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In this episode of The Art of Imperfect Adulting, Amy Stone speaks with Paige Lavelle about letting go of the “picture-perfect life” to pursue true self-discovery and authenticity. Paige, who now lives in Rochester, New York, opens up about leaving behind a carefully curated adult existence to confront her dissatisfaction and embark on a journey of rebuilding. She shares candidly about cultural and family expectations, breaking away from perfectionism, and what it takes to publicly own our most difficult transformations.

About Paige Lavelle:

Paige Lavell is the author of Invisibly Unwell and host of the Invisibly Unwell podcast. She is also a fintech leader with over 18 years of experience working for companies including Etsy, Meta, Block, and PayPal. Through Invisibly Unwell, Paige explores chronic illness beyond wellness culture and the quiet suffering masked by achievement, perfectionism, and the pressure to keep it all together.

Main Topics Covered:

• Why the “picture-perfect life” doesn’t guarantee happiness—and how societal, family, and cultural conditioning shape our adult choices
• The hidden misery behind checking all the right boxes: graduate degree, career, marriage, and home ownership
• Signs and symptoms of internal discomfort: boredom, lack of fulfillment, and wishing for “external” reasons to make big life changes
• Navigating pushback, judgment, and projections from friends and family after making unconventional choices, especially divorce
• The role of therapy and self-reflection in identifying true needs versus surface-level fixes (diet, wellness, decor)
• The non-linear, often uncomfortable process of self-discovery: trying on new identities, moving, and re-evaluating relationships
• Building a new life on your own terms: cultivating authentic friendships, trying new things, and facing loneliness and doubt
• Shifting from private struggle to public sharing: why Paige writes and podcasts about invisible health challenges and difficult transitions

Quote from the Episode:

“What I used to think was my own little special mixture of issues was not so special. Obviously we all have unique stories and unique circumstances, but there was definitely this underlying theme of women I met who were just going through this period or had gotten past this period of, like, is this really what I want?” —Paige Lavelle

Timestamps:

[00:00:19] Welcome and greetings from Rochester, NY; Paige on appreciating family, convenience, and this life chapter

[00:03:10] Defining “picture-perfect”: owning a home, marriage, career, but feeling unfulfilled

[00:05:18] Sources of the ideal: family, being “eldest daughter,” and cultural pressure toward conventional success

[00:09:40] Signs of hidden misery: boredom, longing for more, self-doubt, and fantasizing about escape

[00:12:31] Realization in therapy and wishing for something to end her marriage “for” her

[00:16:20] Making the leap: divorce, moving, and the resulting feedback from friends, family, and others

[00:18:18] Facing judgment tied to religion, family, and societal expectations about marriage and divorce

[00:21:07] Attempts at self-discovery: going down the “wellness” rabbit hole before confronting deeper truths

[00:24:22] Starting over: healing, moving “home,” re-evaluating friendships and self

[00:31:03] The reality of rebuilding: finding solid friendships, facing singles/dating world, exploring new interests like yoga

[00:34:51] Doubt, loneliness, and the emotional cost of transformation

[00:37:25] Choosing to go public: shedding the stigma of invisible struggle and helping others feel seen

[00:42:27] Paige’s recommendation: the ritual and mental escape of watching Jeopardy

[00:44:28] Favorite online purchases: Lovevery toddler toys and a whole house water filter—small wins that matter

ABOUT THE SHOW: The Art of Imperfect Adulting elevates the voices of experience by sharing real stories from real people figuring out adult life. Every episode features honest conversations about life's choices, changes, and challenges. These are conversations with individuals (not celebrities) who share their personal experiences and insights. Through these authentic stories, listeners find validation, motivation, and inspiration for navigating their own path through modern life. Because there's a big difference between expert advice and shared experience, and hearing another person's lived experience helps us feel less alone in our own situations.

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This is The Art of Imperfect Adulting. I'm your host,

Amy Stone. I share stories from real people who have already

been through some hard stuff. Why? So that you don't feel

alone while you're busy figuring out your own life. Let's do

this. Well, hello

friends. My guest today is Paige Lavelle.

Welcome to The Art of Imperfect Adulting, Paige. Are you ready

for a fun chat? I'm ready. I am so ready for a fun chat. Thank

you for having me. Oh, you are very welcome. I start all my conversations with

the very same question, so I'm always ready to go. What part of the world

do you call home? I live in

upstate New York, western upstate New York, in Rochester. Um,

been here about 3 years, and what I love— I didn't mean to skip ahead.

I read, I read the second question. What do I love about living there? I've

lived in some huge cities. I've lived in New York City. I lived in Austin

during kind of the tech boom there. Um, and I'm at a chapter in my

life where having my in-laws, having family nearby, and

having my day-to-day life just be very convenient, uh, is, is

kind of a top priority. So I really love being here for this chapter, especially

having a young child at home. That is, that is a really wonderful answer. How

big is Rochester? Ooh, that's a— I should know

that. Um, I want to say at the most maybe a million people,

but— That's it. Yes. So, so it's, it's, it's a big city. I heard

somebody say a couple months ago, um, I was listening to—

1.05. I'm very proud I'm proud of myself for being that close. There you go.

I was listening to somebody's conversation. I don't remember who it is. I can't give

them credit anymore, but they were generally saying that their impression of

people at the moment is that a lot of people are looking for

smaller, more local-feeling, mid-sized towns

and communities. It was really interesting because like you, I've always been a big city

person, but it's like I am very much appreciating

the conveniences that go with slightly smaller towns. And

that feels weird for me to be living through that in my own life.

