Miranda
Hi Natalie.

Natalie
This is our two-for-one episode of Sister On! and The Big D, come together to reframe divorce.

Miranda
Yes. Sit back and take in our breakup stories (because who doesn’t like a little drama?) and keep listening for the ways we reframe our experiences of divorce, and what comes after the papers are signed.

Natalie
We’re going to talk about video games and recipes and other reframing tools that have helped us to get to the other side of this very big word.

Miranda
I hope you enjoy.

Ok, so on The Big D, my first question to my guests is: what is our meet cute? A ‘meet cute’ is a term from film where the two romantic leads meet. It’s kind of like that moment where, you know, one of them drops a pencil and then the other one goes to help pick it up for them — and then that’s the moment. So do we have a meet cute, Natalie? How did we meet?

Natalie
I think our meet cute is right now. I think our meet cute is you having to run and find your phone, because you are a more sensible person and not glued to the device like I am. I don’t know, ours is probably a combo, because you’ve hung out with my sister and our dads have hung out — but that’s kind of in terms of past lives. But no, I don’t think we’ve had our own unless you’ve ever seen me or Googled me in preparation for this very specific day. But I’m actually curious to know if you have any memory of us connecting, because everything is just through Becca — and it’s often so much of my life is through Becca.

Miranda
I mean, I did always know that there were two of you. Two Davey sisters. But yeah, this is our first time meeting.

Natalie
Why is it exciting? Why is this exciting when we’re about to share all these sad stories? I’m trying to figure this one out. Because I actually feel like part of what makes this beautiful is that I’m talking to a person who actually gets what I’ve been through. There, I’ve named it. For all the wonderful people in my life, it’s very hard to talk about big stories that other people haven’t navigated the same way. That’s just a reality, isn’t it.

Miranda
It is. That’s true. I don’t meet a lot of divorced people who aren’t baby boomers, so that’s always a nice moment of recognition in someone else. A lot of people I know, to them (in a loving way), I’m a bit of like, “Oh, this is my divorce friend. She’s a divorcée. She’s young, but look at her. She’s a divorcée.” That’s funny. It’s a unique experience being a youngish (I’m not that young) divorced woman. I do have to say though, when people find out that I’m divorced and they have this moment of, “Oh really?” I love it. I feed off of that energy of shock. I’m like, “Yes, I am!”

Natalie
So wait a second, do you have a drama background like Rebecca? Is that part of that, or is that just who you are?

Miranda
Oh yes.

Natalie
Ok, so tell me more about that.

Miranda
So the reason I know Becca is she and my dad worked together in theatre. I grew up in the theatre. I went to high school and specialized in theatre (special arts school) and decided not to pursue it full-time, but I did some acting after I graduated. I’m definitely a performer in many other areas of my life, and take all those skills with me. I work in communications, and I have my own podcast, so there’s always a little bit of that in my life. I write a lot in my 9-to-5, so it’s all a part of it. That’s how I got to know Becca. My main frame of reference for her is as an actress.

Natalie
Right. Now, wait a second. You said you went to an arts school, so which one?

Miranda
Etobicoke School of the Arts.

Natalie
I did too. So there’s our meet cute.

Miranda
Oh my gosh.

Natalie
I went there for music theatre. So you were there for theatre?

Miranda
Yes.

Natalie
So we’re sisters.

Miranda
We are sisters.

Natalie
So there you go. You know what, it’s funny because I think when I started dating my ex-husband, I was at ESA. I was in grade 11 when we started dating. I was so young. Because I had all those years, it was three years of high school where he and I were dating, and so I withdrew from the school experience. I was just really invested in this relationship, it was a long-term thing, so I don’t even feel like my time at ESA was as beautifully rendered as it could have been, because I was spending so much of my energy investing in these outside relationships that were all super-connected to him. His youth group, all these various connections that happened out beyond the school walls.

Miranda
Toronto is small, the arts community is small.

Natalie
Yes, absolutely.

Miranda
So yeah, even though we don’t know each other, I’m really excited. We have all these connections with each other, and I’m really excited to hear your story and share mine with you, and just connect on all of that.

