Oh hello, I'm Kate Boller and this is Everything Happens.

I imagine if you were listening to this episode, you might fall into one of two camps.

Maybe you know the feeling of having a before and after. A life that's unraveled,

be it divorce or disease, with the death of someone whose loss has carved out a hole,

you don't know how to fill. You might have a chronic disease or a sick kid or an aging parent

and not know your caregiving in a way you didn't picture having to do.

Maybe a dream of a family didn't come together or maybe mental illness or addiction

has carved a line through your family or your story. Or perhaps you love someone who's had

their life come undone. Or you might even work in an emotionally expensive profession,

you're a doctor or nurse or teacher or healthcare worker, maybe a social worker or therapist or

pastor or first responder. Whatever it is that has brought you here today, hello, welcome.

This is a place where we really know the cost of being a person. The reality of lives that don't

always work out like we imagined they would. The heart brokenness that too often comes with love,

the expense of continuing to care. There is something we've come to discover here. Of course,

we didn't ask for these lessons, quote unquote. And frankly, we really wish we didn't have to know

the truth. We now hold so close. Our before and afters have changed us. And that's okay.

But we see it clearly now. The way that pain and beauty can live so close together.

The way our losses compound and yet somehow joy is still possible.

Maybe that truth shows up in dark humor we've already developed. Really, that's you,

that makes me love you even more. We had a listener right in last week after hearing our episode

with Dr. Hayder-Varek about chronic pain and she struggled with her own chronic ankle arthritis

for so long and has named her pain, Kyle. After the animated dog in the movie Dispicable Me,

...