are the fact that we had one movie that we could watch backstage and it was of the movie Ghost, dubbed over by a man and a woman playing all the respective parts and then dubbed over half a second later in one man, his voice in Czech. I’m like, I have most of Ghost memorized like a half a second in advance of like the world’s interminable, like, concerts. But the sight of my mom one time being attacked by a peacock while she was in this enormous green ball gown is still goes down in the books as like one of the great family vacation memories of all time.

Kelly: So my inner circle crappy is pretty crappy, which is that I had a couple that I was worried about. My my brother’s wife has a glioblastoma.

Kate: Aw, love.

Kelly: My friend’s daughter has acute myeloid myeloma. And then I was thinking about my daughters and the reduction of rights to women in the U.S., the reduction that’s already happened and the reduction that might continue happening. And I have a sort of a immediate concern about it, which is that it’s discouraging. And I just don’t think anybody in their 20s needs to be discouraged any more than they already have been by the pandemic and by the change in the climate. You can’t afford to make a 20-year-old feel hopeless. This is too dangerous to the individual is too dangerous to society. But it wouldn’t be like a crazy response right now, to think like, you know, is it going to work out for women?

Kate: Yeah.

Kelly: Or like, a woman like me who wants rights and wants to be safe and respected in the world? So that is a very heavy but very real inner circle crappy is that it’s possible that being young and female in America right now has a heaviness to it that might be a little bit more than kids that age can really manage.

Kate: You know, I was just lecturing about how to describe that feeling. Last night, as I was trying to sort of describe the very strange coexistence between toxic positivity and really like a rising apocalypticism? Where we feel ourselves coming up to the edge of our structures and the fragility of democracy, the fragility of the way we get information, the fragility of our health care, Medicare, really any kind of like universal experience that we feel able to share with acquaintances or strangers or then sometimes even friends. I think a lot of people are concerned about, I know trans friends are removing their pronouns from public bios because they’re very concerned about changes in the law to come. I think that feeling that things are really tearing at the seams is sort of, it’s a very odd cultural moment because on the surface it really is got such a glibness and a smoothness to it, like the way we the way we interact on social media kind of alternates between like five steps to this. And then like, dear God what’s going on with the penguins?

Kelly: Totally.

Kate: And I think, I think the combination is like really disorienting for people as we’re trying to I mean, like the great hope is that we can all live in reality together by being able to share common insight and common humanity. I think that’s part of why I think a sense of the tragic really helps is because you can open up this space inside of you that goes like, Guys, we are not going to be able to do this by ourselves. And also interdependence is a not just a personal project. It’s a civic project that I think our young people are staring down a longer future and so therefore they feel the fragility more acutely than we do.

Kelly: Do you feel it coming from your students? I mean, I don’t know how you teach in the Divinity School, So your students are probably late 20s?

Kate: Can I talk about our, like, 9 to 5, our work problems?

Kelly: Yes, we can slide right into it.

