Hey Again

Hey there. Long time don't talk. Um There are a lot of things that I could say. I could give you reasons that I've been gone, that haven't recorded, that I haven't shared episodes or pictures or updates. And I think the important part of this recording is that I am here. And if you're here and you're listening to it, that's the important part too. We don't always get to pick what's important and when it's important. But we get to pick when we share. And I decided today is a good day to share with you guys. I'm still here. And there's been a lot of change since my last episode. And there's been a lot of shifts. And there's been a lot of life. And really what I wanted to say is that it's okay to step back and to step away. And recognize when you can break. Because if you feel like you have to force it, whatever ambiguous it the thing is, it won't be genuine. And it won't be who you are, and it won't be the message you really want to share. So in the last seven months, I think I've recorded multiple season opener episodes, and I haven't posted a single one of them. And it's not because I didn't want to share what was going on with everybody. But it wasn't the right time for me to focus on my podcast. To focus on talking to other people. Math is hard. Math is still fucking hard. But since my last episode, I've recorded six hours or more with my girlfriends talking about life and whatever. And I haven't shared it. And it's not because I didn't love what we talked about, I did, and I'll share it eventually. But I felt like I was pushing myself to record, and pushing myself to put out content, and pushing myself when I didn't have the capacity, I didn't have the spoons, I didn't have the energy to do more than just put something out. And I've been reflecting a lot on what I want this podcast to be going forward, and if I want to keep podcasting, if talking into the void most of the time. Not all the time, because sometimes I talk to like the voices, I talk to the cats, I talk to my friends, but deciding if that's what I want to keep doing, or if that's more energy than I have the capacity for. And since I put out the last episode, yeah. Yeah, it's been more than I had the capacity for. And there's a lot of life that's happened. There have been a lot of little recordings that have happened that never got shared. Because I'd record and I'd be like, oh my god, I'm exhausted. But I miss it. And that's what my time away has shown me. That's what the time not recording and not posting, not sharing has shown me is that I enjoy sharing episodes with you. And I think what has happened, or what was happening, is I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to make it sound good, to make it stay professional, like to have intro music and outro music and blah blah blah stuff and things because I felt like I had to put out a specific product. But nobody asked me for this. Not really. Like there have been people who were like, oh my gosh, you should host that podcast, or oh my gosh, I would totally listen to you talk forever and ever. I don't know that they'd ever actually listen to me talk, so maybe they were lying out their buttons, but I don't know. But nobody asked me to do this. Nobody set any expectations of what a podcast episode would be. Nobody said I had to have music. Nobody said I had to have guests. Nobody said it had to be a structured outline every single episode. Nobody said that but me. And so I was putting all this pressure on myself about my content and my creative process and my output and all of these things. And it stopped being something I enjoyed. Stopped being fun. It stopped being a thing that I did because I enjoyed it. And so I I'm recording this in my car, by the way. Like if you can't tell, because here's the thing you're gonna get snipples. You might get a sneeze. Tell your pets I'm sorry in advance. Because when I sneeze, it comes from the depths of my soul. But there have been so many times since I put out my last episode where I wanted to sit down and record and just talk about whatever. And I didn't do it. And I didn't do it because I thought of how much time it would take to edit, and how much time it would take to add in music, and how much time it would take to type up an episode word, how much time, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Because the only person who decided those things needed to be a thing were me. And so the person who could decide they didn't need to be a thing anymore, I'm gonna let you know a secret. Was also me. So this is my first episode back. Since I think November. And I'm recording it in my car on a surprisingly emotional Saturday in June. And maybe I'll talk about why it was emotional later. Not doing it right now. And this episode didn't start with the greetings and salutations, which feels weird now that I'm thinking about it. Because that's my brain overthinking. But honestly, it did feel weird to just like excuse me, start talking and not greetings and salutations, you and for people who think that's like a gimmick, one, yes, you would be correct. It is