Embracing Change and Finding New Beginnings | Ann Anderson Evans

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And this was my ideal marriage. I mean, all the people around us, they were, oh, you and Terry, or we wish we were like you, or whatever. And then he killed himself. And it was not completely unexpected, but I knew another couple like that. They were the model couple. And then he killed himself. But yeah, it was, I don't think I will have such a peaceable relationship again.

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with anyone, it was really wonderful. And I think of him as my real husband. Today's guest is Ann Anderson-Evans. Ann is an accomplished author and a former professor whose journey through life has really been marked by bouncing back, self-discovery, and because of all of that, a lot of personal growth. Ann focuses her story on becoming single three times, twice divorced and once widowed. And...

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The story revolves around how these pivotal moments have shaped her life in so many ways. Ann's experiences have taught her the importance of self-reliance and the value of independence. We kind of go through her adventures in online dating later in life and the shifting societal roles of men and women and the unexpected joys and challenges that she encountered along the way. From repairing lamps to cultivating a beautiful garden in Vermont, her journey is a prime example of the human spirit's ability to adapt.

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and to thrive. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Ann Anderson Evans.

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I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

01:54
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. I am here with Ann. Hello, Ann. Hi, Matt. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Where are you? Where do you live? I live in Rutland, Vermont. Well, thank you for wanting to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. Just for anyone that's tuning in to listen to you and your story, I just want to say a little backstory. The Life Shift podcast really stems from my own personal life shift experience. When I was eight, my mom was killed in an accident and...

02:20
from that moment when my dad told me that she had died, everything in my life had changed. And this was late 80s, early 90s, and people weren't really talking about that. It was just like, kids will bounce back, make him happy, he'll be fine. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, it was very much me wondering if other people had these small, I guess small is not the right word, but a small moment in their life that changed everything. And it turns out they do. You're like the 140 something person.

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person that I've talked to and everyone has multiple pivotal moments in their lives that have changed things. But I always find it fascinating to center these conversations around the ones that we feel changed us the most. So thank you for just wanting to be a part of this journey that I am so lucky to be on. It's my pleasure. So before we get into your story, perhaps you can just tell us a little bit about who Anne is right now in 2024. What do you get down to?

03:17
You know, I just like to say something first. I so appreciate how you approach this. I mean, everybody has had a moment of where they thought they couldn't come back from it, or how am I going to do this? And so sharing those moments aren't necessarily the important part. It's what happens afterwards that's so important. And that's what you're functioning on, or you're focusing on. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's...

03:47
I always tell people that this show, really what I want is that each episode finds the ears that need to hear it the most, that maybe they feel less alone because they heard, oh, Anne went through this and look where she is now and look what she did with that. Look what she learned from that. I will be okay. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's so important. Who am I today? Okay. Today, I am living in Vermont. Where it's...

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quiet in the daytime, dark at night, and there's no traffic. And the no traffic is the best part of all. Every time I go back to my hometown of Montclair, New Jersey, my heart starts to seize up around Pekin. All the six lane highways start, and it's a wonderful place to begin again, which is what I've been doing since the death of my husband, which was five years ago.

04:45
And many people have told me it takes five years to get your feet on the ground again. And I think that's pretty much true. And just some very simple things. I'm going to talk first about Terry, who is the subject of my recent book, The Sweet Pain of Being Alive, because that's where I am right now. But I have a couple of remarks about becoming single again, which is the moments that I'm concentrating on here.

05:13
It takes a while to remember what you like to eat for breakfast, what you like to watch on television, whether you want a dog. Those decisions are all made as a couple, and all of a sudden, now here you are. And it's really a grand opportunity, not one that I welcome. But you know, you have to look for the silver lining in every experience.

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of widowhood, it has given me an opportunity to discover what my own life is, what my own choices are. Because you always submit to a certain degree to your partner. And I prefer living, I preferred, I don't think I would like a partner now. But you know, it was nice, very nice, happy marriage, and that's the way I wanted it.

06:11
One of the joys up here is having a garden. People have told me, friends, for a long time, how much support they get from nature. And I really never understood what they were talking about. But now I have a garden, and nature disciplines me. I can decide that things are going to be this way or that way, that I'm going to put this plant here, and it's going to grow. Nature tells me, no, it's not. You haven't figured out.

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what's the right soil or you haven't planted the seed properly. It's a harsh taskmaster. Like last summer we had rain all summer long every day. There were slugs everywhere. It was horrible and it was hard to make a harvest. And I certainly came to appreciate what farmers do because they had to handle these things.

07:04
One at a time, I'm learning how to grow things, and I have a grand crop of potatoes this year. That's not something you hear too often, people growing potatoes. So good on you. I struck up a friendship with the potato lady at the farmer's market, and she gave me some seed potatoes, and boy, they're going strong. Were you into kind of, could you ever imagine yourself being a gardener and doing those kinds of things? No. Okay, so this is a brand new experience of living a different version of you.

