Abby’s First Love, G Restarts Recovery, and Amanda Tries Meds: Live Event
July 12, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things, love bugs. Today is a big day because we are sharing with you our live podcast recording in celebration of We Can Do Hard Things one year anniversary. We are so grateful to everyone who showed up and brought their friends. It was a really, really special night for Abby and sister and me. I think you’ll hear my emotions, take me by surprise at the top. Can you believe it’s been one year together? This podcast has truly become a great joy of our lives and it is our hope that we continue to do more live recordings in the future together with you, so let us know what you think. For now, let’s jump right in.
Glennon Doyle:
Hello, everybody.
Abby Wambach:
We’ve made it.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re doing it. They’re here.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re here. Am I here? You’re here.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m here. Abby’s here. I think 15,000 of our friends are here.
Amanda Doyle:
This is so exciting. This is so exciting.
Glennon Doyle:
I had this whole thing plan to say in the beginning and then pod squad, you should know that we have spent the last 15 minutes just reading the chat, reading all of you saying that you showed up here because you show up each week and encouraging each other and loving on each other and it is really deeply moving. I don’t know. There’s not a lot of times where you really feel the beauty and importance of something and I really just felt it.
Abby Wambach:
Can I tattle on you for a second?
Glennon Doyle:
About what?
Abby Wambach:
That you would be a difficult teammate of mine to enter a big event, a big game.
Glennon Doyle:
Why?
Abby Wambach:
Because you just came up to me and said, “Feel how sweaty my hands are.” Your pregame self is not a pregame self that I would want to like go try and win an Olympic gold medal with.
Glennon Doyle:
No, I’m in disaster.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, thank God.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like all of the emotions-
Amanda Doyle:
I think that’s going to be a problem big problem for you.
Abby Wambach:
… that you’re supposed to like tamper down and basically hide to go do a big thing. She can’t hide. So folks, we are sitting here in Glennon’s sweat.
Glennon Doyle:
If you guys could see-
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
… I’m dripping, dripping with sweat. I think that sweat for me is just a signal. It’s sacred. It’s a signal of something important going to happen.
Abby Wambach:
You can turn anything into a freaking beautiful thing, sweat either.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s baptism.
Abby Wambach:
I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
And we should call out that poor Abby is a little under the weather. Her voice sounds extra saucy.
Abby Wambach:
Extra octavy.
Glennon Doyle:
Saucy.
Abby Wambach:
Saucy.
Amanda Doyle:
Extra saucy and octavy.
Abby Wambach:
But we’re one-year-old.
Glennon Doyle:
We are one-year-old.
Amanda Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
What?
Glennon Doyle:
And we have begun talking and walking. Yes, we are one-year-old. First of all, I just want to say thank you to all of you for being this. I don’t know. This project that we have loved so much over the last year, I have been doing some form of… I don’t know, public idea-ing for 15 years and I have never cared so much or been so grateful for or felt like anything that I’ve ever done besides Together Rising, but in has been as important to me. I feel nervous to say this, because I don’t think you’re supposed to say this, but I feel it’s really important. Every time one of these conversations ends and I hear people talking about the person who they’ve just met and the idea that just got put out into the world, it feels like, “Wow.” It’s this ripple that’s actually doing something important in the world.
Amanda Doyle:
And for us too, what I hear people saying about it is what I feel like it’s done for me personally too, as just a person in the pod squad and thinking about things. And so, it’s very important to me too as a fellow pod sweater, I was very nervous before we were coming on here. Very nervous. And I was reading the chat and then I was reading it and everything they were saying, I was like, “I want to get there. It’s like all our friends are over there.”
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
Before we go on pod squad. When I was talking about how much I was sweating and how I was about to have a heart attack, my sister said, “Okay, these are our friends. Okay. They want to listen to us. It’s not like we’re going to pitch on shark tanks. These are our friends.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. There’s 15,464 of you who are watching right now, which is so amazing. And I just also want to say thank you to Odyssey and Cadence13, who are sponsoring this live event. And then, all of the people who are a part of creating this podcast behind the scenes, Dynna, Allison, Lauren.
