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\u201cSometimes it feels like empathy, sympathy, sorrow, grief are scarce resources, because we certainly treat them like that. And if someone is feeling too much for you, they are not feeling enough for me. If somebody is comforting this person at the funeral because they are weeping the loudest, not because they were closest to this person, but because funerals bring up all kinds of feelings about ourselves, our relationships to other people. I was unhinged at a funeral for my mom's friend's husband. I was supposed to be on my second date with Aaron. This man died of brain cancer and I was choking, crying, imagining my own dad dying, not knowing that this same disease is growing in the man I'm about to go on a second date with. Not knowing that in four years I will be at my dad's funeral. And then we're always checking up on each other. Just this is a human thing, right? To check up on each other, to see how other people are doing it, to take your eyes off your own paper to see how you are doing and what kind of attention you're getting or all these things, all these comparisons, they all come down to like, does mine count? Yeah. Does mine count? The thing is they all count and they're all completely different.\u201d\xa0\nSo says Nora McInerny, one of the brightest lights in my life, and a guide to many, many others, thanks to her hit podcast, \u201cTerrible, Thanks for Asking.\u201d Nora is quick to point out one of the deep and painful ironies in her life, which is that she wouldn\u2019t be our guide if she hadn\u2019t really been through it\u2014and lost so much. In the span of a few months, Nora miscarried, her father died from cancer, and her first husband, Aaron, died from glioblastoma when he was 35. Alone with their baby, Nora began the journey back to life, using this new, deeply unwanted reality, as the ground from which to plow a path for the rest of us\u2014a path that\u2019s often sad, sometimes hilarious, and always wise. In the early days of her loss, she founded a Facebook group called \u201cThe Hot Young Widows Club\u201d and started a podcast called \u201cTerrible, Thanks for Asking\u201d as a meeting ground for other travelers who also found themselves improbably devastated and lost. She also gave an incredible TED Talk: \u201cWe don\u2019t \u2018move on\u2019 from grief. We move forward with it.\u201d In the intervening years, she remarried, birthed another child, and written a roster of hilarious and moving books\u2014It\u2019s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Okay, Too), No Happy Endings, Bad Vibes Only, and more. She also started a company called Feelings & Co., where she attends to all of our messy emotions: Besides the main podcast, she now produces a short, daily show\u2014\u201dIt\u2019s Going To Be Okay,\u201d and \u201cThe Terrible Reading Club.\u201d Shameless plug, but she featured On Our Best Behavior and interviewed me on her show. Nora is one of my favorite conversation partners because she\u2019s not afraid to go there\u2014and make jokes while doing it. Okay, let\u2019s get to our conversation.\n\nMORE FROM NORA MCINERNY\nTerrible, Thanks for Asking\nIt\u2019s Going To Be Okay\nThe Terrible Reading Club\nBad Vibes Only\nNo Happy Endings\nIt\u2019s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Okay, Too)\nFeelings & Co.\nNora\u2019s Website\nFollow Nora on Instagram and TikTok\nNora\u2019s Substack\nNora\u2019s TED Talk\n \nTo learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy\n \n Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices