The Closure Myth: How Do We Really Move On?
December 5, 2024
Abby Wambach:
It’s just one of them days where when you wake up, things aren’t going as they normally do. For instance, we ran out of coffee filters.
Amanda Doyle:
Ooh.
Abby Wambach:
Ooh. And I just was like-
Amanda Doyle:
When you throw a paper towel in there.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what I did.
Abby Wambach:
That’s what this one did.
Amanda Doyle:
Press on.
Glennon Doyle:
She sits down on the couch, I go upstairs, “Where’s the coffee?” So we have this routine. One of us does the dogs, one of us does the coffees. Usually Abby does the dogs and the coffees. But the system is, ideally, that one of us does each.
Abby Wambach:
That I do the dogs and that she does the coffee. But today I was upstairs first.
Glennon Doyle:
So I go upstairs and there’s no coffees and she’s sitting on the couch. And I say, “What is happening?” And she says, “Bad news. We have no coffee filters.”
As if the next thing to do is not just rig anything, like put a sweater.
Amanda Doyle:
By any means necessary, assholes.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Put a sweater.
Amanda Doyle:
We will suck the coffee beans.
Glennon Doyle:
Put the coffee beans in the Vitamix, do something.
Abby Wambach:
I ordered, on Instacart, filters. And actually I needed to get more coffee because it needed to be $10.
Glennon Doyle:
But that was going to be an hour. I just… No, no, no, no.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t have that much of a… I prefer to have coffee first thing. But if I had to choose between a filter of paper towel that has little shards of glass in it…
Amanda Doyle:
Why does paper towels have glass in it?
Abby Wambach:
Paper towels have little weird shards of stuff in it.
Glennon Doyle:
If you gave me-
Amanda Doyle:
Is that true?
Glennon Doyle:
I’m sure it’s not.
Abby Wambach:
Let me look it up.
Glennon Doyle:
No, don’t look it up.
Abby Wambach:
Can somebody look it up? I want this-
Amanda Doyle:
Paper towel has glass shards in it? Then this is a much bigger conversation than the coffee. We should be talking about this.
Abby Wambach:
I didn’t want any of the paper towel in it.
Glennon Doyle:
If you gave me a choice of no coffee or just a roll of paper towels soaked in coffee, I would suck the coffee out of the paper towel roll.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so gross.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. I’m just saying.
Abby Wambach:
You’ll do anything for a coffee.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything for coffee, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
So that’s how this morning started. And then I just was tired at my workout. I’ve just been kind of tired.
Glennon Doyle:
But then tell them what you said to me in the kitchen, after you came home and we’re saying, “This is just one of those days and nothing’s going right.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And then I said, “I got to mind over matter this. I got to change this vibe up.” And so I just started to sing.
Glennon Doyle:
She did a little dance.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You know the song, It’s Just One Of Them Things?
Glennon Doyle:
I think, “When I want to be on my own. Just one of them days, yeah.”
Abby Wambach:
Is it Just One Of Them Days?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know any lyrics ever, so this is not surprising. But I’m trying to turn my frown upside down, is what I’m trying to do.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, good for you. And it looks like it worked-ish.
Abby Wambach:
No, no, no. I’m just faking it right now. Just faking it. But I have my coffee because the filters finally came.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what cheers us up when we have frowns? Is the pod squad. And this day is one of those days where maybe we don’t have it. Maybe we don’t have the magical optimism that one might hope a host of a podcast has.
Abby Wambach:
Do you ever have magical optimism?
Glennon Doyle:
I have magical other things. I have magical pessimism. They come for both. The sky needs a sun and a moon, Abby Wambach.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right, baby.
Glennon Doyle:
So…
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, what are we doing today?
Glennon Doyle:
The beautiful thing about community is, everyone doesn’t have a bad day at the same time. And we get to step in and step out and step whatever. So today, you all are carrying us. The pod squad is carrying us.
We have some amazing questions and ideas that were shared from you into our inbox and we are going to listen now. Let us start with Marlena.
Marlena:
My name is Marlena. My pronouns are she/her. Hi Amanda, Glennon, and Abby. I was just calling because I’m wondering what exactly is closure. I know oftentimes when somebody passes away, people will say, “Well, at least you’ve had that closure. Now you can gain some closure.”
And I’m not really sure what exactly I’m getting closure on when that hole in the heart still feels present. I watch a lot of true-crime documentaries and oftentimes when bodies are found later on down the line, they say, “Well, now the family can have closure.” And I guess I’m just wondering what exactly is closure and do we ever really get closure? Love you guys so much.
Abby Wambach:
Marlena is my kind of girl. First of all, she’s talking about grief and losing people. And second of all, she also, like me, is a true-crime fan. And I have always had this question.
Amanda Doyle:
So what’s your take on the question? You’ve always had this question about closure?
Abby Wambach:
Yes, first of all. And more so since my brother has passed away, because I don’t think that there’s such thing. You don’t close the door on when somebody passes away. You just learn to carry it with you always.
And I agree with her that in these true-crime podcasts that I listen to, that’s what the hosts always say, “Well, at least the family has closure.” Or the detectives. And it’s like, no, what you’re saying is at least they have more information than they prior had. The person is still gone.
Glennon Doyle:
Part of a mystery has been solved.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
If there’s a mystery, if you have an ambiguous loss, meaning you don’t know what happened, that is a hard thing. There’s a level of added grief onto the regular grief of it, apparently, where just the not knowing deepens the pain.
And so there is some kind of relief, I think. Not full relief, but some kind of relief that comes to people who get some information that make the mystery seem less scary and unsolved.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I hear that, but I don’t believe that that’s totally it either. I think that the mystery is a cover-up. I think that, in my case at least, I was obsessed with trying to figure out what happened to my brother. That was a huge part of my early grief process. And through a lot of my therapy.
It is the fallacy that I was taught about justice and right and wrong and good and bad, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. And the truth is, even if you have the specificity on the death certificate or whatever it is, you still will never really know.
Glennon Doyle:
I wonder if that kind of closure makes a deeper pain happen, because it reminds me of the things that we tell ourselves, we’ll fix it. Something happens and then we tell ourselves, “The reason I’m in so much pain is because I don’t know this thing.” And so then you attach yourself to, “If I figure out this thing, I will have relief.”
And so I wonder if when you get that piece of information that you’ve been telling yourself will bring relief, I wonder if it’s even harder then. Because, of course what’s bringing you the most pain is not that you don’t know what happened, it’s that it happened.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
And so now you’ve gotten what you thought would help and it doesn’t. And so now you’re still left with the hole in your heart that Marlena is pointing towards.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, the thing that I think about a lot with this is that the closest thing that my understanding can get to closure is acceptance. Of what has happened, of what has transpired.
I’m not a hundred percent sure that I will ever heal from all of the major heartbreaks of my life fully. I am not sure if I will ever really get over the grief of losing my brother. What I know is, coming to the acceptance of him being gone is the only thing that at this point in my grief process that I can assume will feel like this supposed closure.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting. So, acceptance is the only real closure to you.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe. And I don’t know, I don’t know what six months from now will look like or a year or five years. But I think closure is this little bow that we like to put on shit so that we don’t think that we have to deal with it anymore. And I think that that is also a bill of goods that we’re sold in the world.
Glennon Doyle:
I will tell you one thing I’ve noticed about the people that I know. Is that whenever anyone says to me, “Well, I’m just going to reach out to him one more time because I just need closure,” that is always a big lie. What they want is one more hit.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
What they want is opener. You don’t use an opener to get closure. Because if you truly want closure-
Abby Wambach:
They want an opener.
Glennon Doyle:
… you and yourself can decide that you have closure. It’s like closure is a singular decision to me. It’s like I have decided this is over. I actually don’t need the other person’s…
Going to someone to get closure, it’s like banging on somebody’s door, having them open it and being like, “I am here to tell you I am leaving this house. I am shutting this door right now.” But you weren’t there before. You needed the jolt of connection. You didn’t need closure.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s interesting to hear you all talk about this, and to hear Marlena talk about closure in terms of a death, because I get that when I hear you talk about it. And also, I always thought of closure in terms of relationships. Or I hear it more of just like, “I don’t understand what happened” or “All of a sudden they just up and left.”
