One Year Down. What Should We Talk About Next?

Hello, and welcome to Penned in Ink, a podcast where we discuss marriage and the power of long-lasting love.
You would think after one year of doing that, I would actually have that rolling off the tip of my tongue.
Now, you might've noticed already, this is a different episode today.
We have a short little check-in with you today.
And the reason why is, some of you might not have realized this, because you know, why would you?
But our last episode was episode number 26, which marked one year from us starting the podcast.
Yay.
Yes.
So Melissa and I's commitment when we started this was, hey, let's do this for a year.
Let's commit to releasing content every other week, and let's learn along the way.
And so, yeah, we accomplished that.
Yeah, and I just have to do a little humble brag here.
I find that when you and I set a goal and work together toward it, it's very rare.
Like I can't remember the last time where we didn't meet that goal.
So this feels good.
Yeah, so for better or worse, we've been doing this for a year.
Now, the year mark is a natural time to take a pause and do a whole bunch of things.
One, take a deep breath, because yeah, because creating content every two weeks, creating social media content, engaging with people who comment and like and maybe complain a little bit or throw jabs, takes a lot of effort.
So we are taking a one episode break so we can do a whole bunch of different things, including review all the topics we've gone through, figure out which ones we enjoyed, which ones we didn't enjoy, see which ones you guys commented on, what resonated.
Now we've been doing this throughout, but we wanna take just a little bit extra time to really look at those topics.
And we want to talk about the format.
How are we doing this and what's working and what's not working?
Really just take a few minutes to take a deep breath and get ready to go again, right?
As we go into year two.
Exactly, and it has been a few weeks since we recorded anything.
And I think to get back, and it's been a good break.
And I think really looking at the format, seeing what maybe worked for you, what didn't work for me, whatever, and trying to nail that down.
So I think this is a good time for us to just, like you said, take a deep breath and figure out what we wanna do moving forward, because we accomplished our first goal.
What's our second year goal?
Yep, now we contemplated throwing you a repeat episode.
We contemplated going back in the archives and saying, "Hey, if you haven't listened to this one, do that." But I don't know, I'm not a big fan of that when I listened to my other podcast.
I was like, "Eh, just tell me and I'll go back and listen to it." So we do have a couple of things we're gonna share today.
And we are gonna encourage you to go back and listen, but we're not gonna do a replay or anything.
So we thought, because we've already started our sort of research into topics and that sort of stuff.
Oh, before I do that, here's our first ask for you today.
Let us know what you want us to talk about.
So you've been along with us.
And one of the things that we're really excited about is we're seeing growth on several of our platforms.
And that's been nice.
Let us know what topics you want us to hit.
If there's something that we've covered, that you're like, "Hey, go deeper on that." Or if there's something that you think we might have a unique perspective on having been married over 30 years, maybe you're five years in and you're like, "Hey, I'm worried about this or wondering about this." Let us know your comments.
Let us know your topics.
This is a great time because we're sort of mapping out our next.
And I would like to hear what people have to say.
We, for our first year, did all our own topics, chose what we wanted to talk about, what we thought would be good for us to talk about and what people might want to hear.
But now I actually want to hear what people, what do they feel like is a good topic.
Yeah, I mean, we've gotten comments along the way and everything and we've sort of let those guide us.
We're really viewer's choice, listener's choice.
Send us topics if you want topics.
Now, part of what we've been doing is we've been reviewing our previous episodes and just sort of going back in our memory banks because we have a whole year of content.
And we thought for just today, for our new content for today, we'd actually just tell you in this start, what is a segment that has stood out to you, each of us, over the past year.
And I think, honestly, there's been a handful that have been, I was surprised by, and they're sort of top of mind, but I came to you and said, "Hey, pick a topic or pick a segment." So you want to go first?
You want to share what segment stood out for whatever reason to you?
Yeah, I actually liked the entire episode, but we decided that's a bit much to say, "Oh, I liked the whole episode." Cop out.
That doesn't really write a cop out, so I did.
I listened to it, I will say, multiple times because I couldn't find exactly what I wanted.
But what I came up with is I really liked our episode about growing old together and how not every couple chooses that, as we well know.
And of that episode, the segment that I really liked is the perception that we have when one of us starts to physically slow down.
That was very, I don't know, it was insightful.
I learned some stuff about you and about myself.
And we also talked in that same, so I'm counting this as the same segment because they're right next to each other in the video.
And-- Technicality, but go on.
Technicality.
And it's when somebody has a health crisis, does the relationship get stronger because of that?
And I just really liked how we handled that.
And I really learned a lot about us during that segment.
It's like five, six minutes, but I don't know, it just felt really good.
And I looked back on it and went, "Hmm." Yeah, that episode actually got a lot more traffic than I thought it was going to get.
I thought, "Eh, this concept of growing old together." But one of the things I've seen on my Instagram feed recently was been this whole, I've seen it seven or eight times because I must've watched the first two or whatever, but it's been, "Hey, what's the marriage advice that you should give a newlywed, et cetera?" And it's all these stories, all these people going around.
It's like, "Don't go to bed angry." And it's all these sort of whatever.
And then there's this dramatic telling of this one person who's like, "No, no, no.
You are picking the person that you are going to grow old with and that you're going to suffer with.
You're going to experience loss with.
You're going to experience change.
You're going to experience heartache.
You're going to experience..." So pick someone that you can trust to walk along with you.
So I'm not sure why I was surprised that that episode resonated because I think a lot of people, that's a topic.
Absolutely.
And I didn't realize it either.
I thought, "Oh, this is going to be a very small portion of the population that likes this." But it did have that.
And it had more of an impact on me than I anticipated.
Yeah.