Natalie
So shall I do that? Shall I tell you the story, and just get it off my chest? Just get this sucker done?

Miranda
Yes.

Natalie
So in that we started dating when I was in grade 11, I remember that in my OAC year I was working at a camp. It was this lovely experience where I met another person. You know, you’re 17 or 18, it was just like, “Oh my gosh, this is another version of romance.” My ex-husband had been away at a summer camp, and so when he came home, I broke up with him — it was like, “I need space.” I did this very mature thing where I broke up with him, and I felt like it was the right thing to do, and it lasted for maybe two weeks. It was a very interesting experience (and I’ve had to work this one through in counseling) where I felt really guilty at that time, because my breakup was affecting the people in my very immediate circle — very specifically, my family. At that time, my sister had just started to date my ex-husband’s best friend. Rebecca and I are already super, super tight, but now it was a different level of knittedness together. Then on top of that my ex was a musician, and a very talented one, and so he was playing music in our church. He was very much a part of a bigger story than just us dating. So I felt really proud of myself for doing that breakup, but I caved under (I really do believe it was self-imposed) pressure. I really 100% don’t believe that the family actually by any means said, “You must stay with this person.” It’s amazing what a teenage mind can do, right?

But that teenage mind that was mine lasted then through a wedding, up until seven years of marriage. That was 13 years of life together. We were really, really good at doing projects. When you’re talking about the project you were just doing at ESA, in terms of organizing work with alumni, that was our whole life. When we were on a project together, whether it was in the church or whether it was in the community or whether it was in wherever, we were really good at it. We were a very good team. But when it came to actually being a couple… I taught in a prison for the first couple years of my teaching career, and I would come home with these stories. They were stories that I felt I needed to talk about, because it was the only way to get back there the next day, because it was a lot. It’s just a lot. I was only 22. Teachers, when they’re young, they don’t know much about how to talk through their process anyways. I remember trying to talk to him — he was also a teacher, so everything just seemed like it should have fit, and his response to me (and I really don’t think he meant it to be how it came out), but he was like, “I can’t compete with your stories,” and then I walked away.

So now, would he remember it that way? Probably not. Did it even happen that way? All of my doctoral work was focused on memory studies, because I’ve been so curious to even know — do the ways that I remember all of these things, actually did they happen that way? Or have they been stored by me, not because I’m telling a lie, but simply because I’m having to function. I have to move through to the next set of what I’m going to do, who I’m going to be. But that story that I’ve told myself, I know some part of it was true, and it was sad, because I knew I was alone then in the storying of that very specific time where I was alone in my job, and then alone at home, because I couldn’t talk about it.

It hit a point where we had moved from one house to another house, and I think we did that process simply because we did move well together. If you do a move, then you have a project. Now you’re in a new house. Now you can start again — that sort of feeling. I think we kept trying that. I’d be curious to know (actually, maybe I’m not curious, maybe I don’t care anymore to find out, but in my mind at one point I was curious) if he would have agreed with me that maybe that move was a last-ditch effort. But in the end, that move didn’t work. I do remember just hitting a point — I knew the night that I was coming home from work to sit down and say, “I need this not to be,” and that was basically it.

What was interesting was how little pushback I got. So even though I was the instigator, I have storied it for myself that there was not much in the way of disagreement. If there was, then I think there would have been more fight for everything to continue. So for all of the sadness that existed in the world outside of us for the dissolution of this experience, I’m pretty sure that we were both on the same page — that something wasn’t meshing. But it was definitely that outside reaction to the dissolution that was probably the hardest for me in many ways, because I didn’t really feel like there were a lot of people that I could talk to — since everybody was so confused. “But everything looked so fine, Natalie. Why did it all look so fine?” There was so much of everybody else processing how this thing had come to be — and you’re nodding in agreement, so I get that you get this. I can’t wait to hear yours. Because that’s kind of what it was. I mean, I feel boring, because it wasn’t even super-dramatic. There’s no great throwing of glass or any great dramatic breakup fight. It was just a really sad goodbye.

