Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Finding Your Way Without a Map: Rita Lussier and the Journey Back to You
What happens when the house suddenly goes quiet? When the roles that defined you for decades shift beneath your feet? In this heartfelt conversation with award-winning journalist and author Rita Lussier, we explore the profound journey of rediscovering yourself after the nest empties.
Rita shares the raw emotional reality of returning home after dropping her youngest at college—that moment when muscle memory expects noise and activity but encounters silence instead. With remarkable honesty, she dismantles the harmful myth that struggling with this transition somehow indicates you've placed too much emphasis on family. Instead, she validates what many experience but few discuss: the disorientation that comes when a 24/7 job that's occupied decades of your life suddenly transforms.
The conversation weaves through multiple life transitions—from redefining partnerships after years of child-focused activity to the complex emotional terrain of caring for aging parents. Rita's poignant description of role reversal with her mother, particularly during her battle with Alzheimer's, captures the bittersweet nature of becoming the caregiver to those who once cared for you.
Most powerfully, Rita offers wisdom for anyone facing uncertainty: "Be patient with yourself. You may not know all the answers right now—in fact, you may not know any answers—but you will. You just have to give yourself some time." Through personal stories, including how writing became both her therapy and eventually her path forward, she illustrates how embracing the unknown can lead to unexpected gifts.
Whether you're approaching an empty nest, in the midst of that transition, or navigating any significant life change, Rita's insights remind us that while beginnings and endings are inevitable, how we move through them shapes who we become. Her book "And Now Back to Me: Stories from an Empty Nest" continues this conversation, meeting readers wherever they are in life's journey.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne, and today we welcome Rita Lussier to the podcast. Rita is an award-winning journalist and storyteller. Her book, and Now Back to Me Stories from an Empty Nest was recently released, and this book is relatable to any age as she discusses childhood, motherhood, midlife, helping our aging parents and, as your title states, what it is like when our house, with kids and their activities, just suddenly goes silent. No matter what stage you're in, this book meets you there and it gently reminds us that in the end, we return to ourselves. Reading your book felt like walking through the seasons of my life, wandering the streets of childhood, navigating the joyful chaos of raising kids and eventually sadly, you know caring for an aging parent. Today, we're not just talking about transitions. We're talking to someone who captures them with remarkable clarity and heart.
Speaker 1:Rita's beloved column For the Moment ran in the Providence Journal for over 12 years, and her writing has been featured on NPR, in the Boston Globe, the New York Daily News and many more. She's a three-time Irma Bombeck Writing Competition winner, a writing coach, editor, publicist and a former college professor at the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College, and I want to tell you that I read your 2022 Irma Bombeck winning essay. I had to go on. I was so curious at what it was. I absolutely loved it. The way that you write is spot on and it hits us where we live, so thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, what an introduction. I hope I live up to it today, but thank you very much, I appreciate that our full-time identity.
Speaker 1:You know, we pour ourselves into our kids, our family, and we give and we give and give and then suddenly, like you talk about in your book, the house, it gets completely quiet. We drop them off at college or they go off to wherever it is that they go. And here we are. We're left staring at the next chapter of our lives and our significant other and wondering what the heck are we going to talk about or do now? But mostly we're left with ourselves. And that's such a huge shift. It's not just about empty rooms. It's about redefining who we are, without the constant needs of others directing our every move. So can you talk about the moment of transition and what that was like for you to look around and realize? Okay, now what.
Speaker 2:Well, I definitely remember, after dropping our youngest daughter at college, that we came back to the house and I walked in and I wasn't thinking of anything particular. But all of a sudden that's when my muscle memory kind of took over, I think and the quiet of the house, my daughter's bedroom looking so neat and tidy, the quilt was all folded up on her bed and there were books missing from her bookshelf, and all of a sudden, all the absence of the liveliness that we had grown so accustomed to just seemed to come up and grab me by the throat and overwhelm me. And I liken it to having been in a car driving at a hundred miles an hour and you hit bridge abutment and it takes a while to get the car started again.
