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And so I got my phone out, and I was like, can I Venmo you

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the money for my meal? Because I gotta go.

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And that's the first time I've ever done that, probably because I'm usually always

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paying for the meal. I usually go out with a bunch of mooches, is really

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what it is. I was like, man, it's been a long time since I've been

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in a room of strangers, small enough that everybody could hear the

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stupid shit that goes on in my head. And then it sometimes accidentally comes out

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of my mouth. It's fondue, but it's all sorts of dipping of meat and

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cheese in different patterns, which is my

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happy place.

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All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record, because that feels right.

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Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi,

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everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different

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Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that.

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That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken. And

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the reality is, you're just different, and that's fine.

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I have made no secret of the

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general trial and tribulation of my existence right now. There is

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so much. It is always a lot. Every morning I wake up and I'm like,

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really? Again? And every morning, the answer is yes

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again. And we get up and we do it again. But I was thinking about

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it this morning, and I realized that life right now feels like

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putting on a pair of jeans immediately out of the shower. We're gonna get

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through it, but it's gonna be difficult, and it's probably

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gonna feel sticky and like, I can't think. More apt description. And I don't think

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it's just me. I think that's a universal experience, at least in the US Right

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now. So get your pants on or don't. Don't put jeans

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on. That's awful. But I would imagine we have the same problem with leggings, Right?

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But jeans, specifically. Put your pants on or don't, but just

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know that if it feels like a struggle, it's not just

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you. And I am undoubtedly gonna get my foot

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stuck in the leg of one of them and fall over relatively soon. So

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you can come join me. It's such a universal feeling. Have you seen the

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newsroom? There's an episode where he says that the pants are cut

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wrong because he can't put them on right. And he makes a

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comment about how he's so smart, and somebody's like, really? Because you just told us

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that you can't put your pants on, and then later that episode, he

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has to rush to get the pants on, and you see him falling out from

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behind a curtain because he couldn't get his leg in. That's what it feels

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like. I was about to say, yeah, but skinny jeans are trendy now.

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And then I realized that skinny jeans were trendy literally 20 years ago.

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Last Sunday. I did so much peopling that I still

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have not recovered so much that I'm just

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realizing that it wasn't even last Sunday. It was the Sunday before.

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That's how bad I burned out my social battery. That's how much

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out of the house I did. That's how much logistics

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I did. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Orlando, but in Orlando, our, like,

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swanky area, I guess one of them, the oldest swanky area is

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Winter Park. There's an area in Winter park, it's called Park Avenue, that has

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all of the upscale stores, the restaurants

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that charge $30 for an omelette and charge you

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more to deconstruct things so that you have to put them together

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instead of just giving you a plate of food you can eat. They're like, here's

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a deconstructed gazpacho. And you're like, why did you just bring me

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tomato soup with cilantro on the side? That doesn't make sense. Anyway, they're very

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impressed with themselves, and to their credit, I have eaten at a number

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of them and all of them were very good. But I am a person

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who will happily eat a gas station hot dog. I'm not their

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target demo. I will very happily go to them. I will find something

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to eat there. I will put. Probably really enjoy it 100%. Well,

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they look at me and they're like, oh, she might have showered in the last

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week. This is interesting, but there's this. It's lovely. I really like

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the area. I like. It's well manicured.

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There's green space. The nightmare is the parking. But we went very early

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one day, so there wasn't really a parking issue. But Natasha, who's a dear friend

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of mine, got a makeup class or something in a silent auction, and so

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she asked me if I wanted to go. And I was like, you want to

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play with makeup for two hours? Yes, Absolute G. We went

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and there were a bunch of people there, and I

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forget how much of a jackass I am

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around a bunch of new people until I'm around a bunch of new

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people being a jackass. So there were all of the people who were

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there, and then there were the people who worked at the store

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because it was like a class that was held at a makeup store. And

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there was me, and we were there for several hours. And

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I could not stop making smart ass comments to

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the group, which everybody laughed at. I don't think I was actually annoying people. Now

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in hindsight, I'm like, oh, God, was I annoying people? But I don't think I

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was. I think we were cool. I was like, man, it's been a long time

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since I've been in a room of strangers small enough that everybody could

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hear the stupid shit that goes on in my head and then it sometimes

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accidentally comes out of my mouth. But they all could. They did laugh, which

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is really bad. If you want me to stop, don't laugh. I'm like a toddler

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who said the F word. I'm going to keep saying the F word now because

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you laughed. First off, being a full nerd, I think they thought that they

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were dealing with a bunch of, like, makeup novices, which most people were, which is

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totally cool. But I am not a makeup

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novice. And I have a whole chest of drawers next to my desk that

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has makeup in it that I play with every day and I try new stuff

