with guest Elise Seyfried

Elise Seyfried is the author of five books of humorous spiritual essays, and many freelance articles for newspapers and magazines. For 20 years, she was a Lutheran Spiritual Formation director. Additionally, Elise is an actor/playwright (co-founder of the Rehoboth Summer Children's Theatre on the Delaware shore), mom of five grown kids and Nana of two young grandsons. 

Links:

Elise’s webpage http://www.eliseseyfried.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/authoreliseseyfried

Twitter: @EliseSeyfried

Instagram: @elisesef

LinkedIn: elise-seyfried

To purchase Elise's fifth book of essays Nanamorphosis: Reflections on an Ever-Evolving Life--

http://www.eliseseyfried.com/nanamorphosis. 

Elise’s weekly newsletter: E-Musings: Things I've Been Thinking About

eliseseyfgmail.com.substack.com

Elise’s Blog: Working Title

www.eliseseyfried.blogspot.com

Rehoboth Summer Children’s Theatre: https://www.rehobothchildrenstheatre.org/

Joe Bukartek empowers people to live intentionally. As host of the podcast, Intentionally Ever After [www.IntentionallyEverAfter.com], Joe is an ultramarathon runner and pickleball enthusiast, living at the beach with his family as part of his own curated intentional lifestyle.

As a board certified Intentional Lifestyle Coach, Joe helps individuals to have lives and careers that are wildly more fulfilling. Ready to curate a life of intention? Connect with Joe on his website [www.joebukartek.com] or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joebukartek/.]

Joe also helps emerging adults build lifelong success beyond the nest in his specialized program, Intention to Launch. This results-driven partnership guides participants as they prepare to leave home and discover their ideal lives. Ready to launch? Check out [www.IntentionToLaunch.com]

If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe, either on or off the air, visit https://www.joebukartek.com/contact

