Christy Watson

Kate Bowler: Hello. So many people in this listening community have high-cost jobs. It’s one of the things that makes you all awesome in the most definitional way, that there’s a lot of emotionally expensive work going on. And maybe it’s part of your job. Maybe you work in health care or in education or therapy or social work or pastoring or some kind of lovely volunteerism. Or maybe it’s life at home that’s full of caring. You raise kids or you caregive for a spouse or child or aging parent. But the bottom line is, I don’t ever have to convince any of you to care more. You do it already. You see a need and then you meet it. You are people powered by love. And that’s really one of my very favorite things about podcast hosting for all of you is you’re already, in my opinion, basically perfect. So the question then is, my lovelies, in these emotionally expensive lives you have, I wonder what fuels you? What feeds your soul? What makes sure that you’re not on a total superhighway to burn out? I’m Kate Bowler. And this is Everything Happens. So many of you have already figured this out. And I mean it when I say that. I want to hear what fuels your heart forward life. So leave us a voicemail, if you will, at (919) 322-8731.

Kate: I’d love to hear what your thing is. My friend Gary Haugen taught me a little bit about what to do with an emotionally expensive life. He has a very intense job. He is the founder of International Justice Mission. They work to eradicate human slavery and trafficking all around the world. It means he bears witness to a lot of hard. And I asked him what his secret was like, what kept him going for the last 30 years. Joy, he told me. Joy is the oxygen for doing hard things. My guest today is someone who understands what it’s like to have a very high-cost job and the importance of joy as a way to propel us forward. You already know and love Christie Watson. She is a registered nurse for the NHS, teaches nursing because she’s a professor too, and she’s written gorgeous books like The Language of Kindness and the Courage to Care. She was on the podcast a few years back. At the time, she’d just gone back to the front lines of nursing at the beginning of Covid because there was a shortage and she saw a need and we had a gorgeous conversation about what it means to love strangers. And you should really pause this right now and go listen to that first one because it’s so rich and we’ll have a link to it in the show notes. But you’ll be able to hear that Christie and I became instant friends because of that conversation, and it has been such a delight to have a front row as she expresses so many facets of herself. Christie, the nurse who runs toward the sick and the dying. Christie, the creative who writes books like her latest medical mystery novel that is a serious page-turner. It’s called Moral Injuries, and they’re turning it into a TV show. It’s that good. She’s also Christie, the mom who’s figuring out how to raise young adults. And Christie, the fortysomething who’s in a new season of life and love and figuring out what it means to be a woman now. Man, forties. When kids need you less and less. When bodies change without your permission, thank you to perimenopause or menopause. When relationships shift, when we still hunger for more, not less. And that’s the topic of her book Quilt on Fire, which we are talking a lot about today. Christie reminds me in everything that it is okay to be more than one thing, and she is one of my very favorite people on the entire planet. Christie, Hello. Thank you so much for doing this with me.

Christie Watson: It’s very nice to be here. And for the second time on this podcast, which I just feel like the most lucky person in the universe right now.

Kate: I think what’s so nice about knowing you and loving you as I’ve gotten to see you in a bunch of different chapters now. And when I first met you and when people from the Everything Happens community first met you, it was like it was the worst of times. It was like very middle of the pandemic. You were, to me, like the portrait of a heartbroken health care worker who was, you were risking your life every single day. You were so absolutely invested in how we were going to care for people living and dying. And I got to know you in this very intense, serious way as I saw all your best gifts like applied to life and death issues. And then I met you after and you’re like fun and sexy, and I was like this is like the wildest way to get to know somebody. I was like, wow, I guess you’re like a full gamut person.

Christie: I think all of us have just been through this sea change of philosophically unraveling and then trying to work out who we are as a people and what we want afterwards. And definitely sexy fun is what I want from life, apparently.

Kate: Because when I read your next book Quilt On Fire, it is such a fun celebration and examination of what it’s like to hit middle age as a woman and really kind of start with not knowing what the hell is going on. So I wonder if we could start there with your, like, shock and horror and standing in that grocery store freezer.