I think I felt sad about it for a long time, until I went for a run one night because I still lived in that house. I ended up buying him out, he moved back home — he was actually maybe a few main streets over. So I went for a run, and I remembered seeing him fighting with a new woman. It was awesome. I just felt so alive on that run, because I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been relieved of this experience, and he is going to be fine. She’s probably great.” It’s funny what that released in me. It took me a long time after that run to go and find my own new life, but at least I could say to myself, “He was fine.” So I could just get running, and then I just kept running for a long time. But I’m in a different place now. How about you? Tell me yours.

Miranda
Wow. Can I ask, how long ago did that run take place?

Natalie
Hmm. I have to work my math backwards, because this will be year ten that I’ve been married to my husband now, and so then that run would have been … 14 years ago.

Miranda
Yeah. Wow. We could have a whole other episode on getting married again. I want to hear that story too.

Natalie
Yeah, and there’s good stuff in that too. For sure.

Miranda
Ok. So, my story. I joke that I was a child bride, but I wasn’t — I was 20.

Natalie
Ok. We were the same. I get you.

Miranda
We had this incredible meet cute. We met because we were both standing up for one of our really good friends at his wedding. I was folding programs for the ceremony and he walked in and saw me and went to lean on a table all suave and chat with me, but the table wasn’t fully built and it crashed and he fell down and it was really cute and funny and embarrassing for him. I was just enjoying myself. Our first conversation was about how frustrated we were that that church that we were in didn’t perform same-sex marriages. In our first meeting, we had covered all the things that you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company — like religion, politics, sex. I was totally smitten. I fell in love with him in my first year of university, and we dated through university and then got married right before my final year, my fourth year. He is a genius of a man, incredibly charismatic, and we shared a lot of important values — which I think I’ve already very explicitly hinted at. We worked a lot together, similarly to you and your ex. Paid work, and also volunteer work — we did a lot of it together, we worked really well together.

I think in any relationship that lasts a long time, there are dynamics in your relationship that if you’re not vigilant about them, they get baked in and then just become the standard. I think also, as both young people (he’s four years older, so still quite young), we had a lot of work to do on ourselves. When you’re in a long-term relationship, it is easy to become comfortable and just accept things as they are, and not do that work that you need to do. Then sometimes that just will catch up, and it’ll just come at you. I think it did happen over a long period of time. For a number of very good reasons, and a number of reasons that I don’t think are good reasons, he prioritized work over himself and over our relationship. That prevented him from doing the work that he needed to do on himself, and then also invest in our relationship. I had more time to do that — I was more interested in doing that work.

It got to a point where I was growing and I was starting to prioritize myself and my needs, I think for the first time. Once it became apparent that I was needing more, he became afraid that I would leave, even though at that point I wasn’t seriously considering it at all. But the fear of me leaving really triggered a lot that he hadn’t been able to work through yet. Then our relationship dynamic became really toxic. All relationships and dynamics have elements of challenge and problem and go in and out of these moments of problematic behavior, but we ended up just getting stuck in it instead of being able to get out. We were in therapy together, and it just became very detrimental to my wellbeing and my mental health and my physical health — to the point where I just said, “I don’t have it in me anymore.” Having to deal with everyone after that decision was made, in a way we went into work mode together. We both work in comms, in politics and stuff, and so together we came up with key messages that we were going to tell family and friends. We had a shared note on our phones with bulleted key messages that we had agreed.

Natalie
That’s brilliant.

Miranda
Yeah. We’re like, “This is our story. This is what we are both comfortable saying.” We had even talked about putting out a post on social media, and we decided no, that’ll seem like a press release, that’s too much. 99% of the people that we told were completely shocked, because we were so practiced at performing and communications. Everything that people perceived about us — I wouldn’t say that it was completely constructed because we were very happy for the majority of our relationship — but there were some things that became immovable as I grew, as he grew (or didn’t, from my perspective). And so now I am just about two years out from the separation. The divorce was finalized in October last year, so I’ve had some really good space and lots of processing. But every time I tell this story, there’s something new that has happened in the way that I have framed it that’s changed, so I’m really excited to talk about that.