And I think you liked that episode because you realized that you're not alone in your...
perception of changes and that sort of stuff.
I think you have voiced this a couple times where you feel your perception of it or your perspective on how the body changes and how you get older and everything.
You're much more fixated on it than I am.
So I think it probably was good for you to hear where I was struggling or things that I were of.
It should be nice.
Exactly.
All right, so I've got one and it happened in one of our super early episodes.
Oh wait, what number was that?
What episode was that?
20.
So if you're interested for that whole story about growing old together, go check out episode 20.
We'll put the links in the bio and the show notes.
And another call, if you got topics you'd like to hear about, maybe related about growing old together and the importance of who you choose to do that with, go ahead and ask them in the comments.
Not really fast there, my turn to share.
(laughing) Episode six, we talked about big decisions, big milestones.
And we talked about the concept of how celebrating small and big milestones is really important because it builds sort of a bond and tightness between you and it helps you when you hit times of struggle to sort of have forged that bond.
Then we also talked about the process of how we make decisions together.
And we talked through some of our big decisions.
And you shared about the decision, the time period where we were deciding to have another child or not.
And I think it was of all the shares that we did, especially in the early content, but I think probably in all 26 episodes, I think it was the most raw share.
I think you were much more open about how that process impacted you than I had ever heard.
And we've talked about it a lot.
And I think the button, I don't think, I know, the close of that segment was me making the observation that even when you think you're fully communicating with somebody, if a partner is withholding and not sharing fully, and you maybe think you're giving them space, but really you're not actually engaging, that even though you think you're communicating, you think you're healthy, maybe there's another layer that you needed to go.
And I was pretty surprised that 20 years later, that was a new story.
Like I had to not realize how much processing you had done.
So yeah, and that was mine.
I think it was probably some of the best time where I just sat back and listened to you share.
I did not realize that.
All right.
Interesting.
So if you go watch that episode, episode six, you'll see me sort of just taking it in because I'm like, hmm, I'm learning about her that I didn't know.
Yeah, so that actually is a nice segue, I think, to where we think we're going in the next couple of episodes just to give you a roadmap.
And then we're gonna pop out because, well, I started this with, this was gonna be a short episode and then now we're rambling on.
So-- Ramble, we don't ramble.
We're conversing and it's fun.
One of us rambles.
I think it's me.
I think it's me.
It's you today.
Sometimes it's me.
Yeah.
But today we'll give that to you.
So we'll be back with a brand new episode in two weeks and it's not locked in stone yet, but I think where we are going with this is what have we learned about each other after 31 years of marriage when we took on a creative endeavor together?
So I think that's a nice tie-in to you're always learning about your partner if you're in a healthy marriage.
You think you know everything.
You think you know a whole lot about them.
I can confidently say I know more about you than anybody else on the planet, but there's still things I'm learning as we go through this.
And yes, I think we're gonna probably talk about, hey, what were some of the lessons we learned and about marriage that sound like we're aiming for?
Yep, yeah.
And then I think we're going to lead, that will lead us into November, which is the start of the holiday season.
Ooh, our favorites.
And so I think-- It actually is Melissa's favorite time of year.
Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt.
It's already started with October hitting and-- Yes, the pumpkins are on the porch until the squirrel, again, for years in a row, has decided that it's a perfect snack to eat the pumpkin on the porch.
I went 21 years with putting pumpkins on the front porch and the squirrel's not touching them.
The last two years in a row, the squirrels are eating my pumpkins.
I would say bad words, but we're recording, so I shall not.
Yeah, Melissa's great.
She's so even keel, unless you mess with something trivial and then she gets irate.
Yes, she might have been cursing at squirrels the other day.
I was, yeah.
All right, I do have a real issue.
Holiday season.
Holiday season is a hard time for a lot of people.
Family, inner circle, outer circle.
What pressures do people have?
And it's also a time, I'm dealing with this a lot in my work right now.
A lot of people I know have experienced a loss over the past year, and holidays are really hard for somebody that's had a death of a close family or friend or spouse happen to them, and it's a really hard time.
So talking about the holidays and how to get through that as a couple and how to set boundaries and also how to honor what each of us are going through during that time.
So I think that will be, at least we have an idea about our next two episodes.
Yeah, I think we'll definitely come back into that because there's so many layers to it.
Are you newlyweds and trying to cut your own path?
Are you five years in?
Maybe you're having kids, now you've got this whole new dynamic, or maybe you're on the other end of the spectrum where we are where you've got adult kids who have got married and have relationships going on.
It's like, well, maybe they want new traditions and how you reconcile all that.
And yeah, it's an emotional time, but it's a fun time.
So we'll probably talk about that.
And then we've got other ideas.
And then this will be my third ask to you, send us your ideas as well.
Because we have other things that we're kicking around and percolating on.
Absolutely.
We said it was going to be a short episode.
We could sit here and chat about this.
And if you stuck with us, hey, we appreciate you.
For those of you who have actually joined us and subscribed and chosen to follow along and commented and interacted, we do appreciate you.
That does help us greatly with our ideation, with our motivation to keep continuing and going along with it.
And yeah, hit us up with the comments.
Yeah, and we try really hard to respond to those comments.
And so know that they will all be read.
And if there's an applicable response, we will be putting that in there as well.
Yeah, I choose not to engage sometimes because it is amazing how much is misinterpreted or will willingly, like, no, you know, that's not what we're saying, but you can spend your whole time defending yourself.
But we don't worry about that.
Yeah, exactly.
So your comments will be read if you post them.
There you go.
All right, well, I think that's it.
We're gonna pop out.
Thanks for joining us.
We'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode.
Thanks everyone.
Have a good one.