Loving the Skeptic

Mel: Hello. I'm — okay, you go first.

Anne: I'm Anne. Let's start over. Okay, I'm Anne.

Mel: And I'm Mel.

Anne: And this is Coffee, Tea and Consciousness, with a whole lot of conversation.

Mel: Nice job — with a whole lot of conversation. So just so y'all know, we finished one and now we're gonna record this next one right away, because we weren't done. See, we literally could talk for seventeen hours and keep on going. Annie touched on something in the last episode that we're gonna explore a little bit here. So Annie, take it away.

Anne: Okay. So I think it's important for us to talk about this — when we went through our awakening, our husbands were not going through it. Not even a little. And at some point... I know my husband wants to — he thinks doing a podcast with us would be super fun, so we could get their perspective. But I think it's a good conversation for us to have, what we experienced and what came up. Because it is a struggle. I'll say stuff and Tony will be like, "I feel like I'm being judged." And I brought it all on myself, honestly — he gets very defensive. His dander is up.

Mel: Yeah. Who is it — Abraham Hicks, Esther Hicks — would say, "your goat is gettable." Your goat's out there roaming around, and it is definitely gettable. So — when we went through our awakening, Annie and I went through it almost at the exact same time. Within a day or two of each other. We both got nailed at the same time.

Mel: At the time I was seeing a therapist, which makes sense now, but at the time — he was so logical that Jimmy would come to the sessions with me, because I was definitely insane. I mean, in terms of human — I was crazy. I could see stuff. It was like everything was lit up. The trees were on an incline. It was so bananas when that happened for me.

Anne: It was like a veil lifted.

Mel: Veil lifted, all of a sudden. I remember — at the time the kids were little, and I would meditate three times a day, and I would feel so peaceful. And then Jimmy would come home from work and start talking to me about reality, about all the real, physical life. And I'm like, "Do you even know this isn't even real life? You're—"

Anne: You're just like, shut the fuck up.

Mel: Fucking me all up, and then I'd start screaming. I was like Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde. It was so hard. And how do you even talk to him? How did I talk to Jimmy? I didn't do it right — we should not go off of what I did, because I did it all wrong. But how do you have a conversation with someone when you now know that everything is energy?

Mel: And all of this is just energy that you can look at with these eyeballs — these eyeballs are meant to see energy's manifestation in the physical world. But now I know that when you're talking to me about a problem at work, all I want to say is, "So when have you noticed this before? What do you think is beneath this? Why do you feel like no one ever wants to say hi to you?" He hated me. We couldn't even have a conversation — I would scream. He was miserable. It was really hard.

Anne: It was really hard. Tony always felt judged, and I always thought it was about the stuff we talk about — like, "let's get on the positive train, because I don't really want to see that shit come into our life." And yeah, it was — I feel bad for him. I feel bad for both of them, honestly.

Anne: But I remember — we were listening to Hay House, and there's a host on there. I called into one of her shows and got on, and I asked, "Are my husband and I gonna be okay? Are we gonna stay together?" And she said, "Your relationship is strong, you're fine, you don't need to worry about it." But at the time you're just like, is this even gonna last? I just didn't know.

Mel: Because — do you remember the time you felt it in your heart to go buy tires for that person, and Tony about had a fit? I thought he was gonna divorce you right then and there.

Anne: Yes! Okay, so — this girl, I don't even know how it happened, but I saw a message from her or something, and I was like, I'm gonna go clean out the kids' stuff and our clothes for her. I had our hallway lined with boxes. We filled up her car. And then she said something about her tires, and I don't know — I felt it in my heart that I should go get her tires. Not brand new, used ones, but they still had a lot of tread. And I charged it too, which was stupid — well, it wasn't stupid, but looking back...

Anne: It was funny because on the way to the tire place, he calls, and I'm like, I'm not answering it. I didn't want to have to tell him, but I also didn't want to feel like I needed his permission to do it. So we got the tires, and I told him eventually, and he was pissed. He said it was really because he would've liked to have met her and been there to do it. But he was mad.