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all the time and I spend way more money on makeup than I should, considering

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how much makeup I have, but I don't care. And

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so they were like, okay, so this is

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a primer. And you put this on your face before. And

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so the woman came over and was like, what would you say that your makeup

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understanding is? And I was like, I have 18 different foundations that I

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choose from each day. And she was like, so, some experience,

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okay. And so then they, like, wanted to bring me all the products, hoping I

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would buy all of the products. So she was like, well, I'm gonna bring you

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over this one because this is a brand you can't get anywhere else or very

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few other places. So I know you haven't tried this yet. Anyway, she was very

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cute. She was very sweet. And then I was sitting at the same table as

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Natasha's mother, who is a fucking delight, a lovely, wonderful person

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who I wanted to take home in my pocket. Her mom doesn't wear a ton

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of makeup, and so I couldn't not do my makeup like I always do.

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And so I'm sitting there and I've got, like, all the tools in front of

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me and I'm putting it on my face and I'm doing, like, all the things

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that you do for. I don't know, I feel like a full nerd. And

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she's watching me the whole time, and she keeps going, wow, you're really good at

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this. Wow. No, you really know what you're doing.

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How did you make that look like that? And I'm like, first off, I can

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show you. I'm happy to show you. But also, like, these professional makeup artists who

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actually know what they're doing will show you too. Like, that's why they're standing by.

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So anyway, I became, like, the spectacle, which pretty on brand did several

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hours there. And then we went to brunch, and I had

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a wonderful waspy brunch. I don't even know how to

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describe it, but it was supposed to be Mediterranean fusion or something.

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I don't know. I saw eggs Benedict on the menu, and I was like, that,

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please. But it's one of those places where you order food and

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you get food. The food doesn't come with a side

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because you're fancy and you have to order a separate side.

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Not that I needed the side, but it was still like, that's the kind of

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place it was. Everything's a la carte except for the cheeseburger. And

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riddle me this. They have a menu, full love,

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really expensive, really, like, the type of food you cannot get

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anywhere else. Specialized stuff, all sorts of fancy

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ingredients, stuff that even somebody like me was like, this

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feels like I'm not going to have any other opportunity to try this. So I

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want to try it, even though I'm probably going to hate it. One of the

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people who was with us looked at the server and was like,

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I'm between this and the cheeseburger. Which should I get? And he was like, oh,

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definitely the cheeseburger. Our cheeseburger's really good. And I'm like, good for you.

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I support you. But also, I don't feel like you're supposed to come here and

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get a cheeseburger. And why is your cheeseburger that good? Why would you have a

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stellar cheeseburger at this crazy, fusiony,

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very expensive place? And you're like, Nope, get the $16 cheeseburger. It's

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better. That doesn't make sense to me. That feels like there's a failure somewhere else.

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I didn't get the cheeseburger, and I was a little regretful because it did look

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really good. We did brunch, and I

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stepped into 2026 because I had to leave a little bit

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early from brunch before they had settled everything out. And so I got my

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phone out, and I was like, can I venmo you the Money for my meal

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because I gotta go. And that's the first time I've ever done that.

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Probably because I'm usually always paying for the meal. I usually go out with a

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bunch of mooches is really what it is. So I felt very like Gen Z.

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Like I was with the times, which those times are actually five years ago, I

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literally got into my car, drove the

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40ish minutes home, changed my clothes. My kids came home,

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they had been out. We jumped right back in the car. I literally

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just left a meal, just got back in the

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car, drove over to my mom's house, picked her up, took

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her out to early dinner for her birthday. For the record, not because

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she wanted to go to early dinner, but because I am

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exceptionally old and I don't want to be out past

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bedtime. So my mother, who was turning an

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age, that I will be immediately struck down

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from heaven if I say on a live microphone, I will not

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say, but on that day was turning that age and should be

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the one who cares about early bird specials, was

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like, why do you want to go eat so early? And I was like, why

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do you want to go eat so late? She's like, I want to go eat

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at 7. And I was like, no. So we went

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very early, but we took her to a very nice restaurant. We took her to

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the Melting Pot, which is a nice restaurant. It's just like meat and

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things you put on meat. It's like basically just repetitive meat and cheese, which is

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not a problem for me at all. It's all sorts of dipping. It's fondue, but

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it's all sorts of dipping of meat and cheese in different

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patterns, which is my happy place. But then we did that and then we

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were there for several hours and then we did birthday and then I finally got

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home. It was probably only like 6:30 when we got home.

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And I was like, I'm spent. I talked to so many people today.

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I did so many things. And I remembered to get the balloon

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bouquet for the table, which I should get some sort of award for.

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And by remembered I mean I checked the box when I made the reservation.

