Jess Keefe, THIRTY-THOUSAND STEPS: A Memoir of Sprinting Toward Life After Loss
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[1:03]Just keep is the author of 30,000 steps, a memoir of sprinting toward life after loss.
[1:08]Jess is a writer, editor, and advocate.
[1:11]Her writing has been published by Teen Vogue, Have Post, McSweeny's Internet Tendency,
[1:14]Runners World, and more.
[1:16]She has worked with National and Local Addiction Non-profits to increase Nalaxone, availability,
[1:21]and improved treatment standards.
[1:23]She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia.
[1:25]Welcome, Jess.
[1:26]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss 30,000 steps.
[1:30]You are absolutely beautiful, amazing, poignant, deep, awesome memoir.
[1:37]Thank you so much.
[1:38]I'm delighted to be here.
[1:39]Thank you for having me.
[1:40]Oh, my gosh.
[1:41]Your description, I read, I don't know if I can, can I talk, what happens in the beginning
[1:46]because I feel like-
[1:47]Oh, please.
[1:48]Yeah.
[1:49]No spoilers there.
[1:50]I think yes.
[1:51]No spoiler.
[1:52]Okay.
[1:53]But I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother, but the way that you described how you
[1:57]you found him when you overdosed, even, like, navigating his body out of the house.
[2:03]I mean, all of the details, I literally felt like I was sitting next to you with like,
[2:10]you tell me like a friend, a good friend being like, oh, my gosh, this is what happened.
[2:14]And my being like, oh, my gosh, but then having to just say that to a book.
[2:18]So now I can say it to you.
[2:19]Oh, my gosh.
[2:20]I can't believe it.
[2:21]I know.
[2:22]I mean, thank you so much.
[2:23]That means lots of me.
[2:24]It's a very intense way to kick the story off, but I really felt like it was important
[2:29]to put the readers in my little backpack and bring them along with me.
[2:32]Just to experience the, the, the raw shock and, you know, honestly, horror, what occurred
[2:39]because I think that that sets the tone for the rest of the story and sort of helps put
[2:44]you in my state of mind in what I was feeling and thinking after this occurred and like
[2:48]what sort of inspired me to go on the mental, physical, emotional journey.
[2:53]I went on after that.
[2:54]Yeah.
[2:55]Yeah.
[2:56]So yeah.
[2:57]Maybe we should just share with the listeners.
[2:58]Yeah.
[2:59]The general circumstances surrounding his death and how old you both were and where you were
[3:03]living at the time and why you were roommates and all that.
[3:06]Mm-hmm.
[3:07]Sure.
[3:08]Sure.
[3:09]So the book starts off.
[3:10]The book tells the story of myself and my little brother, Matt and the story begins in the
[3:13]year 2015.
[3:14]So I was 29 and he was 26.
[3:18]We lived together in an apartment in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.
[3:22]We had both broken up with our boyfriends.
[3:25]We were sort of in this like, you know, silly, messy era of our lives.
[3:30]Both of us together, you know, and we kind of, we had a lot of fun and, you know, we were
[3:33]just kind of getting through it.
[3:35]But the thing that Matt was dealing with that I wasn't was he had a drug addiction.
[3:40]And this had sort of been ongoing for several years when it had kind of, you know, gone
[3:45]in peaks and valleys.
[3:46]And I think a lot of people who've experienced this either in their families or themselves,
[3:49]you know, know about the kind of ongoing nature of addiction.
[3:52]He really did seem like he was doing a lot better for a while, but it's a tricky thing,
[3:57]you know, and it really only takes one time of it, not of a day not going your way for
[4:02]it to be a big problem.
[4:04]So, so yeah, so it was the fall of 2015.
[4:08]And you know, I had been out on a date.
[4:10]I was just kind of living my life and I came home and unfortunately my brother was, we
[4:13]lived in a duplex.
[4:14]He was downstairs.
[4:15]He was overdosing.
[4:16]It was happening live.
[4:18]So a lot of people go through this.
[4:20]It's terrible, you know, and I felt like, you know, it, you know, trigger warning to people,
[4:25]you know, I heard people just take their time reading it.
[4:27]You know, I've had a lot of people reach out to me who have lived with this sort of
[4:30]thing before.