Speaker 1:That's how I feel You're very visual in how you write and how you speak. Early in your book you quoted Gertrude Stein. A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing. This took a couple different meanings for me. First of all, for so much of our lives, especially as mothers, caregivers, partners we are everything to everyone. And then suddenly the house does get quieter. When you dropped your youngest off at college and came back to that new kind of silence, like you just talked about, what surprised you in that moment, about who you were.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure. I think that's what really surprised me. A lot of days I felt very lost and confused and then I think this is where this misperception about the emptiness comes in, and I will admit I think I had it. I did not anticipate that I would struggle at all, because I always had felt and had heard people discuss, that if you go in the emptiness transition and you have difficulty, that it's only because you put too much emphasis on your family, you focus too much on your kids and your home and you probably didn't have a fascinating hobby or an interesting job or something like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm here to tell you that that prevented me from probably reaching out and trying to talk about it with my friends. I felt like I should just keep this to myself, that I was having a hard time, that's cut off, because when you're raising your children you tend to have these little groups, like maybe your son is in baseball, so you have the baseball families who convene every springtime, or like you had the ballet moms where every year we were putting on all these productions and then suddenly your kid is gone and those people exist and you stay in touch to some degree or another, but over time the purpose is gone and you just kind of drift away just when you need to have a really good support network. So that's kind of our problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you're the same way, but when I'm going through something, I've always been the one that seems to keep it together with my friends, and so I didn't and I haven't shared some things that I've gone through that were really difficult, because I always try to be that one that appears as if I'm okay even when I'm not. So I don't know, it sounds like that might have been a little bit of what you went through.
Speaker 2:I think so and I think that this misperception is really got to be struck down, because, if you think about it so somebody recently said to me you know when people retire from their work, you know they work 30 years at the same company or they were in the same industry for however long there's always like some big party, there's some big recognition, and then people are very concerned about the transition. How are you, now that you're not working, are you finding enough to do? When they're checking in? And I think, wow, that's a great point, because being a parent is much more involved than that.
Speaker 2:It's, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and of course, you're going to feel it. You're going to feel that absence. And then, to just make it a little more challenging, I found your kids come back. So like, if you're in college, there's fall break, there's winter vacation, there's summer vacation, and what I found was I'd be making like a little mini step forward in my new identity. And then here they come and it just felt so natural, and you're just back into your mom role and they're the kids, and then they leave, and then you start moving forward and then they're back. So it's really challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is. I have a 29-year-old and you know, when she comes around, I mean I just go right back into being mom, you know. But I mean it's that same thing and it's really hard to let go every time. It is for me anyway, and I'm glad. I mean she has a great life and I'm really proud of her. But at the same time, you know, I still like to keep her close.
Speaker 2:So Well, that's a great point, that this is a transition unlike some other ones. That's positive. I mean, the whole point of raising your little baby into a young adult is that we want them to go out and be productive and have successful, loving lives. So it's happy, it's a very happy it is. However, even something that positive can be extraordinarily difficult to get used to.
Speaker 1:In your book you do talk about your husband, ernie and you and how difficult it was for you and how you had to reintroduce yourselves to each other, basically, and I found it interesting that you went to your parents' house and you were watching them interacting with each other and you just say with each other. And you just say, like, how do you do this? What advice did your parents give you?
Speaker 2:You know my parents. I think they gave me a couple different pieces of advice. One was that they had a very distinct division of duties. Like my dad would do errands, my mom would stay in the house and clean up. You know, down to my mom said when we paint the house, I do the trim and he does the shingles, he does the red and I'm in charge of the white. So it's like always very clear. So you know they didn't have this overlap.
Speaker 2:But I think the thing I gleaned from them the most was it isn't really the big things, it's the little things. And my mom told this story about how she used to work during the elections at a polling place and you know, just be one of the monitors, and it was a long, long day, from like eight in the morning till nine at night. All of a sudden, when I had my lunch break, your father showed up and wanted to have lunch together and I said we don't need to do that and he said but then I wouldn't see you all day. And just the niceness of that just made me realize that's what matters those little things it does. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And those are the things that we really remember. That just made me realize that's what matters, those little things it does. Yeah, and those are the things that we really remember. Yeah, exactly, you know, I guess that when a couple is faced with what you stated in your book was I'm not sure my husband knows who I am anymore and I'm not sure I do either I would think that this is a make it or break it time for a lot of marriages. Was it a mutual decision? Did you feel that mutual decision? Like, hey, we need to figure this out. One meal at a time, one conversation at a time?
Speaker 2:It felt like a period of movement for the two of you together. Yeah, I don't think we ever discussed it like that, but we had some really funny conversations like chapter that I had in the book our first weekend alone and Friday evening after we had dropped our daughter off at college earlier that week, I went to my usual yoga class and my husband Ernie picked me up and I got in the car. And my husband Ernie picked me up and I got in the car and he says so what do you want to do? And I'm like I don't know, what do you want to do? And he said well, it seems like we should do something, don't you think? Oh yeah, so we like drove around in circles trying to have this circular conversation and we ended up, we figured something out.
Speaker 2:We went to our neighbor's restaurant and sat at a bar and waited for takeout and actually made a few friends while we're sitting there. But you just got to feel your way. At least we did, you know, just kind of acknowledge this is different and we have all this time and all this freedom and we're going to have to find our way. So it made for hilarious chapters anyway. And now back to me, like when he went to my yoga class, or when I tried to understand his whole thing about how much he loves cars. You know so it was fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of is like hi, my name is Rita, Hi, my name is Ernie. I remember the date a long time ago. Yeah well, so many years go by when you're so busy and all of a sudden it's like you come back together at the very end when the kids are gone. You use the words crossroads and I use the word mile marker at times, and they're kind of very similar in that there are times in our lives where we hit the moment and this moment in time and we're just not the same again and we can only look at it through the rearview mirror. Rearview mirror, what do you think we lose or gain?
