Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin

Week #12: Babies, "Enchantments" & a special guest ❤️

Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-be – 

I realize this is coming in a few hours later than normal. I’m a deadline-or-bust kinda gal, but sometimes we have to make exceptions… Peter and I got invited to a friend’s 50th birthday (happy birthday, Whitney!) / Halloween party down in the South Bay last night. We arrived, there was some heavy security (I was like — okayyyy fellas, I see it’s gonna be that kinda partayyyyyy). In order to even access the party, we had to walk through (read: Peter dragging me behind him) the fucking scariest haunted house I have been in since the 5th grade and my trip to Universal Studios where they took that movie People Under the Stairs and turned it into a Haunted House. Nevertheless, I screamed. A lot. Peter laughed, telling me we were all good. (We weren’t!) But we made it through and were then allowed to enter the party, and as I could feel my heart throbbing, for just a moment, I enjoyed feeling like a kid again. Maybe what I’m trying to say is… if there’s a cheesy haunted house in your neighborhood and you’re a grown ass adult — just go. And bonus points if there’s a killer DJ on the other side. This guy last night… We could have danced all night (and nearly did). Hence, this Substack rolling in a little later on this Sunday evening. 😎

Alright friends and family, Week 12. Wow, we’ve hit a full three months together. Three months. It’s getting serious, y’all. At least that’s what that meant in my super single younger dating days. Usually when I hit the three month mark of smooching someone, that meant one of two things: I’d either go all in on him (I’m a big ‘go big or go home’ gal #shocker) or break up because… well… the “ick” normally creeps in around then. Often the ick would be something neither I nor my girlfriends could articulate when we were all dating. We just knew. The guy or gal could have had it goin’ ON to the outside world, but when the record stopped there was something that just wasn’t quite right. And instead of staying too long (eh hem, guilty, sometimes my “ick-dar” was off), we’d end it. I know you know what I mean. 

What I’m trying to say, beautiful community, is THREE MONTHS… I’m going ALL IN on y’all. And I’m feeling it right back because holy hell did last week’s writing hit something insanely resonant with you. I heard from a record number of you. The comments alone made me weep. I was sitting in the Toronto airport leaving for LAX getting misty-eyed. The truth-telling, the “I’ve never left a comment in a semi-public forum before but I just had to say….”, the stories of frozen embryos, the uterus removal because of endometriosis and what that means for motherhood, the painfully honest “my life as I knew it was over” in those beginning months with a newborn, the very content aunties who’ve done their grieving or childless cat ladies who are shouting it loud and proud!

Here are two of several that just really touched my heart, the first from Amanda and then Meghan:

“Those frozen eggs… man they have been one of my better decisions.” AMEN, sister.

I especially love hearing from the older and wiser among us. One 74 year old essentially provided a spoiler alert: “The unraveling never stops. There are periods of status quo and then boom!” 

The. Unraveling. Never. Stops. 

I have so much more to say about my 11 year old frozen eggs and what came up for me in the hours after writing that last Substack. Tears, first and foremost, came up. BIG wet ones. But then also some buried shit involving my own mother. I love her to bits and she has adored me from birth… and and AND. There’s a there there. So that’s one of the things I’m starting to really look at. And I’m exploring my options, information-gathering, if you will. And the rest… I’m going to keep to myself as I’m just honest to God processing it all (along with Peter). But thanks to you all, I am talking about it outloud. Whatever I decide, this conversation about frozen eggs and potential babies isn’t just an email I get once a year and an occasional conversation. It’s officially got a floodlight blasting on it. I’m here for it. And apparently so many of y’all are too. It got me wondering… when it comes to motherhood or eggs/embryos collecting dust or childfree living or grief or anything else — what ISN’T being discussed enough out there? What would help you/us? I’m so down to dig deeper. Help embolden one another — no matter our choices. Drop a comment below. Let’s create the space to have those conversations. It helps me, just as much as it helps you.

Here’s something else I’m thinking about today. So much of my unravel-y life before these last few years has been about achieve achieve achieve. I went to one of those fancy pants private high schools in Atlanta where it was drilled in us early: set your sights on something big (a grade, a job, a position) and go the fuck after it. Gotta tell you — that’s very much still in me, deep in my DNA. Some days I love that about myself — others, not so much. Point is, so much of my life before my Unraveling was about the thing. The goal. The destination.

(Don’t worry I’m not about to get super cheesy and talk about life as a journey blah blah. I’m feeling extra spicy today, so I’d tell even myself to fuck right off.)