[4:31]And I, you know, I want to make sure everyone takes their time and you can skip this
[4:33]part if it's too much.
[4:35]But I did, yeah, I really did feel like it was important to root readers in my reality at
[4:40]that time because it's kind of a situation you never want anybody to ever have to be in.
[4:45]It's hard to communicate it, the intensity of it without really kind of putting you there.
[4:49]So that's where the book begins, right?
[4:50]And unfortunately my brother, you know, we were, we were just like a hair too late and
[4:54]I didn't know about things like naloxone, Narcan, like these are overdose reversal drugs
[4:59]that are getting more and more available now and if people are listening to have someone
[5:03]in their life that is using opioids in any regard, you should have it around.
[5:07]I didn't know.
[5:08]I had no idea there was so much I didn't know.
[5:11]And so that's sort of what kicks off the rest of the book, which is me sort of looking
[5:15]around at everything that occurred and being like, you know, why him not me, you know,
[5:19]we were right next to each other.
[5:20]We grew up.
[5:21]We had a lovely child, you know, we had resources like we had everything we needed, you
[5:25]know, we love parents and all that.
[5:28]And yeah, and this still happened to him and it didn't happen to me.
[5:30]And so that was kind of this question that really haunted me for a while.
[5:34]And it's something that you can't really ever fully answer, but I think that there's
[5:38]a lot of value in exploring the sort of, you know, ifs and whys and things like that.
[5:43]Wow.
[5:44]When you trace it all back, the moment where like your paths sort of diverged, do you have
[5:50]like a pinpoint where you like hold it down?
[5:52]It's tough.
[5:53]I mean, you know, like I think there's so many interesting people, like intellectuals and
[5:57]professors and thinkers that talk about this and one of my favorites is Dr. Gabor Mate
[6:01]and he's like sort of a trauma anthropologist and he can kind of go like through, you
[6:06]know, and he talks a lot about how our inner worlds are really our own and it sounds so
[6:11]obvious to say that, but, you know, he often will talk about how, you know, two children
[6:15]can be sitting in the same room having the same life and it feels so different to one than
[6:20]it does to the other.
[6:21]And it's not necessarily like bad scarier, like harmful ways, right?
[6:25]It's just I think sometimes if the way that you learn, your brain wants to learn, right,
[6:30]is what I learned in writing this book.
[6:32]And if you learn at a vulnerable time that substances provide relief from something, that
[6:38]is like the critical turning point.
[6:40]So I think that for a lot of people, it really is just like, and we all have right, you
[6:44]know, our like crappy coping mechanisms and that's sort of why I wanted, you know, when
[6:48]I talked about the running and the book is about running too, but, you know, it's getting
[6:53]into running or getting into like a healthy activity is usually like praised and it's like,
[6:56]oh, wow, like good for you, you know, and I'm proud of it and I love running, but
[7:00]my initial relationship with running was pretty toxic because I was like living in a weird
[7:03]place.
[7:04]I was so unhealthy.
[7:05]So I think we've all got the tendency to latch onto maybe a not super helpful coping mechanism
[7:11]when we're in pain.
[7:12]And I think that that is just unfortunately sometimes how it plays out with people, like
[7:16]my brother, like they just are in a bad place and this comes along and they're, and
[7:21]they try it and their brain learns that helped and the brain doesn't learn like, oh, then
[7:26]I woke up the next morning and felt awful or, you know, I'm kind of feeling alienated
[7:30]from the people around me.
[7:31]The brain doesn't remember that part.
[7:32]I don't remember the first part, which is this helps you, it made you feel relief and you
[7:37]should do it again.
[7:38]You should repeat the behavior.
[7:39]So that's kind of how I think about, you know, what happened, but it's like, yeah, you could
[7:43]go over it and I have, you know, like you could go over it over and over and look for those
[7:47]moments and you'll never know and that's kind of the maddening thing, you know, I go
[7:50]it definitely went through period where, you know, you look at, you kind of become like this
[7:53]like paranoid suspicious person, you're looking around like everything around you,
[7:57]every person around them and this it with that it, whatever.
[8:01]And yeah, there is no answer.
[8:03]So it's crushing, but it's also freeing in that way, right?
[8:06]Like not anybody's fault.