Speaker 2:in those transformative moments as we let go of what was? That's a great question, let me think I think you do lose some momentum. Obviously I think you know you had so much purpose before as a mother you know every cause I share in the book that I never intended to get pregnant the first time. But once I had my little son, jeff, I was mother, mother, bear, mother, whatever you want to call it. It just was instinctual to me. And then I just had my purpose for like a couple decades and then probably that's just stripped away. You're like what's my purpose? On the other hand, what you gain is this opportunity to reassess, reinvent, reimagine what your life will be and Re-imagine what your life will be and, you know, kind of go back to your essence of you as an individual and what you want and how you want to live.
Speaker 1:And that is a transition that takes time, but it's very worthwhile that it knocks us off of our feet without warning. No instructions tucked inside the box, no directions to turn right, then left and arrive safely at our destination. You mentioned how you know. For decades you knew what to do, but what do you recommend to anyone going through a redefining of self when we're not sure which direction to go next and there's just no map?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the most important thing that I think you can do is to be patient with yourself. Okay, and I think we mothers and fathers are patient with our kids, with everyone else, with our parents, our friends. We don't tend to be as patient with ourselves, and this is a time you turn that back to yourself and spend some time nurturing yourself, trusting yourself. You may not know all the answers In fact, you may not know any answers right at the moment but you will. You will you just have to give yourself some time Again at the moment, but you will. You will you just have to give yourself some time Again once you acknowledge this is a huge transition and give yourself permission to change slowly.
Speaker 2:As long as it takes, you'll find your way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. I need to work on patience a little bit more, I think, because I want the answers right now. You know purpose is really important. We all need purpose. That's why we're here and it's a constant redefining of everything, of who we are, along the way in our different seasons.
Speaker 1:You compare this time in our lives as a puzzle, and when you take one piece out and try putting that puzzle back together, it just doesn't fit the same. You describe running past families and when you take one piece out and try putting that puzzle back together, it just doesn't fit the same. You describe running past families and I really related to this that they were in stages of raising young kids at the bus stop and how hard it was for you to look. I felt that because that's hard for me as well. You know it's hard to see others enjoying the season that we're no longer in at times. At times Because I still, years later you know I talked about my 29-year-old daughter I still have her Lion King doll up on a shelf and every now and then I'll take it down and hold it and miss that young version of her. When is this healthy and when is it not?
Speaker 2:I think it's okay to be nostalgic and remember something, but if that is your new purpose, or if you find yourself looking back more than you're looking for, maybe that, ooh, that you would want to think about I love that you allowed thinking to be your job for a little while because we want to fill that time so quickly with other things.
Speaker 1:You refer to it as the other voice, which I loved your other voice. I've never heard that before. We're quiet with ourselves, but then this other voice kicks in and tells us you know, you should go clean that, or you need to work on this, or you need to work on that, like it's wrong for us to sit and ponder or enjoy some quiet or something that we really want to do for ourselves. We feel guilty for doing something for us. How do we fix this? Because I really do do it all the time.
Speaker 2:You just go and you override it. This was particularly difficult for me. But to do something very indulgent for yourself when you're going through a hard time. For me, I just had this idea pop in my head. The hair salon I used to go to when I was working 30 miles away. I'm just going to go up there and see my old friends and get a blow dry. And then the other voice spent a lot of time telling me no, you're not. I mean you could do laundry, you could be trying to write something, you could call your parents and I just had to really, really fight. But once I got up to that salon I was so happy that I did that and I thought we do that all the time for our families. We do that for our kids the little thing we do for the son when he had a good tennis game. Or you know what you do for your mom you take her out for a bite to eat. But for ourselves that's hard. Just go past that voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm constantly doing it for my kids and I never even think about it, but I do have to give myself permission to do something for myself. So you really talk about your parents and how you looked at them differently in this new stage of your life, and life was definitely changing in front of you with your parents as well. So how did that change for you?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things that happened to me it was kind of startling was that my day-to-day responsibility for my children was shifted, and about exactly the same time actually the same month of September, I was at a wedding of my cousin's daughter was getting married and my husband and I had a great time. We're getting in the car and there's a knock on the window of the car and it's my sister standing there shivering and we rolled out the window and she says we have to talk about you. Now that Meredith is off at college, you could start going over to mom and dad's maybe three or four times a week and helping them out. I was like let me get back to you. But it was just the juxtaposition in terms of time of the day-to-day responsibility for your parents is coming right now. Whether you need that. That's like that whole thing we call the sandwich generation.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean, it's interesting how that happens. It's just a part of life, and yours happened the same month, but it does happen as soon, and it happens with me so often. As soon as I have a little bit of free time, something else needs me.