Check out more episodes at intentionallyeverafter.com

Transcript

0:04

For me to live intentionally is to recognize that I am the author of my own story. This is intentionally ever after. Join Intentional Lifestyle coach Joe Brokercheck for a series of personal conversations and coaching sessions with various people about how living with intention shows up for them. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Intentionally Ever After. Today, I am delighted to be chatting with the dear, wonderful Elise Seefried. Elise, welcome. Thank you, Joe. Wow, what a great, great way to start. Elise, will you help me introduce yourself to folks, please? I would be very, very happy to. My name is the lease Seefried, and I am a mom of five kids, a grandma of two wonderful little boys. I am also a writer, a freelance writer. I've written five books and many, many freelance articles. I'm an actor and producer. My husband and I have our own children's theater company, and for 20 years I was a spiritual formation director at a Philadelphia area Lutheran Church. I recently retired and now I am writing full time, which is a little scary, but also a lot of fun. That does sound fun. More fun than scary. Yeah. But I'm not the one doing it, so I can appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. Elise What I'd like to do is kind of do a rapid fire of the the main questions here, and then afterwards you and I can dig in a little bit deeper if that works for you. Absolutely. Okay, then here we go. At least safe read. What does it mean to live intentionally? For me, to live intentionally is to recognize that I am the author of my own story. What is one change in habit that has had an exponential payoff. That 12 years ago I began blogging and I blog very intentionally. Once a week I write a 500 word essay about a variety of subjects, and it's what I'm thinking. It's a wonderful discipline for me. I've written 600, 500 word essays. They've been just a fabulous practice for me in every way. What have you said no to that has made a significant impact in your life? For me, I think saying no when it's time to go, knowing when it's time to stop. And that included acting. When I got to be a little too old to play Cinderella. Just a little, little tricky. And when I when I decided to retire from church, I knew when it was time. I knew when to say goodbye. What area in your life feels just about perfect? Oh, well, my stock answer is that I live a perfectly imperfect life. So I would say there's not much that's totally perfect, except for my grandson's six year old Peter and eight year old Aiden. They are absolutely perfect. But then that's just me talking. No, no, that's great. That's the official answer now for everybody who is someone you admire and what do you admire about them? I would have to say Jane Pauley, of all people, the news anchor. She, to me has lived wonderfully exciting, but also, again, very intentional and very wonderful life. I admire her greatly. I especially admire her openness about her bipolar disorder, which is something that I also live with. What do you imagine some people admire about you? Hmm. I would say that they probably we admire the fact that I am pretty open sharing my story, all the ups and downs of my life. One of the things that makes me the proudest is when some church folks tell me that their kids look up to me and want to be like me, and that's like my proudest moments. Doesn't happen a lot, but when it happens, it's the best. Fantastic. Thank you very much. At least this concludes the rapid fire portion of today's conversation. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Well, tons of intriguing comments in there, so I'm very excited to dig in a little bit. So the first one, the main question, what does it mean to live intentionally and you referenced being the author of your own story. Absolutely. What I go back to is my childhood, as we all do, as we all tend to do. And my forebears were all Irish and great storytellers. My, my grandparents, my mom. Wonderful stories. However, in particular, my mom lived a very disordered life. She was not intentional. She sort of let life happen to her. And I watched that as I grew up. And I was I was a participant in that and a willing participant as a child where my dad lost jobs and we'd have to move and move again. And it just seemed like everything was always out of control slightly or a lot. And so from a very young age, I decided that would not be my lot and I would make choices, as many choices as I could possibly make for the way my life would go. And it hasn't always worked out, but I have always felt that I had some agency that I think my poor mom never felt she had. Yeah, that's a it's a powerful lesson growing up. I mean, certainly some people, I would imagine, could embrace the fact that I have no agency, I have no control. I guess this is how life is. But you decided, no, this isn't my takeaway. My takeaway is I am going to be in control of my destiny, whether it works out or not. Right. There are certain external things, but that's a really great takeaway. When would you say that you felt empowered to take ownership, to have agency? When did you feel like you could control? Okay, well, the very first time I remember controlling anything was my mom was a chain smoker. Both my parents were, and my mom hated to cook and never cooked because she couldn't taste anything. And when I was around nine years old, I decided that was not the way I wanted to live. And I started cooking for the family. And when I was ten years old, my mom gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking, and she said, Have at it. You are now the cook for the family. And I remember feeling so empowered and so terrific. There I am, a ten years old, planning the family menus and cooking, doing all the cooking, which when I look back on it, I think, wow, what a cushy what a cushy thing for my mom. But you're right. She's off the hook there. But I remember that as an early, you know, an early example of feeling empowered to to make some changes in my life. To have that copy of The Joy of Cooking. I do. You know, I thought you might. Oh, my