[8:07]It wasn't his fault, you know, and the temptation to, I feel like also to and from my,
[8:13]you know, I was always looking for some reason in order to sort of be like, this was
[8:17]my fault, you know, like I was almost looking around for like something to make it, it
[8:21]felt easier almost if it was able to be like, it was my fault or like, it was, you know,
[8:25]something that happened to us when we were a little and like that really was not the
[8:27]case and it's kind of just one of those things.
[8:30]And you also did such a nice job of really showing how the wishful thinking of the beating
[8:37]drugs community is just like, okay, like try harder, get your head around this, like give
[8:42]it a shot and you know, the people in the church, you know, the Catholic church and you know,
[8:46]all the places to turn didn't have like, it's a physical issue that means like
[8:52]a physical treatment, it's a, it's a disease really sound.
[8:56]Yeah, absolutely.
[8:57]And I think that, you know, there's a lot of that and with a lot of medical illnesses,
[9:00]we, you know, I think in America specifically, but also just in general, there is a temptation
[9:04]to like moralize, you know, and be like, if you just do, you know, take this supplement
[9:09]or, you know, exercise more or whatever, like you'll, you'll, you know, heal your chemical
[9:14]problem going on in your body.
[9:15]And addiction is one of the most extreme examples of that.
[9:18]And it's, you know, there's a long history of addiction care being totally divorced
[9:24]from normal health care.
[9:25]So I think that even the issues we have with the health care system, we all know, but
[9:29]it's, it wasn't even possible until kind of pretty recently to get like to call up your
[9:34]health insurer and be like, I would like to go to an outpatient program.
[9:37]Can you help me find one that's in network?
[9:39]That's pretty new.
[9:40]So it is pretty amazing talking to people now who are in recovery and who are receiving
[9:45]treatment and hearing about their experiences because, you know, just in the, in the
[9:49]eight years since this happened to me, it does sound like a lot has changed.
[9:52]And that's very exciting.
[9:53]It makes me very happy.
[9:54]And I think that, you know, the degree to which this is unfolding all around us, I think
[9:58]we're kind of getting to a point where a lot of people.
[10:00]we're looking around and going,
[10:00]I don't know what we're doing is working, you know?
[10:03]So.
[10:04]Oh my gosh.
[10:05]Well, now talk about the post, you know,
[10:08]overdose moment and the rest of the journey.
[10:10]Yeah, it's all about that.
[10:12]Yeah, so the rest of the journey of the book
[10:14]kind of follows, as I mentioned, my running journey.
[10:16]So I was always like an athletic child
[10:19]in like a vague way, never like a star,
[10:21]but like I was always like on the team and like there.
[10:24]So I was definitely present.
[10:28]So, you know, it's kind of like
[10:30]groping around, dealing with pretty intense grief,
[10:33]living alone, you know, I moved,
[10:34]I moved from Boston back to New York
[10:36]and I was just sort of like going through it, you know?
[10:39]And I'm trying to figure out what's next for me.
[10:41]I had, you know, I had been in a serious relationship
[10:43]that was over, I had been living with my brother,
[10:45]he had passed away in a very traumatic way.
[10:47]And I was just really like groping around,
[10:49]looking for something that helped.
[10:51]And so I, yeah, one day I just kind of was scrolling
[10:55]on Instagram and saw a promotion for the Brooklyn
[10:58]Half Marathon.
[10:59]And I thought like, okay, maybe like a goal, you know,
[11:03]people had told me like pick something,
[11:05]just anything and try to do that.
[11:07]And so I was like, all right,
[11:08]this is gonna be the thing I pick.
[11:09]So I picked that.
[11:10]I had never, you know, I always kind of run
[11:12]and like that weird, you know, sad way
[11:14]that you just go out and flail around
[11:16]for like three miles and get home like exhausted
[11:17]and like very red.
[11:18]And like I guess I did something.
[11:20]So this was much different, have you been spying on me?
[11:23]It's exactly what running is like for me.
[11:25]Like 100 for that.
[11:26]Like, you're kind of like looking around like,
[11:29]am I supposed to be like doing something different?
[11:31]Like is this supposed to feel different?
[11:32]Like cause it feels terrible.
[11:34]And the red face like, I'm like, how do I,
[11:37]like you're going on zoom?
[11:38]Like how am I gonna get this face to know?
[11:40]I know, like this is why I can't like exercise.
