Abi Morgan, THIS IS NOT A PITY MEMOIR
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[0:58]Abby Morgan is the author of this is not a pity memoir
[1:01]Abby is a playwright and screenwriter her plays include skinned sleeping around splendor tiny dine to my tender
[1:09]Fuji
[1:10]27 love song and the mistress contract her television works include my fragile heart murder sex traffic
[1:17]Tsunami the aftermath white girl royal wedding bird song the hour river and the split her film writing credits include
[1:24]Brick Lane iron lady shame the invisible woman and suffraget she has a number of films currently in development
[1:31]Morgan has won a number of awards including BAFTA's and an Emmy for her film and TV work
[1:37]Abby was kind enough to do an event with me with the North Castle public library
[1:40]Which is available on YouTube so if you google that you can see us chatting live about both of our memoirs
[1:47]And she was so nice to me so anyway, I just love Abby and I love this book. Hi
[1:52]It's like loving your book. Oh, I loved your book. Oh, love your book. It's exquisite. I'm right where you've met Kyle. Oh
[2:02]Honestly, I've been such a love. It's just lovely. Well done. Oh, thank you
[2:08]It's very moving and warm and
[2:10]For me. I just it's just totally. I mean, I've been eating it up. So well done. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you
[2:17]That is so nice. I absolutely loved your book and to hear you say that is just the highest praise. So
[2:24]What an amazing what an amazing career you've had. Oh?
[2:29]Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything right, but you know there are those mornings
[2:34]Well, thank you so much for saying all that. All right
[2:37]Let's talk about your book because I am obsessed with your book and just over the moon excited it
[2:42]All right, well official welcome Abby. Thank you for coming on for talking about this is not a pity memoir, which I
[2:49]Absolutely 100% adored posted about love obsessed everything. It's so good. And I oh my gosh. Anyway, welcome
[2:57]Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know that feeling of a memoir. It's it's both liberating and exposing
[3:02]Yes, despite with a little bit like when you've got slightly too drunk at a party and you tell too much and then
[3:08]Wake up thinking what have I said
[3:11]I feel like that one repeats my life at the moment. You know, it's when so I'm sure you know as well
[3:16]But it's yes, it's it's a great experience
[3:17]But it's also quite quite peculiar
[3:19]So it's lovely to get that kind of response. It's incredibly reassuring to get that kind of response because there are days
[3:26]I think when one wakes up thinking gosh, I've really spilled on for the page here
[3:31]No, but that's what makes it so good. I mean
[3:34]Especially because when you the way you tell your story
[3:37]It's like were you journaling the whole time? How do you remember?
[3:40]It feels like you're so in in the scenes so immediate as if you're like living through it as you're writing it
[3:46]Well, actually I think the structure of the book's kind of interesting because I wrote a very kind of a central journal for the first hundred days
[3:52]I mean, I'm someone who keeps notes all the time. I record notes. I write little things like I record dialogue occasionally, you know
[3:59]In our room. This is amazing. Well, I think I'd always had this kind of collage of extraordinary pieces of my entire life
[4:06]And and the nature of the kind of work I've done
[4:08]It's often got you know, I think one of the first things I did was about sex trafficking in
[4:13]Moldova and I did so much research and I love research
[4:16]So I think that was definitely the starting point
[4:18]And I think there was you know, I talk about the structure of the book because I think the first hundred pages of the book has the energy of that journal
[4:24]And and that was very much when I was two I was in survival mode
[4:28]Whereas actually I think the second half of the book is, you know, was much more reflective
[4:32]And and was based on the kind of collage of notes and images and videos I had kept
[4:36]But it has a different pace than me and that's also because it it might it kind of marries with the different part of the the journey and the
[4:44]of the experience I guess you know the first hundred days is
[4:47]Yeah, it's very much about when
[4:49]myself and my family are kind of thrust into this medical crisis and so
[4:53]You know, it has that sort of that energy and that adrenaline running through it and and it's very interesting when I read that
[5:00]Those journals I was very quickly starting to
[5:04]Switch, you know to the first person to the third person at the whole time, you know
[5:08]It was very it was very interesting the shift
[5:10]I was finding so a lot of that sort of stretch him for the you know the final memoir
[5:15]Wow, I should probably back up for a listeners who don't know much about your book
[5:19]I of course wanted to jump right in because I'm like, let's go deep, but maybe you could describe a little more
[5:24]Yeah, you got the title which you write about in the book and
[5:28]What happened to your not even husband then, but just tell the story of what this is about
[5:33]So the memoir really opens on the morning of June 2018