Or even friendships, hear that a lot. Like, “I was friends with this person for 10 years and then they just ghosted and I don’t have any closure. It’s so awful.” And psychologists who look at this, they say that the need for closure, first of all, it’s called cognitive closure, which is amazing because that’s in your brain.
Glennon Doyle:
You and you.
Amanda Doyle:
Your brain needs to understand it. And it’s a psychological term that describes a need for a clear, firm answer to a question to avoid ambiguity. So the need for a clear, firm answer. That’s hilarious because there’s never a singular clear, firm answer.
And so it’s the same thing when you have that high need. And there’s people with high need for closure and there’s people who avoid closure. And then there’s people in the middle. And they’ve done all these studies of people, which is fascinating, but the people who have a high need for closure seek out information. So that’s the people who say, “I’m going to call one more time.” They really believe that they are going to extract new information that will somehow lead them to a clear answer. And the whole thing is based on an ability to predict the world.
I need this closure. I need this answer. And I’m going to seek out as much information as I can get until I can get the answer. Because once I have this answer, I believe it will help me to predict what’s going to happen in the world. It will make me safer in future relationships. It will make me safer in other friendships, because I will understand that this isn’t just a random crazy thing that someone did to me. It is part of an orderly flow of events.
Or, I can understand that something happened to my brother and it was probably a result of him doing X. So if I avoid X, I’ll be fine. It’s all this deep, deep comfort with insecurity, with uncertainty and randomness. And when they look at these people and they study them, the same people that have the super high need for closure are the same people who are associated with super conservative, authoritarian, kind of. They’re more comfortable with that. They want to know black and white, this is yes and no. And they stop taking in new information, which is fascinating.
Their need is to have an answer, not the correct one. So once they get enough information to have an answer-
Abby Wambach:
An answer, like A-N? Like, a answer?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, like a. It’s not necessarily, I’m going to take in all the information so I can get what is probably the most nuanced, correct answer. It’s, I need a definitive answer. And once they have enough information for that, they stop accepting new information.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting. I wonder if-
Abby Wambach:
That’s interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
… those people… And when I say those people, it could be me too. I have no idea. This group of people who are so into closure because we need black and white, they need the story, they need whatever to move on, are also the people that tend to self-sabotage.
Here’s the connection between these two. Self-sabotage means, I might want something, I might hope for something, I might work for something, but there’s this moment or long eternity of uncertainty, will I get it or not? I might want that relationship. I’m in it. It might happen, it might happen. I might get that job. I might have this friendship, but I sabotage it.
We get questions about this all the time. I do a thing to end it. Whether it’s a conscious thing, a subconscious, I do something to end it. Why? Why do we self-sabotage? Because we so hate ambiguity. We so hate not knowing what might happen, that we will ensure we don’t get what we want, just to have a black and white end.
We would rather tolerate the no than tolerate, I don’t know. That’s forced closure to this longing, to this hope. I would rather just say, “Fuck it. No, I don’t have to even long for it anymore.” Than to sit in the uncertainty of unknowing, whether I will get that thing or not. It’s a way of taking control. I’d rather just not get it.
Amanda Doyle:
Or I’d rather be the one-
Glennon Doyle:
That says no.
Amanda Doyle:
… that is ensuring I don’t get it, rather than waiting around for someone else to do that to me. I’m going to sabotage this and end this before you end this, because then at least I can have been the one to do it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s another form of closure. It’s, I force this closure. Because the giving away power to anyone else or to the not knowing or to the ambiguity of life is more painful than…
I just think that’s interesting about people, that we would rather suffer with a no than suffer in a maybe.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it is. It’s interesting because just the whole idea of needing things to be meaningful, the need to make meaning out of things, the need to take any situation and extrapolate a meaning or a sequence of events, so a beginning, a middle and an end. This is how our relationship started, here’s how it was in the middle. I need to know how it ends. I need to know how I’m going to tell myself and how I’m going to tell the rest of the world how this relationship ended.