[11:42]Like some people like run out and get it work out
[11:43]in the middle of the day.
[11:44]I'm like, I look like I'm gonna go into cardiac arrest.
[11:46]Like no matter what.
[11:47]So people are like, are you okay?
[11:49]But I have to have a meeting or something after that.
[11:51]But yeah, so this was the most like structured,
[11:53]like I downloaded like training plans.
[11:55]I had to like read about it.
[11:56]You know, like 13.1 miles was a lot to me then.
[12:00]And I was like, I don't know what that is.
[12:01]It is a lot.
[12:02]It is a lot.
[12:03]It's a lot, right?
[12:05]Oh my gosh, I ran my first full marathon in the spring.
[12:08]And I was like, never need to do that again.
[12:10]Not never.
[12:11]But I was just like, wow.
[12:13]Like I didn't know, you know, it's just, it's so intense.
[12:16]So yeah, so this is my first ever.
[12:17]And since then I've actually run 10.
[12:19]I ran my 10th in November,
[12:20]so I've been 10th at Marathon since this very first one.
[12:23]Oh, gosh.
[12:24]Yeah, so yeah, so it's like, so the book sort of like,
[12:27]I tried to structure it around, you know, my process
[12:30]of doing the running training and sort of,
[12:32]and the thing about running and the thing that's useful
[12:35]for me about running is that you can kind of let your brain
[12:37]like roll around while you go.
[12:40]So it would simultaneously feel like, you know,
[12:42]this really relaxing sort of like state of nothingness.
[12:45]And also I really just think, you know,
[12:47]I would think about like what happened.
[12:49]I would think about my brother.
[12:50]I would think about our life together.
[12:51]And so that's the sort of experience I wanted to emulate
[12:53]in the second part of the book, which is, you know,
[12:55]me going on these training runs and sort of just like
[12:57]considering things that happened to my brother,
[12:59]things that happened to me, different elements of what I've learned,
[13:02]you know, I got really like obsessively, you know,
[13:05]reading about addiction, like feeling really compelled
[13:08]to like understand this thing.
[13:09]And I tried to bring in some of the things that I learned
[13:11]that I felt were the most relevant and valuable to the story.
[13:14]So, you know, stuff about the dare program,
[13:17]which I heard from a lot of people that is very interesting
[13:20]to them as well, you know, treatment, how drugs,
[13:23]how, you know, substance use disorders are treated
[13:26]if ever criminalizations, all kinds of stuff.
[13:28]So this was all very interesting to me.
[13:31]At the time continues to be, but you know,
[13:32]it's sort of that onion thing of like,
[13:35]once you start peeling it, like it can really just go and go.
[13:37]Like there's a lot to this issue.
[13:39]And there's a lot to this problem.
[13:41]So yeah, so that's the, the, so the book then kind of builds
[13:45]towards this race and then sort of follows me on the, you know,
[13:48]of going through the race and then kind of living
[13:50]and living in the reality of having achieved the goal
[13:53]and now my brother's still gone and kind of like,
[13:55]now what kind of things.
[13:57]So that's the rest of the story as well.
[14:00]Well, and it's not just the goal of the half marathon.
[14:02]It's the goal of writing the book too.
[14:04]Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
[14:05]Which is like the biggest, I mean, that's a huge goal too.
[14:08]Like all those hurdles, you're literally jumping over.
[14:10]It's like, I know, and you know this like writing memoir
[14:14]is a very particular kind of thing.
[14:16]And it was something I kind of resisted for a while.
[14:18]I had been writing about myself and my brother, you know,
[14:21]for various online magazines and websites and stuff.
[14:24]And I would have people be like, wow, like, you know,
[14:26]really sounds like you have enough for a book
[14:29]and you thought about doing a book.
[14:30]And I would be like, you know, like, yeah, that sounds hard.
[14:34]And guess what it is, but once I kind of, you know,
[14:37]it's sort of like you just become obsessed.
[14:39]Like you kind of, like you have to kind of get obsessed
[14:41]with like delivering and finishing
[14:43]and doing the thing you said you were going to do.
[14:46]And that's how I, you know, and it's your own life,
[14:48]which is sort of uncanny as well.
[14:49]You're your source, you're sort of like, you know,
[14:51]kind of flipping through the photographs on the floor
[14:54]being like this or this or this or this, you know?