Mel: So I've always felt — and at the time I didn't have this much perspective — there's something in me that wants to be said. I'm on Facebook, and there's somebody on there I don't know. A guy. Turns out he was a guy in reality too. I don't even know what he said, but I sent a message — "Would you like me to come over and talk to you?" Like, who the fuck am I? In real life. But I really felt like there was something I needed to say to this guy. I don't know him.

Mel: I said to Jimmy, "You're gonna drop me off over there." He's like, "The fuck I am. I'm not dropping you off at some stranger's house because you think you need to talk to him. Are you crazy?" And I was like, "Probably. I bet I am. Certifiably. You could probably have me committed, but then no one would be here to watch our kids, so you don't want to do that. But also — you're gonna drop me off at this guy's house."

Mel: We used to go grocery shopping on Thursday nights, so I said, you drop me off. He met the guy, left me there, went grocery shopping, came back — and I'm sitting at this stranger's house with him and his wife or partner, thinking, why the fuck am I here? I don't know what to say to this guy. He's going on and on, and I'm there maybe an hour and a half, and all of a sudden something came out of me — I don't even know what I said, I just spouted off. Now I'd know that was spirit coming through. And his partner looked at me, her eyes lit up, and she started to nod — whatever it was needed to be said.

Mel: Then I was like, okay, I'm done now, Jimmy's probably here. And as I got up and walked to the door, there's Jimmy pulling up. But it was — you couldn't describe it in a way that sounded reasonable. That was not an ADHD impulse. Maybe, but I don't think that's what it was. When it came through, I was shocked. I was probably yelling, honestly, whatever I was saying, and she's nodding, eyes wide, and I was like, now I have to go — that was all that needed to be said. Somehow spirit needed her to hear that. And I do believe that was true, even though I look at it now and think, that was bonkers.

Anne: Well — you were going to therapy, but I was too. I remember going to a group therapy session. There was a lady there talking about — I think it was homeless people or something — and I was in that beginning phase where it was like, "you can manifest anything you want, we can all have this amazing life." And we now know not everyone's gonna have whatever they define as amazing. I said something like, "maybe we should all look at it differently," and man, did that lady get pissed. I never went back. I was like, this is too much for them.

Mel: I became extraordinarily self-centered. My family really took a hit — all of a sudden it was, "well, you manifest you, right? You do you." And I'm over here manifesting me, thinking, Jimmy, you're getting in my way. He's the one going to work, paying all the bills, and I was like, you're just getting in the way — if you weren't here, we'd definitely be different. Talk about right timing. I really did become extremely selfish during that time. I started an organization to encourage women to be selfish.

Anne: But I think you were supposed to, because that's how you met your friends.

Mel: Yes, for sure — there was a lot of purpose behind it. But it really did take over. I have a friend of a friend who called me recently about our mutual friend, and she's high — I remember being that high. Like, "we are gonna support him and do this and this," and I was like, that's not my job now. I'm here to support him, but not the way she was talking. She was so high on spirit there was no way to reach her. I even told her, "Listen, I remember being as high as you are right now." I remember how incredibly powerful I felt. Now I just feel humble.

Anne: I think — a lot of things came in and changed, but I think to keep you on that train, a lot of things are easy to manifest at that point, because they want you to keep growing, is my thought. Because that was the same for me — you started a group, I started walking Lake Michigan every goddamn day, spending like eight hours at the beach combing it, listening to Abraham with headphones in.

Mel: Lord give me grace. It was super fun, but it was really hard, and I can see it now — it was so hard on Jimmy, so hard on the kids to have a mom who wasn't totally checked out, but really was — I didn't want anyone to hold me down. There was a time everyone felt like a chain around my ankle. I didn't know how to manage both.