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But it did feel like I remembered to do something. And then we got to

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the table and my mom reminded me that she hates balloons. And I was

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like, oh, that is a thing that you've said for literally my entire life. I

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forgot. I forgot. Awesome. But man, I can't think of

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a day in the recent past outside of when we were

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at a conference and I knew that it was

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going to be like, morning to night peopleing. And I still

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escaped momentarily throughout the day to

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recharge and get a soda and find some

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solace and put my AirPods in and noise cancel the whole world. Like, I can't

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think of a day that I have peopled that hard in a very

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long time. There were two meals, there was a whole

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class where a bunch of people were touching me.

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I didn't karate chop anyone. There were people looking

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at me while I was doing stuff and I didn't freak

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out. And nobody said that I was being weird.

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And that is probably the biggest

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victory. So all I'm saying is, if

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you need me for anything in the next six weeks,

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know you don't.

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And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's small

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talk. We have a small talk question from

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Alejandro in New Mexico. I got my

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Bachelor's degree at 37, finished last

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May, and everyone around me was very kind about it, saying

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it's never too late, all of that. But the ceremony was full of

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22 year olds, and I spent a lot of it in my head doing

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the math on all the years I consider lost. I

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know intellectually that comparing timelines is pointless.

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My path is my path, et cetera. But there's this voice that occasionally

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whispers that I'm permanently behind in my career,

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in my life, in some imaginary race I didn't sign up for.

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I'm curious if you have ever had to actively grieve an earlier

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version of your life, what you thought it would look like and

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how you stopped measuring yourself against a timeline that was

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never really real. Okay, so first off, the thing I want to say

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and the thing you need to get out of your brain is that there

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is no finish line. Life does not have

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a checkered line on the ground that you run through.

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Break the tape and you win at some race. There's no race.

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There's no race. You're not running against anybody else. You're not

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running against yourself. There's no finish line. There's a

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clinician who works for me. I've worked with him a long time. He's a great

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doctor. And he was a corporate, like, retail

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manager for 20 years. And then he went back to medical school

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and left his career, lived the

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medical student life like full time medical student in

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his 30s, I want to say, did residency in his late

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30s and became like an

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independent trained doctor. Like, I think he was like in his 40s by the time

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he was done. And he might be the best doctor that I work

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with. He might be the Most caring, the most compassionate, the most

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understanding. When I get to see the way he interacts with

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individuals or, you know, see his notes or things like that, he approaches

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it with a level of insight and compassion

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that I can only assume comes from the fact that he

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understood humans before he understood the human body. He

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had life experience behind him before

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putting all the science into his brain. And I

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just get a sense that he is a better doctor

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because he did life first than he would be

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if he had started fresh out of college. And that's not

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a criticism of people who start fresh out of college. Like, we need doctors to

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start whenever you start. But his career is different. I

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actually had a teacher like that in high school. He was a

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military pilot. He was Top Gun three times. He was a

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Navy pilot. And on his desk in his classroom

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was a Top Gun award, and he actually was

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Top Gun four times. But he didn't count the fourth time because it was in

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combat, and he didn't feel like that was appropriate. He taught

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the hardest subject that I ever took in school, which was calculus,

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and kicked my ass. Left, right, BA,

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select, start. It was so hard, and yet I loved

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his class every time. And it was because he

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loved what he was teaching. This was his choice. He

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chose to do this thing. He wanted to come to school

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every day. He didn't need to work. He did 30 years in the

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military. He had a sweet pension and all

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these things. I'm sure he had a great bank account and did not need to

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make $40,000 a year as a teacher in Florida. But he

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chose that. He wanted to do that. He loved his students. He loved teaching

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math. He told me once that his favorite thing was working with people

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who insisted they were bad at math because he could show them that

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they could be good at math and that they were just in their head about

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it and then also getting to work. I mean, he worked with really

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complex subjects. And he would invite students

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who had been struggling in, like, remedial math classes because

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he wanted to show them that they could do this. He just liked math.

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He just liked math. All math, including calculus, which is

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evil. Absolutely evil. So evil. But he

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probably would have been a good teacher straight out of college, but I don't know

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that he came at it with a different understanding about what

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teaching was and also what high school was to us. And

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it made him a different kind of teacher. And so there is no

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finish line. You are going to get where you're going

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when you get there. And are you allowed to grieve

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the version of life that you thought you would have. Absolutely. But I don't know

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what you're grieving because that doesn't mean you can't have it. You can have whatever

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version of life you still think is possible and it's probably

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going to be better for the things that you have behind you that are informing

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your decisions. Now you're older, your prefrontal cortex is

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developed, you're not making stupid decisions now that you would have

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made with a bachelor's degree at 22, when you still have three,

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four more years of brain development that need to happen before you're actually

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a grown adult. We treat people like they're an adult at 18 and then again

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at 21. And the reality is most men are pushing 30.