07:34
That's right. And it's given me a sense of beauty and a sense of accomplishment. And this discipline is very healthy for me. It's interesting to hear you say too, though, like, you know, like, you wouldn't wish widowhood on anyone, right? Like, I mean, this is not something that we wish on people, but the growth that you've had from it and being able to like find yourself and find like a new version of you in this part of your life.

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and these new things, that must be exciting as well, like in an interesting way, because you're like, I wouldn't have wished this on myself, but I'm in a good place. Well, since the shift in life that I would like to talk about is becoming single, I've become single three times. I've been married three times, twice divorced and one widowed. And it's very interesting to see that.

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the differences between one and the other. A divorce, you always end up with, no matter what the circumstances, you end up with a sense of failure. Do you think that, is that internal or is that something that you take from society, do you think, just in general? That's a very good question. I think it is internal because you have made a promise. You have, in all good faith, entered into something and your judgment was,

09:01
was not perfect or something happened that you didn't expect and those things are not your fault. But nevertheless, they have caused the uprooting of a marriage. Right. And then you feel that sense of, I didn't do it right or something didn't go right because X, Y, Z. I get it. Well, the first time I got divorced was under very unfortunate circumstances. My first husband

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rotten and mistreated me and the children. And so after I'd gotten divorced, I thought, well, my children need a father. I have to start another family. And I married much too quickly. How old were you around this time? In my 30s. Okay. I was raised to be somebody's wife. I never, I would be anything else. I never had any idea that I would support my children, that I would have a career.

09:59
You know, I just didn't think in those terms. And after my first divorce, I thought divorce was bad, that you should try to hang on to marriages as long as you could until it became just abusive to everybody. Yeah, that's definitely, I feel like that's definitely like a generational and societal, like just like contract. I often talk about this like society's checklists and it's probably, it kind of sounds like that's what you were following too, like as a.

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as a woman, you were supposed to become a wife. So these are the steps that you had to take to become a wife and a mother and all these things when I mean, nobody's nobody put that rule book in front of us. We just kind of absorb it and then follow it. Yes. After high school, most of my friends were married fairly shortly and had children. I was married the first time when I was 34. Oh, wow. OK. So you were bucking the system there. Yeah, I was. Well, I was living abroad and I don't know.

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that that's a whole different story altogether. But after the first divorce, I didn't stop long enough to ground my kids and myself. I immediately married the opposite of my first husband, who turned out just the same. Although in a different way, he became almost fatally mentally ill and had to go in the hospital. Do you think that rush was like, was that a fear of being single?

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or just the fear of not being married? No, I don't think, well, I was kind of afraid, I guess. I was afraid financially, that's for sure. Okay. I think there was a lot of shame that I had not fulfilled what my life's goal had been. But after the second divorce, I said, I've had enough. What woke you up that time? Just because you're like, I tried again and it... I've, and my kids had had enough daddies.

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I am going to take the next, I don't know how many years alone. I'm not going to bring somebody else into it. I've got to figure this out myself. And that took 12 years. During most of those years, the very idea of even holding a man's hand, it would have been like an electric shock. You know, just a, what are the, the opposite magnetism.

12:24
Yeah. That somebody would drag me into something like what I had just had. No, and I think this is very common, and women especially. Well, I think also, like, just thinking of your story, it's almost like you were fleeced in a way because, like, your first husband was a certain way and then gravitated towards that. And then you said you found someone that you thought was the complete opposite, but yet ended up in the same place. So you're like, well, now I picked one over here, picked one over here. What's the point?

12:51
What did I, what's going on here? Right, like why even bother? Because anyone that I choose now at this point seems like they're gonna end up in that route. Yeah, well, I discovered many things during those 12 years. Number one, that I as a woman could do anything a man could do. I could lift heavy things. I'm probably better. Repair, no, not better. I could repair the car and the lamp. I could sell a house. I could get my kids into college. I could...

13:19
You know, all the things that I had thought I could mow the lawn and, you know, all the things that I had left up to men in my mind, I discovered, Oh, I can do those. So that was not necessary to find somebody to mow my lawn. I could do it myself. Was there like a moment where you felt like, where, did you just do them because you had to, or were you like, intentionally being like, I'm going to try to do this because I've always thought I quote unquote could not.

13:49
Yes, I... Oh, God. Can I do this? Yeah. Well, sometimes it's a fear of failure too. Like in my sense, like some things I just never tried because if I wasn't perfect, but a lot of mine stems from like abandonment issues. And I don't know if that's the same with divorce, but like losing a parent as a child, I always felt if I wasn't perfect, my dad was gonna abandon me too because...

14:15
My mom abandoned me in my small mind, right, because she died. So it was like always trying to be perfect. So I would never try things. Like you're kind of explaining, like I wouldn't do it unless I knew I could do it. Well, I don't find, and I don't think I ever really found much value in thinking about the past and why I did that. It was like, what do I have to do today? You have to repair the lamp. Well, I've never repaired a lamp.