Glennon Doyle:
Dynna, Allison and Lauren. Dynna, Allison and Lauren. That’s one of the things. That’s one of the reasons I love this so much. Our friend Alex was over, put a pin in that we have a friend. I’m going to tell you about it later, okay. And we were talking about this podcast and she said, “Do you believe that this is what the world has arranged for you that you get to do this thing where you’re talking about ideas that you love and light you up and you get to do it with the two people who make you feel most safe on either side of you and then you get to do it with these women, Dynna, Allison, and Lauren, who you deeply respect and love and are the people you most want to talk to every single day?” Anyway, just thanks. Everything sucks so often and so it’s just really important sometimes to notice what doesn’t suck, and to me, this project-
Amanda Doyle:
Isn’t that a Mary Oliver poem?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a Mary Oliver. Notice what doesn’t suck?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s my poetry for the day, notice what doesn’t suck in the midst of noting everything that does. All right. So, one of the things we decided to do today is sometimes we bring up things about our lives in an episode, right?
Abby Wambach:
Sometimes.
Glennon Doyle:
Sometimes it can be a dramatic thing or a big thing, but then the next week we’re like, “We want to talk about something else.” And then we don’t give an update about that thing, which judging by the people who stop me on my walks is troublesome, occasionally. People want to know how things are going and that makes us feel actually quite loved. So, we thought we could start with general life updates, how we are for real, how are you for real? So, I wish I could ask all of you, although I did see one person, right. I’ve been chasing pink bunnies all damn day and I’m so excited to get here for the steak. Forget it, with all the poets in the chat.
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister Amanda.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you tell us how you are for real?
Amanda Doyle:
How I am for real? Well, I do have a little update of sorts. Some of you might know me from things such as overwhelm and general rage mess and things such as this. I do have a little update from you, and that is that I started for the first time in my life, two medications, an antidepressant and an anti-anxiety. It’s the generic of Lexapro and the generic of Wellbutrin is what I’m on, and it is the first time.
Amanda Doyle:
When I first got sober, I took the Wellbutrin for a few weeks, but that wasn’t exactly a controlled experiment because so much was upside down that it, I couldn’t tell if anything was happening. So, I went off and that was two and a half years ago. But a few months ago I started them and it happened because it was the second appointment I had had with my doctor in which I demanded to have my hormone levels checked to confirm that I am obviously per menopausal, because that is the only possible explanation for my vortex of rage and overwhelm. And she had to deliver for the second time in a year the tragic news that I was in fact not perimenopausal.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a little change on that quote. Before you decide you’re in perimenopausal, make sure you’re not just in fact an asshole.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly, right? Exactly. Which I thought was what she was saying. When I told her all my symptoms that she said, you’re not that, but then she says, “You’re not perimenopausal. Have you ever considered mental health medication?” Which I was like, “Good call.” Because obviously people don’t continue to show up and demand this test if maybe they’re just fine. And so, I thought about it and at first I just always thought that this is just what life was like, this chronic state of being utterly freaking unmanageable. I felt I was walking around one of those like resistance bands but fully stretched out resistance band that at any time would just be subject to snap and potentially hurt myself or someone else.
Glennon Doyle:
Take good times.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. So, I thought to myself what if how I’ve always felt isn’t how I always have to feel. And that maybe it’s possible to feel better than I feel. And so, I did start the meds and as of a week ago, I realized they might be working a little bit. I’m nervous to get excited but I feel I’m still as intolerable to myself and others as I’ve always been, but only 99% of my usual level of intolerable, which I guess that 1% is significant because I feel way less miserable. That’s an exciting thing. It’s been a week so the jury’s still out.
Glennon Doyle:
A lot of people have conflicted feelings. I don’t worship my medication, but do you have conflicted feelings?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t have the same conflict that I hear a lot of people having. I hear a lot of people talk about, I feel I’m weak or I’m failing or I wish I could feel this way without medication. And I don’t have that conflict at all. If I could take a drug that would allow me to speed read or color my roots with less frequency or clean out my attic. I would take all of those drugs immediately and without hesitation. I’m not worried about that part of it. I think my conflict has to do with this good news and bad news about the misery piece of it, because I feel what if then I ignore something that I should be miserable about.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I get that.