Christie: Yeah,.

Kate: Being like, who? Why? Why?

Christie: Well, I just love seeing this, this huge movement of women talking about menopause and perimenopause, but I’d never even heard the word perimenopause as a health care professional, which is quite shocking now, isn’t it? I’d heard menopause, obviously, but didn’t understand this whole period beforehand that could start in your late 30s, it turns out. And for me, it was 44 and I suddenly felt like I was losing my mind completely and was traipsing around the supermarket just chucking groceries in. And I remember looking at other women and thinking, they’ve got it all together. They’re ticking aggressively, their lists. I haven’t got a list or a pen. I’m not ticking anything. I’m just wading through sand, which is what I felt like. And I just felt so strange and odd and unhinged is probably the right word because eventually I climbed into a fish fingers freezer. And I stood in a finger freezer. And even worse than that, Kate I have to say, I have climbed, I’ve climbed in again, the same fish finger freezer to prove a point to my friend that I did actually do it and I could fit in it so I’ve done it twice.

Kate: How big is it?

Christie: It was a standing freeze, so I just kind of pushed the fish fingers back a bit and got in and then closed the door.

Kate: This is like you’re basically wedged in a vending machine.

Christie: I was wedged in a vending machine and and I was just watching everyone walking past in that very British way of totally ignoring the fact that there’s a woman in the fish finger freezer and just walk on by and a man actually leant in and got some breaded cod out and just ignored the fact that I was there. And so I eventually, well, at that moment I thought I’m either psychotic or something else is happening to me of a terrible nature and I need to go and get help. So that’s when I ended up at my GP and in therapy, and it was a therapist who I was so privileged and lucky to be able to, I couldn’t afford much, but I was like, I’m going to need a bit of therapy, clearly. And that’s such an enormous privilege to be able to do that, even that. And my therapist said, I think you’re perimenopausal. That’s the first time I’d heard it. And of course, then I started learning about it and various things helped me enormously, one of which was HRT in my case.

Kate: And what’s HRT?

Christie: Hormone replacement therapy.

Kate: Yeah.

Christie: And so I ended up immediately going onto hormone replacement therapy patches. And within 24 hours of wearing this hormone replacement therapy patch, I fell back to my normal self and actually felt quite euphoric for a while because I’d been feeling so abnormal for a long time. That I just felt, it’s like when you have flu or if you have something as serious as the things that you’ve been through, even more so, just drinking a glass of water feels like the most amazing thing in the world. And walking around and looking at a tree and thinking how incredible that is rather than the whole feeling like you’re imploding, which is how it which is how it felt for me. And I think how it feels for lots and lots of women.

Kate: What are some of the main symptoms of the, there can be anxiety or-

Christie: I think there’s so many, so many symptoms, it would be impossible to list.

Kate: It seems like it’s quite the grab bag.

Kate: It’s the grab bag. Mine was mostly mental health symptoms, anxiety, waking up every morning, insomnia was the worst, but waking up every morning about 3 a.m.. Foaming at the mouth like a great big dog. Maybe I’d got rabies. Who knows.

Kate: You’re like, is there an adult onset rabies?

Christie: I Googled everything, and as a nurse, I  was Googling, do I have a late stage syphilis? Everything was in my Google history, honestly. And eventually, yeah. It just turned out that I was imbalanced in my hormones. Simple as that.

Kate: Before I read your book, I would say that most of my information was folklore or things we accidentally overheard from our moms when our moms were on the phone and didn’t realize we were listening.

Christie: Wow.

Kate: Just like not, not a lot of reliable… but after after hearing your account, I didn’t realize how much story sharing is necessary in order to feel one, not bananas and two, just kind of get a sense maybe not just of the sort of like medical changes, but also the who-am-I-ness of it because, I mean, I know that you deal with the serious, serious, serious of life. Like, that is how I also know you. So then to pivot from, well, I’ve, I’ve been with people as they die, I understand the gravity of life and then be like, oh my gosh, I’m super pissed, I don’t want to have to gain this weight. Like, we’re all, you’re like very permission granting about wanting us to, like, entertain all the things that still make us feel like ourselves. Like can’t we still feel, like. Want to feel beautiful? Can we, can we just want to also wear jumpsuits?