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Don't say that critically, it just is. There's no finish line. And

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then beyond that, you can't measure yourself against a

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timeline that doesn't exist. If you stop thinking that there's a path that you need

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to be on, there's no path that you need to be on. There's nothing linear

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happening in your life whatsoever. You are probably better at

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the things that you are good at now than you would have been at 20

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because you have life experience behind you. There is nothing

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about starting a career at 22 that you

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would not be better at starting that career at 42.

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You're a more confident human, you're a more experienced

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human, you're a more successful human. There's probably a lot that you would say to

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22 year old you about life and these aspirations that you had.

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And I'll give you another kind of example. My husband and I think I was

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24 when we got married, maybe around there. And to me

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we were going to turn around and we were going to have kids five minutes

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later. Now, he didn't want to have kids right away, he wanted to wait a

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little bit of time. And we did sort of wait before we started actively trying.

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I think we waited about a year. But to me any time before

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that would have been a happy, not happy accident, but

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just like we were preventing it, let's put it that way. So in the way

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that 24 year olds are, we should have been pregnant on month two, even though

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we weren't trying, that was what happened to my brain. And then we got a

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year in and I thought, well, it's because we haven't actually been trying. So now

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we'll actually start trying and I'll learn about some things and we'll figure out how

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to do this and then Another year went by, Then we went to some doctors

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and another year went by. We tried for four years. We had our first

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child just before our fifth anniversary with fertility

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treatments and a whole lot of outside intervention and a whole lot of doctors and

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a whole lot of heartbreak. It changed me molecularly. It was the

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hardest thing I ever went through. Then we had our second two years later, also

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through fertility treatments. My oldest turned one and I was like,

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I want this part of my life to be over. Let's get the second one

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done. And at that time, I would have had 100 kids if it was

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possible. And I. I didn't necessarily think we were going to stop it too.

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But not only does my reproductive system suck and make it impossible

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to get pregnant, but then I undercooked them and they kept coming out authentic.

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And so after two, we were like, if we're going to do this again, we're

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going to need to rent a uterus. And I say all that, you know, it

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was almost. My husband and I were together almost seven years by the time we

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had our second kid and technically completed our family. Which, by the way, I hate

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being pregnant. Being pregnant is the worst thing in the world, but I would do

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it. I love having kids. I want to have 50 more kids. But also, like,

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we got two kids when we really thought we would have no kids. And so

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the point of that being, I could have had the kid

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two months into our marriage. I could have gotten

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pregnant that fast and we could have an almost 15 year old now.

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But I got these two kids who are perfect. I wouldn't change anything

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about them ever. And as much as it

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destroyed me and it was the most

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difficult thing I have ever been through, it changed the way I

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relate to people forever. It was that hard. It was that

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difficult. As much as all of that, I

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like these too. They're good. They're funny, they're

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smart, they're sassy. They make me laugh

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every day, they make me smile every day. They

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have the tenderest hearts that are wrapped up in. In the

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sassiest, smartassiest bodies. And if you

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had to tell me now that I could

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undo all of the damage that did to me in every possible way,

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but I wouldn't have these kids. I would say, no, no way.

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I like these kids. I don't want any other kids. I like these kids. I

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mean, I would have more kids, but I want to keep these kids. And that

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doesn't mean that I didn't still grieve the experience.

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It doesn't mean that I didn't still struggle with the scars of

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infertility for a long time. It doesn't mean that I didn't have medical

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complications from it. It doesn't mean that I don't have

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just residual baggage from it. All of

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that's still true. But at the end of the day, I got the kids

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that I don't know if I was supposed to have them, but I'm so glad

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that I do. And I wouldn't change the journey, even though the journey

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sucked, but the outcome was kind of great. And

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so you are where you are supposed to be.

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And that doesn't mean you can't grieve and process

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through what got you here. But you can't be behind on

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a race that doesn't exist. You are doing

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the best you can with the situation that is in front of

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you. And there is nothing else that anybody could ask of

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you. So I'm proud of you. Congratulations. Big

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fucking congratulations. Getting your degree is a big deal. And you know

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what they call the person who graduates from medical school

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at 45? A fucking doctor. You did the

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thing. I'm proud of you. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love

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you. Meaning.

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One of my favorite things that floats around the Internet occasionally

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is life is short. So tell people you love them,

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but shout it in German because life is also terrifying. The German

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language, like, actually has really good words. Like, they have words

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in German that you cannot find in any other language that you have to

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explain with multiple words in any other language. And they are like,

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perfect. I tell people that my love language

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is schadenfreude.