Amanda Doyle:
Recently with my therapist, we were grappling with trying to figure out for the hundredth session, why in the world I’m so bothered by so many things that seemingly have only become struggles for me in the last, wait for it, two and a half years. Okay. So, I’m a very smart person and I should be thoroughly embarrassed about the amount of sessions that we spent trying to figure out why is everything suddenly making me absolutely insane? And then recently we were in a session and she… I just casually mentioned to her like, “Oh, well, when I stopped drinking two and a half years ago.” And she was like, “Come again? You did what, when?” We’ve been trying to figure this out for so long and that’s when I realized that, “Oh, right.” I had been drinking to take the edge off for years and then suddenly I was just all edge all the time and everything makes me want to scream into my pillow or hit someone with my pillow.
Amanda Doyle:
So, I think there’s that part of me that does believe that you have to be really miserable to change things that needs, that need to be changed. And so good news, bad news like, “Yay, I’m less miserable.” But I also have this little worry that taking the edge off with meds might make me miss change that I need-
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting.
Amanda Doyle:
… to have in my life. Yep. But also that worry just might show that I’m an ideal candidate for continuing to take anti-anxiety since I’m having anxiety that I’m going to miss out of the anxiety that I need. I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you for sharing that. It’s really brave and awesome.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
A lot of people won’t share about their medication and for all different reasons, I think it’s cool that you did. It’s interesting because in a weird way it’s, it feels familiar. I thought when I quit drinking, the drinking was my problem, and then when I quit drinking, I realized that the drinking was just my bad solution to my problem which was anxiety and depression. It for sure runs in our family and the drinking was self-medicating the problem. But what I wonder is if you’re going to find out that your problem, your misery could be mental health stuff. It might not be your life. Do you know what I mean? Like it-
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, I do.
Glennon Doyle:
Your problem might be this condition that makes you hate your life. That’s what I wonder. When I think about people in our family or in our… people in other generations who didn’t… people didn’t have access to mental healthcare and drugs and all of it. If you have a mental health problem and you don’t have access to working on it, you of course just think your life is terrible, when it’s really the way your mind is perceiving your life because of stuff going on.
Amanda Doyle:
Right. And it’s also even worse than that because you know intellectually your life isn’t terrible.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
So you’re like, right. I’m just the kind of wretched asshole that can’t enjoy what is clearly a beautiful life. And so, it’s there.
Glennon Doyle:
So, you blame it on your character?
Abby Wambach:
It’s your character.
Amanda Doyle:
Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I have a good life and I just hate it. I’m a jerk.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I’m excited. I’m proud of you for trying and not sticking with the martyrdom badge.
Glennon Doyle:
What about you, babe?
Abby Wambach:
Well, I think one of the things about this year that has blown my mind is, I didn’t know the three of us could actually get closer. I think that the fact that we’ve been in many ways forced to communicate about really intense personal universal stuff has totally transformed the three of ours relationship. I’ve witnessed you sister get way more open and honest about your life and Glennon, you walking through certain things in this past year has just been unreal and I think it’s made me feel I think more attachment to both of you in a lot of ways. And also, it’s mind boggling because we just do this every couple of days in our own homes and then it goes out to those who are listening, the millions of listeners. And it just boggles my mind that something that can feel so personal to us can also be universal in some ways.
Abby Wambach:
And I think the most important thing that has happened to me this year that I didn’t think it was going to ever happen is the purpose that this podcast has given me. I played soccer for so many years and I really loved representing this country. I really loved looking up into the stands and seeing little girls and boys cheering for us. I felt I had real purpose. It was instilled in this thing that I just happened to be really good at, like truly. I felt so lucky, felt like my life was completely aligned, everything was for the most part was wonderful in that way and I just worried that I would never be able to have that same similar kind of purpose for the rest of my working life. Having a family and being married to you is obviously purpose driven. Those are very different than the working world. And I want to have my own purpose in that way.
Abby Wambach:
And so now, when I’m out in the road, when I’m walking, whenever people don’t come up to me and say, “Hey, I’m such a huge fan. All those soccer games and the wins and the medals and the awards.” It’s like, “Oh my gosh, your podcast.” 100% of the time now. I don’t know, I think that this is absolutely going to more people than women’s soccer did when I played back in the day. But this kind of purpose has made me feel rooted in a way that I missed from my playing days and it makes me feel that purpose was leading me to this purpose.
Glennon Doyle:
I was just thinking about when you went out to dinner with Kara recently and the person came up to you at dinner and then what they said, and then what Kara said.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. So, one of the waiters came up to me and he said, “You know what? I just wanted to thank you. Your podcast has really helped my family deal with my sobriety. I’m two years sober, and my mom listens to y’all’s podcast every week and you’ve given her language and an understanding and a way of talking about sobriety that doesn’t feel so mysterious or shameful, you’ve really helped me process my sobriety with my family.” And he walks away and Kara, my friend looks at me and she’s like, “What does that feel like?”