Kate: Because that is exactly what is kind of stressing out right now. So I teach at a Divinity School, which is master’s students and Ph.D. students, and really they’re largely going to go into some kind of service work. They might be a pastor or they might work in a nonprofit. Some of them will go into academia, but for the most part, they’re kind of community facing, which is one of the loveliest things about teaching that demographic. It’s been honestly a really lovely way to get to know America is when I travel, I get to see my students and the communities that they lead. And so that’s always really, like I was just in Arkansas last week and listening to how they were interpreting the election and just seeing things from like the perspective of a church pastor in a one stop sign town and how they’re going to manage immigration, whether they want to be a sanctuary church. Like, I really just find that stuff so like detailed in the best way and so like human. But I think one of the big struggles is, the trend toward de-churching has accelerated the very rapid and sort of dramatic decline of church participation since the pandemic as people started just fell out of the habit of it. It compounded on an otherwise trend toward secularization. So it just happened, people stopped going to church faster than we thought that they would. The denominations that I help serve, usually what they have mostly is not cash. They have buildings. They have these big, beautiful properties that they’ve typically been able to use to provide, like both theological vision and also social services. And now everybody has like a mold problem, and there’s not enough people, but they have an endowment for the cemetery, but not enough money to pay for like kids programing and watching them be really tired and discouraged. And also that, frankly, because religion, Christianity is so often the center of culture wars like people, they feel less and less able to be useful to other people in the way that they want. So people will call in to be like, hey, by the way, can you bury my dad? And at that point, they get like one of the only openings to just say like, hey, you know, do you want me to say a few words? Do you want me to help? Like, do all the things they’re trained to do, offer comfort, offer support, offer theological language and and people will because fewer and fewer people go to church, they don’t even really know what that person’s job is. So I’m hearing all sorts of like, “Hey, are you supposed to do something now that my kid, they just got into grade one?” They’re like, “Wait, are you talking about baptism? Are you talking about confirmation? Or…” Like there’s there’s such a sense that the rites of passage are gone. And I don’t mean to just sound like swan song-y, but I can just hear how both tired and how useless people feel when they really want to serve and also just how under-resourced they are to then do the work. And so just I can see that the wheel that used to kind of turn seemingly effortlessly is kind of breaking in a lot of spokes. And I know it’ll keep turning and I know people will continue to reimagine ways to to like really, really be with, that like beautiful ministry of presence. But man, I feel like one of the things I see most is I see hundreds and hundreds of pastors every year. And I would say this year they’re they’re more necessary than ever. And they feel, I think, more discouraged.

Kelly: God, I was so comforted by the church kind of wrapping its arms around my mother. At the end. She used two different churches depending on I love it when she needed air conditioning and when she didn’t. And there was a little church that she went to during the week that was for old retired nuns and my mother. And then there was the big church that at Villanova where we did all of our special stuff. And before we all sat down and everything started at her service, Edward was looking over my shoulder and he just squeezed me and said, “The nuns.” And I turned around and all the nuns from the second church she used, like her weekday church, were coming down in their habits. And, you know, like, there’s nobody to me who feels more instantly loving and like they’re the kind of the ultimate caretakers. And they just took me by the hand and they look right in your eyes. And in those moments, I was like, whatever you tell me, if you tell me it’s going to be okay, I would believe you. You’re the only person in this place that could convince me. And they just loved her. They liked that she came, you know, she always left one second before she could be engaged in social interactions. You know? She didn’t want that, but they knew she was there. And she knew that they knew. And then there they all were in the church. It was pretty beautiful. Yeah, I could imagine that training, all these bright eyed, well-intentioned, devoted types for communities that may or may not embrace them the way they used to. You know, to be of great use is really the ultimate feeling. I think a lot of the loneliness stuff comes from feeling unneeded. That you don’t have a place to serve. And connect.

Kelly: And then the number of people even recently that have told me that even that they’re lonely and that even if they wanted to, they couldn’t find somebody to help them in a really difficult time. Like in the last week, I had an acquaintance say that after medical procedure there was nobody to pick her up and she had to kind of lie to the hospital and get the Uber driver to, like, sign her out and that she’s so unbelievably lonely. She feels like very, very mentally fragile. I have another friend who they’re waiting for a heart transplant for her husband. This is like a young couple. And there’s just like, you know, in a world of people, there’s just not actually the right kind of being with us that they need. So I just there’s such a mismatch sometimes between, like, our deep, deep, deep needs and then our desire to, like, align it with our life’s calling. I wish there was some kind of magical matchmaking process we could all go through right now where you’re like, what do you want most? Like top two things, even if it’s like someone just brings me food on Wednesday. Like, I wish everyone could just get a match now because I’m just noticing how quickly people are naming loneliness as one of their—and whether they’re successful or not or popular or not—as a primary feeling.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. We’ve both talked to Vivek Murthy over the years. I mean, talk about a legacy. He totally like cracked the conversation of loneliness wide open. And he attached it to physical symptoms. And he’s a man. And he’s a scientist. And so all of that kind of legitimized the idea that this is a dangerous thing that must be addressed rather than like just kind of a sad thing that you hear your cousin has. And yeah, see, like, I think my instinct is to, like, take your crappy and just spin it into a happy. Maybe that’s what’s drawing us together. I am your toxic positivity. Ground zero. Case Patient one. My 9 to 5 crappy is so dumb compared to yours, but I’ll share it anyway.