Mel: Here's a silly example: I wanted to vacuum out our van. I didn't have any quarters, I was looking, couldn't find any, so I said fine, I'll just run the cord at home. As I was vacuuming in the very back of this big Ford custom van, in a cup holder, it was overflowing with quarters. For me it was like, something is doing that. I would never have left quarters like that — I've got all these kids, they'd lose them, they'd eat them, I don't know what would've happened, but I would never have done it. So it was almost proving that there was more than meets the eye. It was showing me: you think you know what's going on down here? You've got nothing, my friend. And it made me feel like if I could do this, I could do anything.

Mel: But — could you do anything when you're a mom of five kids? It's really hard to do a lot of things when you're the wife of an engineer who only thinks with his analytical brain. It wasn't hard to share the experiences, but it was hard to talk about how to balance looking at the world where I could take in his language — physical, touching reality, problems that are real. But why you're having the experience is for a purpose — to move forward, to go through it, to recognize what you don't want. Not physical stuff, but what kind of life you actually want to live.

Anne: I felt pretty great about my life. I always wanted to be home with my kids, and getting to have that was great. But you were more like, "I want this, I want my life to look like this," whereas I had a harder time pinpointing anything I really wanted — making a plan, I guess. I kept myself small, I don't know. It was different, and it was hard. My husband's an engineer too, and he grew up Catholic — went to Catholic school, his mom taught there, so he had all that downloaded with it.

Anne: I'd have to ask, but I know it was a hard time for him. There were points where I'd get out of it, then be like, "I'm totally off course, I need to start meditating again," and he was probably like, thank God, a reprieve.

Mel: Right — thank God, she hasn't been meditating much, we can have a reprieve here. And then I start talking about meditation again and it's, oh God, here we go. What insanity is she gonna bring into our lives now? I loved a raging river — my life was a roller coaster. One tornado, one tidal wave after another. I wouldn't even finish with one experience before another one slammed me against the wall. They weren't all bad, but they were big — huge, life-changing experiences. And Jimmy just wanted our lives to be slower. He wanted a lazy river, not the rapids.

Mel: We went to our therapist, and I couldn't think a thing without... I remember thinking about going on a cruise — we didn't do it — but then I got this thing in the mail saying we'd been gifted a cruise. I was like, what are you talking about? He came home and I showed him and he said, "That's a scam, Mel, that can't be real." We didn't do it, because he was so mad. I believed everything — I was so naive to everything, I think. If anything like that came in, I assumed it was spirit literally handing me a checkbook. I wanted an orange bike, and suddenly I see an ad for the orange bike — of course I'm gonna buy it. He was like, what is happening, are you crazy, you can't just do this.

Anne: You're like, "no, spirit's got my back, man."

Mel: Spirit's got my back, man. Right up against the wall. Called debt now. It was so big. And I remember I wanted to rebuild a relationship with my mom, and sometimes spirit will do it to you in a way you don't see coming — most of the time, actually. In this desire I had, our oldest boy was in one shitstorm after another, and finally he said, "I'm moving to Grandma's." At the time I was like, good, go take her all your bullshit. And I remember sitting on the porch swing when my mom said, "Hey, can we talk about him?" And we did — I wouldn't say it was all the way repaired, but for a while I was like, thank you for bridging this gap I didn't know how to bridge. I wish it hadn't taken our son moving out, but I'd say to Jimmy, "See, spirit's doing its work." And he'd be like, "Our kid is a nightmare living with your mom, this is not spirit doing its work." And I'd say, "Yes it is, you just don't see the bigger picture."

Anne: My thing was always, if anyone tried to go negative — nope, don't say it like that. At the time, though, I also got into numerology, and then energy readings from that website, listening to that stuff.

Mel: That downloads.

Anne: It was mind-blowing, because I didn't know any of this. I wasn't born into a religious family, didn't go to church — I thought it was cool going with my best friend as a kid, but I always knew there was more to life than what you see, the whole death thing, your spirit — I knew that, but I didn't have a real belief system around it.