Speaker 2:It was terrific in that I got to spend a lot of time with my mom and dad. But what was hard for me was just that reversal, the real reversal of you. Know, these are the people that you went to for everything and they took care of you and even when I was older and a parent and everything, they were there helping with the kids and everything. Then suddenly they're the ones who need the help and it's just kind of startling.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, when my mom was in hospice and I knew that the time was soon, you know, I was feeding her ice cream like an airplane and I was sitting there saying, yeah, I mean, the roles have absolutely reversed and it is probably one of our hardest transitions.
Speaker 2:I was sitting there saying, yeah, I mean, the roles have absolutely reversed and it is probably one of our hardest transitions. Yeah, I write about that. And now back to me the chapter about the pink fairies, which was a cherry blossom tree outside my parents' house and these little pink fluff balls were coming down. As my mom and I were sitting there looking out the window and I found myself telling her the same thing I had told my two-year-old daughter, because my mom was like what are those? What are those? In her stage of that, and I told her they were pink fairies, Went outside and caught one. We could make a wish, which is exactly what we did. But just like you're saying, that role reversal really gets you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you see them as the strong one, as the one you go to, the one that made it through all of the hard things in life, and then you're watching them not being able to do that. One of the things that I loved about your book is how it doesn't just break life into seasons. It highlights the power of the transition, the unexpected shifts that come with change, the what-ifs and even the small decisions that end up changing everything. You went from working to being at home, which actually opened the door to writing, and that shift led you to your column and, ultimately, to the work that you're doing now. If you hadn't stayed open to what life was offering, those opportunities might have passed you by. You know, I had a similar experience where my own column just kind of fell in my lap, and it's those times, those unexpected, unplanned changes, that can shape our paths. Can you talk more about how life found you and how being open allowed you to find your true passions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, in terms of what you're talking about, in terms of writing, I had just finished my time as a columnist, at the same time as my daughter left for college.
Speaker 2:However, the good part of that was that I had ingrained in me this need to write, and as my daughter left and I found myself in this lost and confused place, I found myself needing to write and needing to run as well, but that's another story and I would write a couple hours every morning, just get my thoughts out of me onto paper, and sometimes they made no sense, and sometimes they started to make sense, and what ended up happening over time is that I eventually I started to realize, hey, I think I might have a book here, because this writing was helping me through this transition. And then I got the idea in my head maybe some of the things that I'm going through and I'm writing about could help others go through this transition. So there's an example of what you're saying of having your mind open. An example of what you're saying of having your mind open, and I wasn't even thinking about that, but it just kind of happened through the way I was processing what was happening to me.
Speaker 1:Almost all the jobs that I've ever, or even the directions in my life, have all come just by being open and not really realizing where it's going to take me, but being okay with that.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's a skill I think that you start to develop as you grow, to just trust a little more. You don't really have control, so just forget about it. You don't Be in the moment you're in and let go and just say you know your mind is going oh, I gotta figure this out, I gotta figure no. No, you don't Just be right where you are and know and trust. You've been figuring things out now for so many years. You will. You will figure that out when you have to get there, and that's such a nice way to live.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean we work so hard at trying to control everything for such a long time and then you are so right. I mean we really aren't in control of so much and if we just kind of ride the wave and just go with it and allow it to kind of take whatever course it's going to take, it can be really quite a ride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you find that you have a lot of power that you don't even realize because you're letting go and you're trusting and believing that the good things within you that you unleash will find their way into the world and they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I never realized that I was going to be a journalist and a writer and it found me. And that's what's so awesome about it is, if you allow those things to happen, things can find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you are a podcaster.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You're bringing to light many stories that share with people who relate to it, and then you know that helps a lot of people in a different way than your writing did.
Speaker 1:That's what I loved about your writing is that you're able to help everybody in the season that they're in, not just an empty nester. But for those of us who have lived many of the seasons that you talked about, there is a saying that I think that we can all relate to, that the days are long, but the years are short. I like that. Can you reflect on that statement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, especially when you're rudderless, when you're lost, when you're confused, when things aren't making sense, when things are difficult and you have long, long, long days. But they're going to go by fast because you know that person, you're caring for that child that's a handful walking out of the house and you know that mother of Alzheimer's won't be there looking at the pink fairies anymore and you'll miss that and you'll remember that and you'll be so glad that you spent that afternoon there. So I think that's the sentiment that you're talking about.
