Consider This from NPR - What we learn when things fall apart

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Most years bring both good and bad experiences. But sometimes, it's the challenges of a bad year that show us our hidden strengths.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Mary Louise Kelly. I cannot believe it is the last day of 2024. And this is the moment, right now, when NPR needs your support. We are a nonprofit news organization. We are dedicated to creating a more informed public through independent, honest, accurate, transparent, and fair journalism. You can read all about our code of ethics at npr.org. Those are the standards to which we hold ourselves when we bring you Consider This and everything you hear from NPR. You listen because you care about staying informed about the community and world around you. Well, today you can help us keep this free public service available to everyone and unlock sponsor-free listening to consider this

if you sign up for NPR+. It's a new way to support NPR and get perks for more than 25 podcasts, podcasts like Planet Money, Fresh Air, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and many more. You can join NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. That is plus dot npr dot org. And if you want to make a gift today and help us out before the end of the year, you can do that at donate dot npr dot org. Thank you if you are already an NPR Plus supporter or if you support your local station. We're grateful to have your backing as we move into the new year. I don't know about you, but this was a tough year for me. I won't get into the details, but reflecting on it, I realized that as hard as it was, I'm also coming out of this year feeling stronger. And I know I'm not alone. So to kick off 2025,

we asked you, our listeners, to tell us about some of your most challenging years, what you experienced, how you made it through, and what you can take from it into a new year. One of those listeners was Mike Ingram. We were laying in bed and we got a phone call at 5 15 in the morning to say that our son was at the hospital and they wouldn't tell us anything other than he was at the hospital. In 2010, Mike and his wife Celia received the news that every parent fears most. A drunk driver speeding up I-95 northbound in Philadelphia crossed into the southbound lanes and crashed into their son, Michael's car. My son was 23 years old, an athlete,

and had a whole lot of life ahead of him. So that's been the heartbreak of my life right there. If you had told me before my son's passing that I could live, I would say it's not possible, but we're finding ways of doing that. But Ingram did survive, and he found a way to help other parents with the loss of a child. I found, for me, that helping other people has been a help to me.

So I called up many of those parents so they could just have someone to talk to and to scream at. It is difficult, and sometimes you have to be able to vent the anger. It hurts. Consider this. There's a lot to learn from life's hardest moments. There were really dark days in there and days that I was like, nope, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this.

And I did. Coming up, runner and podcaster Ali Feller talks about how she navigated a challenging year. From NPR, I'm Juana Sommers. It's Consider This from NPR. At times it felt like I was kind of living a double life or I was using the word cancer to mask the really hard stuff, which was kind of nice is that I sort of had an out where I could just say, oh yeah, life's really hard right now because of the cancer and no one questioned it.

No one was like, well, is there anything else that's hard? Kite Buehler Ali Feller is a runner and host of the podcast Ali on the Run where she talks with runners about all things running. In 2023, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma. At the same time, her marriage ended. I asked her what it's been like to navigate her cancer diagnosis. Right now, it's nice to be on the cancer-free side of things, which is wonderful. But certainly looking back to a year and a half ago, I think it went from overwhelming to scary to, okay, let's deal with this thing, and then lots

of sneaky emotions along the way, some sneaky trauma and grief. How do you manage that overwhelm? I know for me, when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed, it can feel like the thing that's overwhelming me is the only thing in the room, the only thing that I can focus on, the only thing that I can think about. And yet, you have a job, you have a family, you have all these other things you have to navigate, so you can't let it consume you. Yeah. As much as I would have, you know, my immediate response to that is, oh, I cry. I love crying. I sit and cry. I cry all the time when I'm feeling overwhelmed. But you

don't have that luxury if you have a job and relationships and a child, which my daughter was four when I was diagnosed. And so I didn't get to just sit around and cry. What I did do is I went for a lot of walks. And I'm a runner. Running has been a huge part of my life for a long time now. But for some reason, when I got this diagnosis, I just

couldn't seem to find not the will to run but I was already going through this hard thing and running is inherently hard and I think it was just one more hard thing and so I just slowed it down and I started walking. I remember the day of my mammogram and ultrasound. I didn't have a diagnosis yet but we kind of had a sense that nothing good was gonna come from that and I went for an eight mile walk. I remember it being really hot out. I remember sweating like crazy in May, 2023 and just walking until I felt like I couldn't walk anymore. And so that was actually a practice that really stuck with me. LESLIE KENDRICK And about those days where, you know, you don't feel like being strong,

do you think there's merit in allowing yourself to just be out there and exist without putting on that brave face. Yeah. And that's something that I've thought about a decent amount. I don't care if people look at me and say, she's brave. I never got cancer to inspire anyone. I have a really fraught relationship with the word inspiring, because all I've done, frankly, in the past year is survive.