Here’s my point — I love a good goal. I have several goals in my life as I type. I definitely have another book in me. It looks like I’m going to host a podcast (which will bring me full circle back to my superpower, and my great love, listening, reflecting back, telling the bigger story out of our lives). And I’d love to host another fun TV show — because I like to smile, I like to vamp, and the truth is I’m funny. I swore I’d never host a dating show, but never say never. Lately I’ve been having dreams of hosting a show about later in life love, a la Golden Bachelorette, where we see emotionally intelligent men (six packs no longer required!) just cheering one another on, and a mid-life woman who, like me, believes in love, maybe she’s been married, and like me and my own story, stays open to the Universe because you just never know who is waiting for you. (Peter is 15 years older than I am; never saw that coming … or did I?)

I learned the deeper meaning of a word this week while I was at that creativity and magic workshop with Liz Gilbert and Martha Beck. The word is “Enchantment” (thank you Liz G). She described it as that “vanilla pudding ooey gooey feeling in your belly.” You know it. It’s that thing that brings you three simple things: ease, relaxation and calm. Our assignment then became, in very Liz Gilbert Letters from Love fashion, this: Write a letter from Enchantment to yourself, and start with this line: “Dear xxx, I am your Enchantment and this is what I want to tell you.” 

Here’s my letter I wrote to myself. We were given about 4 minutes to scribble something down in our notebooks. Here’s mine — super vulnerable share but whatevs, this is how we roll here:

Dear Brooke – 

I am your Enchantment and this is what I want to tell you. I love talking to Pugsley everyday – I still feel him here because he is. I love sitting on our front steps drinking coffee — he makes, I imbibe — with Peter every morning. I love how excited I am at night to do that almost like it’s about to be Christmas morning. I love the view of only trees and flowers and hummingbirds out our bedroom window. I love California cotton candy sunsets and palm trees and the ocean. I love the smell of my wet suit, knowing I’m putting it on to catch a wave. I love that I am a writer and my Substack is my home of truth. I love my man and that we walk this spiritual path together. I love my inner light and sharing it with others. I love Twizzlers. I love my New York furniture now in my LA office – everytime I walk in, it feels like old friends giving me a hug. I love my team, my guides, my angels. 444. I love that sacred feeling of support, of “we’ve got you.” I love how I feel with my hands over my heart talking to God.

Love love love, 

Enchantment

(Yes I really did squeeze my love for Twizzlers in there with God and my dog and my man. Priorities, people! And of course you were in my letter, my cherished Substack community. Thank god for you.)

After about a thousand of us in the audience each privately wrote these letters to ourselves, Liz then asked — unlike some big life purpose we’re all trying to attain (guilty) — how many of these things we have already in our lives. Are they costly? Nope, not really. Do many of them involve nature? Yep. Do we need to be tethered to our cell phones in order to achieve these things? Nope. And then she posited something that my dear friend, fellow Liz acolyte and life coach Treena suggested to me recently: “What if THIS is our purpose in life? Like what if this is our soul’s true purpose?” Ohhhhhhh. <<cue head explode emoticon here>>

We all sat in a rare moment of collective quiet just taking that in. Liz’s question reminded me of one of the loveliest things Peter said to me after we’d first met at the Hoffman Institute. I think we were doing something super mundane like flossing our teeth when he taught me this phrase: “interstitial moments.” Peter was then and is still obsessed with the seemingly small moments in between the big things… when we’re flossing our teeth, or the little rituals we have just before we go to sleep, or the flower shop we go to every Friday after Yoga… when we’re not dreaming/working/achieving and we’re just BEING. (As they taught us at Hoffman, it’s not “do, have, then be” – it’s “BE, have, do.”) By the way, I feel the need for a little disclaimer here — it is not always floss-tastic joyousness over at our house. But holy hell, I will say both Peter and I, independent of one another, are wide awake humans who do our very best to be and delight in life’s Enchantments.

Let me state the obvious — we all need to keep the lights on. And earning a living can be all consuming and debilitating and far from joyous. I sit here having worked my ass off in my career 1.0 but nothing like what so many Americans face day in and day out. Christ. Most of us are working to live, not living to work. But whatever your fate, and perhaps especially your fate, we must open our eyes and hearts to what enchants us. As I write this, I’m listening to the crashing waves here in Southern california because today I prioritized myself and my needs. And the second I pulled into the parking lot and saw the car right in front of me — my exact car — with a 444 license plate, that was my wink to tell me… taking this day solo by the water was exactly the right choice for me.

Now I’m going to do something for the very first time, a) because he’s a prolific writer, and b) he’s watched me every week pour my heart into these Substacks, and c) he has a thing or two to say about this very topic…. my man, Peter Landesman. (I’ll be reading his words along with you for the very first time, have no idea what he’s about to type):