gosh. It's you can't even use it anymore because it's falling apart. But now I still do have it. Yeah, it's a good reference, you know, reference for reminding yourself that you're that you can always empower yourself at any given moment. Right. It's fabulous. So outside of the Joy of cooking book that you can use as a trigger, how do you remind yourself to live intentionally? I think my writing practice has helped me tremendously because most of my subjects are my personal life, my family life, my spiritual life. You know, I don't write a lot of fiction. I write mostly my own stories. So when I am going somewhere, when I'm traveling or when I'm taking a walk in nature or having a conversation with my children or my grandchildren, it always reminds me that, you know, these this is part of a story and some of this could be something I would write down, I could use in another way. But it really helps me to be much more observant than I otherwise might be, just looking at it as all possible story material. Yes, it sounds like you've taken these moments and integrated them into your lifestyle. It's kind of rigged the system. I like to put it like you put these constant reminders in place so that you that's just how you live. You benefit from these reminders from the material. When I look at a blank computer screen, sometimes that's a powerful reminder. Well, I. Had to live in something that happened. Yes. Yes. But the things that you're writing about becomes, you know, just a reflection, right? You're reflecting on what you've actually done so that at any given point, it seemingly is accessible to you. Yeah. And others. And others, which is what's so interesting about it. I think about my blog sometimes. Don't ask me to define it. And I said, it's an interactive diary because I write for public consumption, right? I have people who follow the blog and people who comment on the blog. So it is my you know, it's my my deep thoughts and or sometimes my shallow thoughts, but my thoughts and people respond. So there is that there is that interplay that I think is so awesome because many diarists, you know, it's under lock and key and that's fine and no one will ever see it. And it gets burned, you know, or whatever. But I've always been much more of a public person and much more of a of a share or maybe an overshare, but I do share a lot. So, yeah. Yeah. And so this comes right into our next question about the habit. You said about 12 years ago you started blogging. How did that initially what form did that initially take? Well, I set up a blog. I remember my very first blog post ever, which was in I guess it would be 2011, and it was a family story, a fun family story about going on a hike and all the you know, I'm a terribly unathletic. I mean, horribly, horribly unathletic. And I know you and your wife are very athletic, but I hope this does not take me down too much in your estimation? No, no, no. I am really not I'm not a runner. I'm not a ball player. But I was trying to go out and do a hike with with the gang of five kids and my husband. And anyway, it was it was a catastrophe, but it was a funny catastrophe. So I wrote about it. Then I thought, okay, I can do this next week. And then what happens with me is I'm pretty harsh on myself a lot. So in other words, when I set something up, I don't want to stop it. I don't want to let myself down. So I thought, okay, if I'm going to do this once a week, then I'm doing it once a week. So I've never missed a week. And in fact, every November I do 30 posts one per day. There there is something I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's called NaNoWriMo. It's National Novel Writing Month. Well, for years they had something that was sort of a spin off called National Blogging Month, where you were challenged to write a blog post every day. So I got into that. And so every November now, starting November one, I write a 500 word blog post every day and talk about your marathon. It is exhausting. By the end of that month, I just my brain is mush. I can't ever think I'll ever come up with another topic again. And then I give myself that first week of December to just regroup and then I'm back to the one a week. But it's actually been it's been a great, great thing for me. I was wondering about the recovery week, as we might call it, in marathoning, Right. Is is that first blog post after November? Is it typically picking up the pieces and just kind of a recovery or a response to that? It is it really is. I will reflect back on the month before, but I do give myself a little grace on that first one back. Yeah, well, that's excellent. That's. That's good that you did. Well, I imagine you giving yourself grace allows you to sustain this practice that you've done for so long now. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. And they're not all gyms, Joe, by far. But what's been nice about them is I've been able to repurpose a lot of my pieces into publishable work. I've written a lot for spiritual magazines. I'm a Lutheran. Living Lutheran magazine is a big magazine. And sometimes I'll take the nugget of a blog post and I'll say, well, I could really, you know, expand on this and I could sell this article to a newspaper or magazine. And I and I do that a fair amount. So it's been kind of nice, does not only for me and my immediate blog audience, but sometimes, you know, takes on a second life. Yeah, that's fantastic. I really, really love hearing how you've integrated just this this practice into your personal. It's it's personal professional. It's it's just you. It sounds like it sounds like a very simplified practice or simplified approach to living the way you want to live. Is that overstating it? Oh, not at all. As a matter of fact, I teach writing classes to non writers or people who fancy themselves as non writers. Yes. Yes. Who who do not identify as. Not identify as writers. And I will say you are you know, you are a writer. You were born with a pen in your hand, whether you know it or not. You know, you can make your story beautiful. You can make your story what you want it to be. So I do I try to, you know, practice what I preach