Kate: Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

Kelly: Well you know it, because you’re a podcaster too. So there’s this really stupid thing that happened when iOS 17 came out. Which is that it, it recalibrated all podcasts so you could be humming along in your podcast life, assuming that your audience is an audience of 100, let’s say. And then iOS 17 came out and it said, now it’s not really 100 because your watch was counting that download and also your iPad counted it, and also your iPhone counted it, and your Mac book counted it. So it’s really a quarter of what you thought it was. And it sort of reminded me of this funny project that my friend Michael Kelly, who’s an AP History teacher at Lower Merion High School outside of Philadelphia, it was our rival growing up. He starts the Depression unit by coming in and he says, I’ve really bad news, you guys. I don’t know what happened, but like all your grades today are gone and I cannot restore them. I’ve worked all night to try to find them in the system. But like your test scores, your essay grades, your attendance, like everything is gone. And so we’re going to have to start today, like your semester grade and your final grade will be based on what you can accumulate starting today. And the kids go bananas. Right? It’s like, that’s crazy. That just can’t be. You cannot possibly say that, like, what was something is not something. You can’t take something away. The taking away of things is such an offense to our sense of how the world should work. And then he says, just kidding. But that’s what the Depression was like. It would be like, you had $1,000 in the bank. It’s gone. You can’t have it back. We don’t know what happened. There’ll be no retribution for you.

Kate: Yes and no do overs. Except now and forever.

Kelly: And this thing, the iOS 17 thing really challenged like all of the principles and practices that you and I are both talking about on our podcast all the time, which is one, the most obvious one is external validation. And what a trap it is to get into that zone. And you feel like a person who, because of the kinds of people we talk to and the kinds of things we talk about, we should be completely immune from being sucked into the kinds of external validation that like, say, number of monthly downloads would be a prime example of.

Kate: But it’s so discouraging.

Kelly: It’s so discouraging. But the weirdest thing about it, which I don’t even know what other parts of life this might apply to, but I bet our listeners are putting it together in their own minds right now. The weirdest thing is that the truth is unchanged. There were always 25 listeners. There were never 100. And what you’ve just been told is that they’ve been over counting because they’re counting on all your devices and still it’s landing like loss.

Kate: Yeah!

Kelly: And I was like, what is the psychology of this moment? Is it just that I’m looking at a bar graph and it just goes clunk? Like one day it just drops and it’s like, what I really wish could have happened is that they would have taken the whole all of my number counting since the fall of 2020 when I started the pod, recalibrate the whole thing instead of showing this deep drop. And then I was like, Kelly, you’re better than this. Like, don’t go there. Why are you doing this? You’re so dumb. Like, real people listen and I means something to them. And they rate you all the time and they stop you in the streets and like, what do you need? But I just wanted to confess that it really made me a little nutty there for a week or two when I was like, this just bugs me so much. I guess I felt like, wait a second. What is this whole thing built on? Did you have that? Were you like…?

Kate: Yeah, I did.

Kelly: What just happened and why? And I don’t think that’s fair and I don’t like it one bit.

Kate: No I did. I did. I did not like it one bit. I think like, I mean, maybe like in the rosiest version it relates to me feeling useful. But I think especially there’s just so much effort that goes into everything. I’ve tried to think of feeling disappointed like that about sort of unlike some of the more useless emotions that I have. Like, you know, there’s a lot of useless emotions. Resentment. Lately I am a just grab bag of resentment about things

Kelly: You are?