Speaker 1:There were so many parts in your book that I loved, but one that I really loved was when you wanted to freeze time with your mom. You were reading with her and, as you said, she had Alzheimer's and you stopped when you were reading and you wanted to cherish that moment. I don't think that we do that often enough. We spend so much of our time looking at the day's events that we don't even realize what all happened when our heads hit the pillow that night, and we miss the special in it. All you know your book captured how profound each of those moments really are in our lives. Can you share how important it is to freeze those moments when they are actually happening, instead of rushing through them?
Speaker 2:That is something that you know, I think my parents, my mother's illness in particular forced me to do because if I was going to spend time with her, it was going to be quiet time, meaningful time. We baked together, we rode around. One day we went to I remember, an apple orchard and she was just so animated all of a sudden, picking peaches and apples from a tree. And it was just in those moments and you feel like I have to hold on to these. I want to remember and I would like to. I don't know if I do it, but it would be great to bring that type of consciousness into more moments, even by yourself.
Speaker 1:I have three littles as well, and I have an eight-year-old. Oh you do, I do and I'm homeschooling him and he absolutely loves to learn. We were at the zoo yesterday. I had that feeling. We were sitting on the bench and we were looking at the lions and he was eating his Dippin' Dots and I said to myself I want to just freeze this moment, yeah that's great.
Speaker 2:I love that You're a writer, so write a little something about that moment and you'll have it forever. Because in the writing I know you could take a photo, but in the writing there's all these other dimensions that don't appear in the photo.
Speaker 1:When you write from the heart, you can capture so much more. One of the things also is that you talked about denial. You talked about our defenses and fear are also topics you know that are really important, that we live with. Your mom's diagnosis brought you to denial. If we don't admit it, it's not real right. I mean, we've tried that for a while. We don't want things to change. You said denial, not hearing, not seeing, not listening, not comprehending these are my inadequate defenses. Then you go into fear and you say defenses will not work with fear. And I say that all the time. The only way out is through Face the truth, name it, see it, feel it, embrace it in all its majestic awfulness. You say that couldn't be a truer statement. How did you learn to walk with the hard truths and embrace the fears?
Speaker 2:It's not easy. I think you're always learning that every day I find there'll be something that pops into my head and all of a sudden, that's all I can think of and I'm very afraid of it. But you have to defeat it because I don't want to live that way. I don't want to live where my fear controls me. You know I had doubt and fear about publishing a book and you know, when the day came close to the launch day, I thought, oh my goodness, what if it's so poorly received and I'm just kidding myself that, you know this is going to help anybody. Or when I had my first event at the library in our town to launch the book, I thought what if people heckle me? You know, like oh no, yeah, but that did not happen. But it could have kept me from doing a lot of different things. But I think that's something our other voice wants to conjure up inside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just want to get rid of that other. It likes to haunt me and I really don't know why. We need to believe in ourselves more.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's easier for some people. Let's just say it. Men seem to have an easier time with that. I think they tend to be much more confident.
Speaker 1:Or maybe they just don't care.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a different kind of confidence, right.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean, we care so much. Yeah, something that I'm very guilty of, that you touch on, is anticipatory grief. You said that you have spent a lot of time there and you know, enjoy the now instead of what is to come, and I know that I am very guilty of that, and why do we do that?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. Again, just trying to develop that mindset of trusting yourself more, as opposed to, you know, fast forwarding. I'm going to be here, this is going to be wrong, I'm going to have messed up.
Speaker 1:Your book is is so deep and I don't even know what I loved about it is that it hits things that we don't normally talk about. You know, they're things that we kind of take for granted. One of the parts of your book that does this and this is something that we do and I don't think a lot of us even realize it is that decades can go by and we're saying to ourselves, well, you know, maybe someday. And then that someday is now and we're talking, like you know it could be decades, like you said, whether it's deciding to move or renovate the house, or, you know, maybe it could be changing career, just anything, and we let life keep us busy or fearful or distracted so much until one day we realize the decision still hasn't been made. Do you think regret might help us move out of that decisiveness?
Speaker 2:I know the thing that was in the book about the house was very emblematic of that. You know, we were so busy. A lot of people seem to manage to do things, but we kind of let our house go. Instead, we'd always be at like open houses and looking at land and just entertaining all these schemes, but we never actually did anything until we finally did, which was after the kids left. We did renovate and I did write at the end of the book about the renovation, in particular about these two great windows we had put in our bedroom and how. It just made me realize I don't know why we had procrastinated all that time, because right there, right in front of us, was all the things that we are the most grateful for, and we just were so busy that we didn't even see it.
Speaker 1:I also loved your Yellow Kitchen. Oh, I loved that chapter because it made me think of the song.
