Eat My Words

Johanna Almstead:
Hi, everyone. Well, since you asked, we're doing another girl dinner. This is another solo episode with me, because I have things to say and because you guys ask nice questions. So for my girl dinner tonight, I'm going to eat some jumbo lump crab meat. I was at the seafood store the other day, and there was this just gorgeous bits of jumbo lump crab. I actually don't know which crab it is, jumbo?
I don't know. Certainly not a lump crab, but it just looked so good. And so for my little, celebratory girl dinner this evening, I am going to have some jumbo lump crab meat with really good cocktail sauce, and really good means it has lots of horseradish in it. And I'm going to have a little crudité. If you guys listen to this on a regular basis, you know that crudité is my thing.
Love me some veggies and dip, so I'm going to do a little crudité, some carrots and peppers and celery. And I love a creamy, there's this dip at a grocery store near me that they just call it veggie dip. I have no idea what's in it. It's so good. It's salty. It's probably like some combination of sour cream and mayo with some herbs. I don't know, it's delicious.
I could eat that all day long with veggies and my little crab meat. And I think because I don't always drink on my girl dinners because sometimes it's a night at home. But tonight, I think I'm going to have a nice glass of Sancerre with my crab meat, because that's what I'm in the mood for. And we're going to talk about celebrations today, so let's dig into this one.
Hi, everybody, it's me. I'm the problem, it's me. We are going to talk today about a few things, but first and foremost, I just turned 50. I just turned 50 a couple of weeks ago, and so people ask a lot, "How are you feeling? How does it feel to be 50? What's going on with you?" And I felt like today would be a good time to just talk through some of that.
So I just turned 50 two weeks ago, and life around my birthday and continuing to be right now, is very, very busy for us right now. It was a particularly, psychotically busy weekend, the same weekend as my 50th birthday. And it was a little overwhelming, to be honest, because I just couldn't even wrap my head around planning a celebration or figuring out even what I wanted to do.
And it's a lot of pressure, and it's a big number and all this stuff. And we had to be in Pennsylvania for my youngest daughter's lacrosse tournament, and we actually had to be there on my birthday. And then we had to wake up the next morning at 5:00 in the morning, and go to the next day of the tournament.
And then we had to drive home like three and a half, four hours, turn right around the next day on Sunday, and drive my eldest daughter away to sleepaway camp. So there really wasn't any time for a celebration. And my youngest daughter, her last game was ending on my night of my birthday, was ending at 7:15, I think, 7:00 PM.
And so I kept just being like, "I don't know. I don't know, it's fine. I'll just pretend like it's not my birthday. It's fine, it's fine." And my lovely friend, Abby, who you guys are going to meet because I am going to make her come on this show, was like, "Well, let's do something. We'll do a dinner, it'll be fun."
And at first, when we didn't know the times of the games, we had all kinds of grand plans of going to a fancy restaurant. We were going to drive into Philadelphia and do this other thing, and it just was not going to work. We were going to be not in a big city. We were going to be not in a fancy hotel. We were going to be not in anywhere really, terribly glamorous.
But she really pulled it together for me and it was so nice. She found this restaurant that was like a brewery, and she was like, "Well, where could we go where you could go straight from the field?" Because also you have to remember that not only is my child very sweaty and dirty, but so are the rest of us. Because we've been on the sides of a lacrosse field for many, many, many hours in 98 degree heat.
So no one's fresh as a daisy, right? No one's looking cute, no one's in a party outfit. So she found us this restaurant that was casual and fun, and we could go to and be a little bit grubby to be honest, which is not my favorite way to go out to a restaurant. But she then arranged, the reason she was there is also her daughter was playing in the same tournament.
And then we had a couple other friends, one in particular I really only met a couple of times, but parents of other friends of theirs, and they joined us for dinner and it was so sweet. These people who I don't even know that well, who probably are like, "Why am I celebrating this random person's 50th birthday with her?" Showed up at this restaurant with champagne and flowers, and gifts and cards.
And Abby rolled in with balloons, and her mother-in-law came and brought flowers and champagne, and gluten-free cupcakes and all these things, and we turned it into a party. It was like an express party because we had to get all the kids home and get everyone to bed, because we had to wake up at 5:00 the next morning.
But it really made me think about this idea of celebrations and this idea of gathering people, and making the best out of whatever circumstances you're in and lemonade out of lemons or whatever. I wouldn't say the tournament was lemons. But it was just not necessarily the exact, ideal scenario for what I thought I was going to do on my 50th birthday, which secretly was I wanted to be sailing around the Greek Islands.