in that in that area for sure. It sounds like it. Can you talk a little bit more about the interactive ness of the diary? You called it an interactive diary. What do you mean by that? Well, I I'm writing it for me. I'm writing about very personal things a lot, but I'm also writing it with the expectation that it will be read and that it will be responded to. And I've had really only one time in all the whatever this is, 12, 13 years, the only one time that I had an unpleasant interaction based on a blog post I wrote. Yeah. And it was a shocker. It was, you know, to backtrack a little bit in 2005, I was in my forties and I was approaching menopause and all of a sudden I started to have some very strange feelings and symptoms and had no idea what was the matter with me. But it turned out that I had bipolar disorder and I would be manic for days, weeks at a time, which meant no sleeping, very little eating, screaming all the time. Wired Right. Like a like a nut, you know, just completely out of control. And the symptoms go on and on, but they're very upsetting symptoms. And then I would crash and then I would be depressed and I couldn't get out of bed and this would go back and forth for like a year and a half. So at any rate, long story short, I did get thank God I did get to a psychiatrist. I did go on medication. I've been stable or, you know, ever for 17 years now. But one time I had written about going off my meds, which almost everyone does sometimes because you start to feel fine again and nobody wants to be on medication like that. Sure. I stopped. I lasted about a week and then I just crashed and I was so depressed and could not stop crying. Went to my psychiatrist and I was so ashamed and he was so great. And he said, Please don't be ashamed. This happens all the time. I can imagine, you know, what you need to do. I wrote about it not thinking that it would be that we any significant fallout at all. And someone that I knew kind of really was very critical and very hurtful. Like basically you should have known better. Why did you do that? And it really affected our relationship. And it brought me up short because I thought maybe I should maybe I shouldn't be this honest. Sure you would question that. Of course you would. Yeah. Yeah. But then I went back to being honest, you know, and I agree, you know, But that was that moment of like, Oh, my gosh, somebody read it and took it the wrong way. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Ray, you get to the point where you're so used to the interaction that you almost forget, you know, that you really do have people who are actually reading and thinking about what you're writing. Right? Yeah. Feel like you've got a responsibility. And I'm always and I always do say this because I write a lot about my kids and now my grandkids. I try to be super, super careful and super respectful of their privacy. If I want to tell a funny story, I always get it with them, or at least most of the time I will. You know, I'll say, Oh, this is the When Rose was four years old and she thought all the seagulls on the beach were the Holy Spirit, and she would chase them going, Look at all those Holy Spirit, which I thought was a really cute little story you write, but you know, but I said, This is okay. And 99% of the time they say, fine, but I feel a responsibility to them. I'll never I'll never publicly or intentionally embarrass them. It's not worth it. Wow. That's that's some great foresight. I don't know that everyone would give that amount of thought. Not out of malice. But I'm wondering, did this always were you always thinking this way? Were you always aware of how it might be? Or did something perhaps happen where someone didn't appreciate that there was an overshare? You know, there have been one or two times. I think we're one of the kids that said, Wow, gee, mom, thanks for telling about the time I fell off my bike and blah, blah, blah. But most of the time, no, they're absolutely fine with it. But one thing that did strike me was I went to a writers conference many years ago and the speaker was the parenting editor of the Washington Post, and she was great. And she said, look, if you're going to write about your kids, just be aware that whatever is in print is forever. So if they're looking for a job or they're applying to college or maybe a future romantic interest, her friend can look them up and find this. You know, think carefully before you add to their profile, as it were, their public profile. So I already kind of felt that. But that really cemented it for me was, oh, gosh, how would I feel, you know, if something about me that was not quite so flattering was was just and out of my control was was just out there thanks to good old mom. So, yeah, it really reinforced that. Does it in any way filter your original thoughts or does it do you put that filter in after after you have done your writing and then ask yourself, does this pass the check? You know what? That's an interesting question, Joe. And I will say that sometimes it's early and sometimes it's late, sometimes right away, I'll think, Wow, this is kind of a hot button topic here. We're going to go into it. And then other times I'll write it and then I'll go back and I'll think, Oh, Evan might not be so thrilled with that, you know, I better check with him kind of thing. Yeah. I have five kids and they have different tolerance levels. I'm sure. Am I wondering, too, is do their tolerance levels or their perspective shift as they go through their own lives? Right. Are they more open to different shares versus, you know, that that would be in particular those who have the children who are your your grandkids, I wonder, you know, if they have a different lens, I imagine they would. But yeah, that seems like you've navigated this pretty openly. It sounds like you've been very upfront with your process and your thoughts, and it sounds like that's been very beneficial for. The most part. For the most part it has been. And my daughter, my older daughter is a writer. She's not a professional writer, but she has her own blog and she's absolutely so talented and so great and writes completely