I've been in survival mode for a long time. So yeah, I don't know how I feel about the bravery side of things. I think for me, the only person that I cared about seeing me a certain way is my daughter. You know, her opinion is the one that matters. And all she needs is for me to show up for her and be her mom. And on the absolute worst days, I never stopped doing that thing. If I could do nothing else on any given day, I could get my daughter's lunch packed and I could do her hair and we could smile and enjoy the simplest moments together. Even

if then I dropped her off at school and just crawled right back into bed, which I did plenty of times. There is something that you wrote a while back that has really stuck with me. You were writing about duality and how you've had these days in the last year and a half wondering how low your rock bottom could actually go. But also you talked about these moments of tremendous joy that you've also had. And I wonder, is there one memory or one day that really encapsulates all that for you? Oh, gosh, great question. And there have been so many. One that comes to mind because it's this time of year, it was last December. And so at this point, I had just finished chemotherapy,

like three days prior. My daughter dances at the same dance studio now that I grew up dancing at, which is just a super special thing to watch. And it was her holiday show. And at the time we were going through a divorce but still living together, which was very challenging for me. And so the arrangement for that day was that I would bring our daughter to her show, I would get her ready and do her hair and was so excited about that. And this was her first big dance performance on a stage. And so I was really looking forward to it. And so was she.

And so I brought her to the performance. She did amazing. And then it was her father's birthday that day. And so after the show, the plan was that she would go with him and they were going to go out to dinner and celebrate his birthday, which is great. And I was like, oh, you know, to go from this wonderful high of you just finished chemotherapy, your daughter's dancing on the same stage that you used to dance on and she loves it and she's smiling and she's having the time of her life and you don't get to bring her home.

But at the same time, I remember driving home that night and blasting music in my car and actually singing and I was like, oh, I'm going to be okay. And it was the first time throughout all of this that I actually felt not because someone else told me and not because anything magic happened, just, hey, there was a lot of beauty in this day today and there's so much to celebrate. And that I think is also important to have those days in the thick of it that remind us that we're going to be okay. Even if we're faking it until we make it, which I did a lot of that too. Ali, given everything that you've experienced lately,

when the clock strikes midnight and we set into a new year, what are you gonna be thinking about? Ooh, this one's gonna be my year. Really all I can ask for and, you know, try to manifest in 2025 is I am looking for peace, ease, and joy. And I will also say, you know, there's easy and hard parts of every day. There's, like you said, there's the duality in every single day.

But coming to a close on this year looks so different than a year ago. A year ago, I was in that dark and scary place of really being in the thick of cancer, really being in the thick of divorce, feeling scared and sad and angry every single day at something, and now 2024 is ending, and there's still some of that,

but my house is peaceful and even on the hard days, I do feel happy every day, at least at some point. So, you know, I know I'm getting there. There's a reason my daughter is named Annie. I am a very firm believer that the sun will in fact come out tomorrow. And so, yeah, I'm always hanging on to that, but I also can feel it.

I feel the peace in my house. I can feel it in my body. My shoulders are dropped. Still a lot going on. Still a lot that's hard. Still a lot that's stressful. But in 2025, I am looking for peace, ease, happiness, joy, and fun. I kind of think I'm in a fun era right now.

And so I am enjoying that and chasing that. We've been talking with Allie Feller. She's the host of the podcast, Allie on the Run. Allie, thank you and Happy New Year. Thank you so much. Same to you. This episode was produced by Brianna Scott, Connor Donovan, and Katherine Fink with audio engineering by Becky Brown.

It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Sommers.