Glennon Doyle:
And she was her friend from soccer and then she said, “How does it feel to have that soccer not even be your most important work?”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s so-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so sweet and-
Abby Wambach:
It’s so amazing. I think it is really very special and it’s not ever lost on us. We walk around every few hours and we’re like, “I can’t believe that we get to work with each other like this and we love it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Very cool. And one of the coolest things that I think happen this year is our life has changed for you because of your experience in bathrooms. This is when I feel like my theory of just say it and tell it and let people hear it and let them love you about it will fix everything, was proven yes to you. Tell the pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. So episode 20, when I was talking about the public restroom situation that I find myself in every time. I go into a women’s restroom and people always mistake me for being a dude and they always ask me like… There’s always like that. I can tell the surprise, do they think they’ve made the mistake? Almost every time makes me feel so horrible.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s rough. It’s really bad. She will hold it, not in an airport, she will not go to the bathroom.
Abby Wambach:
I’ll wait to on the airplane because the airplane bathrooms are non-gendered.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Right.
Abby Wambach:
So anyways, long story short, I share this on the pod squad and reading some of the comments from some of the folks who share this experience with me has completely changed my interactions with public restrooms. Now I’m like, “Hey, I’m not the only one that this is happening to.” That makes me feel more powerful and walking into it. And you know what, if somebody is mistaken, then they’re mistaken, that’s their problem not mine. I don’t have to higher my voice because that was always a thing. Like she like, “Hi.” This podcast isn’t ever going to be just us going outward, right? We’re reading all the comments and hearing and reading the response from some of those who might present in similar ways that I present outwardly completely helped me resolve in so many ways those public restroom incidents that happen.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so cool because it’s a big deal. It’s like nothing changed. Like I was like, “What? What’s different to her, nothing.” Experience is still exactly the same. Reactions still exactly the same. But she’s walking into the bathroom’s fine and it’s just knowing she’s not alone.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. I’m less alone.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s belonging because the rejection of the bathroom is like, “You don’t belong here. You don’t fit.” And then the hearing all of the people say, me too, me too is, “Oh, you fit here.” There is a fit, there is a belonging that was this other thing was trying to say, you would never have.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Honey, what about you?
Glennon Doyle:
Probably the one that people would maybe want to hear about with me is several episodes ago, I shared that around the holidays. I had a relapse with my eating disorder. So, for any newbies, trigger warning for eating disorder discussion, I have struggled with bulimia since I was 10 years old and got sober from bulimia when I got pregnant with my son, who is now 19. But still, food is weird and hard and it’s much different than booze and that booze can be avoided and food is something I still have to deal with all the time. And so, has always been a struggle really. But I’ve been able to behaviorally control it even if my brain was weird about it. And then around the holidays, I lost the ability to behaviorally control it.
Glennon Doyle:
So, we talked about that. It was really important to me to talk about it. Very important for me. And it wasn’t just about service. I felt like I was standing up for little weird me. Like she gets to talk too. I’m not sure what her deal is all the time. She might not be completely coherent, but she gets to speak too, because part of this weird movement is because of her, right? So, that’s one of those weird things that when the weird go off this I’m going to be like, “What was that?” About that thing that I said there, but that’s fine.
Amanda Doyle:
That totally makes sense to me.
Glennon Doyle:
It does.
Abby Wambach:
Totally makes sense.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s not like you only bring the friend out to go to the party that’s shiny and cute and you know everyone will laugh at their jokes. You’re like, “I’m bringing my weird awkward friend with me because she is loyal and I don’t care if you get her or not. She’s coming with me.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Like that.
Glennon Doyle:
When we talked about family or friends and everyone’s like, “Somebody goes through a hard time,” and then, we’re only happy and talk about her when she’s better. “Oh, she’s great now, she’s fine.” What about when she was weird and down and why don’t we talk about that time? That’s when we need people talk around more.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You brought your little weird friend out-
Glennon Doyle:
Little weird self, my little weird self.
Abby Wambach:
… and that’s fine.