[5:37]You know, I've lived with my partner Jacob for a kind of at that point got 18 nearly 18 years
[5:44]We have two teenagers and we have a very very nice
[5:48]Quite normal, you know existence in living in North London in the UK my husband's an actor
[5:53]I'm a screenwriter so everything everything out everything
[5:55]You know like any writer
[5:56]We see everything through the prism of our medium and certainly screenwriting is the prism
[6:01]I saw my life through often and the morning that morning
[6:04]Jacob who had an underlying condition of multiple sclerosis
[6:07]Which he's had for about seven or eight years at the time and was very high functioning
[6:11]You know, he'd been doing a movie that week
[6:12]He'd been in a TV show that we you know
[6:15]I'd been testing his lines. I knew a couple of nights before
[6:17]He was complaining of a headache and I had put it down to kind of rolling my eyes man flew
[6:22]But you know agreed to go off and pick up medication
[6:25]But it was really the morning everything changed because when I came back
[6:27]I found Jacob collapsed on the bathroom floor and so ensued
[6:31]The start of a very different kind of cataclysmic backflip in our lives
[6:37]Jacob after a period of about two weeks as we watched him cognitively
[6:40]Psychetrically physically
[6:42]Unravel was placed into a medically induced coma and as he was going into that coma
[6:48]It was recognized that he developed something called anti-NMD a receptor and catholitis
[6:53]Otherwise known as brain on fire and the book really is about it's about that period
[6:57]Where Jacob goes into the coma and it's about reflections on that time and how
[7:02]We as a family and my children and I survived
[7:05]But also as as the journey goes on it it's really about reflection of how Jacob and I know
[7:10]Each other and how we met and really what makes up us because I suppose
[7:15]You know the key element is that when Jacob woke up from the coma whilst we were all punching the air that my gosh
[7:20]He's alive and you know although we could see there was a long way in terms of rehab for him to go
[7:25]None of us had expected him to survive it
[7:27]But it very quickly became apparent that you know the old age old trope which which I had even joked about with my friends
[7:33]Which was you know can you imagine if he wakes up and doesn't know who you are
[7:37]You know careful what you wish for it came true and so Jacob within the first couple of weeks
[7:41]It became apparent that he couldn't quite assess who I was
[7:44]And and the book really is about the moment and thereafter where
[7:48]He has developed a very rare dilution called capgarone dilution
[7:51]Which is the belief in doubles or imposters and it's often focused on someone close to it can be a dog
[7:56]It can be a house but actually
[7:58]With with his delusion it was focused on me and it's about
[8:02]the period as jate recovers and comes home and
[8:05]Goes through you know goes through his rehab
[8:07]Come that we are climatized as a family all the while Jacob doesn't know who I am and it's really about
[8:13]How I reflect on the Jacob that I was with now versus the Jacob I knew and our lives together
[8:19]As I guess as a kind of exploration of my own identity the identity of our relationship
[8:23]When we became both very challenged, you know and and the relationship became challenged and the title comes really out of
[8:31]The very first conversation I ever had with Jacob where I in you know in 2000 I
[8:36]Met Jacob but it didn't party and at the time I was a young writer
[8:40]I could barely say I was writing. I've been waitressing for so long
[8:43]But I had I was chasing the the film rights on a really beautiful book
[8:48]Called before I say goodbye
[8:50]Which is a collection of essays and emails by a wonderful journalist called Ruth
[8:53]Pickity who sadly died at a very young age of cancer and it's really about the last few months of her life
[8:59]Where she writes incredibly moving me but with huge spirit and wit about that period
[9:04]And I was I'd formed into conversation with Jacob and I happen
[9:08]So I've you know, I'm trying to chase the rights on this book and
[9:11]Not only had he read the book, but he was very intrigued by the what I was doing
[9:15]And there was a very drunk girl next to him who I at the time, you know
[9:20]I'd sort of was trying to navigate
[9:22]But she she was like I can't bear those pity memoirs and the thing was I noticed Jake went really I love them
[9:29]And so really the book is a kind of homage really to that first conversation
[9:33]But also at its heart. It's about a moment where Jacob and I met and
[9:38]Really, it's I suppose it's been at the ethos of my relationship with Jacob which is
[9:42]He has always been such an advocate for me to write about my truth
[9:46]But also soon to be quite fearless about the way I interrogate my work and the lives of others that I write about
[9:52]And I guess when this happened it was one of those conversations that really resonated for me and
[9:56]And as the title in fact it wasn't my title it was
[10:00]It was my book agent who said you've got to call it this.
[10:02]You know, I had a very, I had one of those titles
[10:04]that when you scroll through,
[10:05]there's about 30 different versions
[10:07]that I just had.