I like to talk about me too, right? Okay, Jessica, next question. Here we go.

What generational description matches you? Silent Generation,

Baby Boomer, Gen X, Gen Z, Millennial? Which are you? I

am a Millennial. I'm an elder Millennial, but I am a Millennial for

sure. It's like the most insulting form of that,

the elder Millennial. It's like the geriatric pregnancy. I'm like,

that was bad branding, the elder Millennial. You can own the

Millennial. I'll give it to you. I give it to you. But I do, I'll

meet people that were born 10 years after me and there's a lot we don't

completely relate on, so I just call it out because it's kind of that chunk

of the millennial crew. Fair enough. I think that's a valid— I think

that's very valid. Okay, here we go. So

what we're gonna talk about today, you and I, Paige, is self-discovery,

self-actualization, and the choices that went with that

for you. You shared with me in your guest

pitch that you filled out a long time ago, and you may not even remember,

that when you were 30, you had a picture-perfect life. And we can put that

in those little air quotes. But I want you to start by telling me, what

does that mean to you? Or what did that mean to you, a picture-perfect life?

I had what, up until that point in my life, I

was taught, conditioned, kind of pushed on myself in

certain ways to believe was the picture-perfect life. I had— I owned

a home, I had completed graduate school, I had

I was at the time, I was married and I had a husband. We looked

great on our Christmas cards. I had a very busy

social calendar. I had a great job. It was

all the boxes that I had been convinced of

and convinced myself that if I check these, I'm gonna wake up happy.

And come to find I was not. And I was

trying to grasp at all these different things to try to find that

happiness and find that fulfillment. And it was a pretty

rude awakening to realize, like, I've gotten all these things.

I never paused along the way to consider, are these things I even

want? Mm-hmm. Or is this specific thing

something I want? And it was a very

difficult realization to truly sit with

and to consider what I would have to change and how

damaging some of those changes could be and the process around them.

So it was— you would have these people tell you when I started to

question it, it was very much an internal thing for a long time. But when

I started sharing those feelings, obviously very supportive in a therapeutic

environment, but when you start sharing them with family and friends, you would get the,

but you have everything, what are you talking about? Like, why are you upset? Why

would you consider making changes? We're going to talk some more about that in a

minute because I have all kinds of personal experience and thoughts about that, but I

have experienced Waves of that and it is

interesting. All right, so did—

I would love to talk a little bit before we go into that, if you

know or have a sense of where this concept of the

picture-perfect life came from, because you mentioned conditioning and socialization.

Talk a little bit about that. Like, where do you think your

idea that it was the graduate school degree, the job, the

marriage, the Christmas card? Yeah. A lot of it came

from family. I also just the environment I grew up

in. So I grew up in very suburban cookie-cutter

areas. I initially grew up in a suburb outside Philadelphia, but when I was fairly

young, 4th grade, we moved to a suburb outside Houston.

And every— everyone looked like me.

It certainly had some privilege around that that I will not ever deny having.

So I had this very cookie-cutter life. But there was a lot

of unrest, a lot of financial troubles at home,

a lot of instability in the kind of emotional environment that

I grew up in. And my parents— I love my parents, I

have a much healthier relationship with them now— but

there was always this— I was smart and I performed

well in school. I'm an eldest daughter to the nth degree. Whenever

you read articles or books about being the eldest daughter, I am so that

person. It almost infuriates me a little bit how easy it is to categorize it.

But I was told, you know, you're smart,

go after a law degree, go after a medical degree. Like, this is how you

make the money, this is how you do better than we did, was what I

was pretty consistently told. Yeah. And my parents are

intelligent people. My mom is a very talented artist, and she

went to art school, never finished, and eventually

worked in kind of artistic roles like merchandising things where she

got to set up, you know, visual displays in stores, but she never

got to where she wanted to be. And

I think that kind of informed how she handled me.

And I was always a very— I was always very drawn to writing

as a medium. Definitely did not inherit the art gene as far as painting goes.

I'm terrible. But I always would write. I would start writing

like fiction books and about my life and my thoughts when I was not even

10. And I wasn't really

encouraged. It was kind of a, that's a cute hobby,

but you need to make money. You need to use your brain. You

need to do XYZ. And so even though I had

this resistance to it, I felt this pressure of

if I don't want to be stuck in the financial difficult type

situations that my parents constantly dealt with and shared a lot with,

with me when I was young, um, I felt this

pressure to not support them, but to

get to a better position than they were in. Um,

I was just exposed to very, you know,

nuclear family, suburban US. This is what a family looks like.

Um, so that also became part of the, the goal. That is a

very— so you moved around a lot. You've lived in a lot of places. A

lot might be the wrong word there, but you've lived in several places, which is,

um, amazing. There's quite a few more once I I became an

adult, so yes, I would no longer dare to say. Okay. So that is— I

think that's an engaging part of the story. And, you know, we can only

know— this is my experience— I think that we can really actually only know our

own experience when we were children. You know, so that's the representation of

the things we see and what our families look like.