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but how difficult can it be? There's this wire that goes there and there's this groove that holds it in place and there's a light bulb and, you know, it's just not hard. Yeah. And then you think, why? Why did I ever think I couldn't do this? Yeah. And maybe you didn't actually actively think that, just someone else was handling it because you thought it was their job. Yeah. And I think, you know, women...

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There were big changes in women's lives after say the 70s, the 60s, and the 70s. And a lot of women learned that they could do everything a man could do. They could be judges and doctors and all those things that had only been male. And I think the men are only now waking up. They didn't have to change much. They just had to go on doing what they'd been doing. They had been told that they should get educated and work hard so they could support their families. And they got educated and worked hard and supported their

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continuing pretty much on the same trajectory that they'd always expected. But women got walloped in the middle saying, oh no, you've got to support yourself now, you've got to support your family now, you've got to have a career now. And a lot of careers were not even open to women. And when I started, I worked. So, you know, but men, I think they didn't have to change. Yeah, in that aspect, I think now they have to change in a different way. They have to, you know, just...

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be like more in touch with not that stuff, you know, like the emotional part and just like being a full human and not just being a provider and a fixer and those kinds of things. I think now both, all genders can be full humans, I feel like is like maybe that's what we're awakening to. I think, I feel that way. It's not my generation. So I can only look at it from the outside.

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but I feel a change now, finally. So I do line dancing. Oh. And of course. In Vermont. What? In Vermont, you know? Yeah, line dancing is so much fun. It's very simple, but looks like, you know, you move gently for an hour and you're sweating, you know? It's a good exercise. So it's all girls. And one day a man came to the doorway and everybody stopped dancing.

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a man. They would love it if the men came and danced with them. And men still haven't. And my book club is all women. It's like living in a harem. Everywhere I go, everybody is female. And I love my women friends. We have a lot of fun. But the place where there are men is pickleball. And I play pickleball. And it's about 50-50. And it's really nice.

17:37
I think the people around me, men around me, I feel like are trying to be more human. At least I am. You know, like I lean into being sad. Like I told you, I cried all day today. You know, like, and that I'm not ashamed of that. And I think 20 years ago, I was probably taught to be ashamed of that. And I think, you know, I think, hopefully, we're kind of making strides into this. But from what you experienced, it's just in the pickleball. It is.

18:07
Well, yeah, it takes a long time to change like this. And men never did consent to it. They just, oh honey, you wanna go out to work? Fine, go ahead. They're not realizing all the ramifications that there would be from that. So those 12 years, but frankly, then after 12 years of complete celibacy, my body began to react.

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I was having crushes on the strangest men. My Ukrainian doctor, one of the lawyers in the law firm where I worked, I raised my kids as a legal secretary. Then I became a professor and a writer. Once they were grown, I could sort of spread my wings professionally, but I earned my paycheck as a legal secretary. Somebody told me, do you know that he goes in his office and sniffs cocaine? Oh, gosh.

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you're choosing completely the wrong people. So I said, no, I'm not gonna do that again. And it was the beginning of online dating. I wasn't meeting anywhere else. And so, and it was quite an exciting time. And I wrote another book about that called, Daring to Date Again, about what happened when I started dating at 62. But did you, I mean, before you jump into that, those 12 years, did you learn like a crap ton about yourself and like,

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who you were as an individual, which then, just a question, does this make it harder to find the right person or does it make it easier? Oh, I think it's always hard. I think it's always very hard. And the more experience you have and the more you think, originally, the harder it is, I think, in a way, because you have to find people who are on your wavelength. But they're there. They're always there. There's somebody for everybody if you want them.

20:01
Yeah, because I mean, I would imagine 12 years where you are focused on yourself and your kids and your life and creating and cultivating the version of you that you didn't know existed until you created her. I would imagine it would be hard to kind of now let someone into that space where you have to share like you started this out sharing decisions and determining what you want to watch on TV and those kind of things. Well, that's why nature gave us sex. Well, fair. To make it to make it.

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almost impossible to resist. And then you just kind of give in, we're here and there for different things that you were super strong about. Right. And so the rules were completely different. The rules for dating when you're in your 60s, I don't think there were any. Like a lot of married men contacted me and they would say, I've been married for 30 years. I've done everything for my family, but my wife won't have sex with me. My wife.

21:00
doesn't talk to me, what am I going to do? I don't want to divorce her. But so in that case, and frankly, I shied away from married men, but I would talk to them. I had long email conversations with them or sometimes phone conversations, just listening to what they had gone through. And they would say things to me like, I feel like I'm never going to be a man again. And so to say,

21:26
Well, you can't talk to anybody outside of marriage, or you can't kiss anybody, can't have sex with anybody. You have to be a monk for the rest of your life. No, that's not what I signed up for. So these complex questions come into play at this point in life, which didn't before. So one has to kind of craft a new set of ethical responses and responsibilities and try and be honest.