Mel: As someone raised in the church — my mom still quotes Bible scriptures — for me it was heaven or hell, and obviously I'm going to hell, if the Pentecostal way is correct. I remember being a little kid, maybe eight, and our church made us watch these "666" videos, and I remember thinking, I'm definitely taking the 666. My shit's not getting beheaded like that. If I'm going to hell, I'm going all in, motherfuckers. I'm eight years old in the church bathroom thinking, the number eight is the one — I'm all in.

Mel: So when I suddenly thought there was a higher something, I couldn't say "God" for a really long time — I had to say "the universe," because God was too close to what I was raised with, and that motherfucker is pissed, at least the one I was raised with. They talk about grace, but that wasn't what was shown. So for me it was the opposite — all of a sudden I'm seeing the universe, or spirit, as something that brought joy to my life, not "you're doing everything wrong." It took all the pressure off. We're not dead, we don't know for sure, but if that's true, boy does it ease things up. Maybe I don't need to go so hard into believing it's all going to hell.

Mel: Jimmy wasn't raised with really any religious beliefs. I don't know what he actually believed. I just know that the way I was going through the awakening, I was crazy pants — I thought because spirit had my back, it meant I could do anything I wanted and have everything I wanted, right now. Because I would think something and it would come, I'd assume that was for me to have immediately. Random guy's house? Let's go. Orange bike? Let's go buy it. Didn't matter — I thought everything was for me to have right now.

Anne: I remember finally having the courage — when Tony and I got married, I went through all the steps to become Catholic. I remember the priest, in one of our meetings, saying, "It's great that you had the calling," and I said, "I didn't have a calling, I'm doing this because I feel obligated." He got all prickly, and I said, forget I said anything. But I finally had the courage to tell Tony's mom that I did all of that for the wrong reasons — not for myself, but for them, so they'd accept me, because I'd had a child before and wanted their good graces. If I'd had the awakening first, I wouldn't have done it that way. But it is what it is now.

Mel: Through the years — Jimmy and Tony are only friends because we're friends — some of the craziest stuff, I say it now, but it took me years, and for all the years he thought I was bananas, our therapist would just say, "be easy with her right now, she's in the heavy-hitting part of the process." And he was, thankfully, pretty easy with me, mostly. But it's hard — we've done readings for people where spirit basically says, "hey, you've got this gift here," and the person's like, "yeah, my husband thinks I'm nuts." So it's tricky to talk to people about this.

Mel: Now, when I question something — because when I don't have readings to do, I'll try to read energy on my own and check online to see if I was correct — I am correct more often than not. Jimmy will say to me now, "don't question yourself so hard, don't be so down on yourself if you misread something or couldn't find the exact word for it — there's a lot you know that you wouldn't otherwise know." That's true. But it's still hard when we're having an experience with one of our kids and I'll say, "look at what just happened energetically — let's not look at it physically, what do you think is different right now?" I can say that stuff to him now. He doesn't always want to engage, or he'll say, "I don't know what you want me to say to that."

Anne: I think Tony sometimes thinks I'm judging, which I might be.

Mel: I just want him to look at it from a different perspective instead of always from what he can see in this world first — and he doesn't always like that, even now.

Anne: This last year it's been a lot of working on Tony's and my relationship, and it could get brutal. We live in the same house and wouldn't talk to each other for two weeks at a time, because I kept getting the message: let him be the one who comes to me. He's very tight-lipped about his feelings. I know there's no way you can sit there for hours with not one thought going through your head — there isn't. My head's always got something happening.

Anne: So I would wait for him to finally say the thing, and it would get so awkward that I'd end up apologizing to smooth the waters. But this last year and a half, I made him be the one to come to me, and I think it opened his eyes a little. We drove five hours to the beach, just him and me, kids in their own car — not one word spoken the whole drive. I'm sitting there so pissed — we could've been having great conversations, and instead, silence. We finally get to Atlanta and I said, this is fucking stupid, we've been in this car and nothing's been said.