And it is a part of the transformation

stories that I hear and tell a lot. You know, I think it's— you know,

you can have a very challenging relationship with the adults in your life and a

lot of times Their hope is just that, you know, the phrase

sometimes is that, you know, our floor is their

ceiling. You know, a lot of times adults want us to achieve more than them.

Yes. Comes from a good place. And

definitely even today, the, you know, the

advice around, you know, pursuing a creative pursuit

like writing or something like that as a career, I mean,

the trope of the starving artist is still out there, you know,

definitely, definitely still. There. Coming from someone

who got a degree in something that is a hobby for many people, I will

say it's not always the worst advice if you're looking for a stable income. But,

you know, like you just don't really know. All right. So I appreciate you sharing

that with us. All right. So you describe yourself

as being miserable at this time in your life. Picture

perfect from the outside, but you describe that you were miserable. I

would love for you to tell us more about what this

miserability, which may not even be a real word, but what it felt like to

you at the time as you remember it. Yeah, it

wasn't, uh, it wasn't something that was necessarily

obvious, uh, to anyone around me. I was very good at putting on a face.

And I just started— I would say the, the first

clue was just this extreme level of boredom.

And not to say I shouldn't have been out there taking risks and

doing crazy things, but I was so unfulfilled. I would

just sit at home and be like, there's got to be more. than this.

And it wasn't just my relationship, it wasn't just work, it wasn't just like where

I lived. It just felt this like, I do not belong here.

Hmm. And I, again, I got an MBA, I had a good job, I

was checking boxes. It wasn't like I was hitting rock bottom

and having these feelings. So it triggered this like, what is wrong with you?

Like, I just kept thinking like, why are you not happy? What is wrong with

you? And I would just sit and

kind of like fantasize about I could just move to the city by

myself and I could do something on my own. And I had this

understanding in those moments where I was just really sad and kind of

using those fantasies to get out of that feeling. In those moments, I

would think, okay, even if that's not it, like even if what I

try isn't it, at least I'm trying something different because this clearly doesn't work.

And the lack of fulfillment, the—

I hate to say boredom. It just sounds kind of like a silly thing to

say, but it was just this deep sense of this isn't it and you want

more. I think that— I mean, I think, yeah, go with the word that

feels true because I think that my goal with

that question is that for people in the

audience who might be experiencing something, we

don't necessarily associate boredom. It's just

nice to hear what people actually experience, like what did it feel like to you?

Because people who are at different parts of transition in their own life,

we do tend to internalize it. It's like, oh, if this isn't going well,

it must be my fault. And that is across so

many of these changes from doing well at work, relationship, all of these

things. It's just this idea that it's like, well, if it's not working,

if it's not excelling, it must be my fault. So Sometimes it is, sometimes it's

not. And I even— I used to wish,

and I wrote about this in my book actually, I would catch myself wishing

for something terrible to happen, like wishing for my

ex-husband to have an affair or have me

catch him cheating on me, or to be fired from work, or

something that made the bad person someone else

and gave me an excuse to kind of have someone else blow up my life

so that I didn't have to. And when I started realizing that I was wishing

for these terrible things, that was a pretty big indicator like this—

something's wrong. Yeah. People do not drive home from

work and hope that they catch their partner cheating on them just

so that they would have a way to escape. And, um, and

it wasn't an abusive situation. He was, he was a good person. Um, I just

want to be very clear about that. But it was like the escape that I

desired from my life and my circumstances. So you

would develop these sort of mini fantasies of an

event happening so that you didn't have to go public and

make the big decisions and make the change. Exactly. That is

very interesting. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who will

resonate with that in different parts of their life. It's like we know we need

to do something and we don't wanna— we'd rather have somebody else step in and

do it. So you mentioned that you think you did a pretty good job of

masking this. But if I push on that a little bit and

ask you, did anybody around you know that

you were miserable?

A couple of times. Well, after I shared what was going on and after I

did blow up my life, so to speak, my dad said

he was kind of curious. I didn't seem fully myself.

Part of me is like, okay, that's convenient to say after the fact.

But he did share that. And I also, my

mom after was like, I never entirely was sure if that was like,

she's like, I liked him. I just didn't know if that was the best match

for you. I was like, again, this would've been good feedback a long

time ago. Now, to be fair, they were, to give credit where credit's due, they

were being respectful that I was an adult and I was making my own decisions.

But I did hear a little bit of feedback like that. The

one person that— which is, this should not be shocking— but the one

person that I was really kind of floored by their reaction was

my, um, therapist at the time. So I started going to

therapy just because things were, uh, obviously not great

with me, so I thought that would be a good, um, thing to explore.

And when I told my therapist I decided to

end my marriage, she kind of put her pen down. And I'd been going to

her for like 6 months. and was giving all these different things I could

change and things I could work on and things I could do better just to

be happy and be fulfilled. And she was like, this is the

most at peace and just

authentic you I've ever seen. When I said

that, she's like, it just looks like a weight lifted off your back.

And that was— I didn't feel like she was telling me good job

or anything, but I just appreciated that she's like,

this is real. What you felt was real, and having to

walk away from that is real. And I just very much appreciated that.