21:54
So you became like, while in your dating journey, you also kind of became like a therapist for some of these individuals that were reaching out for help, not really a therapist, but you were listening to them and maybe they weren't being heard other places. I just listened, yeah. And I still listen, I love to hear other people's stories. Everybody, when I was a professor of the required writing course at Montclair State University, freshman writing course.

22:23
A lot of people in the class didn't want to take the class. They wanted to get on with becoming an engineer or a veterinarian or physicist, whatever it was. But I learned in engaging with these young people, everybody has a story. Even if you're 18 years old, you have a story. And the story may be about your grandmother or your cousin or whatever, not necessarily something dramatic and interesting about yourself.

22:52
But most of them have stories about themselves, too. Everybody has a story. And it's so interesting to hear them. Yeah. Well, I mean, on that dating journey, as you were magnetized, if we're going to go with this magnet piece now, because your magnet switched sides here, and now you're being drawn towards everyone around you, like how did that journey unfold if you were being reached out to people that maybe weren't your top choices, but you wanted to hear their stories?

23:21
Exactly. That's exactly what I did. Everyone who contacted me, I answered. And some of them were, like I'll give you an example. I remember this guy, sent a picture of him standing in a very kind of crafted pose, you know. He had all white, white sneakers, white pants, white shirt, white hat. He was on a sailboat or, you know, a big sailboat of some...

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And he thought he was just really hot. And I, you know, I just thought, no. That's not my type. I just don't, I'm a good try guy. Yeah, tried really hard. And there are lots of women who would love that. So your point here is that like there's a match for everyone and people are finding the people? There's a match for everyone and people find the court by finding people like themselves.

24:22
Who are the people who are like you? That's the question. And how do you find them? Yeah. So with all these people that I was in contact with on the dating sites, I got to try out all kinds of people. Cause in my mind, I would have loved to partner up with like Gregory Peck. He was, if you remember who he was, he was a dashing, handsome, tall, dark haired guy. And

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you know, nobody looks like Gregory Peck. So what do you want? And the people that I finally, finally I met Terry, who was my third husband. I met him through with a dating site at the end of that. I was about to just press the last button on the last dating site and I saw a photograph. I said, that man looks really nice. And I met Terry and we were married one year later. We married for 16 years. And what was I saying? Oh, but he was, he was fat.

25:20
He wasn't particularly handsome. I mean, he wasn't ugly, but he was, you know, he wasn't dashing. He didn't have, he was humble in the way he held himself and walked. And he was a good athlete, but he didn't look like a good athlete. And he's completely different from what I would have expected. And I thought, good for you, Anne. You know, you've looked, you've learned to look beyond, look into his eyes. The kindness there. You just saw something.

25:48
I mean, if you saw something that made you stop and pause, I can't help but just think about those 12 years though of you really soul searching yourself as well. So like, I think there was probably, your surface level, but once you pass through that, you have to find something meaningful, it seems like, especially if you were a full person, living your best life at that point, or however, living your life to the fullest as much as you could by yourself.

26:17
You want to find someone with some kind of depth, I would imagine. And Terry had this depth. Yeah. In those 12 years, mind you, raising two kids, I commuted one and a half hours each way to my New York. I was exhausted. I was exhausted all the time. And I wanted to keep a nice house for the kids. So there goes the weekend. And I remember a day it was maybe six years into the 12 years, maybe.

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more, I realized I can leave the kids alone in the house. And I went for a walk around a park near me. It was the first moments I'd had to myself, really to myself, in a decade, more than a decade, maybe 15 years, where I could just go out and walk around the park. So I did that every day. And it was just so beautiful. I mean, it sounds like it was a little bit life-changing, because it gave you a little bit of time to yourself.

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But you know, you talk about small moments and that's a small moment I really remember. First moment when I could be myself and do what I wanted to do, even for just a half an hour. And then you made it a habit. And then I made it a habit, yeah. Which then probably fed you even more without you even like consciously thinking about it anymore because it was just a habit. Right. And I started reaching out then as my kids were older and could be left alone in the house, I started reaching out more.

27:46
But I think it was probably a good idea, not to complicate our lives. We do what we need, right? Like we do what we need to kind of get through moments and survive and do the things that we find are important at the time. And then those priorities kind of shift. Yeah, the problem is we don't always do what we need. No, we don't always do what we need. We do what we think we need. And what we think we are expected to do. But then you realize so few people do what...

28:15
their expectations to get to know about people's lives. You know, wonderful marriages turn out to be not so wonderful. And, you know, people turn out to be quite different from what you thought they were. There's a, I mean, there's a lot of performative nature out there too. I think a lot of people are hiding behind what they've painted. Like you said, you wanted to keep a nice house for your kids. Did that really represent you in the best way if people were to dig deep into how you were feeling at the time?