I remember that was my biggest horrible thing in my marriage is that one day it was like, this is over. We had two five-minute discussions about it. Then I discovered all of this other information and I didn’t know what my story was. I didn’t know, did this happen before? Is this the reason my marriage is over? Did this happen after? Is this what I needed? What do I tell myself about what happened here?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
That’s interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
What do I tell other people about what happened here? I need to make sure, is this guy a bad guy? Is this guy a good guy? Was this just a very complicated situation? And it’s really, really the most uncomfortable thing, is living in that ambiguity.
And I think it’s really merciful to ourselves to not berate ourselves for the need for that. To be like, this is the human condition. Of course you want clarity, of course it would be so much more comfortable and make this already excruciatingly impossible situation just a little tiny bit easier to have your definitive answer. And if you want that and that’s going to help you survive, great. Latch onto your definitive answer. And also just know that you are necessarily cutting out other information. That you are sacrificing the fullness of the information in order to accept your one definitive answer.
Including information about you. I had to go back and look at myself and be like, actually, when I decide he’s a cheating bad guy, and if that’s the only information I allow in, I am not allowing in the information that shows me about me, who chose this person. That shows me about me, that related to this relationship in this way for so long to also get us here. And that’s at my detriment, that I don’t look at that information.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s really scary.
And then they do these studies and they find out that the people who have the low need… Not the lowest, not the people who avoid closure. Because they’re the people, like you said, Glennon, where they keep reaching out because they can’t handle an answer at all. They need it to keep going.
The people who are like, “I can live with this ambiguity,” are the more creative people. They let in all the information, they’re actually more creative. They allow things in, they create things with it. They imagine all the possibilities. It’s really cool when you think of it that way.
It’s like you’re being a fundamentalist. You’re being like a Christian fundamentalist about your relationship when you decide this is what happened, and that’s the end of the story. There’s never, that’s the end of the story.
Abby Wambach:
I think where the rub is is when we get into relationship with people who have a different definition or a different need in the way that they view closure.
I’ve been in relationships before where somebody did not care to create a moment of closure, and I kept trying to figure it out. And so, that was so crazy-making for me. And then eventually I had to be the one that gave myself the closure.
Amanda Doyle:
Totally. I’ve never had a moment of even coming within a mile of closure that involved anyone else.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
No, that’s so true.
Amanda Doyle:
Right? Because if you’re trying to get as much information as you can to come up with an answer, you’re basing your closure on what-
Abby Wambach:
Somebody else said.
Amanda Doyle:
… this person, who by definition you’re no longer in relationship with. They’re giving you the information that you’re basing your closure on?
Abby Wambach:
That’s not closure.
Glennon Doyle:
I think we three probably agree that one thing we know is that closure, if it is real, is something that you give yourself.
Abby Wambach:
Internal. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It is not something you get from an institution or another person or anybody. That’s not how it works.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
And maybe there’s just, when it comes to loss, it’s like divinity. It’s like there’s a way to approach it, which is fundamentalist and that has to do with control and narrative and protection. And it’s like being in a little tiny box.
And then there’s another way to approach it, which is more on the side of mysticism, which has a lot to do with awe and wonder and “I don’t know.” And maybe you could hack the system. Maybe there’s a way of giving yourself a story so that you have the thing that you know. But the story is not, “Well, he’s a dick and I was good and I tried,” or whatever it is. It’s not detailed.
It’s like, “People make interesting decisions. And relationships don’t always last forever, and in the fullness of time you’ll see this a million different ways.” And maybe that’s enough of a story for your little brain, our brains to go, “Okay, that’s something.”
But it’s mystical and wide enough to allow yourself to look back on the situation a million different times and see it a million different ways. And have it inform your future relationships in a way that doesn’t cast people in stone as right, wrong, good, bad, all of that.
Abby Wambach:
I feel like the best definition of closure I can come up with in this moment is like, “Oh, I can move beyond this.”
Glennon Doyle:
Forward.
Abby Wambach:
I can move forward with my life. It’s accepting what is. And it doesn’t mean that this thought or feeling or whatever, is something that you’ll never experience or be able to think about or feel again. It just means it will no longer control your life, in a way.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Marlena talks about the hole in her heart. Like, why, if I have closure, do I still have the hole in my heart? And I don’t think that closure is filling the hole in the heart. It’s not fixing the hole in the heart. It’s carrying on with a holey heart.