That was my plan, but dinner at a brewery in Pennsylvania is almost the same. But what it did remind me of and made me think about was gratitude. I was so grateful for, first of all, all the lovely, lovely messages from all of you, so many friends, so many people. People I don't even know who now know I have a birthday, who sent me lovely messages and good wishes, people who called me.
And then this idea of gathering, even if we were a Motley Crue and even if we are in a random place that we didn't know. That this idea of just getting together and raising a glass, and eating some food and celebrating with our kids and our families, and our friends and our teammates in this case, it mattered. It really mattered.
I had a great time and I felt loved, I felt celebrated, I felt paid attention to in a lovely, lovely way. And again, I didn't think I wanted or needed any attention that day because I was trying to make it all about my kid, but it was really, really special. So I guess my lesson there was don't let your ideas about what you think should be happening, get in the way of allowing something beautiful to happen.
And just be where you are and take those moments to celebrate, and don't ignore the big stuff. Don't ignore those big days, they do matter, and connection matters and being with people who make you happy matters. And so if you're going through a hard time or things are not perfect, try not to shut yourself down.
Try not to say no to the opportunities of connection and celebration, and nourishment and a little, in my case, a couple cocktails didn't hurt. It really was lovely. And then I've basically continued celebrating my birthday when things started to calm down a little bit. Life is not calm right now. It's very, very busy. Thanks in great part to all of you, this podcast is keeping me very, very busy.
And that's just because you guys keep listening, which is amazing. And we're in the middle of renovating our house, so we're living in a place that isn't ours. And we're making lots of decisions and there's lots of money flying out the window all the time, so it's a really intense time. But I'm trying really hard, because of that little micro, it wasn't even a micro celebration, it was a real celebration.
It's reminding me to keep celebrating. So my husband actually threw a beautiful dinner for me in New York City the week after my birthday. And again, he was like, "You want to do something big?" And I was like, "No, I don't want to do something big. I want to do just a small dinner with some close friends, a couple old friends, and a couple new friends." And it was perfect, it was so perfect.
We had such a great time. The food was amazing. We tried a new restaurant in New York, and gathered together some of my closest people and it was just fabulous. And you know how you have those nights where you're just walking on sunshine the next morning? That was one of them. And then I'm actually heading out to Long Island to be with another group of friends tomorrow.
And then I'm also heading away in a few weeks with some friends and we're just going to keep celebrating. And it just is reminding me to not just celebrate my birthday, but celebrate the time that you get with your people and make it happen. And it doesn't have to be perfect, and it can be on paper plates, and it can be takeout Chinese food or whatever.
But just gather your people and do it, because overall it generally is better for us, I think. So the other thing I wanted to think about today was because people keep asking me, "What's up? You're 50 now. How are you feeling about this next chapter in your life and all this stuff?" And I don't know anything, right? I really know nothing. And I can't believe I'm 50 because how does that happen?
I still feel like a kid. I still can't believe that I do adult things, so it's a little bit weird. But I did think it was funny maybe that I would turn the tables on myself a little bit today. And the question I ask most of my guests to close out every episode is, "What is one thing for sure that you know right now?"
So I thought maybe I would do a few. Maybe I would do five things, like one for each decade that I know for sure right now as a 50-year-old, entering a new chapter, I guess. I don't know. I feel like I'm pretty much deep in a chapter, but I don't know. Take this moment to reflect on some things that I know and that I don't know. There's things maybe I'm still working on.
So five things, I'm going to do five if I can figure it out. I did not write a script for this, guys, so we're just going to wing it. But I think the one thing, first and foremost, that I do know for sure and what this birthday taught me was how important connection is. It's everything for me. And it might not be for everyone else, but I do suspect that it is.
I think when we detach or we close ourselves off, we lose the opportunities to be challenged. We lose the opportunities to be celebrated, we lose the opportunities to be made fun of. We lose the opportunities to be comforted and held in our place. So for me, I would say the one thing I know for sure right now, is connection really matters even when you think you don't want it.
The next thing I know for sure right now is that, and this is something I've really only clarified for myself in the last couple of years, everything in life really is seasons. I really try to think about my life now in seasons, as opposed to something more dramatic than that. Meaning things keep changing, life keeps evolving, nothing really ever stays the same, to be honest.
Not your marriage, not your work, not your children. We all keep growing, we all keep evolving, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But I've definitely been in times when probably the first time I really ever realized it was when I had my first child. And you have a newborn baby, and it's so hard and it's dark, at least it was for me, it was dark times.