Speaker 2:The House that Made Me, it took me through your journey in a room and that was so beautifully done and realizing I was now the one who knew the recipe and we were making banana bread and she was just stirring the bowl but I had to tell her what we were putting in and everything. But then by the end of the time I spent with her I realized maybe, not, maybe she's still the one that's got the recipe. Just the way she was handling in her kind of augmented state of being how she was handling it and her loved ones and everything it was like she still knew that was pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:You talk about your relationship with your sister throughout the entire book as well. How did your relationship with your sister change throughout the seasons? How do siblings in general do you think our relationships change with our siblings throughout the seasons?
Speaker 2:My sister and I, I would say the whole season, as you put it, of our parents needing us so much and having so much responsibility. We changed from two kind of carefree, different individuals to it was like we became parents. We joined at the hip because we had to make decisions about how to care for our parents and that, I got to say, was very stressful and strained at times because we didn't always have the same ideas, but it also was a cooperative thing, because neither of us could have done it alone.
Speaker 1:So, and now we're a little more carefree, which I, like you know, you had a little bit of a different idea on how to do it. You both just wanted the best for them.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know that was the change Instead of my husband being the partner for me in terms of caregiving, my sister was, and getting used to different styles and different ideas, we did it.
Speaker 1:I want to touch on your weight chapter for a minute. First of all, bullies yes, not okay. Not okay that what the bullies wrote wouldn't come off of your house for a while there. I don't know why anyone feels that they have the right to put someone down and make them feel less than I hated that. They gave you attention when you were summer slim, rita, but when you saw yourself with extra pounds and I liked how you worded that too, I liked that you worded it at what you saw yourself with extra pounds they didn't give you the time of day. Yes, you know you share the struggles so many people have with our body and mind, and I think we often hold on to the things that we feel we have control over, like our weight, when everything feels out of control around us. Is that what the digital scale did for you?
Speaker 2:That was the whole entire book. I would say that was the most difficult chapter not to write but to decide to put in a book because it still has this shame. I guess from when I was little and I was the chubby girl and I had I mentioned some of the things in the book that happened to me and I think it was a different time too. When I was growing up I think there was less attention on being respectful of others and different people and don't say this or that. Like fat Rita could be put on my house in shaving cream by the boys in the neighborhood and that was fine. And then the next day when the shaving cream had some of the chemicals had kind of gone into the paint and that was fine. And then the next day when the shaving cream had some of the chemicals had kind of gone into the paint and that fat Rita was going to stay there until my dad repainted the house.
Speaker 2:That was a horrible time for me and you just started to learn all these awful lessons, like what I tried to express in about in the summer you're one thing because you're slim, and in the winter, if you put on a few pounds, then you're looked at as a different thing. I just felt in the end I am sharing that because I'm not the only one, and writing in and of itself is vulnerable, but a memoir is even more so, and I just decided if I want readers to relate to what I'm saying and I do then I have to be totally honest, and that was the choice I made with that chapter and actually the whole book. But that, I think, is really important and that's the control aspect and you actually refer to that.
Speaker 1:You said when you were talking about the scale that the scale is cold, hard evidence that I'm in control and I see them the numbers on the scale for what they really are an illusion. So can you touch on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in emptiness, especially the early year or so, I just kind of got a little too obsessed with my weight, as my son said to me. He said, mom, it's because everything else in your life is out of control, so you think this will give you control. And he was right. Fortunately, I worked through that. But in that moment, you know, I was like I got to weigh in, I got to weigh less. That's not good.
Speaker 1:Well, control is a big deal in our lives. Letting go, when to let go, how to let go it's something that weaves in and out of our life, through our entire life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, but I'm in this spot now where I trust, so I have let go of that.
Speaker 1:I'd love that you use the word trust to be the opposite of control.
Speaker 2:It seems like it to me because, instead of trying to orchestrate everything down to micro things like don't even worry about what's for dinner, because when we get to dinner we'll say what's for dinner.
Speaker 1:Again a letting go. Here's another hard truth that I want to talk about. From your book I saw that you said how do we explore who we really are when we are clinging to the familiar? How can we get in touch with that no-transcript children that go down there don't come back up? Oh my God. And so my friend and I. Oh my God, and so my friend and I. We would go down one step and then run back up, and then down two and then run back up and then three. We did, friend, like I made it, and it was like it's that same feeling you know of when you're going into the unknown, into that uncertain, and it's kind of funny because nothing happened, you know, I was fine, and that's what happens a lot of times when we go into those unknown areas and allow ourself to be there. Can you share a moment when you took a leap into the unfamiliar territory and it ended up shaping your life in a beautiful or unexpected way?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll go back to publishing this book, because I wanted to publish a book for a long time. I had no idea what to expect, and every moment since that and it's been about two months that the book has been out I find myself feeling uncomfortable. And then I tell myself that's okay, if you're going to grow, you're going to be uncomfortable. But, like my very first podcast, I was like what am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to say? Or every event that I've had and I've had quite a few of them now is different, and so I have now come to the conclusion that I'm going to walk into I have one Saturday expecting anything, because they've all been different. So I am letting go and just saying, yes, this might be very uncomfortable or it might be terrific. And actually every single one, even though they started out as uncomfortable because I didn't know what I was getting into, there were great things that happened in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every single time that happens with me and I'm autistic, so sometimes it's very difficult for me to meet new people and things like that. But this has been great for me to do a podcast and do the unknown, and when I started journalism, that's what got me to the point where I was comfortable with having conversations with people and learning interviewing skills. So I mean, you just never know how those things are going to help you later.