That is very interesting. I think that— I'm not a therapist, I'm not qualified

to say the things that I'm about to say. So I think

that they're not supposed to take sides and give, like, you should stay or you

should go is the— She never did. And then there is a

comedian, Wanda Sykes the comedian, has a hilarious skit where

she's a marriage counselor and she's like, I

know that I'm not supposed to do this, but you two have no business being

married to each other. It's a really, really funny, hilarious,

not at all realistic skit. But it is an interesting thing because, you know,

it's like they try to be professional by not giving opinions, but a lot of

times we really want people to, you know, weigh

in. And I can also understand why nobody else should weigh in

because we really should make those decisions ourselves. It's a hard process.

All right, so enough rambling by me. So, So people may have had

some doubts, but nobody came out and talked to you about it until

you put your changes out there in the world. I said we'd

come back and talk about this. You got some

feedback. Well, let's talk about the changes you made. You made some big changes in

your life. You blew everything up and burned everything down. You got a divorce, you

moved. Yes. And so those were those. So

when you were doing those things, you began to get some pushback from the people—

or not pushback, but feedback from the people in your

life about this. Funny the way as

soon as you do things, people feel that they're free to

comment on the things you're doing in your life. Worse now than ever before because

of social media. How did that go? So

they definitely felt free to comment. I also learned

after a lot of reflection and trying to take to

heart that expression that 99% of what people do and say is

about them and not necessarily about you. Now, to be clear, people are

entitled to their opinions, and if you think what I did was terrible, I don't

necessarily think you have to tell me, but you have the right to tell me.

Okay. Uh, but the people that it triggered the

most were people who I know—

and this is not me making assumptions, this is stuff that I know—

these were people that were in unhealthy relationships and weren't happy. Hmm.

And me taking that step

and walking away, which is, I would say, in the top 3 hardest things

I've ever had to do, the guilt

was extreme. The, oh my God, I'm

starting over in my 30s, what am I doing?

Um, it triggers people. Yeah. And I didn't want— I

hope I didn't— I didn't want to project what I was going through on anybody.

But there were people that were like, it's marriage, you stay, you figure it out,

you work through it. And I wasn't raised particularly religious, but I was

raised Catholic, so it was like that. You were going to Mass, like don't give

me any crap about it. That's the way it was in my house. But we

didn't like— yeah, we didn't like, you know, our day-to-day life was not

built around that. Um, but I was raised in a very large

Catholic family. You didn't get divorced. Yes. So it

was jarring, and I think

I wasn't prepared for what it would bring out in people that felt

triggered by it. And There were some

people that, yeah, they just, they made me feel like they

didn't say this verbatim, but it was almost a like, how dare you

type of energy that was coming off of them. And that, that took me a

while to really process and work through. I bet you that, that

was hard. It is. So, yeah. So I also grew up in a family where,

you know, it was like church was not optional. Um,

and, um, and there's plenty of funny stories about that, but my parents were actually

divorced. So like, I, I, I had,

I went through all of that. Real early I was used to that, but then

I married somebody who had been married before. I'm his second—

like, he'd been divorced before we met. And it's been

25 years of coming face to face with some people's assumptions about

me. And sometimes complete strangers

will just blurt them out in public and I'm like, wow, you know, there was

some space there to keep that opinion, that just

judgment to yourself. You know? Yeah. It's very interesting.

And so I understand why people don't

sometimes put this stuff out into the world because it

doesn't matter whether or not you're talking about the flavor of ice cream you want

or things happening in your life. There is a subset of humanity

that's like, no, well, you shouldn't do it that way. And my

favorite about this is when you see people and it's like, it's already done.

Why do you feel like you should be telling me what I should have done

when this is in the past tense? It is complete. Your opinion is A,

not welcome. And also I can't revise time.

Yes. And what I'm doing is not a threat

to you or your existence. Right. That's— so yeah, that's one of the

things in my own life that I finally realized. So like my parents were divorced

and then I married somebody who'd been divorced. And so like statistically, you know,

it was ridiculous. Like the chances of my marriage failing were I think

75% if you looked at the statistics, right? And I

realized one day that I was—

I revised it for myself. I was like, the only statistic that

matters to me about my marriage is what is actually happening in

my marriage. Everybody else could do something completely different

and it wouldn't change what's happening in my relationship in any way.

It's just not related. Yeah. It's just not related. It's like it's

raining in Chicago, that doesn't mean you can't go to the beach in LA. They're

not related. So there's that. Okay, so you made these

changes. Which of these things came first? Did you burn it

all down and then do the work of getting to know yourself, or was

it the process of self-discovery that led to making the changes?

So a bit of a complicated answer. I would say

I started attempting the process of self-discovery, and I should use

air quotes because this wasn't real self-discovery at this point, um,

when I first realized— I have, I've written about it because it was a very—

it's burned in my brain, this moment where I was sitting in a kitchen

that I had, um, kind of designed and put

together to look the way I thought it should look. And

everything was so— um, I like West Elm, to be clear, but it

was just like a— like West Elm threw up in my house, and there was

no— there was no, like, interesting, unique, um, funky stuff that I

like. And I was holding a white coffee mug, and it

matched all my other coffee mugs, and I was just sitting there, and I was

like, who is this person? And who is this house? And like,

who are you? And when did I lose touch with you?

