Category Archives: family

Perimenopause and planning

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Several of my friends, who are all within five years of age of me, plus or minus, have been talking to me about perimenopause. One of my friends who is several years older is already considering doing hormone replacement therapy and proactively looking for “perimenopause symptoms,” which I learned can come on as early as age 38. Another friend, who is health obsessed and tracks every gram of fat, protein, and carbohydrate she consumes, is trying to optimize her current exercise regimen (which is so above what almost any average human does!) to ensure that she is strong and doesn’t lose too much muscle when menopause sets in. I must have done a search on perimenopause to read about it on my own in the last few weeks because now, I am constantly seeing ads for perimenopause supplements and products, all of which I have continued to block. There’s marketing and a product for literally everything and anything out there!

Because I recently went to see my primary care doctor and had my usual bloodwork done, I decided to take my lipid panel results and throw them into ChatGPT to see what it says regarding the results and what they say about my perimenopause trajectory:

Quick Summary

During perimenopause, declining estrogen tends to cause:

  • LDL increases
  • HDL may decrease slightly
  • Triglycerides may rise
  • Total cholesterol and non-HDL increase

But:

Women who start with an excellent lipid profile—like yours—generally experience smaller, slower, or less concerning changes.

Why Perimenopause Affects Cholesterol

Estrogen has powerful, protective metabolic effects:

  • Raises HDL
  • Lowers LDL
  • Improves insulin sensitivity
  • Helps regulate fat distribution
  • Reduces inflammation

As estrogen fluctuates (and eventually declines), these benefits weaken.

How Your Current Profile Might Change

Here’s how each number typically shifts during perimenopause and what this likely means specifically for you.

1. HDL (Currently 77) — “Good” cholesterol

Typical change:

  • Can decrease by 5–10 mg/dL over several years
  • Some women maintain high HDL even after menopause

For you:

  • Even with a 10-point drop, you would still be in the very healthy range (60s).
  • Your high baseline gives you a lot of buffer.

2. LDL (Currently 76) — “Bad” cholesterol

Typical change:

  • Often increases by 10–30 mg/dL
  • Driven by hormonal shifts, not lifestyle

For you:

  • Even if LDL rose by 20, you’d be at ~96 mg/dL—still great.
  • You would remain well below the average levels seen in women your age post-menopause.

3. Total Cholesterol (Currently 166)

Typical change:

  • Often increases by 15–25 mg/dL

For you:

  • You’d still likely remain below 190, which is well within normal.

4. Triglycerides (Currently 45)

Typical change:

  • Often rise by 20–40 mg/dL, depending on insulin response, sleep changes, and stress
  • More sensitive to lifestyle during perimenopause

For you:

  • Even with a significant rise (to ~80), you’d remain excellent.

5. Non-HDL Cholesterol (Currently 89)

Typical change:

  • Often increases by 15–25 mg/dL
  • This is a key predictor of cardiovascular risk post-menopause

For you:

  • You’d likely still remain under 110, which is better than average even for younger women.

The Real Change: Body Fat Distribution

Estrogen decline affects where fat is stored:

  • More visceral fat around the midsection
  • Higher blood sugar variability
  • Slight insulin resistance

This can gradually influence triglycerides and LDL more than diet itself.

But women who:

  • exercise regularly,
  • maintain good sleep,
  • manage stress,
  • eat balanced meals with healthy fats,
    often blunt or even prevent these shifts.

⭐ Why Your Starting Point Matters

Your numbers are not just “normal”—they’re exceptionally protective.

This means:

  • You have significant metabolic resilience going into perimenopause.
  • You’re less likely to experience high-risk lipid levels even as hormones shift.
  • Genetics + lifestyle appear to be working strongly in your favor.

What Helps Maintain Good Numbers During Perimenopause

Evidence-supported strategies include:

  1. Consistent aerobic activity (biggest impact on HDL and triglycerides).
  2. Strength training (reduces visceral fat and insulin resistance).
  3. High fiber intake (soluble fiber helps curb LDL rise).
  4. Healthy fats (olive oil, nuts, seeds, fatty fish).
  5. Stable sleep routines (sleep disruption increases LDL and triglycerides).
  6. Maintaining muscle mass (protects metabolic health).
  7. Limiting simple sugars and refined carbs (prevents triglyceride spikes).

Hormone therapy (HRT) also significantly blunts cholesterol changes for many women, but that’s a medical discussion for your clinician.