Speaker 2:A perfect example. Every time you invite somebody onto your podcast, you have no idea what you're getting. You've never spoken with me before and you don't know what the conversation will be like, but yet you're open to it. It might be a little uncomfortable to if you've thought about that, if you dwelled upon that thought, but you just come in open hearted and have a discussion.
Speaker 1:Right, it comes down to wanting to be different and wanting more and not, you know, staying stuck. Yes, one of the things that you talked about and this is this was interesting you painted adulting as kind of mundane. You know, we get sick, we get a job, we lose our job, we lose our way, we need money, we pay the bills, we make mistakes, we fix the mistakes, but then you share how something was missing in your life and it became a New Year's resolution. What was that?
Speaker 2:That's always like one of my favorite chapters, whenever anybody asks me that, because it is the way to live. It's like find your bliss, it's there, you just have to choose to find it. And that particular morning was a January morning when that revelation came to me. Our daughter had just come home for her first winter break and she was having second thoughts about college. And I had gone for a run and it was freezing, freezing, freezing, cold out.
Speaker 2:And January was January in New England and the wind was whipping and I had just finished my run run and I was just coming up to our driveway and there I saw my neighbor, jackie, and she had this bright pink parka and she was walking her two yellow labs and she said it must be so fun having your daughter home, and isn't it nice. The wind is so crisp and clear and the sky is blue. And she was just in such a great mood out there walking her dogs and I just had that visual stuck in my head for the rest of the day and I just thought that's it, it's freezing, so what? I have a pink parka and I'm just going to enjoy my dogs. Then, when you start looking through that lens, you start to see lots of other things that can make you smile. That is a great way to live. Just look for the optimistic, happy thing around you and all the rest you'll get through, but there's something that's going to make your day.
Speaker 1:Maybe you got that from your dad, because you do touch on how he is. How he was with. That is how he was with that. How did your friend's advice change you when you said try to take the time to do the things that will make you happy? In spite of it all, this is your life, your one and only one.
Speaker 2:And that's my friend Kathy, who we went out on another cold night to celebrate her birthday. That's what she said at our little gathering and I thought, wow, what a gift. She's right. She's at the point of she's a little further along in her empty nest of really reevaluating things and saying it out loud that choose, choose how you want to live. If you don't like something, change it, make this your time, and that had big impact on the way I was thinking.
Speaker 1:I also liked how your aunt pretty much gave you permission to just do your passion. You know she was like well, if you want to write, write, yeah, it seems so simple, but not at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah that was my Auntie Gert, and she came to me in a dream and I had been wrestling with what to do with my career, what should I be doing? And she was always like. She was very short and she had these very piercing blue eyes. She always said exactly what was on her mind. And in that dream she came to me and she said if you want to be a writer, write. If you want to write, just write. And I just like resonated. I was like that's it, what am I talking about? I just got to get at it. It sounds so simple. Yes, it's not, but it is Just keep doing it.
Speaker 1:One of my other favorite parts this was actually very beautiful. It was not, but it is if you just keep doing it. One of my other favorite parts this was actually very beautiful. It was hard, but it was beautiful at the same time was your parents' relationship, and I loved how, when your dad realized it was getting towards the end there, she needed to go to the hospital, and I just pictured that chapter went into slow motion for me as you talked about how he combed her hair and he helped get her ready and he was walking her out. How did your parents' relationship shape you?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely shaped me. They were always very loving toward each other and towards both my sister and I, and it was and extended on to our kids and everything. And they just taught me and that's why the dedication in the book is to Elaine and Andre for always believing in God, in love and in me, and that kind of tells you where they come from, the type of people they were. I was so blessed with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do touch about how where you come from is where you were heading. What did you mean by that? Is that what you meant, I?
Speaker 2:said that a lot of where you are has to do with where you come from, right, and I think my sister and I I think it was in the chapter about us and that we both had that background. So I think that shaped how we would move forward. And I had, at one of my events, somebody asked me an impossible question which was so you were fortunate enough to have this family, so I did not. How do you think you would have written this book if you had a different family? Because I said I am so blessed and that's the whole context of my life that I approach things with is what I was given through my loving parents. So I just cannot imagine the person I would be, the choices I would have made if I had had another upbringing. You wrote from your perspective. You wrote what you knew Exactly, so I could not even begin to imagine. I felt for that person asking that question.