Glennon Doyle:
Got to talk on that episode. Anyway, the way I described it was… that I was on the landing, which meant that we had gone for a walk and there was a large staircase and I felt I was going to have to start climbing again back to health, back to recovery, back to whatever this next part of my mental health journey was calling me towards. But I was too tired to do anything about it yet. I didn’t know what to do next. And so, I just decided that’s fine. Telling the truth about it is enough, it’s like ground zero. I’m just going to wait there and I’ll await for their instructions. From whom do these instructions come? I don’t know. Whatever you want to call it. God, spirit, yourself. I don’t know. Sometimes the next thing just shows itself. I just stayed on that landing for months. I went and I did nothing. Everyone-
Amanda Doyle:
We have some crosswords on this landing?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. My mom would be like, “So, are we going to…” I don’t know, I’m just still on the landing. Still knowing I’m screwed and doing nothing about it, but not going back down either. All right. And then, we actually went away for a few days with the girls for their spring break and we were at this place that had this little teeny yoga class in the morning and I hadn’t done it forever and then it was free. It was like a service they were giving. And Abby came with me the first couple mornings and then I started going the last two mornings by myself. And I don’t talk about yoga a lot because I get nervous about the appropriation of it at all and all and I don’t know really how to talk about it.
Glennon Doyle:
But there is something that’s really important for me there. And I came home and I signed up at this little teeny local yoga studio and started going and I had this one morning where I was sitting really close because the room was mushy and I was sitting close to the mirror and I just was looking at my own eyes. And I was like, “Oh, yeah.” I just had this moment where I was just looking in my own eyes and I felt really connected and safe with myself. And then, I started the class and I don’t do hard yoga so it’s easy yoga. And the woman was saying all these really nice things and it was just so gentle. It’s something that I can do in my body that makes me feel very loved inside my body. Don’t know how to describe it other than I’m not producing anything. I’m not really not pushing myself. It’s just like, “Oh, I’m in here.”
Glennon Doyle:
We did an incredible episode recently with Cole Arthur Riley and she said something about how women get shamed out of our body young and then there’s this dissociation where we almost leave our bodies. It’s almost like a defense mechanism and then we end up looking at ourselves like, “Am I in here?” Not even living inside our own home. And she said something that, distance creates disdain and it’s sitting in yoga classes, it makes me feel the opposite of that. It makes me feel very close to myself. And there’s something about that closeness that makes me feel love. If distance creates disdain, then it makes sense that the closer you are in there, that’s what you are. It’s okay, it’s love when you’re with yourself.
Abby Wambach:
I love that. I just wish that all yoga classes just was only shavasana.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
I just don’t think that there is such a thing as easy yoga.
Glennon Doyle:
Like yeah, I know. I know.
Abby Wambach:
It’s so hard. There’s something I know deeply about it that is so important, but I also just can’t get over how hard it is.
Glennon Doyle:
But this was one of my things and I’m really excited about this. Okay. So a meme saved me with this part.
Abby Wambach:
A meme?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I didn’t want the challenge of doing anything hard in those rooms. That’s not what I was there for. And so, I saw this meme on the thing and it said, this is most people think showing up is 100%, 100% and it was all these pie charts, 100%, 100%. But what’s showing up really is and then it had a bunch of different pie charts, one was 10%, one was 30%, one was 70%, one was 1%. Showing up has nothing to do with being a hundred percent every time you show up. Actually a lot of times you’re going to suck, you’re going to do barely anything. I have had so many yoga class where I’ve done barely anything. And every time I think, “Oh my God, you’re so awesome this is showing up.”
Glennon Doyle:
And so, something’s happening. I feel like when I go there, I’m just reconnected with myself and it’s like having a meeting with myself each morning. That’s quality time. And then, this wild thing happened which is that I… through Alex, through our friend and then through a friend that you met, we ended up going back to recovery meetings recently in our little area and that was a little bit scary for me and has turned out to be really, really important. So, my update is that I’m having meetings with myself each day, quality time with myself and quality time with other really honest people who all bring their weird selves.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s what it is.
Abby Wambach:
Bringing it back. I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
They bring their weird selves, right? Nobody is there like, “Well, actually I’m optimizing. I’m just crushing it in all areas.” So, those two things are helping and that’s my update. So, I think I’m starting. I’m off the landing again.
Abby Wambach:
Good job.
Glennon Doyle:
Thanks.