Kate: I really yeah. I’m, like, really struggling with resentment lately. Sometimes it’s for decisions I made a long time ago. And then there were just yeses that have now like run me over by a car and then others are decisions made for me that don’t line up to reality. And then a lot of it is just like continuing to have to live inside of stuff that like makes my life worse. It just keeps making my life worse. And I feel like I’ve had a pretty good attitude about it. I mean, like, I do not want to reframe. My best friend Chelsea and I, we give each other like the same speech once a week where we’re like. Okay, look. Inside of every day there’s a small possibility. And like… Like yesterday I read that article in the Times about how maybe you could reframe what a weekend is for. Maybe it’s not productive. Maybe it’s satisfying. I thought that was a very lovely article. So I workshopped that in an airport as I was lightly crying with Chelsea. And I was like, what if we just tried to pick—like, this person gives the example of like, well, maybe you can’t accomplish almost anything, but you made pancakes and let’s just write the word pancakes down on a piece of paper and check it off.  And I tried it. I made us both do it. And at the end of the day, I texted her. I was like: nothing. Not a single minute of my emotional effort changed my experience. I am tired. I am sad. I am resentful. So yeah, I’m a steaming pile of resentfulness lately. Oh yeah. Sorry. Useless emotions. Resentfulness, jealousy. Or. Or just like the feeling of, I don’t know, maybe, like, disappointment, envy that other people probably have it together and we didn’t figure it out. And therefore whatever we’re doing is probably like a partial-to-mid failure.

Kelly: I had a little jealousy moment of you this year.

Kate: Of me? Because my hair continues to…?

Kelly: Because you see that ruby thing with Goop.

Kate: With goop. Aww, love.

Kelly: I saw something on Instagram. I was like, this is what they’re talking about. This is what the kids are talking about. It’s just like you went to a party that I didn’t get invited to or something and I was like, aw man.

Kate: That’s a terrible feeling.

Kelly: Isn’t it? Especially when you like the person as much as I like you. I was like, I can’t believe you’re going to be jealous of Kate. Like, you love Kate.

Kate: There’s a lot of like, “What’s a girl got to do around here to get into that?” feeling. I really, really know that feeling. Yeah, It always reminds me of the the movie version spoof of How to Win Friends and Influence people, that’s How to Win Friends and Alienate People with Simon Pegg. And he’s like, look, in every room, everyone’s going to be in that room, but there’s going to be a side door and you’re going to find your way through that side door, otherwise… And like, just the feeling like you were in a room and you didn’t find the side door. That’s how I experience, like, jealousy or…

Kelly: Yeah.

Kate: Boo.

Kelly: I would say the one thing that I have maybe a measure of some growth at 57 is that it just didn’t last very long. Like, it didn’t hold me. It was kind of like, it happened, I saw it on Instagram. I was like, aww, I want that. And then like a minute later, I was like, look at you wanting that. And then a minute later you were like, it’s Kate. You love Kate. Like, you want Kate out in the world like that. And then you moved on. But it but the just the first feeling, I thought, this is so good because this is exactly how your kids feel. So when your kids feel it, don’t act like it’s like, honey, you’re too old for that. It’s like, ha ha ha. Like no one’s too old for it.

Kate: Yeah, I like that.

Kelly: You know? We’re always a little vulnerable to that. Of course, everybody wants to be a part of everything.

Kate: Yes, I really like the idea that wisdom, too, is maybe like being able to not just, like, not have the feeling, but to move through it faster.

Kelly: Totally. I feel that way about getting nervous for a talk. Is that, my progress on that is that I used to be nervous when I woke up in the morning, if had a 7 p.m. talk. I’d be a little nervous when I woke up and now I can get all the way to the moment in the event when they’re saying my name. I think that’s like really good progress for 20 years of public speaking. I think I’ve come a long way.

Kate: That kind of reminds me of, because my go to is shame. Like when I’m tired, I feel immediate deep embarrassment. Like, I think there’s something wrong with me, I probably said, like, I’m positive I did a bad job. I, I really wish I could ask somebody else if I did an okay job, but I know that whatever they say won’t land, like it goes too deep. I mean, even at the end of like, just a regular workday where I wasn’t even around that many people, I feel this sort of deep embarrassment that I know is just like shame wiring. And I noticed the other day after a talk that I, I would say it was like, good, not great. There’s just a lot of parts of it that I thought like, well, I’m not really sure that… I can’t have an unambiguous feeling. I’m going to have an ambiguous feeling after this. And I really I could feel how much shame was like knocking on the door. And I thought that I actually did a pretty good job this time of being like, Kate Bowler, it’s in there. You could open the door to shame, or you could just sort of like, just keep it closed for now and just like ride this out. And I would say it was like a much faster turnaround for how much I wanted to just go like stand in a corner by myself. Blair Witch style.