It’s knowing that that hole in your heart is not an accident. It’s not a mistake. It’s part of you becoming realer and more beautiful and softer and wider and truer. That it’s all completely okay. That the best people are just like Swiss cheese hearts.
Abby Wambach:
Accepting that you have a Swiss cheese heart.
Glennon Doyle:
And the openness that comes with that. A Swiss cheese heart is an open heart. It’s like an openness to the next thing. It’s not allowing that hole in your heart to shut you down to the next beautiful thing, right? It’s just-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Exactly.
There’s no moving beyond anything.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
There’s no moving beyond a death. There’s no moving beyond a relationship of significance. There’s no moving beyond. It’s just, you’re moving with that.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re moving with it.
Amanda Doyle:
With this, nevertheless, she persisted. You have the thing and you are going on and it’s with you forever. I just am suspect of anyone who’s like, “I have closure. I’m finished with that, that relationship’s in the past.” Or maybe it’s just me. I feel like every relationship I ever had is present in my current relationship.
Glennon Doyle:
Me too. And I really believe this. I think I texted this to a friend recently. It seemed like an epiphany to me at the time. I am quite certain that I have never in my entire life gotten over anything. I’m serious. I mean that deeply.
I am still looking back at memories from childhood, things that happened when I was 10, 13. Things that was said. I’m seeing it like it’s a kaleidoscope. All these different ways, it still hurts. Things that I remember from 30 years ago still hurt. I get mad about people that I think about something they said to me when I was 17. I don’t think that’s a problem. I don’t know how we would get over anything. What does that mean? Forget about it?
Amanda Doyle:
Harden to it.
Glennon Doyle:
Harden to it.
Amanda Doyle:
Let me harden to it?
Glennon Doyle:
Like it’s all packaged up in a little case that’s glass and you can’t get to it. I am everything that has ever happened to me. And I’m trying to arrange it, use it, see it all in a way that makes my next moment more beautiful.
I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying, if getting over things is a thing, I have never done it.
Abby Wambach:
Are you still in resentment then, of some of the things that have happened?
Glennon Doyle:
Sometimes. But I think it’s, resentment is a place that I touch, feel, notice. Is a signal to me that maybe I’ve got some self-care stuff to do. Yes.
But I understand what resentment is. That it’s not something for me that I can sit in for too long without examining.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like you can forgive someone or something, but you’ll never forget.
Amanda Doyle:
I forget what conversation it was recently where we were talking about grieving. And it’s almost like we need a much wider definition for grieving.
Oh, I remember what it was. It was a question that the woman called in and said that her mom never let her get a big head, and so was always cutting her down. And so now when she hears women being praised and pumped up, she has a deep discomfort and she wants to take them down a notch. And then she feels like shit about it because she doesn’t want to be that person. And we were talking about how instead of beating herself up for being that, maybe she could acknowledge that that is a place of grief for her. That she has to grieve that she never got those things.
And I’m just wondering if the idea of closure is the inability to be in a perpetual state of grief. To be joyful about all the things there are to be joyful about and to be grieving, all the things there are to be grieving about.
Like you saying you’ve never gotten over anything. Anytime you think of one of those things, it’s like a little bit of grief of, my little baby self had to deal with that. Or my teenage self had to go through that. Or when you think about your brother, there’s no closure there. Every time you touch that or think about that, it’s grief. Every time you think about a relationship that was both really bad and really awesome, you’re carrying that grief with you always.
I don’t know. We just think of it as a really time-limited thing. And I’m not sure that it is. I think that maybe all of life is just trying to be living and trying to be grieving.
Glennon Doyle:
Relationships and loss are a mystery. They are a mystery. You can try to make them a science. You can try to become a forensic reporter or whatever about a relationship or loss or death or whatever. But good luck, because all we know about them is that no one knows about them.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s part of what we’re grieving.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a fucking mystery. We’re never going to figure it out.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, people do this. Oh my God. Like, I want to be in relationship with the divine. I want spirituality to be part of my life, so I’m going to write down these 10 things that are sure about God. No. You have, by definition, entered a place of mystery. And you’re trying to reduce it to a story or a dogma.