And instead of using that moment to really

dig in, I got really uncomfortable. And I

kind of stumbled upon the— I don't— I think wellness

is a real thing, but I'll use #wellness because there's a difference between real

wellness and the stuff that gets pushed. I,

instead of confronting the relationship or my issues,

I went hardcore for like between 6 months and a year down this

like, you know what the problem is? I have too many toxins in my shampoo

and I am eating too much gluten and I am doing

all these things. And to be fair, I still— I need a new planner. 100%.

And I went so hardcore, like, I'm just gonna— yes.

So I didn't, it didn't occur to me at the time that the

problems that I type A'd my way into could not be type A'd out of.

Yeah. So I tried really hard to do

what would be considered, you know, socially and societally acceptable

to fix my situation. And after doing that for a while, I was so

burnt out. I was like, this isn't fixing it. The diet's not fixing it.

The changes to my house are not fixing it. The, you know,

working harder and harder at work is not fixing it. And then the

first major, major change was having the conversation

with my now ex-husband at the time, which was

hard. And, you know, nothing is ever sunshine

and roses when you're going through that type of a split-up. But

I would say all things considered, I had one of the least contentious divorces of

anyone that I know. Didn't have kids at the time.

We were able to handle it as a dissolution. Like, I'm very grateful for that.

Yeah. But that was the big the big, big, big, big change.

We'd been together for 6 years, and at that age, that's a long, long time.

And having to kind of know I was

on my own and then choosing to move back to Texas where I grew up,

those were the major changes that I think I needed, that physical

move and kind of this new start. And

I never thought I would move back there, but it almost kind of felt like

going home to heal a little bit. And go a little bit inward

and do more of that real self-discovery, the really uncomfortable stuff

that I hadn't done before, that's kind of where I went to do that.

Yeah, so it's super interesting because

one of the things we talked about, people giving their feedback on life

choices, and one of the things that is, you know, people will say

is wherever you go, there you are. And people will use

that as a way to be like almost talk people out of making changes

in their life. It's one of those weird things that is—

it's true, right? Wherever you go, there you are. Yes, yes, that sounds good. It

sounds so nice and rosy, but it can almost be weaponized to get people to

not make decisions and changes

in their life. 100%, yeah. And there's a

book out there, and this, you know, I didn't write it, I'm not vouching for

it. There's a book out there called Range, and they talk about a study in

the book that they go back and ask people who make decisions and changes,

a huge majority of people are just so much happier

having made any kind of change at all. Like, it's really interesting because

it's contrary to like the friend advice that a lot of us get.

Although it is sometimes good to have a friend in your pocket who's like, yes,

do jump off the cliff, that's a good thing to do. Everybody should have one

of those friends in their pocket.

All right, so you do this.

Validate the wellness rabbit hole.

I think probably actually, when you think back to that, do you think that you

could have shortcut that and gone directly to it or do you think it was

probably like you needed to work your way through some of

these, maybe it's my diet, maybe it's my decor, before you were

like, nope, it's something else? I mean,

I think if I were the person I am now, I could do it.

Um, I think back then I needed, I needed that. Yeah.

I was really struggling with what deep down I knew to be true, but I

just wasn't ready to accept it. And back then I didn't have the tools at

all for how to handle that. I didn't have the words for how to handle

it. I was a chronic people pleaser,

perfectionist, all the things. And

I can look back with wishful thinking and say I could have just bit the

bullet. Um, I think I would have had like a A

meltdown if I hadn't have been like, I tried these things, I tried these things,

okay, that's not it, this is bigger.

And I could handle that now because I have the ability to.

A 30-year-old me did not. I think that's good self-reflection.

I sometimes feel like I will get— people will

offer me a solution, but if I'm not ready to hear it, if I don't—

it's almost like I don't even understand it. It's kind of— well, you have kids.

It's kind of like everybody tells you That the no sleeping

at the beginning is hard. It's like the, you know, it's like the whole thing.

We will never know. But you cannot understand it until you're like literally

in it. And then you're just like, oh my gosh, this is what they were

talking about. And, you know, you buy all the

things, you read all the books, and then you're in it and you're like, didn't

understand it. Now I understand it. All right. I was

so prepared. And then it was like, you're— what's the Mike Tyson? Like everyone has

a plan until they get punched in the mouth. That's what it's like having a

baby that's up every 2 hours. I love I love that Mike Tyson quote

because I also love the fact that I give out a quote that's from a

boxer. It's such a good, like, relatable thing about

life because it's so true. Yeah. My dad did some

boxing as a kid and, like, as a young adult. I think it was— it's

his story and I don't remember all the details. I'd tell it wrong. But he

had a similar version that he was so excited and enjoying it and then he

got in the ring and somebody punched him and he was like, wait, what? That's

not what I was expecting. Stupid experience because

of course you're going to get hit back. But okay. So

anyway, at 30, you say you felt like you

didn't know yourself. I have a weird question. Into every interview I throw a

question that may or may not be a good question. But if I had

met you when you were 20, do you think that that version

of you knew yourself? Like, was it something that you had?

Oh, God, no. No. Okay. So there's no younger version that knew yourself. Is it

that you lost? Um, the one caveat I would say,

when I was very young, before I started getting

molded, um, I have a picture on my phone of me

when I was, I think, 3 or 4. I was a tall kid, so I

sometimes struggled to— I'm like, what age was I here? Um,

I was wearing— which, my mom always was particular about what I wore, so I

was shocked that she let me out of the house in this. But we lived

in Philly. I had a tutu on as a bottom. with

tights and rain boots, and then I had a Phillies t-shirt on

and just looked insane. But I looked so happy

and just free. And I found that picture, and

the time I was probably in my late 20s, so before all this stuff happened,

um, I couldn't understand why I felt like really moved by it. But it was

like she hadn't had who she was,

you know, figuratively beaten out of her yet. Yeah. And so I

do think that there was probably something, but I was so young, like I wouldn't

even understand. But as far as, as long as I was conscious of what

other people thought and what was expected of me, it took till I was in

my 30s to know who I was. I think that's pretty normal. How old are

your kids? My son is very young. He's 16 months. Very— oh,

so super young. So yeah, it's— you'll watch him go through it because there's

very young kids, um, the world ends right at the end of their nose.

Really, they're just aware of themselves. Yeah. And one

of my favorite things about young kids, like preschool age, is that, you know, 4

or 5 kids will have a race and they all announce that they're winners. You

know, they don't even— and they're not fighting about it or anything. One is clearly

like, I'm half a length ahead, so obviously they're first, and they don't even

notice. They're like, we won, we won, we won. They're just not—

that's the way they see the world. And then there's a point where you'll be

able to watch them, they become aware of external feedback, like people are looking

at me. It's like right around adolescence. And, you know, I mean, adolescence is

famously hard, but it was wild. And obviously we lived through it. It's very

interesting to watch other people go through it. Much

more— it's much less painful to watch other people go through it. It still hurts

a lot, but adolescence sucks. Or the transition. You couldn't pay

me to— if you could keep my brain now and send me back to adolescence,

I would kill it. But you couldn't pay me to go back and have the

brain I had back then. It's such a hard time. It's such a hard time.

Okay. So you rebuilt your life on your own terms.

What does that look like today? Um, well,

I definitely can dispel any assumptions that it was like this

cool, fun discovery. It was really hard. Um,

I had these delusions of grandeur when I moved back to Texas and I was

driving that it was going to be like the indie

movie montage of, you know, the girl struggling and then

there's a great soundtrack and then she figures it out and she

like moves to New York. And I, to be fair, I did eventually move to

New York, but it didn't go like that. Like, I had

never really dated. I dated in

college, but it was always like you hung out with someone twice and then you

ended up in a relationship or you moved on. And then I

was in my early 20s when I met my ex, and so I had never

really been out there in that world, and that was really

uncomfortable. And then it also moved to Texas where a lot of people

got married in their 20s. And so it was like,

you know, I almost felt like I had a scarlet D for being divorced. And

it was— that was kind of a difficult thing to learn. I

started practicing yoga, and at first I was like, I'm going to hate this. This

is cliché. And I grew up— I was on the dance team and I swam,

and so I enjoyed a little bit more difficult type of activities. And

I started doing hot yoga and that was great. Like, that was a highlight of,

you know, trying something and pushing myself. But it was

hard. It was really hard

reconnecting with friends. You could tell pretty quickly who was

a solid friend because our lives kind of diverted

for a while. Yeah. But the friendship was still there to come back to and

who you realized we had kind of a superficial convenience connection.

And it's just, you know, we'd gone through different things and I was kind of

going through a difficult chapter. And

some people don't have the capacity for that. And that's okay. But it

was hard to try to figure out who was, you know, in

that inner circle and who I could rely on and be

open with and who I had to kind of play a little bit less

deep of a role when I was around them. So— It

was trying new things. It was putting myself out there. It was working really hard.

It was trying to say yes to more things. If friends were

like, hey, we're gonna go away somewhere for the weekend, like finding a way to

make that happen. Trying,

you know, going places by myself sometimes. That was something I'd never done before, like

taking myself on a dinner date or a coffee date. It just—

pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but in little subtle

ways more and more. And then when I felt like I had gotten to a

point that I was comfortable enough on my own was when I decided to

move to New York, which was great. It was difficult, but I, I knew

I could do it. And I knew at the, you know, the time just

after my divorce, I don't think I would have been able to do it. And

so I had taken a couple years and I knew I could

survive just going into it cold, only knowing a couple people who I wasn't

particularly close with. And so when I felt comfortable doing that, I knew I had

kind of gotten past the worst of it. Very

interesting. So when you say you moved to New York, do you mean the part

of New York you're in now or New York City? New York City. So you

moved to New York City. I mean, I feel that I grew up in New

York City, so my experience there is

like a, you know, like we talked, like it's a child. Like, it's like I

can show you where the good fire hydrants were during the summer. Like, I was

not an adult. But I do think that New

York Like many, you know, it's very

easy to— it's very friendly to transplants. There's a lot of people who are coming

there without a lot of connections.

And so— but it's also famously a city that,

you know, can just chew you right up and spit you out. Oh, yeah. Unforgiving.

So that is that. Okay, so you rebuild your life,

you try new things, you say yes to things, you put yourself in your comfort

zone. Were there any times where you found yourself thinking,

um, I'm not sure this was, was worth it, or

regretting? Oh my God, yeah, yeah. Um,

I, I knew deep down it was what I had to do, so there was

that certainty, but it was buried

underneath a lot of insecurity and a lot of, um,

doubt at times. Like, I would go on a bad date or a string of

bad dates and be like, these dating apps are the worst, and I

would have a friend kind of— I wouldn't say ghost, but

just kind of not be very supportive or not be around. And I was like,

what have I done? Like, I had a person I lived with who was there

for me. I had a group of friends, like couple friends. And that's the one

thing everyone talks about— you lose most of your couple friends whenever that happens.