Kelly: Don’t you think it’s like, it’s just noticing? And the act of noticing separates you from it. Like it’s, it’s you’re merged and then you notice it. And that means that it’s like in front of you, like almost like an object that you’re looking at. And just that moment of separation is like, oh, I’m doing this.

Kate: Yeah. We’re going to take a quick break to tell you about the sponsors of this show. We’ll be right back.

Kelly: All right. So my last one, my wild card, goes a little bit back to thinking about my girls. So. A thing I, I thing I really want to believe is that say, for a very select group of people. Supreme Court. There’s nine and nine people in the whole country or a cabinet or, you know, a sports team or something. That that we should be able to find people who are skilled enough to do the work that have no horrible skeletons in their closet. I just feel like I understand that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I understand that. And I’ve seen it on my side of the aisle and I’ve seen on the other side of the aisle. This is not like a political statement. It’s just I want to believe, I need to believe that there are enough model citizens who are also skilled enough and experienced enough to do whatever these very special jobs are, these huge leadership positions who are also like in line with whatever the policy agenda is at the top, who do not have skeletons in the closet. And in particular, although this isn’t the only thing that bothers me, but in particular, no sexual assault charges. I just want to believe that that we can find them. And that sometimes leads me to think, well, if you’re having trouble finding it, just look for a woman because we don’t assault people. There’s, there are no women of note, powerful women, Mary Barra at GM or Ginni Rometty when she ran IBM or, I don’t know, Elena Kagan or Michelle Obama or Melania Trump, for that matter. There are no super powerful women, Melinda French Gates, who have sexual assault charges. So when you really can’t find the person to fill the job, maybe look to women because I believe women or man, there is somebody who can do the job who has no sexual assault in their history. And I want to say, as a culture, we don’t promote that, that’s just like a bridge too far for us.

Kate: Yeah.

Kate: And I know that not everyone who is accused is guilty. Of course. But I also sort of believe where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I don’t believe there’s like a big upside to accusing people. And I believe that there’s just so few of these positions that we really should be able to fill them with people who have no absolutely no halo of bad treatment towards women.

Kate: You know, that really feels like a very reasonable standard, Kelly.

Kelly: Thank you.

Kate: I just it’s funny when, though, like, you know, when the apocalyptic temperature rises so high, then it feels strange to say basic things out loud. That’s just a just a wonderfully basic and good thing to say aloud.

Kelly: Well, I’m old enough to remember when, like, we wouldn’t probably elect someone who had a divorce.

Kate: Yeah, right.

Kelly: It was kind of like, he’s so great, but he’s divorced. Like, people probably won’t vote for him because he’s divorced. And I remember, of course, like, yeah, expelling Al Franken from the Senate for much less than sexual assault. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t sexual assault. And and he was gone. I mean, and I was beside myself with Clinton. Totally crushed. That was the first political donation I ever made. And when the story came out about Lewinsky, I was like, my God, get rid of him. I don’t care how smart is. Like, there’s another person who is that smart who doesn’t behave like that. So I think I’m nonpartisan on this count. I mean, I know that I’m a partizan person. I know we all are to some extent. But I think I would hold the same standard across the board. What’s yours?