[10:08]Wait, what was your, what was your title?
[10:09]My title was What Remains, and I guess it was very much
[10:13]about me trying to remember, you know,
[10:15]think about what remains a relationship
[10:16]when something is so radically broken and changed.
[10:20]But I will be forever grateful
[10:21]that she found that title for me
[10:23]because as a result, you know,
[10:24]there's a little bit like the Arthur Miller line, you know,
[10:26]he used to type up what the play was about
[10:28]and stick it on his typewriter, and for me,
[10:30]I guess that was a kind of an unconscious mantra
[10:34]suddenly when I was living the experience of just,
[10:36]because no one tells you, and I mean,
[10:38]I think it's something you capture so beautifully
[10:40]in your book.
[10:41]And I felt such a,
[10:43]I felt this relief, listening to your book,
[10:45]and then I've oscillated between reading and listening to it
[10:47]as I often do,
[10:48]when it gets dark and I'm tired, I flip into audio.
[10:51]And I find it very comforting that writing
[10:54]and the words become such a wonderful release.
[10:57]And when I see it and other people's work,
[10:59]I'm reminded that I guess I feel it's okay
[11:02]to have done what I've done, you know?
[11:03]So I really enjoyed it.
[11:04]And there's, because there's so much wit in it
[11:06]as well as pain.
[11:07]You know, and that's what life is made up, isn't it?
[11:09]Of, you know, life and death, love and pain,
[11:12]tenderness, brutality.
[11:13]And I guess that's also what I wanted to try and capture
[11:16]and understand, I guess.
[11:18]That's a very long answer to it.
[11:19]I loved it.
[11:20]I wanted to just sit here and listen to you talk all day,
[11:22]especially when you say nice things about my book.
[11:25]But most mostly about your own journey, you know,
[11:28]it's not just that he didn't remember you.
[11:30]It's that he remembered there was an Abby Morgan.
[11:33]He just didn't think that it was you.
[11:35]And he would say things like,
[11:37]oh, no, well, Abby Morgan did that.
[11:38]And you're like, well, I'm right here.
[11:40]It's Kafkaesque.
[11:41]I mean, that's the thing you'd, you know,
[11:42]I think when you're your absolute right,
[11:44]it's in a way it's a kind of righteous dream.
[11:46]I meant there was always this very impersonal to me
[11:48]kind of thinking.
[11:50]I mean, part of me was always having that conversation
[11:52]with the Jacob I knew, which is kind of,
[11:54]I cannot wait to tell you what you did.
[11:55]I can't wait.
[11:56]You didn't to know what you did.
[11:58]And then I think the other part is survival.
[12:00]And I think as a writer, you know,
[12:02]I think an essential remit in my life has been
[12:04]has been to be the observer.
[12:06]I mean, I found it very interesting the way
[12:08]you talked about alcohol in your book.
[12:09]And I totally, totally identified with that.
[12:12]You know, I found my voice, my personality.
[12:16]I felt like it turned me on.
[12:17]You know, I felt like it brought me into the room.
[12:19]And I think essentially what writing did for me
[12:22]was it allowed me to be the observer
[12:24]and it allowed me to communicate in the way that I could,
[12:27]which is quite what you were known as there.
[12:28]And so I think when it did happen,
[12:31]you're right, you know, when Jacob first woke up,
[12:32]it was, you know, it became, it was this kind of strange,
[12:37]you know, comical navigation.
[12:39]You know, when I first found out that Jacob,
[12:41]you know, when I first really resonated was it was,
[12:44]and I talked about it in the book,
[12:45]but it was Valentine's Day.
[12:46]And I'd taken in a bright red cheesy heart, you know,
[12:49]Jacob and I were pretty indifferent to Valentine's Day.
[12:52]You know, as I say, you know, sometimes it was a,
[12:53]you know, it was kind of take out in a movie
[12:55]and, you know, other times you just loathed each other
[12:58]and other times you might be extravagant.
[12:59]You know, it was really, you could really test
[13:01]the kind of temperature of the relationship
[13:03]that I bought in this bright red cheesy heart
[13:04]and I tied it to the end of his bed
[13:06]and I went, hey honey, you know, happy Valentine's Day.
[13:09]And I saw two things in his face.
[13:10]I saw sort of mild horror and embarrassment for me.
[13:13]And the very sweet nurse gave him, you know,
[13:16]gave him a kind of rose wrapped in cellophane,
[13:19]the kind of rose you get on holiday, you know,
[13:21]where they bring to you at a table in a restaurant.