Based on the above, I suppose I feel comfortable about perimenopause, especially given I am turning 40 in less than two months. But the visceral fat point above is definitely frustrating. Hormones are definitely not in a woman’s favor as she passes her prime reproductive years, and it almost feels as though it’s nature’s way of saying, “hey, you! Your purpose in life is done, finito! Time to get a move on to your grave! Gain fat, especially around your abdomen because no one cares about you or wants to look at you anymore!”

Food waste and the problem of having plenty

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A friend and I were at lunch the other day, and she was telling me how she was trying to re-mold her semi-new boyfriend into repurposing different foods and leftovers, and to stop throwing out perfectly good food. Like me, she loves cooking and is constantly intrigued by new ingredients and produce she comes across. And also like me, she’s very anti food waste and always trying to make sure she uses everything she has and doesn’t let things go bad. So, it makes sense that she was a bit disturbed when her boyfriend would cook, and he’d throw perfectly good ingredients into the trash bin without a thought. If a recipe called for one cup of diced potatoes, and he happened to have an extra half cup, without hesitation, he’d take the leftover half cup and toss it into his compost bin. He said he didn’t want to “create imbalance in the recipe” by adding too much potato. She immediately told him he was crazy and wasting food, and he could either add those remaining potato cubes into the pot, or just repurpose them for another recipe the next day or so.

“But I don’t have plans to eat anything with potato in it the next day or so,” he countered to her.

“Then throw the potato pieces into the pot!” she raised her voice at him, clearly getting exasperated. “Recipes are just guidelines, but you’re supposed to adjust and tweak as you see fit!”

When I was growing up, I was constantly told I had to finish every last grain of rice on my plate because if I didn’t, I was ungrateful and didn’t realize how hard my parents worked to provide this food. I was also told that when cooking, we should waste nothing — there was always a use for some food we had, and we had to make use of it before it went bad. Letting food rot was not an option. Food cost money, and money was hard to earn. We always ate all our leftover food; if Ed and I didn’t, then our parents would take the leftovers and eat them for lunch at work. I cannot remember a day when either of my parents went to work and actually bought lunch because I always remember seeing them pack their lunches for themselves the night before a work day.

That memory ended up influencing me as an adult: when I was working in an office, I rarely bought lunch out and always brought homemade food in, unless we had a scheduled colleague or team lunch, or at my last in-person company, where lunch was provided and comped by work through Seamless. So, this really ran deep with me. Plus, because I am passionate about food and cooking, I feel personally hurt when I hear about people wasting food thoughtlessly. It feels like money literally going into the trash or drain, which hurts my heart. I also think about all the real people who labored to grow that food, how likely underpaid they all were, and how their work just goes to waste when their perfectly good food is thrown out. That money could have been spent on something else, or that food could have fed someone who really needed (and would have appreciated) it. One friend said to me, “Do you really need to eat that a third day in a row? You make enough money to not have to worry about that and can eat something new.” I retorted back that it didn’t matter how much money I make or have; I am anti food waste. It is the principle that is bad, and food waste is a huge problem in our overly privileged society where food is seemingly plentiful. I don’t want to contribute to society’s problems more than I already inadvertently do.

A day off with snow flurries, freezing temperatures, lots of cooking, and scooting

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Since I started at my current company, I’ve had Veteran’s day off the last six years. No other company I’ve ever worked at gave me Veteran’s Day off. I suppose it’s one way to be “inclusive,” but what that ultimately means is that other days off I would hope to get don’t happen, such as New Year’s Eve. That is not a federal holiday, but every company before this current one gave that day off. These days, I have to request that day off officially. Now that Kaia is in preschool, she also gets that day off, so she was at home with us today. She woke up in our bed after creeping over to us a few hours before wake-up time and got excited to see tiny snowflakes falling from the sky.

“What is that falling from the sky, Mama?” Kaia asked, pointing out the window.

“It’s snow, Pookie!” I exclaimed. “Tiny little snowflakes falling down!”