Christie: Yeah, absolutely. And we can hold those things at the same time. It’s okay because all of life is profound and small at the same time.

Kate: Yeah, and totally stupid.

Christie: And totally stupid and ridiculous. And beautiful. And amazing and terrible. It’s all, it’s all the things. So we can be all the things, I think. And coming to terms with the idea that women have entire universes of complex goings on inside them and that’s actually really beautiful is, I think, part of growing wiser, maybe creeping towards wisdom. And the beautiful thing about being in your thirties, forties, fifties and older is that you are A) still here, which is in itself a miracle and that you get to change. You get the chance to change. You get the chance to learn and make mistakes and change and change again. I mean, that’s incredible. Yeah. So the process of change is always painful, but my goodness, it’s worth it.

Kate: We’re going to be right back after a break to hear from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere. You made a nice distinction between like aging and growing up. I guess maybe just like the agency involved and letting yourself change.

Christie: Yeah, there is, I think growing up, getting older, and moving towards wisdom doesn’t necessarily mean becoming serious, becoming more sensible. Actually, it could mean the complete opposite for lots of people.

Kate: Well, one of my favorite things about you and, there’s a long list, is that you have ridiculous friends. You have such good friends. Orla, who had, who kind of decided that there was a lovely or more absurd way to live. Like she had a version of a bucket list that I kind of would very much like to sign on to.

Christie: Yeah, I won’t swear. But it was-

Kate: You, you may.

Christie: Okay, great. She had a fuck it bucket list.

Kate: Yeah, she did.

Christie: And she had a fuck it bucket list. And she did that thing of just saying yes to everything you know, and saying no to lots of things that were really not, that she didn’t have time for, which is also quite a powerful force that you learn as you get older. But yeah, so she did these random things, which she did a lot of traveling and she’s a lot of incredible things. Yeah, but really, really out of character, I would say at the time. And now I look back and say, no, that was her character. That was always her character. She had just been caring for everyone in the world. And then suddenly she was herself. The kids were a bit older. I think one of her parents had died, I think the year before who she’d been caring for. And so she said, fuck it, bucket list. I don’t know how long, how long I’m on this earth. I don’t know what my future looks like. But right now, is right now and I’m going to just say yes.

Kate: Yeah, because I think I’ve realized I’m more of an outdoor cat than I have let myself be. But lately I started creating a thing where I give myself a certain number of days a year where I’m allowed to be a little bit ridiculous. I’m still home almost all the time. Like I’m still doing all the mom and the family stuff. But the other times I will drive to the world’s largest thimble, you know, or do indoor skydiving or, but just like, allow myself the absurdity or the outdoor feeling or the like I don’t really know who I am yet feeling.

Christie: I love that about you. And that’s something I hope that we have in common. The absurd.

Kate: Because I am not a jealous person, but I notice when I feel what sure feels a lot like jealousy. And that’s the must be nice feeling. And I realize I’m not jealous of them. Like, I just really haven’t made any room in my life for what they’re doing so well. And then I’m like I should, then that’s I gotta, for whatever choice, we have so few choices, so for what little choices I have, I should, that’s a new direction, because it won’t feel like, it won’t feel like progress. It’s not like it goes on any list of major accomplishments. It’s like, honestly, the other day I, I stopped at the world’s only documented case of spontaneous, I’m going to use the word documented, really loosely here, documented case of spontaneous combustion. It was such a waste of time. I laughed so hard, I laughed. I laughed as I had to contact the gravedigger, who was the only person who knew where the plot was. I laughed when I had a very long conversation with the driver who took me, who who turned to me at the grave and goes, did you did you bring me here because you know that I also believe in spontaneous combustion? And I was like, we just met. It’s also not medically accurate that people just implode, that their vital organs just fall inside of them and then they fall outward and it has to be put out by a fire extinguisher. But that has no purpose. I guess that’s why I am trailing off now, is that know.