[13:23]And she said, you know, give your wife, give your wife the rose.
[13:26]And I remember he just looked at me
[13:28]and went, she's not my wife.
[13:30]And even then, you know, the bathroom goes on inside.
[13:32]I was like, okay, he means, yeah, of course I'm not married.
[13:35]He means his girlfriend, that's,
[13:36]but actually it was a very, it was a real profound moment
[13:40]for me and I, you know, I talk about shaking.
[13:43]And I literally, I remember coming down the stairs
[13:45]and sort of touching the walls going, you know,
[13:47]like, it can't be the underground.
[13:49]You know, I'm with four stories up,
[13:50]but it felt like it was, you know,
[13:52]the sub-wind and eat my feet.
[13:54]And I think it was just shot.
[13:55]But very quickly, you know, I started to, you know,
[13:58]you navigate, you negotiate, you barter, you're intrigued,
[14:01]you provoke.
[14:02]And one of the things I, I became apparent was
[14:05]that when you started to question Jacobs thinking,
[14:08]you know, it's called confabulation, they call it,
[14:10]which is when you kind of confabulate this story.
[14:13]And it's very, it often runs with brain injuries.
[14:16]Because, you know, somebody who has an injured brain
[14:18]that's trying to make sense of the world.
[14:20]And, you know, Jacobs brain had gone through this massive
[14:22]kind of continual seizureing period for six months.
[14:25]And so I knew there was some, a lot of rebuilding
[14:28]and the doctors were trying to work out where the damage was.
[14:31]And so in a way, part of my conversations
[14:33]was trying to map out what was going on here.
[14:35]And so it became apparent quite quickly
[14:38]that he had devised this idea that, you know,
[14:40]I'd say, you know, we're aware of where she gone.
[14:43]And he was referred to me as Abby and her as Abby Morgan.
[14:47]And he would say, she's gone away.
[14:49]She's got a new life with someone else.
[14:51]And at the time, I'm thinking, my God,
[14:53]that I'd be so lucky right now, you know,
[14:55]I kind of, and when I sort of dug deep right,
[14:58]he developed this idea that we were living, you know,
[15:01]he now had a beautiful apartment.
[15:02]And it was in Hampstead.
[15:03]And this was somewhere that Jake and I often used to say,
[15:06]you know, when the kids have flown the nurse,
[15:08]we're going to, we're going to buy an apartment.
[15:09]It's going to overlook Hampstead Heath
[15:11]is a beautiful part of North London.
[15:12]We live near it.
[15:13]We have to walk there.
[15:14]And, you know, we'll be able to look over the Heath.
[15:16]And so it was this strangely kind of painful yet tender
[15:20]sort of story I was, he told himself.
[15:22]And over that time, you know,
[15:25]it then very quickly evolved into him.
[15:27]You know, he was very intrigued.
[15:29]Sometimes concerned why I was so interested in his children.
[15:32]And I would say, well, they're very nice children,
[15:35]you know, they're great kids, you know.
[15:36]And, you know, and I think for everyone around us,
[15:38]you know, for his poor family,
[15:39]for my family, for our children,
[15:41]they just, at first, no one could believe it
[15:43]because it was so absurd.
[15:44]But then he would obviously, you know,
[15:45]poor people of sight and say,
[15:47]how are you falling for it?
[15:48]She's clearly not having more than them.
[15:50]And so there was a sort of strange madness to it.
[15:52]But I very quickly realized that, you know,
[15:56]there was a way to Jacob's heart and it was cake.
[15:59]And movies and, you know, the Guardian and the Sunday Times
[16:04]and, you know, the latest Netflix box set
[16:07]and company and making him laugh.
[16:09]And so within a first few weeks, he suddenly said to me,
[16:13]and one day, you must be working for the state.
[16:15]And I said, yeah, and he said,
[16:17]so the state's employed you to come and help me.
[16:19]I said, yeah, I'd been employed to come
[16:20]and help you in the children.
[16:22]And when that happened, there was a shift
[16:24]and he kind of started to accept that I was,
[16:26]I mean, I did feel like I was slightly treated like,
[16:29]you know, the kind of the hired help.
[16:32]You know, there was a sort of strange relationship.
[16:34]So, you know, when other family members would arrive,
[16:37]he would ask me to wait outside.
[16:38]Thank you very much.
[16:39]You can go outside now.
[16:40]So there was a very, so, you know,
[16:41]and I, you know, as the book clearly captures,
[16:46]you know, I'm navigating my way through,
[16:49]I mean, moments of real insanity and rage and fury.