Today, I made a bunch of things to feed the family: browned butter buttermilk oatmeal pancakes using toasted and ground steel-cut oats, my remaining buttermilk, and a bit of browned butter for extra toastiness. Both Chris and Kaia enjoyed these pancakes; they are likely the tastiest (but alas, most laborious) oatmeal pancakes I’ve ever made. So these will definitely be on rotation. I am very much in the “clean out the pantry and fridge” mode right now, so that ticked off using up my remaining buttermilk and most of my small amount of remaining steel-cut oats. That was followed by Eleven Madison Park style granola (which Kaia diligently picked out all the dried sour cherries from her portion…), Thai green curry with chicken and tofu using homemade stock from the bone bag in my freezer, leftover cut-up firm tofu, and pre-frozen cubes of green curry that I doctored up; plus, Thai-style papaya salad with the green papaya I got for super cheap at Apna Bazaar in Connecticut weeks ago! I even made the dough for my once/twice-a-year challah and left it to proof in the fridge overnight. I am planning for us to eat one loaf now, and then I’ll freeze the second loaf to await us in 2026 when we return from the Southern Hemisphere.

Kaia impatiently waited for me to finish shaving the papaya so that I could take her to Lincoln Center plaza for some scooting around. She is definitely mastering her scooter (minus some awkward turns), and she is gaining confidence using it. She loves riding it around and around the plaza reflecting pool, and then she likes to take breaks to pick up fallen autumn leaves and pebbles, pretending to “make pesto for mama.” She says she loves pesto pasta and wants to share it with me. This is her new thing whenever we’re in the Lincoln Center plaza together, with her intermittently scooting and then taking breaks to stir the special pesto pasta she makes for me in her imaginary kitchen.

We have about 2.5 weeks remaining in New York City this year. There is a lot left to do, lots of ingredients to use up, and plans still to be made. Every year seems to fly by quicker than the last, but I guess that’s how you know you are definitely getting older. I’m almost ending my 40th year, as Chris would say, yet I don’t feel close to slowing down even a bit just yet!

A family heirloom passed down to Kaia from a loving, non-blood-related auntie

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A friend and I caught up over coffee last week, and she was telling me about the chaos of moving into her new house. She has endless documents and boxes to sort through, and it’s been a very overwhelming process since they lived in their last place for over 14 years. She mentioned she stumbled upon a few of her wedding items, including a pair of gold and jade earrings she wore for the ceremony that was passed down from her paternal grandma. The earrings were a family heirloom likely passed down to my friend’s grandma, but she said she had no sentimental attachment to them or even her grandma at all. My friend was abandoned by her parents when she was born. Her mom fled and was never to be heard from again after the birth. Her dad made brief appearances in her life, with an outreach in her teen years saying he was ready to be her dad. But that ultimately failed, and she was sent into the foster care system. Out of helplessness and feeling sorry for my friend, her dad’s mother took her under her wing and raised her, but with a deep sense of resentment that was always loud and clear to my friend. When her grandma eventually died about five years ago, my friend said she felt almost nothing because of how bitter her grandma was for having needed to raise her. So, my friend said that given she doesn’t have kids and will not have any, she wants to give the earrings to Kaia.

I was so touched. I didn’t even really know what to say. I was just so shocked at the generosity and kindness that my friend was extending to Kaia — and me. She insisted it was just an object she had that she didn’t know what to do with, would never wear or need again, and she had no family of her own to give it to, and because she loved Kaia, she wanted to give these to Kaia.

“It’s just sitting there!” my friend insisted. “I want her to have them.”

I get what she is saying, but it still felt like a very generous, loving gesture, one that is usually only suited to blood-related family members. To date, this is the most generous gesture that anyone’s given my Kaia Pookie. I’ve only known this friend for just over four years, but I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her. And I do feel we have a kinship that is far below surface. I am always deeply grateful for the kindnesses and generosities that others extend to my sweet baby.

Lyman Orchards Corn Maze and a bi-annual Costco pitstop

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I don’t recall ever doing a corn maze during the fall growing up. I remember going to pumpkin patches, but the only corn maze I ever remember going to was out in Long Island in 2011 with some friends — at night. That corn maze was supposed to be spooky and “haunted,” and the only lights we had were via flashlights we were given or our own phones. Chris brought us to Lyman Orchards today in Middlefield, CT, for a corn maze and an apple stop. The theme was very fitting for us given what we’d recently eaten: it was Connecticut pizza themed! Kaia loved running through the corn maze and insisted on always going ahead of us and being first. She would also always squeal with high pitched delight every time she saw a corn on the cob that had its kernels peeking out. It was a really fun fall activity, and made even more fun by watching how happy and engaged Kaia was the whole time. Although I didn’t have a “bad” childhood, when I look at her and see how happy she is with all the experiences we’ve given her, it almost makes me relive my own childhood again just seeing how much joy she is experiencing. I love seeing her get excited about the leaves, the different seasons, and the different seasonal activities.