Abby Wambach:
So, wonderful to hear.
Glennon Doyle:
Thanks for listening to my update.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you for sharing that.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So, we have this new segment. It’s what in the pod squad, what’s it called, podcast world. We call it a segment.
Amanda Doyle:
And for the first time tonight, we’ve been calling it since three seconds ago, a segment.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s what we in the business call a segment? And what we decided to do is that we kept getting of 7 trillion emails that would reference one of the episodes and it would say, can you tell me more about, and we’ll just be one little thing that we said in an episode, and then they would say, tell me more. We kept seeing the words, tell me more over and over again. Welcome to our first Tell Me More segment.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God. That was so embarrassing.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. That’s what I was going for.
Amanda Doyle:
I think your weird self is still here. Yeah. Okay. Tell me more segment. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage your word self.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s too soon.
Amanda Doyle:
It was too soon?
Glennon Doyle:
No, no, no, not too soon.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. All right. So Abby, we have one for you, which I find so fun. The most frequent question that we get for you to tell me more Abby, is folks wanting to know more about macaroni gate.
Abby Wambach:
Macaroni gate?
Amanda Doyle:
Macaroni gate. So ,this for folks who will remember was episode 26, it was on sexual desire and it was where Abby discovered her simmering sexual desire for the very first time at the most obvious location, out to dinner with her parents at the Macaroni Grill.
Glennon Doyle:
Macaroni Grill.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. So, this is a question for you, Abby. One of many from Lori in Utah, it’s about the finger grays heard around the world. Did the server intentionally swipe your hand with the crayon or was that purely accidental? Did the relationship go anywhere?
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. You have to tell them the story though because some people might not know the Macaroni Grill story.
Abby Wambach:
All right. So honey, can I tell the story?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
All right. You’re not going to get weird?
Glennon Doyle:
I always get weird.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, you do.
Glennon Doyle:
But what she means is jealous. I get really jealous even of the 16-year-old waitress at the macaroni girl,
Abby Wambach:
She was 18 by the way.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, she was 18.
Abby Wambach:
Anyways, so you know at the Macaroni Grill where they write their names in crayon. During this moment, the waitress, she wrote her name upside down and I thought that was super cool. And when she put her hand down-
Amanda Doyle:
An older woman.
Abby Wambach:
… her hand happened to touch my pinky finger. Now, I believe that this was an accident and I don’t know if I told the rest of the story on the pod.
Glennon Doyle:
Please do.
Abby Wambach:
So, I ended up happening is I realized that I was in a very sexy turtleneck and corduroy pants, my school uniform.
Glennon Doyle:
Catholic school uniform.
Abby Wambach:
I was eating dinner with my parents. I apologize, mom, for this story while you’re listening. And I went home and I was struck at how this was the very first conscious, real… everything else was subconscious at this point. This is the conscious thought like I like this girl and I have to do something about it. So, I went home, I sat in front of my huge old school Apple computer with dial up modem, like internet, like that weird noise. Yeah. And I typed up a letter and I sent it. I typed up an anonymous letter because in my hometown people knew my name and I was afraid because this is in the late ’90s, gayness was not accepted publicly or even privately in many places still that way. And so, I wrote an anonymous letter and I sent it to the Macaroni Grill. I figured out what her first and last name was.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, she wrote it on the table.
Glennon Doyle:
She wrote it upside down. So, you had to turn around that.
Abby Wambach:
But I figured out what her-
Glennon Doyle:
She’s detective Wambach.
Abby Wambach:
I figured out what her last name was. I didn’t say name, waitress.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. All right. All right. All right. So, you sent it to the Macaroni Grill?
Abby Wambach:
So, I sent it to the Macaroni Grill and in the letter I said, basically it was like, “I have a crush on you and I don’t know what to do about it because I’m a girl and I’ve never been with a girl and I don’t know if you have feelings for girls in that way.” Basically like, do you like me, yes or no. If you do call me, find my name in-
Amanda Doyle:
There’s like a flow chart.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Do you like girls, yes, no. If no, please shred.
Glennon Doyle:
But then she didn’t find her name. She said, if you know who this is call my house.
Abby Wambach:
I had to believe that she was feeling the exact same way. This is the romanticism inside of me. If I felt this way, she have to feel.
Amanda Doyle:
You don’t just brush somebody’s finger with a crayon, unless you do it yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Come on. Come on.