Natalie
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing it. I’m fascinated about the idea of the bulleted note between the two of you, I just think that’s so fucking brilliant. Honestly I bet you, had my ex and I done something more like that, had we been better at actually communicating, I think it wouldn’t even just have been messaging to the outside world, it would have been a messaging between each other. It’s just amazing what skills you brought to each other in that experience. That’s quite beautiful, but at the same time, obviously it’s a skill built into an exit.

Miranda
It was. It was like, “Here’s our common understanding. Here are some things that we can agree on.” That was important for me, because I did feel represented in it. I think he also felt comfortable with it, and that people would understand him and the decisions that he made.

Natalie
Ok, so my question about reframing (because obviously, that’s what Becca and I do a lot of on Sister On!) is: in some ways, it sounds to me like you were doing some reframing even in your own process through the divorce, not just after. It sounds like you were doing some work right on yourself that was reframeable from a long time prior to the divorce papers being signed. How do you understand the word, though? As we’re connecting here in this space, does it ring true to you? Is it a word that you go to?

Miranda
Up until recently, my initial association with the word ‘reframing’ was associated with positivity — the positivity movement of like, “This is bad, reframe it as good.” But I think as I have reflected on it more, it doesn’t necessarily have to have a value judgment on the pre- and post-reframe. I think now for me, it just means a deeper and different understanding.

Natalie
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Becca and I talk about it as it’s less, as you say, about the before and after — it’s much more about a way through. So that rings true to me as I hear you say that.

Miranda
As a way through if you’re stuck.

Natalie
Yeah, if you’re stuck or looping, because that can often happen whatever our struggles are, let alone in relationships. So what does it mean to reorient and potentially change direction so as to have a different course and process, and then a different end result or location to land in.

Miranda
Yeah, I like that too. My own internal reframing to get to the point where I could leave my marriage was intense. It really took me six months, for a number of reasons. I was raised in a religious evangelical household, and all the stuff to do with marriage and how important that is and how it shouldn’t end, et cetera et cetera. To get to that point was hard for me. I really felt like I had failed at marriage.

Natalie
Oh my gosh, I get it.

Miranda
I really felt like I just couldn’t get my shit together, and if I could have, then I could have made it work and I should have just grit my teeth. I was really hard on myself, and I still am, but in different ways now. One huge moment of reframing for me that really just shifted everything was my friend’s mom, when she found out that we had separated she said, “Congratulations!” and she meant it earnestly. I was devastated by the separation, but I also knew it was the right decision for me. To have someone acknowledge that in such a joyful way that I had chosen myself, it rocked me in the best way. Also because it was someone’s mom, it was nurturing and affirming — just a really beautiful moment for me where I was like, “Heck yes. Congratulations to me. You’re right. I never thought of it this way before.” It’s a bold decision to make too, of course, because you don’t know the situation in which a relationship ended, and it may not be the appropriate response to someone who’s been through a separation or a breakup from a long relationship. But yeah, that was a great moment for me.

Natalie
Wow. You know what that is? You’re right. She took a risk. Bec and I just taped an episode about risk-taking, and I’m going to go back to that one. I think that we risk with words just as much as we risk with our actions, and maybe sometimes even more so. That risk that she took which was experienced by you as such a gift — that’s like the ‘run’ moment. That was your, “And I’m free!”

Miranda
Yes, I know.

Natalie
That’s actually really, really beautiful. I mean, that’s a moment, but was the major reframing around allowing yourself to see this as an experience that was about your own healing?

Miranda
Yeah, exactly. Just choosing myself, and that’s a good thing, and that the relationship shouldn’t supersede me. Being able to believe that that was right, and the good thing for me.

Natalie
It’s so interesting for me to hear you say that, because you’re saying you’ve been two years out of this. For me, it’s been more than a decade. I have been amazed at how much hurt can still come to the surface. There’s the memory components, but also just the odd thing that somebody will say. I’ve had people apologize to me in the last five years, interestingly — people who did hurt me, and I think then if they’re coming and apologizing, that means that they recognize that they hurt, but it’s because at some level, they were hurt — and then they had to navigate their own hurt to be able to come back and say, “You know, my hurt made me hurt you.”