And, uh, it was just these,

like, you did this to yourself. And I would get really

hard on myself about doing that. And now I can look back on the other

side and I'm so much happier and so glad that I

had just the gumption to walk

away. I sometimes look back and knowing the state I was in mentally and

emotionally back then, I'm kind of shocked that I was able to do it.

That's interesting. And there just must have been something deep in me that was like,

if you don't do this now, you're never going to do it and you're going

to wake up in 10 years even sadder. than you are right now. And so,

yeah, it was, it was, um,

yeah, this— I lost track of the initial question. Yeah, no, the initial question was,

did you ever look back and be like, why, you know, maybe I made a

mistake? Did I, did I do the wrong thing? Yeah, yeah. I never, I never,

never felt that strongly enough to try to go back and mend that,

but I definitely had those moments of doubt where you're just lonely.

And you're like, what have I done? But the next day I'd wake up and

I'd be like, you got this, you can figure it out. Okay, so

there's that. The— you

have written— okay, so share with me, if

you can, what is your motivation? I know you've written a book and you've got

a podcast, so what is the reason that you have decided to

share this publicly? Because that is a choice that is always behind

The choices that we talk about in the conversation, the choice to go public with

it, because you could have gone through this deep transformation, done all of these things,

and just lived that experience. What do you—

what is the reason you went public with the story, and what do you hope

that people who hear it and watch it will maybe

learn and take away from it? Yeah, so I

was a product of your struggle stays invisible.

You don't want to reveal a chink in the armor. And I chose a

path of getting a business degree and working in

tech, and it's very male-dominated, it's very

hustle-minded, and that played right into my perfectionism and

people pleasing. I was great at getting gold stars, and

I used to— even in that self-discovery and even in that kind of healing

chapter that we talked about, I didn't have any

intention of sharing anything because it it felt

heavy. It felt— it carried a lot of shame back then. And the

interesting thing was the more that I opened up to other women,

especially other career-oriented, high-achieving women, and

shared this is something I went through and other parts of my life that we

haven't really talked about today, but I have a couple of autoimmune conditions and that's

something that's really easy to hide for better or worse. And

I had a history I thankfully have not for many, many years, but I

had an eating disorder. And that's something that

when I would share with other women, like, I've been through a divorce, or

I deal with chronic illness that you can't see, um,

the amount of women that would be like, me too. Yeah. It

started to feel odd for them not to say that. And I was like, okay,

like, I love to write, I like to share. This is clearly something

much bigger than me. And what I used to think was my own little

special mixture of issues was not so special.

And obviously we all have unique stories and unique circumstances, but there was definitely this

underlying theme of women I met

who were just going through this period or had

gotten past this period of like, is this really what I want?

I need to look at my health. And I personally don't think you can remove

mental and emotional health from physical health because 'Cause they definitely affect each other.

And the disordered eating was the most interesting because

to an extent there's still some, there's a lot of shame with that. And so

when you can connect on the autoimmune conditions and you can connect

on something like divorce even, it's a little less heavy

of a topic. So it was almost like you would let your guard down a

little talking about those things. And then if you shared, you're

talking about health, for example, like I really wanted to try this certain,

wellness trend or diet protocol, but I have a history

of disordered eating, so that stuff is really dangerous for me. And they

would just be like, yeah, I do too. And it was like, once you got

to that level, it was like, oh, there's something here that we

can connect on. And it felt like by not sharing and by not

being opening, I was— or not being open with that story. Yeah.

I was kind of doing a disservice to other women who were going through it

and didn't quite have the words to Very interesting. Thank you for

sharing all of that. There's a saying from one of the

mental health organizations. I think it's old, so I don't know if they use it

anymore, but it used to be like shining a

light on the stigma is what makes it go away.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of truth in that. Now, there

is the other side of that coin that we all know people who share

When things are maybe not quite ready to be shared or they overshare. There's a

line. There's a line. There's a line. I don't— it's different for everybody. Like we

talked about, we all, you know, there's— There are places online where people go to

just like spiral out and it's like a negativity

competition. And I learned very quickly to step away from those. That's what the

divorce forums, any of the divorce forums,

they can be very, very, you know, this is the sadness Olympics.

competition, you know, or the suffering. Yeah,

it's a— there's some weird pockets of group, and it's

like, you know, social media and online stuff amplifies things. And

that's one of those things that it does feel like it's like, wow, if there

was ever a need for some curation, it is in this space.

Yes, completely. So very good. All right, so you

have written a memoir and you have your own podcast. I think they are both

named Invisibly Unwell. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. All right. So

I'm gonna put the links for the book and the links for your show

in the show description. You also have an offer for the people who

are in the audience, which is a Make Yourself Heard guide.

And so we'll put the link to that in the show description, the show notes.

The easiest way to get the link for that is to be a subscriber to

the Imperfect Adulting email list because that'll be a link that people can click. I

wanna thank you for that generous offer for the audience.