I had a really, really rough recovery, things were really bad. I shouldn't say bad. They were hard. They were just really hard and you feel like it's never going to end. Your child's never going to ever be able to sleep through the night, and your child's never ever going to be able to sit up, and you're never going to stop worrying. I don't know if you ever stop worrying.
And then all of a sudden, that baby gets bigger, that baby gets stronger, that baby can drink more and stay asleep longer. And all of a sudden, you're like, "Oh, this is different." And so I think for first-time parents, that takes a little longer to realize. The nice part about having another child is like, "Oh, I know this is going to end. I know it's going to evolve. It's going to keep changing."
So that was the first time it was ever very clear. And then I think a few years ago, I've referenced this a lot. We, as a family, had some tremendous losses all within a very short amount of time. And I really thought like, "Oh my God, is this what the rest of life is going to be, just people getting sick and dying around us?" And it feels like that in the moment.
It really did. And then you start to realize, "Okay, time goes on. We move past it, we grieve in the way we have to grieve, we cope in the way we have to cope." And then another season, the trees bloom again, the flowers bloom again. The weather changes, it turns to snow, it turns to sun, whatever it is, and we keep moving through it.
And so I would say, I guess, that's one of my lessons/mantras/something I have to check back in with myself when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Or when things are feeling really, really hard, or even when things are feeling really, really good. Not that you want to think about them changing, but sometimes it's like you just have to know that it's all temporary, even if it feels like forever.
So that is lesson number two for me. Take it all with a grain of salt because I know nothing. These are just things that I know right now. I think number three is that for me, I'm not happy when I'm not working, and when I'm not doing work that feels meaningful and connected and beautiful. I have gone through many, many iterations of my career and trying to balance that with being a parent.
And sometimes I've been super hardcore and sometimes I've been a little bit less hardcore. And sometimes I've been working in a really corporate environment, and sometimes I've been working in a very startup environment or a really creative environment. And what I know matters is not so much the environment, but it's the purpose behind the work. And it's the passion behind the work, and it's the mission behind the work.
And to be honest, getting to do this podcast now as my work is like a dream come true. And it matters because I get to experience firsthand these connections in these conversations with women, who matter deeply to me, who matter to the world. And so I think, I don't know, I shouldn't give advice. I'm not qualified to give advice, but what I would say is what works for me is find work that matters.
Find people and projects and places that light you up and lean in there. I hate the term lean in because I think that whole movement was not a great thing for us. We'll talk about that in another episode, but find the light and go there. My fourth thing that I know for sure is travel matters. We have been home quite a bit.
Now we're in a home that's not ours. But we have been around town a lot because we are in the midst of this huge project on our permanent house that is spectacular and exciting, and so much work and so thrilling and has been in the works for a very long time. But it has meant that we need to stick close to home because we have to make decisions on the fly, and we have to oversee the project and all this other stuff.
And what I realize is about myself and even my family, my husband and my kids, it's like we get antsy. We're not good when we're stuck home. We're not good when we're not traveling and seeing the world, and seeing our friends who live in other places, and experiencing discomfort and trying new foods and all that stuff, I think.
I'm going to butcher it, but Anthony Bourdain always talks about how travel is supposed to be uncomfortable. And I think it's funny that I get uncomfortable when I don't have the opportunity to be uncomfortable in travel. His point was like, "Put yourself in places where you don't know everybody, and you don't maybe know the language and you don't know the food."
And I think it does something to our nervous system, and it does something to rewire our brains, and it puts things in perspective and it makes us appreciate our life. So I think that it's become really clear to me in this season of my life where I need to be home and working, and nose to the grindstone and not really in far-flung, exotic places.
But number one is try to find the little moments of escape that you can. And number two, save up the money, book the ticket, do the thing, go on the adventure. It's funny, when my husband and I first started dating, we were long distance and he had gone through this really bad breakup before me, and then he was just in a funk.
And we didn't know each other very well, and I was like, "You need to get the heck out of your life. You need to go." And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I said, "You need to go put some perspective in your life because right now you're like, 'Whoa is me and life is hard.'" And yes, things get hard and you got your heart broken, and that hurts too, and work can be hard and all those things.
But I was like, "You need to just do something to shake up your nervous system, shake up the vibes." And for me, that always is travel. And often, it's travel to some place that is not particularly luxurious. Don't get me wrong, I love a fancy hotel, but I think sometimes that doesn't always do what it needs to do for us.
I think what sometimes we need is a little bit of challenge and a little bit of uncomfortability. So it was funny, a friend of mine had just come back from an incredible trip to Africa and had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. And then ended their trip after this big climb in Zanzibar on the beach. And so I was like my husband at the time, not my husband, but my boyfriend.
