Hey, it's Anna, and this week we are sharing something different. To continue the conversation

we've been having with you about estrangement, I joined a live national call-in with our WNYC

colleagues at this show, Notes from America. Host Kai Wright and I heard from listeners from all

over the country about how stark disagreements, particularly around politics and key values,

have led to estrangement with your families, long-time friends, and also in your long-time romantic relationships.

Once again, what you listeners shared with us was more honest, layered, and more unresolvable than I typically hear on radio talk shows.

So thank you, as always, for joining in our conversation.

I hope you enjoy this one.

Estrangement feels like I've lost a limb and I'm learning how to live without it.

I have been estranged from my family since I was 16.

I moved out and I just never saw them again.

I responded and told him, well, the hubris that it takes to tell somebody how they should think has to be pretty high.

And that sort of, it blew it up pretty badly.

I had been reaching out and trying to contact her, and she just wanted to tell me that she just wanted me to stop trying to contact her.

Because the estrangement is kind of this thing,

that there's no public rituals for it.

Like, people might see me, and I'm like high functioning,

and yet I carry all that grief with me.

I'm not. It's Notes from America.

I'm Kai Wright.

Welcome to the show.

And this week, we're trying something new.

...