28:43
Maybe, maybe not. I think we're just kind of taught to be our best version on the outside, so other people think we're this, and most people don't even care. Yeah, most people don't. That's right. They don't care about what we're doing. I spent the weekend of July 4th with friends in the Catskills. There were about 12 of us. It was like a house party. My friends bought a former summer camp, kids' summer camp. That's so fun. And very often, lots of people go up there. There were 12 of us.

29:13
And my friends, she's a very successful lawyer, and her husband was also a lawyer. And she told me, we're slobs. I just, I don't care about my house. So they have cleaners and come and everything. But up in their summer house, it's kind of the towels have a hole in them and the pick up something off the knife, off the kitchen, off the counter, and it's sticky from something. It's like this. It feels almost unhygienic, but it's.

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They skate very close. They're hygienic still. But two of their friends said, I'm not staying there, we're staying in a hotel. Well, I mean, at least she was honest about it. At least she wasn't delusional about it, right? She was just like, I don't care. They love her because they are just what we are. I think it's important. I don't think there's a little, maybe more now, but I don't think there's a lot of people that are like really living in their truth.

30:07
And like you said, you have to uncover some stuff and you have to realize that most people don't care and the things that we're trying to do, why are we trying to do them? Like I, I mean, I finally got some therapy in like my 30s to help myself grieve my mom that I lost when I was eight. So there was a lot of years of a mess. And once I had my breakthrough, I was like, oh, why am I doing all the things that I think other people want me to do when I should be doing the things that I wanna do?

30:36
So that's when I kind of started living. So I get that. Good for you. It's hard. A lot of people reach that point, a lot of people. But most people go through a hard period like that. Of course. When they come up to their retirement age, somebody I know very well, her boyfriend, is coming up to retirement age. And he's really kind of getting depressed. And you never know what's going to strike you out of nowhere. So I have.

31:05
discovered meditation. And every morning I meditate with a Buddhist group that I'm part of. And it kind of forcing yourself to close down, just, I mean, they say to think about your breath, but what they mean is erase as many thoughts from your head as possible. And I take that opportunity to plan my day and then it calms the nervous system. And it's very helpful. And my Buddhist teacher tells me,

31:35
You can't do anything about the past and you don't know what's gonna happen in the future. Today, plan your day, do what you can in every day. Yeah, how long ago did you start doing this? Well, this is also involved with my yoga practice and everything that's- Very busy. Or possibly, yeah, I do Qigong too. That's why I can still play pickleball, line dance, because Qigong keeps your body in great shape.

32:05
I've been meditating every day for maybe 15 years. That's a big practice. That's something that I haven't been able to do. I mean, I think that's like so hard, so good on you for finding the space and the ability to do it. I haven't found it yet. It's hard for me to remember what it was like in the beginning where they'd say, just do it for five minutes and five minutes. Impossible. But now it's like a relief. It's like, for this time, I have no place to go. No one to see.

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nothing to do. I am completely free in this time. And the only way you can do that is just being still and breathing. So it's a very, very healthy practice. It sounds like it. It sounds like you found this practice in your journey with Terry. This wasn't in your singlehood, right? Because you were with him for... No. Interestingly enough, Terry was a serious student of Buddhism, but he had given it up.

33:03
before he met me. I found it completely on my own. And I started by doing yoga. I could do yoga because I could do it at home, online, every day. Then yoga got to be kind of hard on me. I hurt my shoulder a little bit. So I changed to Qigong, which is a little lighter on your body, though it's still a great workout, very good for you. These things are necessary as you get older if you don't do them. You know, the differences between people when you're 25 are...

33:33
rather, I don't want to say small, but the older you get, the more differences there are between two people because what you've done all your life is has come to flower now. If you've been watching television for the last 20 years, you're having troubles. And how responsible have you been with your life? It shows when you're older. Have you been active your whole life? I always loved

34:03
I lived in cities. I lived in Athens, Greece for 10 years. I didn't have a car. I walked everywhere. If you call it active. Okay. Yeah. More active than the average American, I would say. Yeah. Well, not New Yorker. I lived in New York, too. I walked all over New York. Walking was probably my biggest exercise then. Then I played tennis for a while, but swimming was what I always loved to do. Then I hurt my shoulder and I couldn't do it anymore.

34:33
Now I do. I do other things, but I do like to move my body. I love to dance. I love to sleep. And the fruits of your labor. I mean, you're feeling it now. Like you probably feel good in your body most days. But you know something? Other than when I'm on podcasts and it becomes germane to the conversation, I never mention it. Because you have to come to these things on your own. Everybody can look at what you need to do. You just have to... If somebody asks me about it, then that's fine.

35:03
but they say, you don't look 82. And I say, thank you. And I'm like, why I don't look 82? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I don't know, I feel like if I saw someone like you and you said all these things, I think it plants a seed. I think it plants a seed that's like, oh, maybe that's something I should consider when maybe if I hadn't talked to you, maybe that seed never would have been planted.