Anne: He's gotten much better, but there are times it makes him uncomfortable, because then he has to feel stuff, and he'll blame it on his family — "we don't talk about anything real, we just skate the surface." And I'll say, well, motherfucker, I want to dig a little deeper. He'll say, "that's just how my family did it," and I'll say, do you think my family was any different? How about we break that cycle? There are times I probably shouldn't have said something, but I think sometimes I do it to provoke a response.

Anne: There was a lot of that — him projecting things, and he still does. He'll say I'm being bitchy, and I'll say, dude, you're actually the bigger bitch of the two of us, you just hide it behind a smile. I have resting bitch face, so I look like the bitch. It's been a lot — I feel for him, because he'd like to just pretend there aren't emotions tied to things.

Mel: I'll be in the car with an earbud in, because I don't always know how to explain it in a way Jimmy understands. Okay, we're in the middle of a physical, real-life experience, and I get a feeling this isn't the right direction. I don't jump anymore — I used to be a jumper. Now I'm much more measured. I wait, I open the door so wide, and see if it opens. And when it does, I'll say something like, "I think we're going about this the right way physically, but energetically, what I'm hearing is this isn't the way we should be going." And if he says, "that other way is ridiculous," I'll say, "I agree, as a human, that seems ridiculous — and I also really have a strong sense that this isn't the right way to do it." Sometimes I think, I'm not gonna say that out loud, and I'll tell spirit, if you really want me to say that, you gotta make it — I almost want to choke it out, not because I don't believe it, but because I can see the physical reality too, and what I feel is right doesn't always look like that in the physical.

Mel: Last summer, I was at my sister's and got the sense something was gonna happen to the house. I didn't want to say anything — I thought, if something happens, it's fine. I can sometimes get a reading on a house, which sounds stupid, but whatever, I'm the first to say I think it's nuts. It wouldn't let it go, so I finally texted him — "I just want you to know I have a feeling something might happen to the house, but I want you to know it's okay, I don't want you to worry, but I do want you to be prepared." Two hours later he texted: "A tree just came through the window." He was laying on the floor in front of the window, like he does, and there was a huge crash — a tree, and the trajectory made no physical sense, but that's what happened. I didn't know it would be a tree, but I knew something was gonna happen. So now, sometimes I put an earbud in and think, I'm not gonna say that out loud.

Mel: Another time, driving back from Indianapolis, I had a feeling about his dad, and I thought, please, I don't want to say that, it sounds crazy. Finally it got so heavy I had to say it. I always start with, "I know this is gonna sound crazy," and I'll ask spirit, if this is true, make it easy for us to see it, or make it easy for us to make the decision that seems energetically right instead of the normal human one. Sometimes it works, but it's hard to say things when you're going through it. You start to feel some energy, even if you don't know exactly what it is, and I don't care what anybody says, it sounds nuts, but it's real.

Anne: Even when you're not going through an awakening, you're always connected. You're being guided your entire life — you just don't notice it. I think there were times life felt a little easier when I wasn't always questioning stuff and just living. It wasn't as much fun, that's true, but sometimes now, even with this knowledge, I overthink things — especially heavy stuff.

Mel: You should have a hobby. If you don't work, you should have a hobby, something to do. There's always a floor to clean, but it creates space in your mind when you're not focused on something in particular. When you're around people who don't feel or trust that energy is everything — even my kids, I'll say now, "I'm not gonna do that, Mel would do that, Mel actually really wants to do that, but I'm not gonna, I know it sounds bananas, but I don't think that's the right decision." Sometimes I'm wrong — like this tooth. I knew I shouldn't have gotten it fixed last year, should've gotten it pulled, and now I'm still numb. When I don't listen, shit tends to go wrong pretty quick. But when I'm telling people, some people I just don't tell, and I do it anyway and suffer the consequences, because I don't want to always sound crazy.

Anne: There's some people who aren't open.

Mel: I don't have many of those friends, but it's tricky, and when it's your person — your human adult person, your family — my sister knows I can read energy, but she thinks it's of the devil.