differently than I do. But in your own way, she's just as brutally honest. She doesn't always check me before she writes about me. But that's okay. But you know, but it's great. I love it. I love the fact that she expresses herself that way, you know? And so there's the writing bug is sort of in the family. All of my kids are good writers. All five of them. Yeah. Not that you're biased or anything. You wouldn't say that. Yeah, I really know. Everyone says it, Joe. Everybody. Everyone I know. I believe it. I believe it. Yes, yes, yes, of course. So what have you said no to that has made a significant impact in your life. You said something effective? No. When it's time to go, where does that come from? Well, I always think of overseeing. You're welcome at a party or overstaying your welcome. As a houseguest, I'm always very I tend to be the one who will leave before that happens. You know, sometimes I'll leave too early. I leave them wanting more. And my husband and I began performing children's theater and writing our own material. You know, many years ago, we founded the role with Summer Children's Theater at the Delaware Shore in 1982. So that's 40 years. I was in my early twenties and he was young and we were writing funny parodies of children's classic stories. And so, you know, he was Prince Charming and I was Cinderella or I was Peter Pan or whatever. And we just kind of kept going. And part of it was, you know, that was our our living right. So I kind of had going. So I would perform up until like, oh, I don't know, six months of pregnancy. And I would just wear these loose, loose dresses, you know, And I'd think and there's Dorothy on the road, on the on the yellow brick road. And, you know, it's really it was looking back and it was it was really kind of silly. But I don't think the kids noticed. Your parents probably noticed after a while. But I got to a certain age and I and I did say to Steve, you know, it's been a great run, honey, but, you know, I can't do this anymore. And he's a character actor, so he's made it a long time past my prime because I was always white. I was always the aunjanue. I was a cute little one. The shelf life on that is short, okay? Because because of the traits that that one expects from those roles is on. Jimmy Okay, absolutely. So but he was great. He was marvelously supportive of me and I'm sure he was a little, a little sad, but it was time. And then the church job just happened right around that time. And I sort of segued right into that. So it worked out. It worked out really well. But but it was a real know that I had to say, I don't know that Steve would have said no to me. I don't think he would have said, Honey, it's time for you to stop. In other words, it was me. I had to say it. And then just retiring from church last spring, people wanted me to go on. I had been doing a tremendous amount of work in this job, teaching Sunday School, leading confirmation, taking 40 kids on a high school mission, trips every summer, leading vacation, Bible school, leading adult Bible study. I mean, it was just so, so, so much. And I got to the point, especially with the mission trips where, you know, you're traveling, you're living in a rural area, you're sleeping on the floor right. And you're you're chaperoning 35 to 40 high school kids. And the last trip we did just before the pandemic was to Puerto Rico. And I remember really waking up stiff and sore and irritable and saying, you know, this is not fair to the kids. It's it's time for me to stop this. Knowing when to say enough. I think it's I want to it's a young person's job, but I don't think it's an older persons job. I think there's a tremendous amount of physical energy that has to go into it as you age, even if you're aging gracefully, you know, in your mid-sixties, you're not the way you were when you were in your late thirties. It's just not happening. So I hope that they're still looking for a replacement for me, but I'm hoping that they will go with somebody a little a little younger. But I mean, the kids were always great. They never complained or acted like they weren't happy that I was there. But, you know, I felt like I wasn't giving it, you know, 100% anymore. Yeah. It seems like you have a good sense about that for yourself. It's like when something isn't totally feeling right. It sounds like you're not forcing it past a certain point. You're like, You know what? That's another opportunity for someone else. They've been wanting more, right? I like that idea. And now. Now what is the current? What is the current thing you're throwing everything into? It sounds like what area in your life feels just about perfect. Maybe I'm making a connection with the grandkids. That's perfect. I mean, it's just they live with us. It's such a joy. My oldest son is a composer, a classical composer. So is his wife. And they have church music jobs as well as as they're there composing. And we have a big house that had been an empty house. And so they moved in with us and it's just worked out so beautifully and we are so delighted to have them with us and they contribute to the household in a million ways. I just have had the joy of being there for Aidan and Peter from the day they were born. I just can't tell you how fabulous that is to to be able to be with those little guys every day. And I miss them when they're gone. My daughter in law is from Taiwan, and they didn't get to go for three years to see her family because because of the pandemic, they hadn't been since early 2020. And they finally went. And because it's such a long trip, it's, you know, 17 hour flight, for starters, they were gone for five weeks and she had the kids, kids out of school. And they all went because to see her family, you know, there was a week that it was like, oh, it's nice and quiet around here. And then the second week was, oh, nice and quiet around here. A little too quiet. Little too quiet. So really loved having to come back. I'm sure. I'm sure absence makes the heart grow fonder or something like that, right? Something like that, Yeah. So after one week you had the realization. Four weeks is a long time. For sure. For