35:32
You know, I don't know. I feel like there's value in it. Everybody's every, yeah, of course there is. If you, everybody can be your teacher for whatever. If you're willing, yeah. I mean, you, for example, you have a specific idea and you've done this podcast and you, it becomes a thing. You know, and it took some moxie to start it in the first place. And then you have to learn all of these little details and.

36:00
how to get that live sign behind you. Amazon, that's it. That's all you have to do. Just need an Amazon. No, I mean, I think you're right. I think there's a practice to all the things we do. And if we put our all into them, then we see the value that can come from that, whether that's in the way that you've moved your body, in the way that you feel, in the age that you feel, whatever that means. And then, in the same thing of the podcast, but going back to the...

36:30
the idea that you kind of went off on a tangent, but like your single life ended, right? With this meeting Terry, then you became, did you become someone new in this relationship? Or did you stay the version of like, what, how did that change you? Because you had been single for so long. It was the fulfillment of many of my life's dreams. Really? I never would have imagined. I thought I never would have imagined.

37:00
In high school, I think I had two dates. I did not go to, I was not invited to the prom. I was very tall and skinny. And in dancing school, the boys did not come and ask me to dance. I was just very, I was a mess in high school. Aren't we all? I think it was obvious. And then I was married, you know, I was kind of, I never dated a lot. I was just either married or not married. But.

37:29
Terry and I, we used to joke and say we had a date every night. We'd have dinner together and then watch something on television and it was having a date every night. And it was, I think I appreciated that every single night that we were together. It was so wonderful to have this company where you do something that's fun that you choose to, you know. And we traveled to places I wouldn't have traveled by myself. And he was a great wine connoisseur.

37:59
And I drank the greatest wines in the world. We ate at the greatest restaurants of the world and lived simply and saved our money so we could drink great wine and go to Broadway plays. And I'm kind of a homebody and he got me out of the house. It's a wonderful thing, so I mean, to things that are worthwhile. Oh yeah, right. Cause you can see your face light up when you talk about all those things. It's nice to see, you know, so.

38:26
But did you feel like a different version of yourself in that relationship? Or did you feel like a more heightened version of what you brought? I felt somebody finally gets me. So you didn't have to play, you could just be. He didn't ever criticize me. If he had anything to say, he waited and thought about how he was gonna couch it. You know, he said, did you really mean to say X? And I was thinking, no.

38:56
Well, yeah, I did at the time. And yeah, I do in a way, and it would start a conversation. But we never had a bitter moment. And this was my ideal marriage. I mean, all the people around us, they were, oh, you and Terry, or we wish we were like you, or whatever. And they killed themselves. And it was not completely unexpected. But I knew another couple like that. They were the model couple.

39:26
And then he killed himself. And she went off with it because she'd gone off with a woman. And he couldn't take it. Or either that, or he had a depression so deep that he might have done it anyway. You never know why people kill themselves. But yeah, it was, I don't think I will have such a peaceable relationship again with anyone. It was really wonderful. And I think of him as my real husband.

39:56
You know, he died and my son came to live with me and he said, during the pandemic he came and for about 10 days after Terry's death, he said, I thought I'd find you falling apart. And I said, well, first of all, it's not my first rodeo, you know, but also he's gone, you know, gone. I have to figure things out from now on. Do you think your meditation practice helped with that? Okay. Definitely.

40:25
Because I don't think that's common. I think what your son was expecting is probably the most common way that people fall apart and can't function. Well, I couldn't really function for the first week. My mind was completely. I belonged to a suicide survivors group on Facebook, and I keep reading about these women who say, I couldn't remember how to make scrambled eggs. And I was the same way. I couldn't cook properly. I couldn't remember passwords.

40:55
I didn't want to drive. And this is nature putting you to sleep for a while too. Protection. Like it happens when you have a pain in your body, you know, a cut or something like that. And still, you know, it comes back. The grief comes back on its own terms. And the meditation, if you can sit, if you were grieving and you can sit for half an hour with that pain, it becomes easier to bear.

41:24
Sometimes you can only sit with it for five minutes or 15 minutes, but if you can sit with it for an hour, for an hour or an extended period, it like, it finds its way into that place in the body where painful things reside. I mean, I don't know about you and your mother's death, but I have a certain place near my solar plexus. I could almost point to it. Wow, no, it makes sense though.

41:53
I tell people, and I think this kind of sounds similar, I tell people that they should honor however they're feeling at whatever time, whether that's mad, happy, sad, because I think we're taught like you're grieving, so you should be crying all the time, you should never smile, you know, like, and I'm like, no, you're also a human, so things are going to ebb and flow. And yet, our image of dignity.