Speaker 1:And you talked a little bit about your dad's perspective earlier. He seemed like quite the man, you say. His inspiration reminds me that our attitude means more than any of our circumstances, and I think that that's so important. That perspective really carries me through life. Our mindset possesses the awesome power to change the course of our moments, our days and, yes, our lives. Your dad embraced every moment. What an example he must have been for you.
Speaker 2:He was amazing. He was just such a gregarious guy, such a people person. He loved people, he just loved family and he, you know he went through a lot of health issues in his living. But he would be the first to be telling this nurse or you know that doctor, wow, you are like a miracle worker, You're wonderful, Thank you so much for coming into my room and helping me. And they would just be stunned because it was so unusual. And then when he got better, he'd always follow up with little gifts that he'd bring over to the hospital or to the doctor's office and thanking notes and he was just appreciative and grateful for everything he had.
Speaker 1:You're really touching on something there. We can find gratitude in everything, no matter how difficult it is. I think it's really important because lots of times we find the gratitude in the hindsight, you know, and looking back instead of in the moment, and I think your book really captures that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope it does, because I'm feeling that. I'm feeling that now talking with you, so I'm so grateful for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so grateful that you're on. You know, the end of your book was really interesting to me. Going on this run through your memories and I've gone back to where I grew up, which is not far from where I live, but I don't go there very often. But in all the stages of my life, you know, I go back to those places and I see a memory on every corner, the bittersweet, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I try to embrace them all. But you say you've come to truly appreciate that your marriage, your children, your family, friends and community are the real gifts in life.
Speaker 1:So many times when we are younger we are looking everywhere for fulfillment, when it's right in front of us, and it takes a lifetime of looking in the rearview mirror to see that. As your book points out, we need to slow down to see it and realize that what we are seeking for is often right in front of us. And I love the question this was one of my favorite After your youngest did move out how did I get here so quickly? How is it possible that I'm on the same road, passing the same trees, the same houses, the same faces, and yet, as I turn into my driveway, nothing feels the same, nothing seems to fit anymore. I've gone back to places I once walked as a kid, as I raised my older two kids, and nothing felt the same, but yet nothing changed. You know, it's such a surreal feeling.
Speaker 2:It is. I can even remember that moment when you just start to realize, boy, look at these people waiting at the bus, stop. I'm not there and everything just felt like you were floating in some other world and I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know what it's like to drive down a road, like after my dad passed away or whatever. I mean, it's like you're going down the same road that you've always gone to. You're going past everything and everything is exactly the same. Going past everything and everything is exactly the same.
Speaker 2:Nothing's changed, but you are, so nothing looks the same. Yes, that's exactly right. So many times in this empty nest transition that happened to me, I would be in a familiar place and expect something to happen, like the ballet kids would come out of the studio where I took yoga and my daughter's there, right? No, no, she's not, and it would just be startling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because everything's changed. Those places that we went to like when my kids swam, they're not in the pool anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know it's very difficult, but I wanted to thank you for this book about life, because that's what it's about talking about the things that we don't normally talk about. Thank you for walking through life's not-so-obvious-in-the-moment lessons that only make sense in the rearview mirror. I encourage everyone to pick up Rita's book. And Now Back to Me Stories from an Empty Nest. I wanted to end with one more quick question, because I thought about this. And if I had a signpost at a crossroad or someone coming up behind me on a similar path, what would my sign say? You know, it made me really want to think about that and I started jotting down trust the journey. You may not see what is ahead, but every step forward will reveal what you're ready to see. That's so terrific. What would yours be, I was wondering. I think it would use that word trust.
Speaker 2:You've come this far, you've accomplished this much. Trust yourself, Just trust yourself. Trust the moment, and this is where you're supposed to be. Enjoy it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're not meant to have the whole map in front of us, right? Just have to have the courage to take the next step. Yes, appreciate you being here today. It really meant a lot to me. This was great.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. It meant a lot to me to have this opportunity and to talk with you.
Speaker 1:How can people reach you? Do you have a website?
Speaker 2:The book is available on Amazon and Bookshop and pretty much in bookstores, but the go-to site is my website. It's RitaLucerecom and it has the book, information and more information about me. And you can message me through there too, and to our listeners.
Speaker 1:I just want to tell everybody thank you so much for being here today and, as we always say, remember there is purpose in the pain and there is hope in the journey. And pick up Rita's book. Read it, because, trust me, you will get so much out of it I know I did and I probably will read it again. So, again, thank you so much for being here today and we will see you next time.