[16:53]And yet, you know, I think it's something else
[16:56]that, you know, I also think you talk about in your book
[16:58]and it's a very simple, you know, in some ways,
[17:02]I think it's something I referred to
[17:04]and I worry it was a platitude,
[17:06]but when I heard it in your book, I was really reassured,
[17:09]which is all we are left with is love.
[17:11]And I don't know exactly what that is,
[17:13]but I call it a hum.
[17:15]And I just always, even when it was in the hardest moments
[17:18]with Jacob, I just had this huge hum of feeling for him.
[17:21]You know, I mean, even talking about it now, it's still,
[17:24]it's still, I can't describe it.
[17:27]You know, I think perhaps the only really unconditional love
[17:30]one has is for one's children, but I was reading recently
[17:33]the kind of Greek idea of seven kinds of love.
[17:36]And there's a kind of, there is that love that, you know,
[17:39]and they're fascinating from here as to Agape.
[17:42]So, you know, lots of, but one of the loves they talk about
[17:44]is a love that has been there for a long time
[17:46]that dissolves into something unconditional.
[17:47]And I realized that there was something quite unconditional.
[17:51]And it wasn't just because Jacob was my partner
[17:53]or my father and my children, it was as a human being.
[17:56]You know, as a, and I felt very profoundly connected
[17:59]that, you know, it became apparent to me
[18:01]that Jacob may not come back to me,
[18:05]but there was a way of getting him back to himself, you know?
[18:08]And so that really became the focus and the drive.
[18:11]And I, I guess it was, it was distilled for me
[18:13]once we bought Jacob home.
[18:14]And, you know, our home is very important.
[18:16]We always laugh because each floor of our house
[18:18]has been renovated on a, based on a different movie.
[18:21]I'm a screenwriter.
[18:22]So based on a different movie that I've managed to get
[18:24]finally get away.
[18:25]So, you know, we've got like, you know,
[18:27]it was a book is built on a, a drama I did about,
[18:31]about the tsunami and how the tsunami happened.
[18:33]And then, you know, the ground floor was renovated that
[18:36]because, you know, I managed to get it.
[18:38]I and Lady, which is the Margaret Thatcher film,
[18:39]we call it the suffragette wing, our bedroom.
[18:41]You know, there's so different, different floors
[18:43]have different residents, but it's a house very much
[18:45]that Jacob and I have built together, but really he has.
[18:48]And so coming back to the bones of our house,
[18:50]I was hoping that would start to help locate me
[18:54]and that world.
[18:54]But then it was very clear moment within the first few weeks
[18:57]where we were standing in the hallway
[18:59]and I was taking Jacob back into hospital to see a consultant.
[19:02]At that point, you know, Jacob, very difficult
[19:04]for Jacob physically moving.
[19:05]So I managed to prop him up against a wall.
[19:07]It's, you know, if you've raised a child,
[19:09]then when you deal with someone in this condition,
[19:11]there are lots of similarity.
[19:12]So I propped him up.
[19:13]I managed to clear him of, you know, toast grums
[19:16]and I was getting him his coat
[19:17]and I just saw him look at himself in the hallway mirror.
[19:20]And I just saw this look and I said,
[19:22]I just pointed at his reflection.
[19:23]I said, who is that?
[19:25]And he just said, I don't know.
[19:27]And in that moment, it was like a penny drop
[19:29]and I thought, okay, it's not that he doesn't know me.
[19:32]He doesn't know himself.
[19:34]And if he can find out himself, then he'll find me.
[19:36]And I guess that was just the guiding light for me,
[19:40]the principle of the whole thing.
[19:42]And so yeah, I mean, so the book is also about that.
[19:45]You know, it's about, it's, I mean, it's certainly not
[19:48]a journey idea on my own.
[19:49]It's a journey that my gosh, you know,
[19:51]we were very lucky, you know, I'm not Jewish.
[19:54]Jacob's Jewish again, something I loved in your book.
[19:56]That sort of the ishness, the ish that I've come to love.
[20:00]in our life, actually, that we're a bit ish.
[20:01]But we were very helped by our families, our friends,
[20:05]and those people around us.
[20:06]But it's the journey of negotiation as Jake,
[20:10]as I sort of help, and we helped Jake
[20:12]and go sit and find himself, and it's finding himself.
[20:15]The hope was that he would find me again, I guess.
[20:17]And that was it.
[20:18]Oh, my gosh.
[20:20]There was this one moment when he went out
[20:22]to lunch with a friend, and he came back,
[20:25]and the friend was like, well, he's a nice book.
[20:27]It's not Jacob, but this is Nancy.