Christie: I really would love to have done that with you. I’m just imagining somebody spontaneously combusting right now. The imagery is real, and I think if you if you don’t have responsibility holidays as a woman who has a very responsible job, many very responsible jobs and a responsible life, then you’re not being very responsible. That’s a lot of you use the word responsible. But yeah, if prioritizing joy, what else is there then prioritizing joy? And surely that makes you a much better friend, wife, mom. In the end it must do because you’re joyful when you prioritize joy and then other people like to be around you. Otherwise it is a lot of trudging through life. And yeah, it’s so precious to make the most of it. So if you want to see someone spontaneously combust-

Kate: It’s probable she probably died of other causes.

Christie: We never know.

Kate: Yeah, probably.

Kate: We’re going to take a quick break to tell you about the sponsors of this show. We’ll be right back. You were 44 when you started going through this. And this was also like the season of dating.

Christie: So I had this brilliant idea while I was unraveling and my mental health was very sketchy that I would go online dating. Very sensible. Completely sensible. It was an absolute nightmare.

Kate: Your bananas date stories like I could, I know they could power a nation. They’re so funny.

Christie: You know, there’s this guy who was just like-

Kate: I brought a friend with me.

Christie: Yeah.

Kate: And then-

Christie: And it was a tarantula. The thing about this date was we were in a really fancy restaurant, and he got it out of this during the starter, and it was like in a glass. It was contained, luckily, but it was on the table. And the very worst part of this was I stayed for three courses because I didn’t want to be rude.

Kate: You. You had some very wild, romantic attempts at finding a normal person. And then you found someone unbelievably delightful who was a kind of a shocker, frankly, because he was he was like blast from the past.

Christie: Yeah. So, yeah, he he slid into my DMS after I, after I’d finished the dating thing, I thought, that’s not for me.

Kate: Did you really just, like, put a pin in it?

Christie: Yeah. I realized that I was perhaps not going to find what I was looking for. And I did meet some really nice guys, but it’s not what I was looking for online, in the online dating community. And so I and lots of people do, lots of people do. Most people do. But no, Daniel slid into my DMS and he so, he sent an extraordinarily long message, really waffley. And I didn’t read it for ages. And then another message and it was just really long and it was, You must remember me, I’m doing a talk on kindness and I came across your name and we went to school together. We went to nursery school together and I was best friends with your Brother Tom and la la la la la. And I thought, no, I’ve no recollection whatsoever. And eventually I called my mom, because she was my nursery school teacher, she took me to work with her. She was a nursery teacher. And she said, yes, absolutely. You both were best friends when you were three and four. And of course you know Daniel. And then Tom said, if he needs help with a talk, you should help him. He hasn’t got a bad bone in his body. Of course, you know Daniel. And so we met for a coffee during the pandemic. So it was outside, walking at a distance around a park. I knew him, of course, immediately. And we fell in love and got married. Yeah, it was very unexpected because we were so different when we were kids and we’re still so different now. Very, very, very different. And when we were in high school, I didn’t speak to him pretty much the whole time. Yeah, we came back from an exchange trip from France and we shared a Walkman, and that’s the first time we started speaking. And also the last time we started speaking until we reconnected. And at that time, he was reading a Bible and I had a badge on my coat that said ‘fuck off.’ So I mean we were that different. And yeah, we’re still those people today. Still very much the same. So it just feels like a really old, really good, familiar friend you get married to, which is amazing. I just feel really lucky.

Kate: It’s kind of wild too, because you come out of this, like, chrysalis experience of becoming a very different person, only to feel like you’re fundamentally the same person in this really beautiful way.

Christie: Yeah. You’re all kind of the same.