a gimmick. And I also answer the phone greetings and salutations when it's somebody I know, when it's my brother, or I'm leaving a voicemail. By the way, my voicemails are hilarious. If you want a voicemail, drop me a comment. Let me know. I'll leave you a voicemail. But it is actually something you say. And I've missed recording, and I'm not gonna set myself up on a schedule. I'm not going to say every episode is gonna be this long, and it's gonna have a guest, and this is the guest that blah blah blah. I'm not gonna do that. Because one, I am the only person uh operating the podcasty things. This is a one-woman comedy show, and I would much rather expend my energy on talking to you about the weird shit in my head and my current knitting project and the weird shit my cats are doing, and whatever else comes to mind. So that's my plan, and that's what I'm gonna do. And if you keep listening, I love that for you. I love that for me because I love to see the data points that I get on my podcast, my hosting platform. That's exciting. Y'all know I love me some data, but I'm not going to hold myself to regular expectations of you're getting an episode every week and it's gonna be edited with music and sound bites and blah, blah, blah, stuff and things. I can't do that. And seven to one, the likelihood that you started listening to my podcast because of the regularity and the consistency of said podcast is probably non-existent because I have a neurospicy brain, diagnosed or not. And I have a depressi-expressi brain, and a lot of the time it dictates what happens. And I miss podcasting. I miss putting out an episode every once in a while. Maybe it will be more thoughts from the couch style, where or the tomorrow, or the car, you know, whatever. But I enjoy the shorter episodes because it's it feels more genuine, it feels more me. And the reason I started the podcast was because I just wanted to talk, like really thinking about it. I wanted to talk to people. And just as weird as it sounds, I wanted to talk to you without either of us having to disclose anything out of gate. Right? Like, you listen to an episode, you listen to another episode, you're like, this chick is crazy. I love it. Or this chick is possibly needing some support. I don't think I can handle this. Also, totally okay. But it's not just a one-sided relationship. Because if we're in a relation, I don't know if you know this, and maybe you should tell your significant other or your pets or your fish. Because I feel like fish fall under a different category of pet, but that's a whole other conversation. But I feel like for me, when I listen to a podcast, or when I listen to an audiobook, those are voices in my head, and we are in a relationship of some kind. And I have missed our relationship. I have missed the intimacy of talking into the void to you, who I have most likely never met. Because the number of you who have downloaded episodes of this podcast exceeds the number of people that I think I have personally told about this podcast. So some of y'all found me some other way. So we are in a relationship of some kind. And I'm excited about that. I've missed that. I've missed talking to you. I've missed being the weird voice in your head saying, should you do that? Yes, you probably should. Not. I don't know. I don't know. I can tell you what I would do. And that's all I got. But I've missed that. And I have missed jumping on and starting a voice note on my phone and just talking into it and having a cat stick its butt on my phone so I sound bum. You know, like I've missed that creative, intimate connection. So here's my plan. I am going to keep living my life clearly. I'm recording and driving. Although I'm not touching my phone. Let's be clear, I'm not breaking any laws. I started the recording before I started driving. So I won't stop the recording until I'm stopped at a light or pulled over on the side of the road of my own volition. Okay? If you're my mother, it's fine. If you're someone else's mom, it's still fine. But I refuse to commit to an episode time length. I refuse to commit to episode guests. I refuse to commit to a regular posting schedule. I refuse to commit to editing regularly. I refuse to commit to intro and outro soundage. Don't think that's a real word. Don't really care. Because podcasting, putting episodes out, does something for my mental health. I didn't realize I needed. Outside of therapy, outside of my amazingly supportive friends and my brother, who I send ridiculous Margot polos to at the ridiculous times of day. Sometimes it's a follow-up of don't listen to that polo until you're by yourself, because I swore a lot. You know, whatever. But no turning, you're gonna hear a turning signal because I'm not editing anything. You're gonna get what you get and be happy about it. But, you know, the idea for this podcast, if you remember, started way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way back more than 10 years ago, with a suggestion from my very uh liberal conservative father, which is such a weird thing to say. My dad came up with the idea