He was my soon-to-be husband, or not soon to be actually. It took a long time, but that's for another episode. So I said to him, "Well, you need a trip. You need to go do something." And he was like, "Well, where am I going to go? What am I going to do?" And I was like, "Well, I just happened to have this itinerary from a friend of mine who just did this fabulous trip."
So we basically just copied this itinerary from my friends, and I sent my then boyfriend off on this wild adventure that he was woefully unprepared for, and physically was not ready to climb Kilimanjaro. I don't think mentally he was ready to climb Kilimanjaro, but he did it. And I think it changed his life, I'd like to say for the better, and I'd like to say that I had something to do with that.
But honestly, I think about that all the time when shit gets rough and shit gets hard. Yes, I know we can't all drop everything and fly to Africa and climb Kilimanjaro, but we can find our little versions of it, our local versions of it. And so for me, that's just always a lesson of like, "Okay, if you're feeling angsty, if you're feeling."
It's funny, this came up this morning, one of my children, and I had a tough morning, and my husband's answer was, "You know what? We need to travel again. We need to be out in the world." And I was like, "You know what? You're right. It just helps everybody." It helps people's perspectives. It helps you be grateful for what you have.
It helps you see what people in many parts of the world don't have and puts it all in perspective. So that would be my fourth thing that I do know for sure right now. And my fifth, deep, deep, deep thoughts. I was thinking about things that I don't like, and I'm 50 and I don't have to pretend like I like them.
And so what I also know for sure right now in this season, in this chapter in my life, is that I really don't like blue or green nail polish on grown women. And this is going to be scandalous, but I really don't like truffles, and particularly, I really don't like truffle french fries. Those are my things. I'm not giving in on them. I'm 50, I'm old.
I can say it. I'm going to say it loud, I'm going to say it proud. Be mad at me, shame me on the internet for not liking those things, but I just can't, can't do it. I can kind of do, my kids like to paint their nails blue. They paint them like light blue. I can do that on children. Or grown people who have a real look going on, like it's part of their whole vibe.
But in the professional environment, a normally put-together person, you put on green or blue nail polish, you lose me. It's okay. Hate me, send me all your hate mail. It's fine. And truffles, guys, I don't want them. I don't want them anywhere near me. I don't like the smell. I don't like the taste. I don't.
People accuse me of being sometimes and I'll always say, "You know what? One of the fanciest foods in the world I don't like, I don't want it. And don't you dare put it on my pasta, and don't you dare put it on my french fries. Why ruin a good thing?" I remember there was one time I went to a very, very, very fancy dinner at a beautiful, one of the top restaurants in New York.
And it was the first time I had seen very white glove, literal white glove truffle service where they came out with this silver cart that had this dome. And it was like $200 extra to get these truffles shaved on whatever you were eating. And I remember maybe I hadn't ever been that close to a truffle, I don't know.
But they do this whole rigamarole, it's literally like it's two people and they're all dressed up in their fancy serving outfits. And they bring this silver carton, it's got at this dome, and they have white gloves on, and they have this perfect silver grater like shaving situation. And they go to do all this, and I love some pop and circumstance, I love me some tradition and fanciness.
So they start to do this at the table next to us, and these people are paying whatever, it's probably maybe $300 extra. And I, for the first time in my life, got a really close whiff of it because it was right next to me. And I was like, "Oh my God, oh my gosh, this is horrible. I don't want this anywhere near me, no way. And I'm definitely not spending $300 for it, no way. Holy moly."
So I said it, I'm not taking it back, blue nail polish and green and truffles. I don't want them. I don't like them, and this I know for sure right now. So that's my little musings. This is it. This is me at 50. I can say one thing for sure, is that I am so happy doing this job. I love it so much and I have all of you guys to thank for it.
The fact that I get to do this every day and talk to the amazing women I get to talk to is really fucking cool, so thanks for tuning in. You can totally fast-forward through the next one if you hear me say we're having a girl dinner and you don't want to hear my musings. But some of you asked, so I am answering.
As always, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me this opportunity, for supporting me in this opportunity, for sharing this with your friends, for checking in on social media, for asking good questions, for wishing me happy birthday. All the things, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'll catch you on the next one. It'll probably be a little more interesting. Bye.
This Eat My Words Podcast has been created and directed by me, Johanna Almstead. Our producer is Sophy Drouin, our audio editor is Isabel Robertson, and our brand manager is Mila Bushna.