Not to let everybody get away with that kind of bullshit, but at the same time, there is something in that, right? We’re all processing, at different times, the hurts around us. I don’t want to be too oblique as I say that, I’m not going to out anybody, but it’s just an interesting thing to have someone have gone through their internal dialogue, and now come back to me five years after I’ve been wounded, and go, “Hey, I’m sorry I made you feel like shit. That day that I basically called you a bitch for…” You know, whatever — without ever using any of these words, but that’s kind of how it all went down. I don’t know. I hope for you that your next ten years are really filled with the beauty of what you’re saying to me now. I really am going to wish that for you, will that into your story.

Miranda
Thanks.

Natalie
Because I really think that there’s something in that. I think there’s a lot of wasted time in mine, of really just feeling badly about things that I felt like people were thinking about me, and I wasn’t wrong. You know what I mean? It’s that whole thing, that I wasn’t wrong, and that almost hurts worse. My decade now spouse, I remember (and I’ve shared this on our podcast before) he said to me, “Oh my God, Natalie. Put an arm around that Natalie and just tell her it’s ok. Let it go with her.” To cradle the old me was something he had to say to me to be able to get to that place. It wasn’t a counselor that ever got me there — and that’s not because he’s perfect by any means. It’s just interesting whose voice it took to be able to bring that acceptance in.

Miranda
I’ve had some really wild experiences with people like that. Outside voices, unexpected voices creating these reframing moments for me. Some of it has happened in dating. On a dating app, someone that I’ve never met said… can I swear on your podcast?

Natalie
Yeah. I already have.

Miranda
Ok, great. Now that I’m dating, I’m just like, “Fuck it.” I’m just 100% myself, I don’t care. If they don’t like it, then I’m not going to date them, which is so liberating. I’m actually glad that I’m dating for really the first time in my 30s instead of my 20s, because I’m so much more confident.

Natalie
Good for you.

Miranda
But someone said, after I’d told him that I’m divorced, “Oh, well that to me is like a green flag, not a red flag. You have to be really dense to go through a divorce and not come out of it a better person who’s really aware of what you want in a relationship, and really mindful about what you need in the next one.” I was just blown away that this stranger on a dating app said something so intuitive, and just emotionally intelligent to me. After hearing all these terrible things about dating apps, this was my first week on a dating app, which was a month ago. That’s been a fun experiment for me.

Natalie
And you got that kind of gold this early? Oh woman, you’re doing great.

Miranda
I don’t know, I do feel like I’m doing pretty well. I haven’t gone on any dates from the dating app yet, because I’m just curious. I’m just talking to people, and so we’ll see what happens. Then another moment that happened recently was a conversation that I had — the first person I dated after my divorce. We’ve been having some of these debrief moments with each other about how I was not ready, and how he was also going through horrific things in his life — but we also played an important role for each other. I was talking about how I was so defiant to the idea that my divorce had ruined me for dating, but in a very stubborn way. I just had this really defiant attitude that well, just because I’m divorced, experiencing that doesn’t mean I can’t date and fall in love again. It was just resistant to the idea that my ex had really hurt me — because in my mind, by leaving him, I solved that.

So then this guy that I had dated, and I’m now friends with, said to me, “But you allowed him to hurt you — that was something that you did.” But when he said it, he didn’t mean it like I was weak. He meant it like I did what I was supposed to do in a long-term loving committed relationship. I made myself vulnerable and gave 100% of myself to that relationship, insofar as opening myself up, and I made it possible for my ex to hurt me — which was the right thing to do! But it did actually really intensely impact me. But that whole shift made it easier for me to forgive my ex, because I was so angry at him for hurting me, and defiant to the fact that he had hurt me. But then, I once I accepted that I created that space by being a good partner, and by being truly vulnerable and giving up that power, and that was a gift I decided to give my ex — I was just like, “He still shouldn’t have treated me that way, but I’m not angry about it anymore because I was committed. I was deeply committed.”

Natalie
So you own your part in it, is that what it is? You’re owning your agency in the act of that relationship.

Miranda
Exactly, and that really shifted it for me and I don’t feel as defiant or angry at all anymore. Just some weird places where I was able to have someone prompt me and create this reframing moment for me in unexpected places.