Kate: Yeah. I guess as like a historian, I’m going to make this argument: what I really want is for us to stop doing culture warring in the same way. Because, look. Since the 1970s, we’ve positioned left versus right in a particular way, and it’s been really just cannibalism on both sides, at this point. I am you know, someone who works at a divinity school. I’m always just so horrified by the amount that Christian nationalism has played into stoking division and trying to create insiders and outsiders. And then the way that that has like congealed into anti-immigrant rhetoric and then policy or violent misogyny. I mean, it’s been really I, I think we’ve been watching something that sort of at one point looked ideological, become something very different. And I just want to say, I really think we’re in a very different place with where the culture wars have taken us. And I think it has only been corrosive. So I’m really trying to commit to being a non culture warrior. And by that, I mean I’m going to be very clear on which policies that I want to support, which community action I want to take, tripling down on being like host of community and wanting to facilitate people of generational differences of all kinds being in the same room, which is going to get harder and harder. But I think like before, I always used to think, well, people will find each other and at some point people are going to find their people. I don’t believe that anymore. I think that the forces, especially the market forces that work against people, are finding their people in a way that is not actually ultimately for their good means that we have to stand up and be like deeply unifying about each other’s humanity. And I don’t think any of that is just going to mean like trying to pretend that we’re generic. I just think that there’s something, I don’t know, I mean, I grew up around pacifists, and if there’s like a stubbornness in a non-romantic way in which you can try to be glue with people that otherwise do not want to be glue, and there’s a talking to the lovely poet Pádraig Ó Tuama yesterday, and he was saying, well, you know, there’s such a theater to conflict. We can say, this is good and this is bad and we can all sort of retreat to our own corners. And it really made me think just at this moment, with all the algorithms feeding us crazy at every moment and all the people in our life feeling like inflamed, that we really need to take a different posture toward what it means to be a culture warrior right now. I want to both, like, embody a kind of like peace, but a kind of charity for other people because it’s going to take so much work, like a generation of work to cool the temperature down so we can start hearing each other. So yeah, I think things are as bad as people think they are. And my response to that is we’re going to have to suit up and be a different kind of person, I think.

Kelly: And have different  kinds of conversations.

Kate: And I’m not entirely well suited to it because, you know, I find that when I listen to somebody, I just want so much to argue. I want so much to tell them everything that I really think and I want to start sentences with it was the late 19th century. And then I want to take out my chart and be like, dude, you’re wrong. And I told you in 1922. So, yeah. I’m going to have to reengage differently. Like, yup, passionately. But like I need to I’m going to have to cultivate a deeper peace than I have.

Kelly: I have a friend who doesn’t but doesn’t vote the way I vote. And I’ve had a lot of contact with her in the last six weeks. And we you know, we’ve just been avoiding the conversation for ten years and now we’re trying to have it. And she loves me, and I love of her. And, you know, there she was at my mom’s funeral and it just felt so good to see her face. And I just for the for the first time in ten years, I think it’s not charity for you to stay in touch with her, it’s essential. It’s the only way that you’re going to understand where everybody’s coming from.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. I used to be able to like because of all the research I did for these history books I write, I used to really have a pretty wide spectrum of, say, like megachurch pastors that I knew that were actually not culture warriors, which I found very refreshing. And then I just watched people get picked off left, right and center, and the people that remained reasonable and kind, I just feel like they need a special parade right now.

Kelly: They do.

Kate: Because sane people with loving presuppositions and like, as you said, no dramatic and terrible crime in their past,, I feel like people we need to celebrate right now.

Kelly: Totally. All right. Well, we’ll be back next week with the happies.

Kate: We’re going to be the most happy in a way that will be, hopefully, the least amount of annoying. I can’t wait to be happy with you. But this honestly, Kelly, this has felt so good to be real with you.

Kelly: Thanks. Me, too.

Kate: So, my dears, if you are looking back on this past year and only seeing the garbage, you aren’t alone. I hope this was a reminder that life with all of its beauty and pain doesn’t need to have to be tied up to have meaning. Maybe you’ll take a second. Journals are so nice for this. Calling a friend who knows you really well is so nice for this. But just take a second to look backwards. Notice those throughlines. What was it? Was it love? Where was the connection? Where was the courage that we might have missed in that moment? Moving into a new year doesn’t mean starting over. It means starting again. Armed with the wisdom we’ve gathered along the way. So here’s your permission to have gentleness for what you’ve carried out a little courage for. What’s next. I also would love to hear from you. What are your copies from the year? Call us at (919) 322-8731 or write me a note on social media. I’m @katecbowler. Thanks so much for listening. I’m going to talk to you next week with Kelly. We are going to share our happies. And before I go, make sure you’re subscribed over a katebowler.com/newsletter. We have this new series starting this January, it’s got special stuff in there, and I don’t want you to miss it. And a big thank you to Kelly, Tami and her whole team at Kelly Corrigan Wonders for making this episode possible. This is Everything Happens with me, Kate Bowler.