[20:30]And I feel like that's how you all were treating him,
[20:33]and yet still embracing everything.
[20:35]I mean, you talk about all the feelings
[20:38]of how you cope with this from the unexpected moments
[20:43]where you are bored, right?
[20:44]You're like, it's boring.
[20:45]No one talks about this.
[20:46]And all the other things no one talks about.
[20:48]But what I kept looking for is, where is the moment
[20:51]where I can't do this anymore?
[20:53]Like, he thinks Abby Morgan already left.
[20:56]Like, let me just get out of here.
[20:57]Like, but there was none of that.
[20:59]And I was like, is she ever gonna reach the point
[21:01]where she's like, I cannot do this?
[21:03]This is, because any rational person reading this
[21:06]could be like, how, how can you do this?
[21:09]How can you, how can anybody in this situation
[21:11]not want to just, you know, melt down or leave or whatever?
[21:16]And of course, you stay.
[21:18]Like, and even that when he said early on,
[21:21]like, don't ever let me be in this spot.
[21:23]Like at first when I was reading it,
[21:25]I was like, oh, he's just mad at her
[21:26]because he realizes that he, you didn't listen
[21:30]when he said he didn't ever want to be
[21:31]in a position where you would have to take care of him.
[21:33]I was like, oh, that's why he's giving her
[21:34]the side eye in the hospital.
[21:36]It's not that he doesn't remember her.
[21:38]But then of course we quickly realized
[21:39]that is what that is.
[21:40]So, how did you ever think?
[21:42]Like, I'm just gonna get out of here.
[21:43]Oh, yeah.
[21:44]I mean, I'm sure it's something that people have said
[21:47]to you so brave.
[21:48]You're so strong.
[21:49]You know, they say, you know, and it's very kind
[21:51]and, you know, the kind of raging kind of narcissist to me
[21:55]and he goes, yes, but actually, yeah.
[21:57]I mean, it's not that I didn't not.
[22:00]I mean, I definitely hadn't my absolute break
[22:02]in the breakage moments.
[22:03]And in fact, you know, there's a long bit
[22:05]of the story still to go that we're involved,
[22:07]you know, that I'm in now.
[22:08]And, you know, no one tells you that there's a
[22:10]continuum renegotiation of the self
[22:13]and who you are as a couple, you know, when, you know,
[22:15]when you go through that and get to a better place.
[22:19]I guess, you know, I felt like my kids weren't quite cooked.
[22:23]And, you know, I grew up, my parent, I came from divorce.
[22:25]I grew up from, I have a very strong mother.
[22:27]I grew up with a lot of women around me.
[22:28]It's not that I was ever or happy in front
[22:31]to being on my own.
[22:32]Although who isn't that time is front and to being their own.
[22:34]I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to kind of sugarcoat that.
[22:37]But I, I think it was so immediate that the need
[22:40]to kind of try and bring Jay back,
[22:42]but also I think it was about my ego.
[22:44]I was sleeping.
[22:45]You know, I was a bit like a spurned lover
[22:47]who was like, you are going to work out.
[22:51]And you've made that terrible mistake.
[22:53]So I think that was, I honestly do.
[22:55]I think that was this indignation in me.
[22:56]I also, I've got, you know, I've got ADD
[22:58]and it's really weird.
[22:59]But I spend a lot of time trying to calm the voices
[23:01]in my head.
[23:02]So I think I'm probably well versed
[23:05]in how to negotiate those different voices.
[23:07]And I think it's something, you know, one of the things
[23:09]in the book, I mean, what's really interesting,
[23:12]Jacob has never read the book.
[23:14]And I've written the book in many ways for him.
[23:17]You know, I speak to him often.
[23:18]It's often to you.
[23:19]And I sometimes, I do think, I do, you know,
[23:22]my worst is I think, God, I wonder if he's going to leave me
[23:25]when he finally reads this book.
[23:26]Because, you know, I do talk about those bleak moments,
[23:29]those dark moments, those days where I was like,
[23:31]I'm like, there are days, you know,
[23:33]when he looked like he was going to die.
[23:34]And there are days when he lived on like,
[23:36]I really questioned whether it was the right thing for him.
[23:39]It was the right thing for me, you know,
[23:41]whether we were going to survive it.
[23:42]So it's not that there isn't the most ugly, you know,
[23:46]darkest parts of myself out there.
[23:47]So I'm certainly not the same.
[23:49]But I guess it's what I said before, you know,
[23:51]in a weird way, it's that it was big of the man, you know,
[23:54]Jacob, I've always, I mean, it's something,
[23:55]it's an energy, you know, you talk about it in your book,
[23:57]you know, that kind of, that superhero perching.