Anne: Well, that's what she's been taught too.

Mel: I've been honest — I did say I definitely wasn't gonna get beheaded, that didn't feel right to me in that moment, still doesn't. You do you, I've got no judgment. But there are people — I saw someone at the store the other day and she asked what I'm doing now, and I said, well, I do some energy readings, some people call it psychic — she clammed right up and said she had to go. And I'm not gonna lie anymore, I don't want to pretend to make people comfortable. I don't intend to make anyone uncomfortable, but I used to try to push it on Jimmy, and I don't do that anymore.

Anne: I think Tony still feels like I push it on him, especially with his health stuff. I've let it go — it isn't helpful. And I guess there's something here for us both to learn, and I guess we're gonna fucking learn it.

Mel: You're gonna feel it, and it's gonna be what it is, and you don't want this time to be you hammering something down his throat and him resisting — that's torture.

Anne: It's not worth it. But I'll say — ending on this — this last year has been a ton of crying, working through a lot. As much as it annoys the ever-loving fuck out of him in some ways, he is very supportive and willing to listen. And I know it looks hard and awful because I'm always crying, but at a certain point you're no longer crying like that — it's not that hurt-crying anymore, it's just, okay. It does get better.

Mel: It does get better, hun.

Anne: Because there's no way you didn't pick up any of that stuff in your childhood — no matter how good your life was, you're always picking up something, and eventually it surfaces.

Mel: I'm gonna say — for all the years I thought, in real life, "I am sure Jimmy is really holding us back, I am very spiritually aware, I am definitely on my way to enlightenment" — my ego was so big. And then when we realized we could read energy, we did a reading on Jimmy. Do you remember this?

Anne: He's exactly where he's supposed to be.

Mel: For all the years I thought that — and the first time we got that reading, I thought, that's wrong, he is definitely not where he's meant to be, that motherfucker needs to go deep. Even now I'll ask, do you think he brought in too much stability? And the answer's no. This man balances our checkbook, gets out an old phone with a registry app on it, does it by hand. Do you know anyone middle-aged who still balances a checkbook? No one.

Mel: The joke has been: I'm gonna die on a Wednesday, he's still gonna grocery shop on Thursday. When I've said that to him, he says, "but we still have to eat." I'd stop buying your chips right away. And I've thought for years, that man really needs to loosen up. But it's — no, there are no "shoulds" or "needs," he just worries, he's a worrier. And I'd ask, is that worry bringing us down, are we manifesting more to worry about? And spirit's answer is always, no, he's fine, it's fine — if we had someone running a hammer through our lives, that'd be you.

Mel: And it's funny — throughout all of this, that man has stayed exactly the same. I've gone mountaintop to valley, mountaintop to valley, and I'm finally in the middle, pretty good. But once I learned what his purpose was, I was able to accept, that's just his stability talking, and thank God, because if I'd had someone else, who knows what we'd be doing — smoking, in a crack house somewhere. I really don't know. And I appreciate it now.

Anne: Tony's a Libra, so they naturally don't like confrontation, and I've always noticed it, but it's become really apparent — he'll go along with you because he doesn't want to have to say no. Our daughter will say, "I want this," and he'll say, "you do? Okay, I want that too." And I'm like, you don't. That's why he probably never told her no — we had so many guinea pigs, a hamster, eventually a rabbit, and all the money went to these rodents. I started working so we'd have extra, and it's all going to the extra — what's the point? But I've noticed it more, so I call him out more. I want to know what you actually like. If you don't want to do a thing, tell me. We want to know who you are, not who you can spawn into to meet everyone else's desires. It could be ugly, I don't know.

Mel: I'm telling you, if Tony and I were married—

Anne: Oh my god, you guys are too much alike, it'd be a fucking disaster. That'd be brutal for everyone involved.

Mel: We could be one of those dark sitcoms.

Anne: Yes. It might actually bring out what he actually likes, because it would be a battle.