for a podcast when I was selling vibrators to parties, and he can't say the word vagina. Hashtag true story. But that's where the idea originally came from, and it has changed so much in that time since it was first suggested, suggested to when I started putting out episodes to now. There's been a lot of change and a lot of shift, and I need to be honest with myself about what I'm capable of capacity-wise. Can I produce quality audio? I don't know if it's gonna ever be quality. I don't know if it ever was quality. Can I produce entertaining audio? Yes, yes, I can. But more importantly, I can put out something that other people apparently want to hear and share and listen to and talk about. I don't know that that makes me unique, I don't know that that makes me interesting, but it does something for me, for my internal self, for the depressing expressi, for the anxiety, for all of these different facets of me that have not been served since I stopped putting out episodes. And you you know, if if you're listening to this episode, you've clearly listened to others, and you know that I do this thing where like I will just talk and ramble and eventually maybe, maybe, maybe, if we're lucky, come back to the original topic. And here we are. When really all it needs to be is me with my phone and the voice memo app. Or me with my phone and a friend and the lapel mics that I got off of the Amazon. Or me fighting off a cat who wants to eat the microphone while I'm trying to talk. Because y'all know you were there for those moments. And those are the things that I've missed. I've missed talking to you. So I'm just gonna start talking again. And I'm gonna start looking at my episode stats again. Somebody downloaded an episode. I don't know which one. I didn't go look, which is weird on its own. But somebody downloaded an episode yesterday and I'm like, oh god, I hope it was an interesting one. But no one's listening because I'm interested. You're listening because you also want someone to talk to. Unless I am interesting to you, and then you should tell me, and that will make me feel better about life for at least 23 seconds. But me recording these episodes, your enjoyment is a byproduct. Because this is sometimes how I work things out or how I talk about I don't know, weird shit. And I've missed it, and I've missed you. And I hope if you're listening, you don't feel so alone. And if this is the first episode you've ever listened to, I am so fucking sorry. There's a lot less swearing in this episode than normal. There are a lot less cats, and there's a lot less yarn. Um but there's a lot of mental health, and so that's pretty consistent. But if you are still listening, thanks. And I missed you, and I'm really excited to put up this episode. And I wish I could tell you when the next episode is gonna drop, but I can't. And by can't, I mean, oh look, there's a baby go in the field! That's what's gonna happen when I'm driving. So get excited. I wish I could tell you when the next episode is gonna drop. I wish I had that capacity, but I don't. And so if you can, hang in there. There will be more episodes. If you really miss me, you can go listen to all the other episodes again. It's like reading an audiobook, but more jumbled and nonsensical. And some weeks, weeks, that's see, that is old habit. Some episodes might be heavier than others, or I talk about some shit. Because life has been happening a lot. Like you can't just tell life to stop happening. That doesn't really work. So some episodes might be heavier, some might be me just randomly talking, some might be me talking about yarn, about cats, about my friends, having my friends on. Who knows? You know, if you're listening, you've experienced quite the gamut of weird concepts for podcast episodes. Might I suggest the gospel of the litter robot? They're still not sponsoring me, which is fine. Y'all should get one. But I've missed recording and I'm gonna start doing it again. You're gonna get an episode when you get an episode. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy recording them, whether that's from my car, from my couch, from my bed, from a pool. I don't know, it's gonna be summer-ish. Anything's possible. But I missed you. And well, I can't guarantee consistency. That's all I got. I can't guarantee consistency. Girl, I struggle to take my meds every day like I'm supposed to, and those are good for me, okay? Those require regularity for mental wellness, and I still struggle. So I hope you will stay subscribed for surprise episodes because all of it's a surprise. One never knows what's coming. But I hope you enjoyed this random blurb, and but I'll see you next time. Cats and I aren't going anywhere. We already moved. That was a whole thing. And if there were cats in the car, you would hear them. Thank god there are no cats in the car. But I'm gonna go. If you're listening, thank you. Uh if this is the first time you're listening and you're like, what the fuck? Thank you. You're welcome. Welcome to the shit show. Um thanks for being here. And hopefully I'll talk to you all soon. Bye.