Abby Wambach:
So, I said this to the Macaroni Grill and I said, “Look me up into the phone book and call me if you know who this is,” and she freaking called me.
Glennon Doyle:
And by the way, home phone, we don’t have cell phones now. She’s calling Nana’s house. Okay. “Is Abby there?”
Abby Wambach:
She called and I answered and she stammered through the first couple of seconds. “Hi, this is so and so from Macaroni Grill.” And I was like, “Hi,” because I don’t know at this point if she’s checked yes to any of those boxes, I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
Great.
Abby Wambach:
I know that she’s called to this-
Amanda Doyle:
This could be a restraining order coming.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
I just don’t know. I held out for a little bit longer than I should have, because she was like, “Did you send me a letter?” And I was like, “A letter?”
Amanda Doyle:
I know she messed with her.
Abby Wambach:
“A letter?” And two seconds later, I was like, “Okay, I sent you the letter.” She’s like-
Amanda Doyle:
So then, what happened?
Abby Wambach:
Okay. That day went and spent the rest of the day with her.
Glennon Doyle:
And they kissed on the lips.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my God.
Glennon Doyle:
Today Abby says to me, I thought I was going to be with her for the rest of my life.
Abby Wambach:
Rest of my life. I did. I swear to you.
Glennon Doyle
But didn’t you date for a really long time?
Abby Wambach:
No, maybe like six months. Because I had to go to college a few months later. I literally met her at the end of my senior year in high school and I left her college a few months later and then we broke up a few months after that because long distance.
Glennon Doyle:
And it was a secret, had to be a secret?
Abby Wambach:
It was totally secret. Nobody knew. My very, very closest best friends knew. I told them right before they went to college.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s actually quite brave and beautiful. I love the Macaroni Grill story. Both of you are bad asses. You just went for it.
Amanda Doyle:
Always been very confident.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so hard. Imagine that, imagine that.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. I mean, I think if I were to get really honest, the couple of years before I probably had crushes on people that I just never was able to be conscious about.
Glennon Doyle:
The crayon put it over there.
Amanda Doyle:
Macaroni Grill will bring you into consciousness. Yeah. Sister, I have questions that people had for you.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, tell me more.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Tell me more for Glennon. People wanted to talk a lot about episode 64 and 65 where you were trying to figure out what friendship is. And this is very sweet from Kristen, from New Jersey. She wrote this advice and question for you because you had asked for tips like if anyone knows what the hell friendship is, please do write us a letter. She said, find people who love themselves the way you want to love yourself and then trust yourself to fall in love with them a little.
Glennon Doyle:
Find people who love themselves the way you want to love yourself?
Amanda Doyle:
And then trust yourself to fall in love with them a little.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s really beautiful because you always think find people who love you, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
So, find people who love themselves is really… That’s gorgeous.
Amanda Doyle:
Because that’s kind of caliber of person that will make you the kind of caliber person, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Very cool.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. And then she says also, did you ever take that trip with the new friend couple? How did that go?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
We not only took the trip. I would say it was a very successful trip in that we all became closer, like really good friends. I think we’re friends.
Abby Wambach:
I think we are friends.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re friends with each other.
Abby Wambach:
She’s not good at knowing. We are friends with them. They’re-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s ambiguous. When I have a child, when I have a wife, when I have a sister, these are provable things. No one can say, “No, I’m not your wife. I’m not your child. I’m not your sister.” I can prove these things, friends, nebulous.
Abby Wambach:
Provable things, things that they have done for us in terms of-
Glennon Doyle:
In terms that we love that, we depend on them. We talk to them often. I know what is going on in their lives. They know what’s going on in my life. I was sick recently. Some juices came to my front door. I sent them away. I said, “I didn’t order any juices.” My new friend called me and said sometimes when people are sick, they send things to people and then the people accept them. So, we’re going to try this again. I’m going to resend the juices.
Abby Wambach:
How did the trip go, honey?
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. The trip was amazing. I actually do want to talk about one part of the trip that I thought was super important. Okay. So, the last day of the trip, it was like three nights, four nights or something. We all go to breakfast and we’re sitting in breakfast and my new friend, I’m going to call my friend Alex, because that’s actually her.