And of course, one last stop before we headed back to New York was at Costco! I loved the Costco experience in South Windsor, CT. Even though it was a Sunday, it wasn’t even remotely crowded. It actually felt quite quiet. There were barely any lines at checkout. The sample stations were quiet and not bombarded by endless hoards. The restroom was an easy in and out for us. And when we had a little lunch at the Costco food court, Chris easily got us a table and seats.

Here are some of the biggest highlights of what we discovered today:

Tim Tams (Australian formulation — WITH GOLDEN SYRUP ): Chris was very excited to see these, and of course, he added it to our cart to “tide him over” longer until he gets his Arnott’s haul replenished.

Kirkland Signature Belgian Chocolate Biscuit Cookie Tin: Chris’s favorite and present to himself each fall Costco trip we go on. 🙂

A WHOLE DUCK: For just over $16 grown at a farm in Indiana. I may finally use those duck class skills I learned a few years ago and get to work!

Wild chanterelle mushrooms: We haven’t scored these since the pandemic era. Chanterelles tend to grow in the fall and have a subtle but delicious earthy flavor. When they are in peak, they can go for anywhere from $28-50/pound, which is too much for me to stomach. I got two pounds of these babies today for $12.99/pound weeeee.

Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste: This brand always comes up in food forums I’m in where professional pastry chefs discuss products they love and absolutely need. I figured I’d never buy it because it was so expensive. But then Chris spotted it at Costco next to the vanilla extract and vanilla beans. I initially skimmed it over because I didn’t see the brand name. But when I did, I did a double take and scrutinized it to death, then Googled it to make sure this was the same product. A 10-ounce bottle of this magic was $19.99. For pricing reference, if you buy an 8-ounce bottle on Williams-Sonoma, it’s currently going for $47.95. What a deal! It’s best to use this product for baked goods where the vanilla flavor really needs to shine… and where you want to “see” the vanilla bean flecks.

Mrs. Meyers Hand Soap Combo Pack: Okay, so I’m kind of like Martha Stewart in that I do really like certain hand soaps over others, and Mrs. Meyers never fails. I almost got the same holiday scented set as last year until we came across the pack that includes the Tomato Vine scent, which I’d been curious about for a while because I’d read it had a near cult following!

We also got some good deals for clothes for Pookster, including a four-piece rainbow top and bottom set, a Minnie Mouse sweater, top, and pants set. And as the clothing section at Costco just keeps getting better and better, we also found some nice onesies that were Winnie the Pooh and Simba themed for some recent babies who have joined the family. It was a massive Costco haul this time, but I have zero doubt everything we got will go into good use (or into our bellies!).

More autumn leaves, Mark Twain House and Museum, and skeletons galore

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I’ve never been a big Halloween person. When I was young, I never got to have fun or elaborate costumes. I basically was a pumpkin for years on end because my parents didn’t care for Halloween, nor did they want to pay for us to have different costumes every year. But while I don’t really care for dressing up myself, I do love seeing other people’s Halloween decorations in front of their homes. In New York, we mostly see it when we go to the outer boroughs. Or in Manhattan, you can see a good amount of Halloween decorations at brownstones on the Upper West and Upper East Sides.

This trip, we’ve already seen endless massively large skeletons everywhere. Skeletons as tall as twenty feet have towered over people’s lawns. At March Farm where we stopped by for some apple cider donuts and photos so Kaia could frolic amongst the pumpkins, there was a huge tractor that had “run over” a skeleton. While we pointed this out to Kaia, she did not seem to mind much, as she was enjoying nibbling away at her first apple cider donut that she did not have to share.

During our coffee stop this morning before the Mark Twain House and Museum tour, we parked next to a car that had a skeleton in the front passenger seat. He had both his hands up… as well as his two middle fingers up! The Mark Twain House and Museum tour was fun and informative, though I will say that while the inside was quite elaborate that I enjoyed walking around its grounds just as much given all the fall foliage. It’s like the house was made to be flanked by these gorgeous autumn colors. The tour also kind of made me want to read Huckleberry Finn again… Maybe this time if I read it, I’ll do the audio version.