Christie: You let yourself keep changing, though, in a way that I don’t see in a lot of other people. And I really like, I really like it. You’re not always trying to be the same person over and over again. And I just, that to me is like a really magical way of both having like a really elaborate bucket list for allowing yourself to change and also just being a, I don’t I’m just I’m avoiding saying the word creative person because so many people don’t think of themselves as creative people, but I do think when we let ourselves change, we’re being fundamentally creative.

Christie: Yeah. Because it’s playful. And that’s creativity, isn’t it? It’s just a playful act. But it’s very difficult to brand me, and I’m sure my publishers would really love me to be.

Kate: Am I Professor, am I a nurse?  Am I a sexy novelist?

Christie: It’s very difficult to put a brand on that.

Kate: Did I just write a medical thriller?

Christie: Yes.

Kate: Okay, can you tell me? Because I read your medical thriller, and then my eyeballs fell out of my head. And then I put them each back because it was so, it’s so page turny, shocking. And yet there’s something so you about it. I wondered if you could just, like, frame it out a little bit for me and like the you that it came out of.

Christie: Yeah. So it’s about three women. Olivia, who is a cardiothoracic surgeon, and she is ruthlessly ambitious. And Angela, who’s a GP who’s very compassionate, but has also got a really free spirited, wild side. And Laura, who is an air ambulance trauma doctor at the top of her game, but is also an anxious perfectionist. And I really wanted to represent that kind of sticky, flawed, messy, complex relationship that women have with holding lots of things at the same time. And these three women meet in medical school and during a terrible party, a tragedy happens that they decide they’re going to keep secret and cover up forever. And then when they become very well established in their careers at the top of their game, 20 years or so later, a similar tragedy happens to their own teenagers. And this kind of secret from the past threatens to come back and ruin all of their lives. So it’s twisty and turny and hopefully page turning. But I really wanted to write something that explored the morality of medicine and who gets to make decisions about life and death and whether that’s right and what we think about that, both from inside and outside health care professions, because particularly in the UK and I’m not sure how it is in the States, but in the UK, doctors are still perceived as heroes or gods and they really don’t like it. They really don’t like it. I think it’s deeply unhelpful for patients and it’s deeply unhelpful for doctors as well. So I want to talk about these three women as morally challenged as we all are and flawed as we all are. And perhaps doctors, nurses and health care professionals are even more flawed than the rest of the population because the nature of the job is that it will give you mental health difficulties, for sure. And I just hadn’t seen that in fiction before.

Kate: Yeah. I mean, I know the book is called Moral Injuries, so I should have been like, wow, she’s really been thinking about cost her whole life. And as like a writer, you’ve done so many interviews with people who show you the loveliest, most altruistic forms of costly love. And I’m so glad that you explored the way it can malform us or sacrifice can then become self-serving in some way. Or we’re professionalized into things where people don’t question us and therefore we allow it to take these little twists and turns.

Christie: Yeah, there is, I think you described actually as the dark heart of medicine, which I thought was fantastic. I wish I’d written that, that I’d been that self-aware. But yeah, there is a dark heart of medicine, and I really wanted to think deeply about that for a while. And I loved being with these characters, and I also loved presenting women at work. Colleagues. And there’s a particular kind of love between colleagues.

Kate: Yeah, there is.

Christie: That is friendship and some because you’ve been through some really extreme things that you don’t talk about outside that. So if you or anyone working in any health care setting, you would have seen and experienced and witnessed and been part of things that you can’t go home and talk to about your family, but you can talk to about those things with people who were there with you.

Kate: Yes. That’s so true. You have been deeply heroic in your vocation. You’ve cared for people in in ways that were beyond normal human limits. And it cost you. And it was it was so beautiful to see up close. And I’ve seen you be now wildly human in these gorgeous books, which are so fun and sometimes naughty. And I like it so much because it’s the whole gamut. And then when I got to see somebody deeply in love. Like completely reformatting your life. Being really brave and surrounded by all the, I probably should’ve mentioned this Christie. So it was like, I don’t know. I don’t know how many months it was after we met, but you’re like, look, given that I’m in love and whatnot with my soon to be husband, I have different, we have different spiritual priorities, and on when we’re going to get married. But, that I landed as like a real compromise candidate. Which I was pretty pretty thrilled about.