Amanda Doyle:
On account, that’s her name. Yeah, that’s a good call.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So, she sits at the table and she says, because she’s extremely vulnerable and precious and honest, she says, “So here’s what I usually do when I leave a social thing like this, the new trip, new friends. I leave and then I spend a day thinking of every single thing I said or did that I wish I didn’t say or do and then I obsess about that thing and then I think, do they think I’m stupid for saying that and what I should have said? So that’s a postmortem. I just die for a day, all the thing. So let’s just do it now. Let’s just sit at breakfast and talk about every single thing we said and did over the last three days that we think may have gone off wrong and we wish we did differently.” It was the most lesbian-
Amanda Doyle:
So, brilliant.
Glennon Doyle:
… breakfast that ever… It was four women. I just recommend it so highly because I think it’s the conversation that made us the closest.
Abby Wambach:
I agree. I think that kind of cracked it all open.
Glennon Doyle:
It cracked it open. Yeah. It was really wonderful. Although of course I had a postmortem for the postmortem. So, where does it end? I don’t know. I just wanted to throw that little tidbit out there because I think that especially people like the pod sweaters, I know these are sensitive bunnies and I know that we obsess about what we said and did and that level of vulnerability, I think. I think the friendship thing is going well, thank you for checking in. I’m starting to learn what you said sissy, which is that it’s not maybe an extra thing. It’s not like I have to do my healing and my mental health work and all of my things and then if I have extra time, I can have a friend it’s like, “Oh, my friends can help me with my mental health.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. I feel like-
Amanda Doyle:
They’re part of your mental health.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Like I told Abby recently, I feel like I’m a hot air balloon and now I have like a basket. The basket is there now. It’s really cool.
Abby Wambach:
People you trust.
Amanda Doyle:
I love that.
Abby Wambach:
Sissy, what about you?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, her tell me more.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I know. I get to do Sissy’s tell me more. No, I don’t know what you tell me more is. What the hell is your tell me more?
Amanda Doyle:
Did any of you find any questions for me? Hold on. Let me look. Oh, no.
Glennon Doyle:
Sissy, what is your tell me more? Do your own.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Oh, I will. I know. This is not my first rodeo. Okay. So, my tell me more is from me to me.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
And this is what it is in our episode with Jen Hatmaker, which by the way, I’m… That episode it’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so beautiful. She’s a warrior.
Amanda Doyle:
She’s so wonderful. But I have to confess that I was pretending to know what she was talking about the entire time she was talking about codependency. So she said, I thought that word meant that you’re a needy person. You’re fragile and you don’t have the muscle memory to independently handle any part of your life. Well, that’s not me. And so, then everyone laughed knowingly at how absurd that notion was and then I laughed unknowingly because that is exactly what I thought codependency was and it was exactly why I thought codependency had absolutely zero, nothing burger to do with me.
Amanda Doyle:
And then, she said the actual definition of codependency, which is that you just don’t allow anyone to sit in the consequences of their choices, which she had said, she thought was just being helpful to people and that, at that point I wanted to melt into this actual window seat of my sons that I do the podcast in because I realized that it has all the burgers to do with me.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. All the burgers.
Amanda Doyle:
So, I will be planning some codependency podcasts. So, those of us who are also laughing unknowingly with Jen might be able to dig a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
Good for you. Okay. So-
Glennon Doyle:
The codependency book, yes. We both read it. I read the entire thing. I told Abby as you. I read it as you.
Abby Wambach:
Sister.
Glennon Doyle:
And Abby said, you read the codependency book as sister, like you and then-
Abby Wambach:
Halfway through it. She’s like, “I just can’t stop.”
Glennon Doyle:
I just-
Abby Wambach:
I can’t stop. I’m only reading it from sister’s perspective. I cannot stop this.
Glennon Doyle:
But the first, my favorite book, that book story is that I brought it home. I put it on the coffee table and Abby said, “I’ll read it if you read it.”
Abby Wambach:
I’ll read it if you read it.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s the most codependent thing to say about codependency.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, my God. That’s so good.
Abby Wambach:
What’s interesting about Codependency No More is I read it 20 years ago, and it’s totally different now. My co-dependencies have shifted in many ways.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. We’re going to have to pause there for today. We will be back next time to pick up with live pod squad Q’s. Thank you for sending us the best most thoughtful questions. Wait till you hear from Donna, we cannot stop thinking about Donna. So, come back Thursday and until then when things get hard, remember, we can do hard things. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple podcasts, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.