Mel: Right — because if he'd just go along with whatever, and I said "my way's the right way too," he'd be like, okay, maybe not in this instance.

Anne: It is funny, Tony didn't used to be like that. We were talking about it the other day — his work was pushing a "being healthy" step-count thing through insurance, and he'd go to town. The Y wouldn't open, so I'd do laps at the middle school and then walk to the Y and get on the treadmill. He said, why don't I just walk to work — it's seven miles. So he started doing that, and he'd disappear — it'd be ten at night, "where's your dad," nobody knows, he's at the school walking to get more steps. It became such a problem that a friend at work told him to throw the tracker away. He'd dig through garbage to find bottle caps for prizes. He bought a fridge for his cubicle and loaded it with drinks to sell to people.

Anne: But at some point something switched, and now it's the opposite — not wanting confrontation, wanting everything to be copacetic. I'm still digging, and he's like, "I'm tired of you digging into me, I just want to be." And I'm tired of being the only one in a marriage who needs to dig.

Mel: Jimmy's like, "I don't know why you're spending all your time digging, I'm gonna go for a bike ride, I'm gonna watch a show." I'll say, I think we should be meditating together, and he'll say, alright — but I think in Jimmy's brain it's genuinely empty. Not turned off, but he doesn't think unnecessary thoughts. Jimmy's life is meditation. Other than when he worries, in general he doesn't need music, doesn't need anything — he says, "my brain's good, I got nothing in there." When we were trying to meditate together, he said, "this is what we do? My brain's empty, I don't have a lot of thoughts anyway." And I said, what are you talking about — he said, "I don't think about anything." I was like, I don't even want to try meditating with you, I'm over here asking spirit for help and he's falling asleep meditating, because his whole day is a meditation.

Anne: That's what Tony does too — he goes out to his car at work and just shuts down. He likes YouTube because it shuts him off. We were at an appointment once, lobby full of people, I look over and the bitch is asleep. His dad can do this too. I've never met anyone who can just sit down, close their eyes, and start snoring. On a five-hour car ride, it's unreal.

Mel: We can drive somewhere with no music, nothing, and I've got something in my ear because I like thinking about something, and I'll ask him what he's thinking about. "Nothing." No, really, what are you thinking about? "There's nothing going on in my brain right now, just the road." When he read a book about presence, he said, "I do this all the time," and I was like, what do you mean you're present all the time?

Anne: We really have to figure out a time to sit them both down and question them, because it feels like I'm the only one who ever talks and he's just there nodding.

Mel: He's mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open.

Anne: I can't believe that's actually true.

Mel: For Jimmy I know it's true, because when we're talking about meditating, he says, "I do this all the time." He goes running with nothing — I asked what he does while running and he said, "I'm listening to my feet, listening to my breathing." The whole time? "Yeah." I do think there are people, and I really believe Jimmy is one of them — his brainwaves are probably barely moving.

Anne: I remember when Tony and I first got together, he'd come over and lie on the floor and just be asleep — twenty years old. It's a process for me, takes me a little time to fall asleep.

Mel: I've gotta medicate or meditate myself to sleep, one of the two.

Anne: Tony does melatonin sometimes, so clearly there's some thoughts going on in there.

Mel: Jimmy took melatonin one time — one time — and didn't wake up the next day. This man is up by 4:20 every morning for work at six, and he didn't wake up till 10am. "What kind of drug was that?" It was a three-milligram gummy. I take like twelve milligrams. I'm looking for the jar — a zero-sugar gummy, one and a half milligrams each, I take two. He took one, 1.5 milligrams, and slept till 10am. If that man sleeps until seven, the world is obviously falling down. That's not normal.

Mel: But it's pretty incredible how bananas he is in that ability — and it's also bananas that I really thought he was holding our life up, when he's the only one who's been even-steven the whole time.