[14:57]Like it's true.
[14:58]It's all true of course, but it's everyone person is,
[15:00]you know, I'm just one person.
[15:01]These are just my memories.
[15:02]This isn't like a reported history of like,
[15:04]what happened to myself and my brother?
[15:06]And I joke because I feel like if you were still with us,
[15:08]you probably read some of this and be like, girl, what?
[15:11]Take everything, you know, but he knew, you know,
[15:13]when he was alive, you know, he read my writing all the time
[15:16]when he was always very encouraging.
[15:18]So, you know, there was a part of me too
[15:19]that struggled with that aspect of it as well.
[15:21]But I, you know, I know people say this,
[15:23]but I really do believe that, you know,
[15:24]he would be wanting to do something like this.
[15:26]So when you have that energy behind you,
[15:29]it makes it a lot easier to like push, push, push.
[15:32]So it was a lot of a push.
[15:34]And I think that once I figured out
[15:36]that the story really did involve me
[15:38]and really did involve my life
[15:40]and my feelings and my growth as well,
[15:42]I think that really kind of unlocked the whole thing for me.
[15:45]So it was supposed to be memoir
[15:46]and it was supposed to be told this way.
[15:48]It wasn't supposed to be essays,
[15:50]it wasn't supposed to be narrative on fiction.
[15:52]Like it really, I feel like the strength that I have
[15:54]as a writer in this book and elsewhere is, you know,
[15:57]I try to bring people along with me.
[15:59]And I think that there's so much interesting information
[16:01]out there about drug addiction
[16:03]and about the opioid epidemic.
[16:05]And I really just think I thought I could contribute
[16:08]that would be unique would be this very specific
[16:10]or human story of just like me as an individual
[16:13]and him as an individual and what happened to us.
[16:15]Yes.
[16:16]And just like the impact on the family.
[16:19]Like it's one thing to say, oh, the opioid epidemic
[16:22]is affecting families left and right.
[16:24]But it's another to be like, here is my brother,
[16:27]here is my life, here is my mom and dad.
[16:31]I mean, you know, it's, it's,
[16:33]people need to experience things
[16:36]through other people's eyes, not hear about it
[16:39]in statistics to really feel new to do anything about it.
[16:42]Yeah, absolutely.
[16:43]And there's so many different, you know,
[16:45]and that's the thing, like this is just one experience
[16:47]and there's so many different ways
[16:48]that this affects people.
[16:49]And there's so many different types of families
[16:51]having different types of experiences.
[16:53]And yeah, all we, you know, I feel like, you know,
[16:56]being as specific as you can sometimes helps people
[16:59]think about things in a more general way.
[17:00]So instead of writing, you know,
[17:02]platitudes about, you know, the number of deaths
[17:04]and which is horrible, you know,
[17:05]but I think at a certain point it's people
[17:07]are almost desensitized to hearing about it.
[17:10]It's kind of has a numbing effect
[17:11]because it's so horrible and it continues to get worse.
[17:14]And it feels like nothing we're doing is working.
[17:16]So it was important to me as well to tell the story,
[17:19]but also to lean into the fact that just because
[17:21]what we're doing isn't working doesn't mean
[17:23]there are things, there aren't things that would work.
[17:25]And there's so much interesting science
[17:26]and there's so much interesting research
[17:28]on the things that do make an impact
[17:29]and do make it easier for people to recover
[17:32]and live normal, healthy lives.
[17:33]It doesn't have to be a death sentence.
[17:35]And I think that it's definitely something I felt.
[17:37]You know, when I was younger
[17:38]and when he was first dealing with this,
[17:39]I was just sort of like, you know,
[17:41]it's, I'm embarrassed by it now
[17:44]and it's hard to admit, but I think
[17:46]when he was really struggling through it,
[17:48]I was like, this is how he's gonna die.
[17:50]And then he did.
[17:51]So you don't wanna be in a place where you feel
[17:54]like you have to put people
[17:54]into this like self-billing prophecy kind of thing.
[17:57]Like there are so many effective treatments.
[17:59]There are so many people that are living just the best lives now.
[18:02]Like there's so many interesting people in recovery
[18:04]have such cool things to say about their experiences.
[18:06]And it just doesn't have to,
[18:08]it really doesn't have to be this way, you know?