Are you ready to wrap this up with my final 2 questions? Yes,

absolutely. Let's do it. All right, so the world is full

of information, but personal recommendations are still really helpful.

What is something that you would suggest for the people in the audience that is

like a fun thing, like an entertainment thing? It can be a movie, it can

be a TV show, it can be a book, something that you would recommend that

you think that people in the audience should try for themselves. Oh,

that's a really good question.

I, so I'm like a huge nerd, so I just, just gonna wave my nerd

flag here. I find that Jeopardy is my absolute

best daily ritual because

even if I'm like completely caught up in work, it's mentally stimulating enough. Even

if you don't know a lot of the answers, it's mentally stimulating enough to get

you out of your own head. And there is not a single time I have

turned off the TV and not learned, have learned something that I find interesting

that then I add file away as a fun little factoid for the future.

So for me, that's such a little half hour of

positive, engaging entertainment, and I would suggest it to anybody.

Very good. Do you do any of the, like, online sort of game things? Or

here's a better question, a new question revised. I'm making it, I'm jumping. Have

you ever taken the quiz to be a contestant? I haven't. I

don't know why I avoid taking it. I'm worried I'm not going to make it.

But I'm pretty good at it. My husband also is, so we get pretty competitive

with it. And it's— there's a million things that we wouldn't be mad at each

other for watching if one of us travels. And that is one that you do

not watch if the other person is not there. So

it's in both of our to-do lists to take that test, but I

have not to date, no. And I prefer to watch the show than to do

it online for sure. Okay. All right. Very good. All right, here we go.

I call this section of the show, wrapping up with unsupervised online shopping.

What is something that you have purchased recently online that was a pretty great purchase?

And I mean, it doesn't have to be recent, but something you bought online that

you think that we should all consider. Oh,

that's such a good question. I buy— I mean, I have a toddler, so the

amount of stuff that's just for toddler activities is huge.

But let me think of something that everyone should know about.

Hmm.

I can't believe I can't think of something right now. You can share a toddler

purchase. They take over all of our shopping. They take over all of our shopping.

Um, if anyone has a toddler, actually we've been getting these since he was an

infant, um, but Lovevery is the subscription for

toys that are all like age-specific appropriate for their development.

And my son is the first grandchild on both

sides. So both my mom and my mother-in-law love to bombard us.

They mean well. With an insane amount of toys and

just junk that piles up in our house. So to be able to kind of

store those and weed through those, but get this like very curated

set of mentally, developmentally

appropriate toys for him is great. And it keeps our play area from

just getting completely out of control. Um, the only other one

I— we got a— now that I'm saying, I thought of one right at the

end. Um, I got— we got a whole house water filter. And it has been

such a game changer for life to be able to just go and get

water out of any faucet in the house. And that sounds silly, and I realize

I'm getting old by being jazzed about that, but it has been

incredible. My showers are less dirty. I can fill my water bottle

anywhere and not think twice about it. And if anyone— if you have the means

and the time to get that installed, it was such a game changer for us.

That is very— so a whole house water filter. Are you like on municipal

water or well water? We're on municipal water,

but just being kind of in that health space that I talked about, it was

like, let's just do it. We had— we

moved into a house that had a well, and there had been

filters on every single

sink, but they were old and gummy. So we pulled them out and we had

the water tested, and it was safe. It was totally safe. So we were like,

all right, we'll just drink the water. And we went to dinner,

and my whole family was drinking this restaurant water, and they're like, this is the

best water we've ever had. our life. I was like, no,

it's that the water, the well water at the house tastes terrible. I, like, from

the restaurant, like, ordered, like, water delivery service. I was like, oh my

God. It was very, just very minerally and

very hard. So we had a massive water softener to, like, save our

showerheads and our appliances. But we drank filtered water and filtered

ice because the taste was just— it just was— probably there were people that wouldn't

have noticed it, but for us it was not good. It just was not delicious.

It's not delicious. It's funny what I get

excited about as I get older. I would have laughed at me 20 years ago

saying I got a whole house full of floss. But it's been so wonderful. No,

I completely understand that. I'm at an age where

I'm like, wow, I really enjoy flossing. And I'm like, I'm old.

This has, you know, hit the point. All right, thank you

very much. I want to say thank you very much. for sharing your story

with us today and being a guest on the show.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining

me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Before I go, I want

to encourage you to become a bigger part of the conversation.

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find it? That's right, on the website and in the emails. And

that's a wrap for this episode. Until next time,

remember that the journey is the destination. Ralph Waldo

Emerson said that, not me. Well, until just now. I did just say it. But

what I want you to hear today is that if your adulting journey isn't going

the way you expected, that just may not mean you're lost. It may

mean that you're just And now the fine print.

The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast and streaming video show is a

copyrighted work created and produced by Amy Stone and Amy Says So.

The music was written and produced by Todd Thompson at Dharma Bomb

Studios. All rights are reserved. Anything expressed

on this show is offered as entertainment, and the views of the guests may

not always represent the ideas and viewpoints of the host. that's

me. Amy Stone does not intend to hold myself herself

out to provide professional advice or recommendations of any kind. In

the end, you and you alone need to make those kinds of decisions

based on your personal and individual situation, needs,

circumstances, and comfort level. Yeah, it's a little weird for me to talk

about myself in the third person, but you get the idea. This is Amy Stone,

signing off.