42:22
and death is Jackie Kennedy at her husband's grave. Not crying. Right. Not showing what she felt inside. We're so screwed up. We are, we are. You know, I feel lucky. It's weird to say that, but I feel lucky having the experience of.

42:44
grief losing my mother at a young age, and then I became like best friends with my grandmother and she died of lung cancer, and I got to sit with her and have the final conversation and watch her take her last breath and move through that grief with intention. And kind of the, I guess the way you're describing in this way of like, I'm doing it right this time because I didn't have the opportunity when I was a kid. And whereas I would not wish these experiences on anyone that hasn't had them, I also feel lucky that I have had them.

43:13
because I feel like they've made me a different person and they've made me be able to feel things that maybe other people are not feeling. So I am grateful in a weird way, for the grief and those things. Finding the silver lining is so important. And also, I think it's important not to go too high when you have a success or happiness either. That too will pass.

43:41
It all just passes. And that's just the way life is. It's not like a philosophy. It's just the way it is. And you feel, sometimes I think if I'm very angry or very sad or something like this, I think back like six hours later and I can't recreate that feeling. It's passed. I just say I was angry back then, but I don't feel angry anymore or sad anymore. It's passed and, you know, that's.

44:11
I think that's good. I don't think that's common. I mean, I found a space where the way I process that now is I acknowledge it. I say, I'm just not feeling great right now, but I know that I will move through this in my way. And to your point, six hours later, I'm like, you know, I don't feel like that anymore. And it doesn't help to tell you, oh no, that's not the right way because you're gonna do it the way you do it anyway. And good for you, you know, to see it through.

44:41
So you said that when we started this conversation, you said that you're now five years or so removed from this once in a lifetime kind of relationship or maybe the postcard relationship that you envisioned as a kid you got to have with Terry. And now you're five years removed from that. How does your life look different than your single period before him? Like, how has that evolved or has it? I'm also...

45:09
My schedule is my own. A lot of things are different about my life. I am not constantly exhausted. I do what I want to do when I want to do it. I'm a writer. I do have certain things like I do podcasts. I do workshops. I have groups that I go to see. I have appointments and whatever. But I schedule them all. And it gives me a sense of freedom. It's hard to say that that would necessarily be connected to...

45:37
any particular loss or change. It's just the joys of, I'm not retired, but the joys of having your schedule to yourself. I wonder, did you find more of yourself in this widowhood than you did in your single period, or is it like a totally different thing? Because you said you were like discovering gardening and you were discovering nature and how that is a taskmaster and that, you know, like I'm wondering, like, do you feel like in a more evolved human?

46:07
in this version of your life or is it just different? I'm so profound here, you know? Sometimes, no, but sometimes I do feel very much involved. And then I back my car into the garage door. Oh, well then, that's life, like get ahold of yourself. And then I open Chrome when I'm supposed to be on a podcast and it says, you have to update it and you're 10 minutes away. And I'm like, I totally lose it.

46:36
You know, I can be knocked off my pins very easily. And not very easily, but. Easy enough. Like every other person, maybe. I see what parts of myself are never gonna change. But you know it. And I think some people don't know it, you know, and I think that's part of the battle is like understanding who you are. It sounds like, you know, like your journey.

47:04
is very interesting because I like, it's almost like when you gave yourself permission to take that walk by yourself and leave your kids home was like that first, like starting to like own into like what you're doing now where you can control your schedule and you can do the things you wanna do, the things that bring you joy. Yeah. What brings you the most joy? Joy and ecstatic joy, my puppy. And I loved, I love to write. I'm...

47:33
I never have writer's block, never for a moment. I waited a long, long time until I could spend my days writing. And I just can't get over it. How many books have you published now? Two. And I have a third. And a lot of short stories have been published. And academic work has been published. So you know, quite a few things. What's your favorite part about writing? Because it seems like that's, I mean, some people see writing as a lot of work.

48:02
it sounds like it just flows for you? I wake up in the morning and I think, I think I'll have this person do that. I've just finished my first novel. Oh. I thought I wouldn't live long enough to write fiction because writing memoir, the first two books are memoir. You have to, it's quite different from writing memoir. And I'm not sure that I've really got it down yet, but anyway, so I'm working with fictional characters and I'll wake up in the morning and I'm saying,

48:32
No, she should go over there. I go in and I start writing the scene where she goes over there. So then you have to describe where there is, and then you have to change another part of the book. Because if she goes over there, then she can't be over here at the same time, or who's going to be with her over there? Just figuring out these little puzzles, it's just fun. I love doing it. Well, I'm sure it keeps you busy mentally, whereas those other activities that you talk about keep you physically busy, so you're just busy.

49:01
Well, when I lose it and back in my car into the garage door, I think, OK, from now on, I have to check every time the garage door. But I still catch it. No, I'm absent-minded. There's nothing I'm ever going to be able to do about that. That's me. The other thing that is unshakable is I look in my mirror and I see my mother. And I think, I didn't like a lot of things that my mother did, but I'm doing them too.