Christie: You and absolutely not a compromise. They went, Yeah, when Daniel proposed, which took me by surprise because we just had a massive argument and we were at King’s Cross Station on a step in the rain. And so I thought he was going to apologize. And he whipped out a ring and said, will you marry me? And I said, fine. Which did not go down very well. But he got over that. And we were sitting outside Itsu and someone was just eating dumplings right there in front of us. It was really surreal. But yeah, once I came to terms with the idea, okay, we’re getting married. This is amazing. Both of us had this discussion immediately. I would love it if Kate could come, do you think she might come? And then, and then I thought. I wonder if Kate could actually marry us? Which you did. Which you did, Kate. You married us. And I can’t quite believe it to this day how lucky we are.

Kate: That was, I know it’s one of the best days in your life. That was actually one of the best days of my life. Christike, this is the joy of my life. Thank you so much for doing this with me.

Christie: Thank you. I love you so much. I can’t even tell you.

Kate: I’m not joking when I tell you that officiating Christy and Daniel’s wedding was honestly one of the greatest days of my life. It’s such a beautiful thing. It’s such a privilege, really, to watch people love each other. And I thought as a way to close this out, I might read a little bit of what I shared during their ceremony. Because it speaks to the way that you all love people, too. So here goes. Two people who have waited years, perhaps exiled from the feeling that this, this kind of love, this absurd and wonderful pixie dust would certainly settle on some other people, other relationships, someone else’s dream. It is difficult to believe something this immense. That love existing somewhere out there is really for us, growing between two people who were once kids together and who are now in full bloom. It can be difficult to feel worthy of a thing so big that it demands that other people show up to witness it being born, catechized, baptized in this thing called marriage. Like a disciple getting out of the boat. Summoning faith out of thin air and stepping out on the gray and turbulent water. The wind blustering and we hear a call out there somewhere and we answer. Writes the poet David White. When we finally step out of the boat toward them, we find everything holds us and everything confirms our courage. And if you wanted to drown, you could. But you don’t. Because finally, after all this struggle and all these years, you simply don’t want to anymore. You’ve simply had enough of drowning. And you want to live and you want to love. And you will walk across any territory and any darkness, however fluid and however dangerous to take the one hand you know belongs in yours. End quote. So here, my loves, are the people who love you. Ready to say well done. And that we are witness to a miracle. A love that teaches us to put our faith in love. And in you.

Kate: Well, my lovelies. Bless you all as you keep caring. Keep hungering for more. Keep prioritizing joy. You are miracles, every one of you. And I want to hear your gentle wisdom on how you are prioritizing joy this week. Leave us a voicemail at (919) 322-8731. And do not miss our weekly email. Sign up at katebowler.com/newsletter. We send out blessings and free printables and it’s where you will be the first to know if I’m coming to a city near you. And hey, podcasts are very weird and they require that we announce who we are at all times against the algorithmic overlords. And one of the only ways that that works is if you leave a review or if you’re subscribed on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, if you wouldn’t mind doing that. It only takes a few seconds, but I know it’s very annoying, but it makes a huge difference to who sees us. A big thank you to my team and our partners for the work they put into this season. Lilly Endowment, the Duke Endowment and Duke Divinity School support all of our projects. This podcast is also one of my very favorite things I get to do with my very favorite people. A big thank you to my incredible team. Jessica Ritchie, Harriet Putman. Keith Weston, Baiz Hoen, Gwen Heginbotham, Brenda Thompson, Iris Greene, Hailie Durrett, Anne Herring, Hope Anderson, Kristen Balzer and Katherine Smith. Who would I be without you? Garbage. I’d be garbage. Next week, I’m going to be speaking with someone who is a living saint, I’m pretty sure, I’m completely serious. His name is Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries, and he hates it when people call him a living saint, but that is what is happening and you’ll be able to hear it. You do not want to miss it. I’ll talk to you next week, my dears. This is Everything Happens with me, Kate Bowler.