Anne: Nothing really came out about him being "the base" for like a year and a half, two years — you didn't even know. It's hard to differentiate when you're reading someone close to you, hard to know it's clear. So at first it was just a lot of little clues, and then it clicked — he's the base, he's stability. And it explained things — I've always said, you should change jobs, move up the ladder, and he'd say, "I'm fine where I am, I don't know what your problem is, I'm good." How can you be satisfied there? "I am satisfied." Well, that's crazy.

Mel: Twenty-eight years, same company. Tony's not stable like that — that's not his thing, with how much you've moved. But when you know your purpose, and your partner's purpose, it doesn't make it easier exactly, but it makes it more understandable. I don't question anymore why he needs to go grocery shopping and do his list — it just is what it is, and that brings him to that basis of stability that feels good to him.

Anne: With finding out Tony's thing is work — he likes to pretend he wants to retire and all that, but I'm calling bullshit, he fucking loves it. Can you come home before seven? Do you have to give them all your time? I want some of your time.

Mel: Maybe you could make me a job.

Anne: Now you'd just have to scan a code.

Mel: My next job will be walking home seven miles with my bag of bottle caps so I can get a mini fridge, so I can buy soda and put it in there, and make everyone give me their caps. Anyway — it's good. If you're out there and you're going through this and your partner's not, you're not alone. It's tricky, but it's doable.

Anne: It can be annoying.

Mel: God, Lord give me grace, for both of you. I'm sure they're annoyed too. I wonder if Jimmy would even say out loud that he's annoyed by me — I don't know that he'd ever get on here and do this, it's not his jam. But if he did, I wonder if he'd even say it, because it might rock the boat.

Anne: I'd say it for him — "I know I get on your fucking nerves."

Mel: I'd have to say it for him, and he might just nod. He doesn't like a rocky boat — that's his purpose, stability, and he likes it in every aspect. I used to call him our Labrador — as loyal as a lab. And thank God, because boy did I need someone loyal when I was going through my nonsense.

Mel: One time, on our honeymoon, he told me — he was so mad, with reason, long story for another time — "If I were normal right now, I would have kicked you out of the car."

Anne: That's so funny. That had to have taken a lot to say.

Mel: He was so mad.

Anne: Was he annoyed with his mom tagging along on the honeymoon?

Mel: She did try to tag along — she wanted to give us a honeymoon as long as we stayed in her hotel room, and told us we could have relations while she was out sightseeing during the day.

Anne: Did he have a problem with that?

Mel: No, he wouldn't have — that's just who he is, his whole life is like that, "well, that's fine." His purpose is even-steven.

Anne: I do think it's funny, though, that there've been times he's actually gotten annoyed — like the soccer coach thing.

Mel: Yeah, there were a couple times he said something out loud, and one time I thought, that was the sexiest thing I've ever seen — I thought you were gonna bite that guy. He downplays it after, "I'm totally exaggerating it, it wasn't like that," but there was some fire behind his belly for a second. It's just not his way most of the time.

Mel: When we owned the pizza shop, there was a guy who used to try to stand real close to me, and I'd just stay there and let him keep inching closer, curious how close he'd get — I'm not from a generation that felt intimidated by that, just curious. My daughter noticed and said, "Dad, this guy's kind of in mom's business," and he said, "your mom can take care of herself." Which is true — mostly. She's probably up to some scheme in her head egging it on, which I totally was.

Mel: There was also a customer, a close talker, and I kept waiting to see how close she'd get — we had a nickname for her. Human nature, I find it hysterical. I like the fun of it — this isn't a common occurrence, so the one day it happened, it was fun.

Mel: That's Mel. And Jimmy would've had to walk away if he'd been there — he holds up two fingers in a "V" and calls it VD, verbal diarrhea. "VD, Mel, VD," and he walks off to do his shopping on a schedule. Anyway — this was fun, I hope everyone else enjoyed it. Forgot for a while what we were even talking about, but that was a good time.

Anne: I don't even know what we were really talking about. All right. See ya.

Mel: All right, we'll see y'all on the next one. Bye, Annie.

Anne: Bye.