[18:10]I think it really doesn't.
[18:11]Totally.
[18:12]Wait, tell me about the,
[18:15]so the writing which was hard and all of that.
[18:18]What was the whole like path to publication like for you?
[18:22]It was stressful, you know,
[18:24]because it's just like this is, you know,
[18:26]I'm really looking forward to writing another book
[18:28]that's like science fiction.
[18:29]Like this is like the most like personal thing
[18:31]I've ever done.
[18:32]So, you know, yeah, you gotta learn a lot about like,
[18:37]what's feedback that is useful to you?
[18:39]What is feedback that is indicative
[18:42]of people who are not on the same page as you?
[18:45]What is feedback that you can take and work with?
[18:47]What are the people that really wanna help you champion the story?
[18:50]And what are the people that want to change something fundamental
[18:52]about the way you want to tell the story, right?
[18:55]So being able to connect with an agent who I feel like really
[18:58]vibe with me on a human level and really understood,
[19:01]you know, voice is very important in memoir
[19:04]and it's not something that's negotiable really.
[19:06]So I think sometimes it's hard to understand
[19:09]if someone is giving you direction that is not true
[19:14]to your voice and it's hard,
[19:16]it's kind of hard to figure out sometimes.
[19:17]So when you find someone who really is on board
[19:19]with your voice and really just want to like make it
[19:20]even more what it is, that was,
[19:22]I feel like very useful to me.
[19:24]And yeah, we just, we took it out and you know,
[19:27]you go through the whole process
[19:28]and it was stressful and intense.
[19:30]And you hear, you know, it's like,
[19:32]I've described it as sort of like a video game, right?
[19:34]It's like you jump to this level
[19:36]and like this editor likes it
[19:37]and then you jump to this next level
[19:38]and they brought it to their boss
[19:39]and they like it and they jump to this next level, you know?
[19:41]And so I was really pleased with Prometheus,
[19:43]the publishing house that we ended up with
[19:45]I edited their Jake as just a lovely person.
[19:49]And I feel like really understood what I was trying to do
[19:51]like pretty much right away
[19:53]and gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
[19:56]You know, he was helping me tweak the nuts and bolts
[19:58]here and there he was asking him for him.
[20:00]questions, but he wasn't trying to change my story or change the message that I was trying
[20:06]to deliver. So that was very great. That was really great. But once we sold it to it was like kind
[20:10]of it was very, we were on a fast track. So I was busy with it. I'm sure you know as well.
[20:16]You know, you're like, you get the little rush of like, oh, it's going to be a real thing. How
[20:20]great? You get about 30 seconds to enjoy that. And then it's like, your first draft is
[20:25]do like in three weeks. So you're kind of just like sweating and crying and writing alone.
[20:30]And just like, it's so long. You know, you're just like, you have these, you know, you have your
[20:34]people that are there for you. But ultimately this is your show. You know, like it's your book,
[20:39]you're responsible. So it's a lot more, you know, it's very solitary. And at that kind of,
[20:44]I don't know why I would be surprised by that. But it felt like after so long of kind of living in it
[20:48]for like by myself, it's just it's just a joy now to have it out in the world and having people read it
[20:53]and being able to have conversations like these. It's just, it's so satisfying. And it's really like,
[20:57]if I could go back, you know, six months ago or nine months ago, whatever, and remind that version of
[21:02]me that there'd be this at the end, it would it would really help. But light at the end of the tunnel.
[21:10]Totally. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[21:13]Wait. So are you seriously going to write science fiction or what are you thinking?
[21:17]I really like, I like, it's funny. I mean, it's not funny. Like this book is so like,
[21:23]I would not have written a book like this if it weren't for like the thing that happened. You know,
[21:27]it was like I was never like, I would like essays and stuff about, you know, my like self and stuff.
[21:31]But I never thought I would write like all memoir. So I really enjoy comedy. I really enjoy humor.
[21:38]And you know, there's some humor in the book. I hope that comes across. But like, you know, it's,
[21:42]it's, I feel very excited about what's next because I feel like I poured really like everything
[21:48]I had into this in the way that it is. And now it's like, okay, cool. Like you could write, you know,
[21:54]a comedic thriller. You could write something that's totally fictional and like pulls from real life,
[22:00]but it's not my life, you know, sticking everything out there. So that's what makes me excited
[22:04]about, you know, what's next. So I'll always continue to write about drugs and policy and issues
[22:10]like that because it really matters a lot to me. But yeah, book wise, I'm trying to just like
[22:16]go like live like a different like totally fantasy life. Like that would be great.