sure. Pretty significant. So now everyone's back. We're all back on base. All back. And but it's nice because we do go away enough, we're separated enough, you know, that we're not each other's way. On top of each other. Yeah, well, right. Steve and I are finally starting to travel, which we never could do when the kids were young. So we've been really trying to get away every every year, if we can. So in the fall, we went to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic for two weeks and it was great. It was great being away. It was great having time with Steve. And I think it was good for the for the guys back home, too. So we seem to know how to balance. That's great. Yeah. Can I ask a little bit more about how you choose this, how to live intentionally in this phase of life? Because now you have, you know, people back under your roof. You know, people went away and that looked a certain way. And now people are back. And yet you and Steve are finding ways to do things, to take trips. How do you stay connected with making sure you're living the way you want to live in this space? Well, I think, again, it's a lot of mutual respect that the four adults navigate pretty well. I think we all have a good sense of humor, and I think we're all pretty boundary. I really try never to interfere with the way the kids are being raised. They're being raised beautifully, by the way. But, you know, this is their third turn. I had my turn, you know, and this is their turn. And that helps. And I always say that if I didn't have my daughter in law as the saintly, wonderful woman that she is, this would not work. But she's a gem. And it's such a blessing that it really makes it work for for us. You know, for now, it works great. And the kids are living not far away, but none of them are ever going to come home. Well, not not as home as under the rules. Oh, no. No, no, no, not at all. I mean, I have one in Seattle and I have two in New York City, you know, And my my other son is out way out about an hour from from here. So and they were very happy to be raised in this little suburb. And they've made it very clear that they'll be back for visits pretty much. And that's it. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. So for for the listener or the casual listener here where you located, at least. We are in Orleans, Pennsylvania, which is an immediate northwest suburb of Philadelphia, but right outside the city limits. Yeah, that's a great area. Oh, I had a logistical question. If you feel comfortable sharing, do you do any sort of like family meetings, given that you have so many humans under your roof and some of them are adults? Right. We don't have prescribed family meetings, but we eat dinner every night together. So we're together and we talk things out. When the boys are excused from the table after they finish eating, that's our time. If something's come up that we want to discuss, usually that's when we'll do it or after they've gone to bed. But it's not formalized. But yeah, we definitely do keep the lines of communication very open. That's great. Thank you. The reason I'm asking is because there is this phenomenon that you may know exists in other families where, you know, communication isn't so clear, and parents of adults with children have different feelings on how kids should be raised and different, you know, mental models of how things should go. And it sounds like you've found a great way of navigating so much so that you're able to thrive under the same roof. So do you have any? I don't know. Maybe it's advice. Do you have any advice for folks who are in this dynamic in some in some role? Well, I think that what I keep going back to, Joe is, you know, for everything, there is a season, right? And I had my season to be a mom to young children and to raise them as I saw fit as my husband and I saw fit. And I will say that while I was kind of dissing my mom back a few minutes ago, one of the things she was really great at was appreciating me as a mom and being super supportive and non critical and non-judgmental, and she really let me find my way. That is something that I'm always going to be grateful to my mom for, for doing, because several of my friends had very, I wouldn't say domineering mothers, but very opinionated mothers. And as they would start to have their families, you know, mom would be on the phone telling them, you know, that they should be doing this with the kids or not doing that, or the kids are involved with too many activities or, you know, they were bedtime is too late or and I remember thinking, if I would do, that's just awful. Be that as it may very common approach. Oh, I know it's coming. Oh, I know it's coming. But I think everybody deserves a chance to kind of do it their way, make their mistakes, do it their way without without too much interference from the wise elder. Yeah. Which I think. Well, no, no, no, no. I think effectively you become wise by living and having experience. So at a minimum, through lived experiences. Yeah, that's phenomenal. Thank you. Talk to me about Jane Pauley, how she showed up for you, the whole story, it sounds like with with your mom here. Yeah, she's from Indianapolis, which is where my Steve was born and raised. So that's a little connection right there. And she was an anchor on TV. I think she was on the Today show by the time she was 25 years old. So she was super young to me. She always had that persona of being very friendly and open, smart, but not a know. It all had a great sense of humor. I just always admired her personally. And then as her career developed and she had some glitches, I thought she handled them with a lot of grace. And then in 2004, she wrote her memoir called Skywriting, and that's where she talks about her her struggles with bipolar. And I remember reading it, and at that point, I was not showing any symptoms. And it was maybe the first book I'd ever read on that subject because people didn't talk about it back then. People didn't know what it was, and people weren't very open about sharing. So I remember reading it and thinking, Wow, that really takes guts, you know, to come out and say that. And