Natalie
Yeah, those are some really good unexpected places. The app one is super, because that’s coming literally on a screen. That’s just so amazing, to have this truth staring at you out from the screen. Which is funny, because I remember when I reached out to you a couple of weeks ago, I had said, “Hey, so there’s this article I read.” It was another moment of a screen speaking truth into my life, and so I sent it to you. So I’m curious, I don’t know what you thought of it. But just to give listeners a sense of it, it was this article from an online magazine called The Cut. It was a woman who was working through her own divorce, and she had the added complexity of having a child shared in that relationship, so there was lots of different layers of hurt in there. But basically, she worked her way through her pain by playing the video game Witcher 3 — which I just think is a riot, because my husband and I have been watching Witcher the show, the first two seasons, and loved it. So now from reading her essay, I know what’s coming when season three is made. Do you know the show at all? Is that one that you would ever have been into? Or even, do you play the game? Are you a gamer at all?

Miranda
I don’t play the game, and I have not seen the show, but I have a friend who has cosplayed as some of the characters — so I’m familiar with the Witcher world. I read the article. I was just completely fascinated, because I would never consider gaming as a way to heal from a divorce. So I want to hear more of your take on that, and why it resonated with you.

Natalie
I think it resonated so much because of her emphasis on story. That is I think the whole reason why I’ve been interested in getting into this whole podcast thing with Rebecca because of our desire to hear people’s stories, to do something with them. There’s this wonderful writer who talks about ‘story taking,’ and not in a ‘take and then absorb,’ but more the idea that there is a responsibility of the person who hears and takes the story to then do something. Almost a gift in terms of the way that it gets sent back into the world. I feel like I have a love in that way for narrative. Maybe it’s my own proclivity to memory studies, but the idea of somebody doing the game, and working through a scene again and again, because you restart the game and the scene happens again. And you have this choice, you can choose. I watch my son and my husband play these kinds of games, and they’re all versions of the same thing, where you click on a dialogue option, and then the game will take you that way. Whatever that dialogue point that you choose will direct you down a specific path, and the author knowing that she was going to choose that dialogue option again that would take her down the same story path so that she could cry again made me want to cry.

I just felt so deeply with her as she replayed literally her own story out through the playing of this game so that she could cry. I really felt like there was such healing in her tears. It took me a long time to cry. So I was like, “Maybe I needed a game.” Maybe that would have really helped. I was in such ‘do’ mode all those years earlier. There was not a lot of crying until I hit a point later where I guess I could. That article struck me, that she needed the game to let herself story her own grief enough to cry through the pain. Isn’t that the reframing idea, right? The way through. So that struck me.

Miranda
Yeah. Huh. Are you a gamer at all?

Natalie
I mean, enough in a way that I can speak to my students about it intelligently so then they can give me one or two points for being relatively in the know — but only over the shoulder of these two in my household who I love, and so I’ve learned to watch them. You know what, one of my graduate directors, that was her whole — gender and gaming as her area of research and interest. That was about six years ago that I got to know her. I think I’ve always been interested from a distance, but never done it myself. I wonder if a little bit is because I recognize I might get lost in it, because of that love of story. Because you want to dig in, and I think it’s hard to sometimes pull out from the story. So maybe it’s just recognizing who I am. But what did you take from it? Like when you read it, was there similar stuff? Did anything else grab you?

Miranda
Yeah, I was definitely taken with her describing how she felt when she could not change the story — how she would keep trying to go back to her last save, play it through again, make different choices, but still end up in the same place. That got me, I was like, “Wow, that’s a feeling that I identify with.” I think about that a lot. I’m actually not in a place at all where I’m thinking about, “Oh, if only I had done this differently,” because I’m really at peace with where I am now. But that feeling, I think it’s just a familiar feeling of being in the midst of a relationship and trying everything, using every tool that you have, but still ending up at the same conflict, that just feeling overwhelming. But then I was also super curious about all of the research that she shared, about how it helps process trauma and how veterans are playing Call of Duty to help. That seems so counterintuitive to me, but it’s about like the science of rapid eye movement, your short term memory — which you would know something about. Making your traumatic memories less able to anchor in your brain and elicit a strong emotional reaction. When I read that, I was like, “Wow, I need to play a first person shooter right now. I need to get on this. Why haven’t any of my therapists told me I should play video games?”

