We're back. I put on makeup today. Seriously, that's where we are right now.

I took a break — a self-imposed silent hiatus you probably didn't know about, because I had a backlog and I'm nothing if not someone who runs her mouth into a microphone first and asks questions later. But the break is over, and I was not ready to come back today. I was very, very not ready.

And yet here we are, because I can do things scared, and apparently that includes walking downstairs and getting in front of the microphone when all I wanted was my best friend. (My kids confirmed my best friend is my bed. They weren't wrong.)

In this episode, I'm talking about:

— Odin, my 175-pound Great Dane who has exactly one person in this house and it is not me. Until he got scared. Then it was very much me.

— A listener question from Talia in Berkeley about how you grieve versions of yourself you never got to become — the careers, the relationships, the risks you didn't take.

— My dad's passing in 2016 and what happened in the four months after: every service line that was paying our business's bills disappeared. Every. Single. One. The universe was done with that chapter before I was.

This episode is 18 minutes. It's also a little unplanned, a little raw, and exactly what it needs to be. Come back with me.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — War Paint On: We're Back (Armed with Makeup)

01:30 — What Counts as a Break When Your Brain Never Stops

02:09 — Content Brain Doesn't Take Vacations

02:50 — I Was Not Ready (But Here Anyway)

05:44 — Odin the 175-Pound Great Dane Who Only Loves Me in Crisis

09:02 — I'm the Safe Parent, Apparently

09:55 — What It's Actually Like Having Giant Dogs

12:24 — Small Talk: Grieving the Life You Didn't Live

Mentioned in this episode:

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I Put on Makeup. That's The Big Win.