And so maybe that’s the same. People and our relationships are as beautiful and mysterious and wild as divinity. And so maybe the people who do best are the ones who give their whole hearts and stay open and hold it all very lightly, and not try to be forensic experts about something that is in itself a wild mystery. And that, my friends, is what they call closure.
Abby Wambach:
Closure.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re closing our conversation about closure. Shall we listen to Rebecca?
Glennon Doyle:
Only some of the pod squadders are going to know what I just did there. But for those of you who know, you know.
Rebecca:
Hello, lovelies. My name is Rebecca. I am 30 years old and I am calling because I was wondering how Glennon and Abby navigated the moving conversation. Amanda, I’m not sure if you’ve made a big move with your husband. If you have, I would love your input. If you haven’t, we’ll always love your input.
But my family’s from the West Coast, his family’s from the East Coast, and we’ve been doing our best to go back and forth. But we’re thinking of having children and settling down. And I just don’t know how we settle where we go. And he’s right to want to be his family. I’m right to want to be near mine.
So I was hoping you could say some more things about that. And I love you guys.
Glennon Doyle:
I love this question. It’s so interesting. We’ve never talked about this. About we have opposite vibes in terms of I live a life of a nomad, in that I have moved every few years.
I see that from different perspectives. One of them is that I was always looking… My 12-Step friends will understand that sometimes people like me who have a internal discomfort or restlessness, seek a geographical solution. That’s what we call it.
But the problem is not me. It’s just a different climate, constantly. It’s just a different vibe. It’s the city, it’s this house, it’s this town. You just are constantly thinking that maybe things will be better if there was a new town. So there’s a negative way to look at it.
Abby Wambach:
There’s a positive way of looking at that too.
Glennon Doyle:
Me too. I think that my kids have feelings, perhaps, about having moved too much. I have a lot of guilt and shame about that.
Abby Wambach:
They do.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s hard to be raised by a person who’s trying to find themselves. But maybe harder to be raised by a person who’s not trying to find themselves. So-
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m okay. I’m okay with it. I really am.
Abby Wambach:
There’s pros and cons to both, I’m sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. I’ll just give my take on a move. I want to hear you, sister, because I have so much awe and respect for people who stay in the same place forever and grow roots and are pillars of their community. It terrifies me so much. If I moved, most of my community would say, “Wait, she lived here?” Okay, so that’s the vibe that I have gone for.
But I do feel that it matters to me. My environment I am in matters so much to my mental health and the way that I feel each day. I’ve never felt more alive or comfortable or in my zone of comfort than I do living in California.
When I go back to the East Coast… I think there’s a lot tied to it. I feel like I’m going back to my childhood. I feel like I’m going back to it. It’s a very loaded. But it does matter to me. I do know that it’s not just a geographical solution, it matters to me where I am. And I think the move for us was the right thing for all of us.
Abby Wambach:
Can I ask you a question?
Glennon Doyle:
You may.
Abby Wambach:
Does it feel to you like all of the moves that you made were specific to what healing you were trying to go through during that time? So when you go back to certain places, does it feel like you’re moving backwards in time?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
I get that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yep. You know my thing is, every day… We live close enough to the ocean, the Pacific Ocean to see it, and every day I look at the coast and I think the thought, “Well, I’ve gone as far as I can go.” And I don’t know what that means. I just know that I like to live on the edge of things. I like to have gone as far as I can go. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped in any way, which being landlocked makes me feel trapped.
When Abby lived in Portland… Portland is like the coolest city, but she was having depression. I said to her, “No, no. People like us can’t live in Portland.” We’re Portland on the inside. So we need the opposite of that on the outside. It’s balance to me.
I actually need to be reminded. I don’t need to be reminded every day that things can be dark and sad and heavy and rainy. Got it. I have already figured that out before I get out of bed. I have that nailed. What I need to remember every day is people moving, and sun and dogs outside and kids running around. And a lightness that I can plug into and that balances me out.
Abby Wambach:
Sister, can I ask you a question about when you knew you were going to lay down some roots? Did you always know that you would live in the Northern Virginia, DC area?
Amanda Doyle:
I think I either thought I was going to do that or I was going to live abroad and have a totally different life. One of the other. I wouldn’t have wanted to live in the exact town we grew up in.
It’s interesting that you say you admire people who stay in the same place because I’ve always thought that maybe I was missing something, that I don’t think that I could just move my family to another place. It feels like you have to have a kind of audacity and sense of self and identity to be like, “Oh, we’re just by ourselves. Just our little peopledom, unattached to anything else, are sturdy enough to just up and replant somewhere else.”
Yes, I can see how it would be an escape thing of running around and avoiding getting too attached anywhere. But there’s also a very cool kind of strength in it too, to be like, “I am here and then I’m going to go somewhere else. And I’m still going to be who I am.” As opposed to, “I, me, am defined by who I am and where I am, and all the people around me and all the things that I’ve built for the last however long.” That you trust that you’ll go to another place and all of that will still be there.
So I don’t know if it’s actually a very mature way of being like, I actually, who I am is very interdependent and is all of these things. And it’s a fiction to believe who you are is just your little person and wherever you go, that goes with you. Or, it’s a very shallow sense of self of, I need all of this around me to define who I am.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that it makes sense though. Because I don’t think either of them are good or bad or right or wrong. They’re just different ways of looking at things, and there’s benefits of both.
I do feel like I’ve always been more like, adamantly, I have to figure things out. I have to start a new thing. I want to start a new thing. Break with tradition, break with a lot of things. Break with generational stuff, break with patterns. I want to create a new thing for my little family.
And that is what has happened. And there are sacrifices of that, which is tradition and generational ties and all of that. And there are benefits. Which is, being a catalyst of a vibe of a creation that is just intentional and is not informed by tradition.
Amanda Doyle:
And is it a begin again, begin again, begin again-
Glennon Doyle:
Begin again, right.
Amanda Doyle:
… kind of a way of doing life?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, what about Rebecca who’s beginning again, beginning again, considering with her… She’s trying to actually decide. Does she go with West Coast, her people, East Coast, his people, if they’re settling down?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, a couple ideas, which is neither. What about starting in a brand new place and being halfway between? Also, my inner eyebrow raises every time someone assumes that the closer they are to their family, the better the family relationship’s going to be.
Amanda Doyle:
Or the easier it’ll be on them.
Glennon Doyle:
All I’m saying is, I don’t see that playing out as often as one would think. I sometimes see that the people who have the best relationships with their extended families are people who have their own thing going and dip in and out. I’ve seen it done beautifully all ways, but I think sometimes having your own thing-
Abby Wambach:
Totally. I just want to add on to that. Because I think it’s important for Rebecca to really figure out if in fact she wants to move back to her family, and if in fact her husband truly wants to move back to their family.
Because is it just for nostalgic reasons? Or is it to be closer to the family because this is what you think you were taught that you need to do? Like, well, of course I’ll just always end up close to my family?
In my mind, there is always another way that you can accomplish some of these things. It might mean more travel, it might mean more bravery in some ways, to go start your life anew somewhere. Where do you want to live, is my question.
Amanda Doyle:
Where do you want to live? And if you’re going for help, I heard an implicit idea of help. Because we are going to start a family, I don’t know how to settle where we go.
To me that’s like, okay, do you think that you’re going to get help where you’re going? In which case, I think you make a real tactical spreadsheet. How warm does it feel to be in this place? Your honest answer. Does it feel happy? Does it feel warm? Do you want to be there? Do you want to live there? Who do you think’s helping you? Seriously. Who’s helping you?
Because I’ll tell you one thing, the people who say, “I’m going to help you so much,” they’re not talking every Wednesday. You need to actually delineate. If you think Nanna’s helping you, you might want to confirm that assumption. You might want to figure out, is it going to be once a month? Because in which case maybe you’re not moving there for once-a-month help. Are we talking every Wednesday help? That’s a factor. That’s a real factor.
But really get tactical about it, because the idea of family versus the reality of family. You might be talking about you’re getting help once a month, but you’re expected to be at dinner once a week.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you want dinner once a week?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And here’s what I wonder about other people. Because I think the truth of it for me is that I realized when I was going to have my own little family of humans, that I had to be a grown-up. I understood that I have to be now a grown-up.