Natalie
Right? I know, it feels like it’s like a really missing component in a lot of our therapy stories. Seriously, absolutely. I’m glad that that one resonated with you too, because again, it’s a funny thing. It was lovely that I knew we were coming up to this conversation, and that I was sending you this article, because you were going to read it and have a frame of reference that it would just make all the more sense in, just because of this shared story that we have. What do you think, do you think that divorce is always going to be part of our story? The story that is Miranda’s, and the story that is Natalie’s?

Miranda
I think I am going to be a person who will have loved many people over the course of my life. I don’t mean just like, “I’m going to have all of these husbands and wives!” I don’t mean that. I just mean that is how I’m trying to think of it, and that my ex is one of the many people that I’ve loved, and will love. It’s a lot, having a podcast about divorce. I love the podcast, I love making the podcast, I love talking to people about divorce, but it’s also definitely something that I don’t want to be associated — as like, “This is Miranda, she’s divorced, and all she does is talk about divorce.” I have a narrative for the next two seasons that I have planned, and then after that, I think I will let it go because I don’t want it to be so present in my life as a part of my active identity. I don’t know. How do you feel? Isn’t it weird that ‘divorced’ is just one of your many labels that you get now?

Natalie
Yeah. I think for a time I thought it wouldn’t be as much a part of my story. I thought when I got remarried, then Natalie would just be a different Natalie. But then it comes up, because then the baby grows up. All of a sudden, now he’s five, and he asks a question — “What’s divorce? And what does that mean?” because he’s heard about it from somebody else. I don’t want to lie, I want to be able to share, but he’s only known mommy and daddy as this team. There’s this whole other mommy he doesn’t know, and do I want him to know that Natalie? I kind of do. She was great. She still is great. Oh my gosh, that can make me want to cry, like she was fucking great, and she survived like a whole lot, and I think it’s really important that he sees that of his mom. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know that divorce will ever be not a part of my story, but I like the way you frame it —maybe it doesn’t have to be so front and centre, and maybe it becomes less front and centre at different times. There are seasons, right?

Miranda
Yeah. I definitely have come to reluctantly accept that there is a healing journey that I am on, and that I am responsible for that. But there is also a part of my healing — it’s not dependent on this — but there’s a part of my healing that will come in relationship with someone else that I have yet to meet. There are going to be things I’m going to have to unlearn, and lean in to trust when it’s uncomfortable, and all of those things. In that moment where I’m able to build something like that new with someone, me being divorced is definitely going to be very present.

Natalie
Yeah. Miranda, I honestly feel like I’ve made a friend, so I’m so grateful for this time. It’s such a lovely thing to get to share, but I’m also excited to get to now learn you and be a friend with you beyond the divorce.

Miranda
Yeah. Me too.

Natalie
Because we are — we are bigger than this D. This big D, as important as it is.

Miranda
Yeah, I know.

Natalie
Maybe somebody will have learned something today. I don’t know. Whatever people take away — Rebecca and I are always thinking about that with Sister On!, like what’s the takeaway, especially when there’s so many listening who won’t have been divorced, will never get divorced. What are the takeaways that one can grab hold of from a conversation like this, whether divorce is a part of their own story or not? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait for feedback.

Miranda
I know. Well, we’ll find out. Well, this was so nice. I always just, similar to you, I feel camaraderie. I think it’s a really special, vulnerable place to just sit down and talk about divorce with someone else. I’m really honoured that you wanted to do this on your podcast and share that with my podcast too. I’m excited to release this into the world.

Natalie
I know, me too. This will be really fun, everybody could listen to it on both platforms. They can hear different music, and then the same voices. Have an amazing night, and I look forward to doing something like this again. Ok, take care.

Miranda
You too. Bye.

Rebecca
Oh yes, some house business. Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is actually really important. Consider a donation on Patreon if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. And please sign up for our Sister On! newsletter which we send out every Friday. It comes with an original recipe from Nat which, I tell you, her recipes are really good. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Sister On!