[24:00]And I can't describe it.
[24:01]And it's something that I'm almost loathe
[24:03]to tell my children because I don't want, you know,
[24:06]I think, well, maybe it was just distinctive to me.
[24:08]But when I first met Jake, I talked about it
[24:10]in the book, there was just this internal ping.
[24:12]And it wasn't just a ping of like,
[24:14]here's an attractive guy.
[24:15]Here's somebody who I think is attracted to me.
[24:19]It was like, it was deeper than that.
[24:20]This was someone I just wanted to be around.
[24:22]You know, this was a warmth, this was a spirit.
[24:25]This was, this was good.
[24:26]And I had been around and attracted to the other, you know,
[24:29]I had like thrown myself at narcissists.
[24:32]And you know, mainly men who really want that interest
[24:35]in me, you know, and actually to be with someone
[24:37]who was warm and openhearted, not just to me,
[24:39]but to the world.
[24:40]That was what I wanted to bring back.
[24:42]That was still, that's the harm.
[24:43]You know, it was a bigger hum than him.
[24:45]And it's something I think I think about a lot.
[24:48]And I've had to think about and continue to think about
[24:50]because, you know, this survival story is not over.
[24:53]You know, that actually, it's always been about
[24:55]making sure that we've, he will carry on in the world
[25:00]relationships that he has formed,
[25:02]be it with his children and his family,
[25:03]but also with me will carry on.
[25:05]But it may not always be in the most traditional sense.
[25:08]So when I kind of slightly cut,
[25:10]when I slightly let go of needing him to come back for me
[25:13]and then really digging into what I felt about him,
[25:17]then I found my way back.
[25:18]And you know, it was also, there were tiny little moments
[25:22]with Jake the whole time, the dry sense of humor.
[25:24]You know, Jake's got the most beautiful and sense of humor.
[25:27]And he was always, you know, I talk about it in the film.
[25:28]I remember going first date,
[25:30]we went to see a Bridget Jones film.
[25:31]And I was so embarrassed because he loved so loud.
[25:34]And I was almost telling about apologizing
[25:36]to the postway.
[25:37]And then I realized that actually what he was doing
[25:39]was he was triggering the laughter.
[25:41]And sometimes when we go to stand up shows
[25:43]with Jake, you know, and I used to see
[25:45]that the comics would react to him.
[25:49]And you could almost see them going like smart.
[25:51]I can see they like it.
[25:52]You know, he does something.
[25:54]And you know, we're in Jake and I are in New York now
[25:57]and this weekend and we went to see
[26:00]into the woods last night, the sun time.
[26:01]He's a massive sun time fact.
[26:03]And he was up and cheering.
[26:05]And I was just like, you know, oh my gosh.
[26:08]But actually there is a joy given to him.
[26:10]And I, you know, he also has as many, many, many
[26:13]irritating traits as everybody does.
[26:14]But that was became the focus, I guess.
[26:17]And so that feels like the great achievement,
[26:20]actually, the great achievement is that Jake is up
[26:22]now and standing and there and present.
[26:24]And you know, he said to me last night,
[26:27]God, I'm here, you got us, you got us here.
[26:29]And that to me was like, yeah,
[26:32]this is there's something bigger than our relationship.
[26:34]And that is the conversation that I'm having now.
[26:37]You know, the conversation I'm having now is like,
[26:39]what now?
[26:40]But it's always been about trying to get him back.
[26:42]And when something is so life and death,
[26:44]you know, I think, you know, I talk about deadlines,
[26:46]you know, you know, more than anyone.
[26:47]I live with a generalized deadlines, you know,
[26:49]I'm terrible for deadlines.
[26:51]I'm always like, yeah, it's going really well.
[26:52]I'm really excited.
[26:53]I'm just on the last 10 pages.
[26:56]And I haven't even started it, you know.
[26:58]I'm always getting it.
[26:59]Just give me till Monday.
[27:00]And I'm like, I'm about math.
[27:02]So I was used to deadlines,
[27:03]but I have forgotten the ultimate deadline,
[27:05]which is mortality.
[27:07]And so, you know, yeah, I mean,
[27:09]his mortality was threatened.
[27:10]And then I guess the other, you know,
[27:14]truly wobbly kind of what I would have cut plot twist was
[27:18]that my own mortality is the moment where, you know,
[27:21]like God, I think we were like five Jacob had woken up
[27:26]in the sort of end of January, beginning of February.
[27:29]He medically induced comers are interesting
[27:31]because you ebb and flow.
[27:32]You don't come out.