49:30
I think a big helping of humility helps. Yeah. Does it help you understand things like that though? Like understand her more in the way that you, like if you find yourself doing those things, you're like, oh, maybe. It helps me understand me because I realized that how you were raised, your childhood experiences like yours, they never go away. They never change. They are like your skeleton.

50:00
emotional skeleton and it's always going to be there. And so, you know, in some ways a lot like my father, but my father died when I was 24 along 1966, I mean, long time ago. But I was with my mother for a lot longer and I knew her when she was my age. So we're very different sorts of people, but you know, there's a lot of her in me. And I was thinking about

50:29
the soccer game, I watched England and Spain. And I was watching the English and I was thinking, those are my people. And I think, you know, like Italians, they're making lasagna 10 generations into being Americans. There's a lot of the culture that you come from that's really strong, that stays throughout your whole life. And that's like an instinct.

50:57
and maybe even genetic, I don't know. Well, I have talked to people about epigenetics and how a lot of that gets embedded in the DNA in some way. So I'm sure there's something that people smarter than me would know, but I don't know. Let me ask you a question. And maybe this is how we wrap this up. Why do you focus on that singlehood periods or those singlehood periods of your life? Why are those so stand out to you?

51:27
Well, I'm not saying that I wouldn't have liked to have had a 50-year marriage, I would have liked to have had a long marriage, but I didn't. And so I just know things that people who haven't been single as adults don't know. And they know things, people who have been married for 50 years know things that I don't know. And it's just what happened to me.

51:54
Are you grateful for those moments despite the hard parts of them? Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. That's your meditation speaking, right? I think the most crippling thing is regret. And I do sometimes feel regret. And I try to get through it. But I know I've made mistakes, some of which have left a footprint that will last in my children's lives.

52:23
lives of other people around me. But, you know, too bad. Life, right, yeah. There's only so much we can control and things that we've done, we can't control them anymore. And they just are what they are. And hopefully people can move through and move past. You can try to take what you've learned and not do things that you will regret anymore. And I think I do far fewer things that I regret now than I ever did. Except for backing into the garage. I think, oh, that's a...

52:53
I can't get over that. My son lived with me for a while during the pandemic and he wouldn't let me drive his car. He said there's a non-zero chance that you'll back to the garage door. I only did it once, but it was non-zero. That's right. Yeah. No, I mean, see, he learned. He knows. That's right. No, I appreciate you coming on and letting me ask you the questions and even sometimes when they...

53:22
We're like, why did you ask that, Matt? I appreciate you going along with it and having this conversation because it's been really valuable, kind of that whole idea of planting seeds and the things that you've said have kind of planted in me. And that's what I found in this journey of the LifeShift podcast is like so many of these stories. Had I never had this podcast, I never would have had the opportunity to be exposed to this. So thank you. I've listened to a few of them. They're very, very interesting. It's like the story core. You know?

53:51
They're just endlessly fascinating stories. And I found, I don't know if you found this in your life, I'm sure maybe you have, I found that we have far more things in common than in our lives than we do different. So thank you for sharing your story in this way. If people want to like find your books or they wanna get in your circle or if you're active on social media, what's the best way to like find you and find your stuff? Well,

54:21
I guess the best way is my website, which is anandresonevans.com. I also have a Facebook practice. And on Facebook, I have two. One is Anne Evans and the other is Anne Anderson Evans. But I post almost daily there and all the blog postings go on there. I'm also starting on Substack, but I just started doing that. Okay. Well, we'll give the link so people can connect with you in that way. Yeah. Great. If they have, if they want to reach out to you or you...

54:51
How do you feel about that? Oh, come on. You said you like stories, so. I do, I love stories. And you asked about the books and they are Daring to Date Again and The Sweet Pain of Being Alive and they're in the usual places. And are there links on your website, I'm assuming? Oh yes, everything's on my website. Perfect, awesome. Well, thank you for just being willing to be a part of this journey with me. I really appreciate it.

55:21
I don't know if there's any last words you want to say. It's always an opportunity to talk about myself. Julia Dewey-Drive has always asked her guests at the end of every interview, if you went back to 21, what words of wisdom would you give to a 21-year-old today? And I think I would tell them people love to talk about themselves. And so people think, well, what am I going to say when they go into a crowd?

55:49
ask something and they will get somebody to talk about themselves because there's nothing people love more. But you learn a lot. I think we learn a lot from hearing people's stories. I think it's important. So as long as they're not all bragging about everything, you know, if they're meaningful stories, thank you. You learn something then too. Well, good point. If you are listening and something that Anne said today...

56:12
resonated with you, please reach out to her, or maybe you know someone in your life that needs to hear a little nugget that Ann dropped today, please share this episode with them. And for that, I will say goodbye for now. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode, and thanks for being here, Ann. Bye bye, Matt, thanks a lot.