then two years later, there I am with the same with the same issues. And then I had to make the decision, am I going to be open about this or not? And when I was diagnosed after hiding it successfully. So I thought from the church for a year and a half, I wrote a letter to the congregation and I said, This is what's been going on with me. You know, for better or for worse, this is the reality. And I hope you all will understand and keep supporting me. But this is what I'm going through. And they were to a person and they were absolutely amazing. I mean, people came up to me afterward and said things like that. I had known for these people for, you know, 15 years. And they'd say, you know, I struggle with depression or my wife. I think she has bipolar or, you know, I mean, all of a sudden they're telling me their stories and they're feeling as if they can share their stories with me, which was such an honor. I mean, you realize how many people do struggle with this and there's still so much, so much stigma, which is just so horrible that that people have to struggle with that as well as what they're struggling with, with their with their mental illness. So anyway, that's that's one of the reasons that I admire Jane Pauley. Plus, she's married to the guy who draws Doonesbury, so that's pretty perfect. Yeah. That's a really good reason to admire somebody. I think that's fabulous. That's a good. Well, before we get to too far off on Doonesbury, it sounds like a great gift that you were able to provide the fellow members of your congregation to to give them permission almost to open up and speak out a little bit. That vulnerability that you expressed sounds like it was beneficial to everyone. Well, you know, I thank you. I have come to believe as as much as I sometimes think I overshare, I think the vulnerability does give people permission to be vulnerable as well. And I think that can only be a good thing. It sounds fantastic. And there's that common thread again, back to your your blogging and the way that you express yourself and open it up for being interactive. And I'm going to come back to that actually, because I'm wondering, what do you consider your responsibility is to viewers, readers of your blog, if any. Honesty is a big one, try to approach everything as as plainly and clearly and honestly as I can. I try not to dwell too much on very negative things. I try to keep things positive. Even when I'm talking about something that's a difficult subject. I try to always end on a note of hope. I use humor a lot just because I like to be funny, and I think it really elevates, hopefully elevates the mood. I think this this world is a tough enough place, especially nowadays. It really don't we really don't need people continuing to like, okay, you think you're feeling bad now, We'll read this, you know, then you're really going to be depressed. So I think that is a bit of a commitment that I've made not to be not to be a Pollyanna and pretend things are always rosy, but to to look at it as, gee, we can what's that wonderful quote that everyone's quoting all the time now? I think it's rammed us saying we're all just walking each other home. That's what life is, just all walking each other home and it's true. Yeah. That's great. So what do you imagine some people admire about you? Imagine. And also you've been told so you don't have to imagine as much. You know, I who knows? People pick different things. You know, sometimes someone will say, gee, you know, I think that, you know, your sense of humor is great. And then other people will look at them like, Oh, well, this is funny. Really? You think she's humorous? Humor is such an incredibly individual little thing. You know, everyone has their idea of what's funny or not. But I would like to think that people might admire the fact that I raised the kids pretty well with with Steve. I'm very, very proud of them. They're they turn out to be wonderful human beings. And a lot of that is not to my credit, but I like to think that I didn't stand in their way as they were growing and blossoming to be who they were meant to be. Always been a big cheerleader and, you know, help them as much as I could with opportunities. They're all very musical, always made sure they had lessons, etc., that kind of thing. So yeah, I think I think maybe people do think that I was a pretty, pretty decent mom, pretty decent at my job at church. But it's funny when you say admire, sometimes they put you on a pedestal and it's so uncomfortable because we would sit in church in them on a Sunday morning, you know, and it's all the kids all in a row and that little nice dressed up and and one of the moms said, Oh, you make me feel so bad because my kids were fighting in the car, you know, And you obviously, you've got it all together. And I said, you know what? Next Sunday, I am going to videotape my family getting ready for church and you will feel so much better. I'm not going. You can't make me go. He's wearing my, you know, shirt. I make him take it off, you know, everything, everything. And so I really wanted to get myself down from that pedestal because that's not helpful to anybody. And, you know, be honest and say, you know, we all we all struggle with this. It's not easy. You know? So rather than be admired, I guess maybe I would prefer people just identified with me to be relatable. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's admirable to want to be relatable. How about that? There you go. I think you can have it all. I do. All right. Sounds good to me. You can let other people put you on the pedestal. You don't have to be on your own. I think that's okay. At least. What else would you like to share in the name of intentionality? What other do you have that you'd like to bestow or get into? Life is just this amazing gift that we've been given, and none of us know how long it's going to last. One of the formative experiences in my life was the loss of my sister, who was killed in a car accident when she was 23, and she was just 11 months younger than me. So we were very, very close. I have really tried to live the rest of my life through the lens of what did Maureen not get a chance to live. I want to live a good life. I want to experience as much of life as possible, you know, And I want to do good in the world because she was a wonderful person who did so much good for others and her life was so tragically cut so short that in a way, I feel like I owe it to her. I don't know. That sounds strange, but I feel like I owe it to her because I've had all these extra years. I've had 40 something years without her now to make her proud and to appreciate this life that I was lucky enough to be blessed with so many more years of. So I think if everybody could just say, take a step back and say we are just darn lucky to be here, the world is a mess. And yes, yes, yes. But we all can make it better. And there are so many moments of joy and beauty in every day that we are so lucky to be here, to experience and to share. That's fabulous. Do you mind if I ask a little bit more about Maureen? Sure. I'd love to talk about Maureen. Well, then the spotlight is yours. Please share Share more. She was just a very special person, Very funny. Funnier than me, if you can imagine. I don't know about that. No, she was hysterically funny and she was a beautiful girl. And she was the sweetest, kindest soul ever. There's nothing she wouldn't have done for her friends. Many stories of friends running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. And, you know, Mo getting in her car and going and rescuing them and. And when she died, it was so striking to me how many people contacted my other sister and myself years later to say what an impact Mo had had on their lives. As a matter of fact, one really strange story when I wrote my first book in 2010, a couple of years later, I was contacted by one of Mo's former boyfriends that they had dated, you know, 40 something years ago. And he said, and I had never, never kept up. He didn't even know that Mo had passed away. But he was in New Jersey at his dentist's office. He's sitting in the waiting room and someone had left a copy of my book on the table. He picked it up, started to read it, and realized that Maureen was the one I was talking about, was my sister. And he found me. Wow. And he contacted me. And he's an actor. He was off-Broadway. And my my daughters and I went up to see him perform. And I hadn't seen him in 40 years. And after that was one of those wonderful nights, because we stood backstage after the show and Michael shared stories about some of their silly, funny dates that they went on and some of the things that Mo had said that I never knew, I had never heard. So it was almost like getting her back and having my my daughters hear about Aunt Maureen and stories that I never could have told them because I didn't know. Yeah, you know, and she wrote letters. She was a prodigious letter writer and she was living in Atlanta, Georgia. And Steve and I were doing children's theater up in the Northeast. And she wrote a lot to me. And I was so thrilled and and happy that I saved all the letters. I saved them in a box never knowing. Right. That she wasn't going to make it. And so I kept them all these years. And for the 40th anniversary of her death, I went to Staples and I had five copies made of all the letters and bound and gave them to my five kids. So now they have the letters. Fantastic. And the letters really are very, very, very descriptive of the person she was. So that was that was such a gift to be able to share with them. Yeah. What a great memory. An artifact to have. Yeah, but I miss her. The world is not as great of a place without without her in it. Well, it sounds like she's still very much a part of it. Very much so. Right. It sounds like I imagine you think of her often. Many, many times a day. Yeah. And in fact, I named my oldest daughter Maureen after her. Maureen Rose. You know, I thought about that. Was that the right thing? Was that there? You know, because there is this larger than life, dear departed Aunt Moe and now this little girl's got this name. And I think she did struggle with it some. And when she was a junior in high school, she went to Thailand for a year as an exchange student. So she lived in Thailand for one year. And when she came home she said, I am Rose, I am not Maureen anymore. Please Rose from now on. Mixed emotions, sure, But I really wanted to honor that. And my mom, my sister, mother would have been all for it. And so now she's Rose and she's her own rose. And it's wonderful. Such a maureen thing to do. It's such a maureen thing to do at. Maureen's in your family, I'm telling you. You know. You know. It's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And I really appreciate it at least What what more there's I don't even know where to go next. There's there's other other pieces here that I want to unlock, but I also want to be respectful of your time. Well, this is this has been delightful. It really has been. And, you know, again, I, I think we've covered the waterfront, at least a large chunk of it, you know, And again, you know, the only take away that I would would reiterate was, you know, would be for people to feel that they have a story that they're living. And it's their unique story. They have the power to shape it and make it something wonderful and special and can try not to let it to be, you know, cast onto the onto the waves of a life and be buffeted without any any control. You know, there's a lot we can't control for sure, just period. But of the things that we can, I think we really should try to at least, you know, write an honest and compelling and unique and great story for ourselves. Love it. That's very powerful. That's a good one to end on. So I'm not going to ask you any more questions. Elise, thank you so much for the time for sharing your stories and your experiences. I really have enjoyed getting to know you that much better. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been great. Yeah. Thank you very much. This has been intentionally ever after hosted by intentional lifestyle coach Joe Booker Tech. If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe on or off the air visit intentionally ever after dot com. Thanks for listening.