[27:33]It's not like, Tim, I'm here.
[27:34]You know, it's the waking and it's going to seem the waking.
[27:36]And then the process of bringing someone around.
[27:38]So then we went into sort of like the reeling
[27:40]I've not quite knowing how it was.
[27:42]And then I got to about April May
[27:43]and I started to feel this incredible pain in my chest.
[27:46]And I almost don't want you to say it
[27:49]because when I read it, I was so shocked.
[27:52]It's so annoying.
[27:53]I mean, I could not believe what was going on.
[27:57]Like all of the things were like,
[27:59]it was like the biggest plot twist that,
[28:01]because I tried not to read the flap
[28:03]before I start reading, like I don't want to know
[28:05]what's happening.
[28:06]So I almost don't want you to give away, but just to say,
[28:11]I could not believe it, it was like,
[28:13]there was one moment where you just said,
[28:15]you looked as sort of lopsided and as wobbly
[28:19]and exposed as you felt.
[28:21]And like that image of you and how you felt right then.
[28:25]Oh my gosh, it's just, you know,
[28:28]it's hard to read this without wanting to give you
[28:29]like a massive hug.
[28:31]Like, oh, you know, and I think about that a lot.
[28:35]Yeah, I mean, I agree, you know,
[28:37]I am so acutely aware now I'm sure you are of people's stories,
[28:41]people's tragedies, people's pain, people's,
[28:43]and I never feel like I want to totally colonize it.
[28:47]You know, I think, you know, it's interesting,
[28:49]your book is, you know, every chapter has books
[28:52]that you've loved and some I've read and most I haven't,
[28:54]some I pretend I've read, you know, there's millions of them.
[28:58]But you know, their stories and I came to us
[29:00]that ours was another story and I really believe that
[29:02]and I love, you know, I'm mental, young,
[29:05]a lot of, particularly young women coming up.
[29:07]And one of the things I learned very early on
[29:09]is that you have to kind of kiss the joy and let it fly.
[29:12]You know, there's a desire when you mentor a person
[29:14]and when they become successful to go,
[29:16]I know, I talk to all I know, you know,
[29:18]and actually the joy with it is let someone go
[29:20]and be their own thing.
[29:21]And that's what I sort of feel like with this story.
[29:23]You know, it was one of the things I felt when I was writing.
[29:25]I felt like whatever the criticism is,
[29:28]whatever anyone says about it,
[29:30]it will just be another book on the shelf
[29:31]and there'll be another great story to read.
[29:33]And I can hide it between other stories.
[29:35]But when this story could then go hit
[29:37]by these continual plot twist,
[29:39]I felt this very strange,
[29:42]a discomfort with it actually, not mainly because I just felt,
[29:45]like I almost wanted to apologize to the reason
[29:47]but I'm so sorry to have to tell you this bit.
[29:49]I don't want you to be,
[29:50]because I didn't want to seem like greedy or like I was milking it
[29:53]or, but then I think sometimes life hands like this,
[29:57]doesn't it?
[29:57]You know, you don't just get these very neat.
[29:59]Life doesn't.
[30:00]Like, I found this, I think there's a lot of boring gray,
[30:02]a lot of lovely.
[30:04]And then there's suddenly like explosions,
[30:06]I was, you know, you know,
[30:08]and then there's the quiet period again.
[30:10]And then, but you never, once you've gone through that period,
[30:13]you never don't look over your shoulder slightly thinking,
[30:15]when is it, when is it coming again, you know?
[30:18]Certainly.
[30:18]I think, you know, I talk about chaos being my natural state,
[30:21]but I definitely find that feeling sometimes where I'm like,
[30:24]okay, today in this moment, everybody's okay, we're okay,
[30:28]we're all, like, you know, I'm sure your county
[30:30]has you got four children, you can't, you know,
[30:32]I spend most mornings, I wake up going, okay,
[30:34]Mabel's there, Jessie's there, okay, Jay, okay, you know,
[30:38]and it still feels quite neat, that feeling.
[30:41]Oh, my gosh.
[30:42]I feel like we only scratched the surface.
[30:44]I had 8,000 more parts of your book I wanted to talk about,
[30:47]but this is the time I, a lot to podcasts
[30:50]because people stop listening after half an hour.
[30:52]So thank you so much for coming on.
[30:54]Thank you so much for having me, Zavi, lovely.
[30:56]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[30:59]Don't have time to read books.
[31:01]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens,
[31:04]and at Moms, don't have time to read books.
[31:06]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[31:08]and sign up for my virtual book club
[31:10]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[31:13]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[31:14]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[31:16]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:18]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.