What I notice about myself when I’m around my family of origin, is that I change a little bit. I have these regressive things. I become my mother’s daughter, my father’s daughter. My kids notice it. I’m talking at my healthiest. It’s not without work.
I’m just being honest and saying that there’s something that shifts inside of me where I lose some of my agency, my clarity, my leadership. I am no longer Glennon the human, the mother, the leader, the wife. I am something else. And I think that’s what I notice. I want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a daughter.
Abby Wambach:
That’s the difference. Most people feel safety in feeling like somebody else has got me.
Glennon Doyle:
So, do other people feel… They don’t feel that regression?
Abby Wambach:
No. Some people might feel that feeling, but it doesn’t insult their soul.
Amanda Doyle:
It might be more comfortable for them to be a daughter than living in the discomfort of a new role of being a mother.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel a regression? Does what I’m saying make any sense?
Amanda Doyle:
It does make a lot of sense. I think in isolated situations, I do feel like I am a little different in those relationships than I am in the rest of my life.
I don’t feel like my role or the way I mother is operating at a deficit, or operating differently, because of proximity. But I think in certain situations I’m like, “Hmm, that’s so funny that that’s the way I am in this situation.”
Glennon Doyle:
I remember raising young little ones and being close to family and having a double consciousness of, I’m worried about your little tantrum, but I’m also thinking about how my parents are perceiving this tantrum. And I’m bringing their values into the situation and I’m caretaking their feelings.
Amanda Doyle:
And I’m also protecting my kid from them instead of just being the thing that-
Glennon Doyle:
Or not, more often. More often, I was not. I was going back to prioritizing their comfort over what I knew was right in this moment, or placating.
It makes me understand very much, and this is very individualistic and probably Western, but all the rituals of when you’re a grown up, you have to get banished from the tribe. And it’s not a punishment. It’s necessary because you are a pioneer of your life and your family and you do regress. I did not want to raise my parents’ grandchild.
Amanda Doyle:
Say that again.
Glennon Doyle:
I did not want to raise my parents’ grandchild. I wanted to raise my baby. And a human being with my best guess at what freedom and nurture and all of it looked like.
And there’s this thing that happens when I’m around my family where their values creep in. And I turn backwards towards their values as opposed to forward towards the little thing that we’ve created together. And I must avoid that. Even if it means missing out on some things. Even if it means, if there’s a price to pay for it, I know myself. And myself as a mother and a human being and I needed that freedom in order to create something new.
Abby Wambach:
Damn it. That’s really fucking good.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. So it isn’t a neutral thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
On the spreadsheet, it needs to be acknowledged that when you move close to family, your family or their family or both, you are not going from blank to, plus Wednesday help. You’re not going from blank to, but they’ll be able to be raised with their cousins.
You are going to all of those good things. And also you’re going to have to really steer through a lot of these very complicated dynamics with eyes wide open. You’re going to have to make sure you and your partner are very clear about what is okay on either side of the family, that you want to integrate in your own. And what is not okay with both of you about either side of the family, and that you are going to have a united front against and keep out. Because if not, goodbye. Say goodbye to your relationship. Bye-bye. Because that is done.
Glennon Doyle:
I think, metaphorically, if I and my partner were deciding between whether we should live near her parents in California or my parents in Virginia, I would suggest Alaska. Or Arkansas, I don’t know. Just something.
Amanda Doyle:
One of the Dakotas looks good.
Glennon Doyle:
A Dakota, what’s wrong with a Dakota? Nothing.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s go to Wyoming.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Just something-
Abby Wambach:
I’m into Wyoming or Montana. Lots of land.
Glennon Doyle:
If you are the type that wants to not recreate, but create… Because some kind of help is the kind of help that we all can live without. As Marlo Thomas told us. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Good luck, Rebecca.
Glennon Doyle:
Pod squad, we love you so much. Is there anything that you two would like to leave us with so that we can give these people some closure?
Okay. That’s it. That’s all we’ve got today and that is damn good enough. Pod Squad, we love you. We will see you back here next time. Bye.
Amanda Doyle:
Bye-bye.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things: First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode.
To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five-star rating and review, and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.
We Can Do Hard Things, is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.