[22:21]That is awesome. And did you, did you like quit your day job so to speak or do you have another?
[22:26]Well, so yeah. So I worked what I was writing the book to, which was actually very, was very helpful,
[22:31]but also increased the stress level. I did have a full-time job at a addiction advocacy nonprofit.
[22:35]So it was very helpful to have like the people around me informing my work and helping me
[22:40]understand this issue and being able to work directly on this issue while I was doing this. Like,
[22:44]so it's, I was so immersed, right? So now I'm freelance full-time, which is great. So I have,
[22:49]you know, I'm still taking on, you know, nonprofit and business clients to do professional
[22:53]communications and stuff. But I'm able to mix in more of editorial writing and working on book stuff
[22:59]and things like that. So it's satisfying to be at a stage in my life and career where I can
[23:03]feel a little more self-directed. So, you know, still kind of hustling and grinding. But yeah,
[23:08]I hope very just excited to be a published author and looking forward to this next section of my
[23:12]career having that achievement under my belt. Oh, congratulations. You are so great at reaching all
[23:17]these wonderful goals that you said and inspiring. Before we go, I have to see a tattoo.
[23:24]Is can I just one? Is that the one that didn't heal properly? Yeah. Oh my gosh.
[23:31]I mean, I'm making it looks great to me. I mean, what do I know, but do you remember that
[23:34]TV show and probably dating myself, uh, Pete and Pete on Nickelodeon? No, I'm older than you.
[23:40]Oh, well, that little, so the little brother Pete, one of the jokes was that he had a tattoo
[23:46]on his forearm and it was a mermaid and it was named Petunia. And he would do this like weird
[23:50]movement that made it like dance. I feel like I'm doing that right now, but like not on purpose.
[23:55]But yeah, this is it here. I still have it. I have since I got my brother has, I described in
[24:02]the book. My brother had a lot of tattoos. I have tattoos like we liked to get tattooed.
[24:06]We both have something else we had in common. Um, and he had this beautiful giant like thing on his
[24:10]arm like this big sprawling piece. So I got a piece of that as well on my ribs, which, you know,
[24:15]I'll keep my clothes on since this is the, this is the, but you know, it's just, it's nice to
[24:20]be able to do things that I know he would just get a kick out of and enjoy. So I've had this
[24:25]touched up since then. My artist fixed it for me. So okay. Yeah. But that, I mean, what like,
[24:30]it was, uh, going through that really helped me understand, you know, as a, as a recovering
[24:36]Irish Catholic, there's a lot of tendency to like self blame for your bad feelings and you know,
[24:40]what is even going through grief, it's like, well, it's not really that bad, like you're okay,
[24:44]right? And it's, it was helpful almost in a, in a weird way to be able to look at this open
[24:48]wound on my body. Attachua had gotten the day my brother died and be like, this isn't healing,
[24:53]you know, like my body on a molecular level is going through something right now. And I think
[24:58]that showing that physical element of grief was, um, really important to me because I didn't
[25:02]really feel like I really understood or was ready for that. And you'll never be ready, but
[25:07]that physical piece of it was really intense. Well, Jess, thank you for sharing,
[25:12]bearing your soul, sharing everything. My pleasure. I, I probably need to do less of that,
[25:18]but you don't, like I can't resist. No, no, no. And I really, I love the way you write. And,
[25:23]you know, you can't, you can't help, but like feel like so much affection towards you after reading
[25:28]your story. You know, I'm like, so rooting for you. And I love that. I love that. I love that so much.
[25:34]Congratulations. And thank you. I did to see what, what you set your sights on next.
[25:40]Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I love the podcast. It's such a,
[25:45]it's such a great way to share awesome interesting books with, with such a big audience. I really
[25:49]appreciate what you do. Thank you. Of course. Well, I hope to stay in touch. Yeah, absolutely.
[25:53]Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
[25:59]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[26:03]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[26:08]up for my newsletter at zebi Owens dot com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:12]of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[26:17]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[26:22]outro music.