Maybe next year when Kaia has better fine motor skills, I’ll actually go get us a pumpkin that we can carve and light up — it will be Kaia’s first jack-o-lantern. Though I also did not do much of this growing up, when I’ve done this with friends or at work festivities, this has always been really fun and creative. Plus, there are so many tools available now that make pumpkin carving safe. It wouldn’t be like what my dad did when we were kids — he used an extremely dull (AND DANGEROUS) chef’s knife to cut poorly shaped triangles and squares to make a jack-o-lantern!

Long weekend in Connecticut for leaf peeping means tasty New England stops along the way

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Since Kaia’s first fall with us as a baby in October 2022, we’ve been doing a fall leaf peeping trip somewhere around the Northeast of the U.S. by car. The first year, we were based in Wilmington, Delaware. In 2023, we went to Springfield, Massachusetts, but unfortunately were a little too early given global warming; most of the trees were still pretty green. Then last year, we went upstate to Albany, New York, and the surrounds. We’ve found that we need to delay this trip to late October to see more of the vibrant autumn foliage. This trip was definitely timed perfectly: everywhere we drove, we saw so many brilliant shades of orange, goldenrod, and crimson.

Along the way, we stopped in Darien, Connecticut, to pick up some goodies from Flour Water Salt Bread, a local Connecticut bakery known for making every single item they have out of sourdough. When we popped in, I was pleasantly surprised to see generous baskets laid out on their counter of samples: vegan chocolate olive oil cake, pumpkin snickerdoodle, coffee cake, and chocolate chip cookie. This is nearly unheard of in New York City; if you want a sample, you can go ahead and fork over $5-9 for your desired pastry and “sample it” that way! Even their cookies are made with sourdough, which was quite shocking to me; I don’t know when the last time, if ever, I’d had a cookie made from sourdough! We settled on their sun-dried tomato focaccia (which Kaia picked almost all of the tomatoes off of to eat and left just the bread for us…), their salted caramel kouign amann, and a hefty loaf of their classic sourdough bread (made with ten percent upstate New York freshly milled flour).

After Flour Water Salt, we headed further north to New Haven, where we had lunch at Zuppardi’s Apizza. It is one of the well known New Haven pizza institutions, and it definitely lived up to its reputation: we had their signature tomato sauce pizza with mushrooms and homemade fennel sausage, plus their delicious white clam pizza. While I remember the other New Haven pizzas having a crispy and chewy crust, Zuppardi’s definitely seems to be more on the crispy, crunchy side, which I had no problem with and really enjoyed. I did notice that there did seem to be more sand residue on these clams than at Modern, which we went to last spring with Chris’s parents, but I guess that’s the “cost” of eating clams on white pizza.

It seems weird to say this, especially as someone who lives in New York City and loves New York City pizza, but in this very moment, white clam pizza is definitely my favorite pizza. Most people think of New York as the pizza capital of the U.S., but I may have to agree with a lot of these publications that say that maybe the real pizza capital of the U.S. is actually Connecticut! It’s rare to find white clam pizza in New York City, and if you do, it will inevitably be quite pricy. So while we are here, I’m thrilled to indulge and get my clams on pizza fix.

Third time to Staten Island this year

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I shifted a bunch of meetings today so that I could go to my friend’s place in Staten Island and work remotely while also cooking for her. She’s now 2.5 months postpartum; it’s crazy how the time flies. Her baby has increased his weight by almost 50 percent and is very responsive now. My friend is pretty much healed from her birth and getting around a bit more. She’s now returned to cooking, something she enjoys, and is also proactively trying to get outside at least once a day for a walk and fresh air. It’s been good to see her healing and looking and sounding more like herself.

I will admit, though, that while I am happy to go all around New York City and explore different neighborhoods, it’s not necessarily the easiest or most convenient for me to get all the way out to her neighborhood in Staten Island. It is not subway accessible; I either need to take an express bus (which is an extra cost on top of an OMNY card) or the ferry; then, I need to either get picked up by her fiance or take an Uber/Lyft to and from her place. Staten Island is not public transportation friendly at all; it really requires you to own a car and drive everywhere, just like the suburbs. It is the least New York City-like of all five boroughs. While I enjoy the one-off rides on the ferry and seeing Manhattan drift away, plus views of the Statue of Liberty, I am not a fan of her being this far away and removed from everything she loves about New York. But I suck it up because it’s her choice to be there. This is my second time visiting her in Staten Island since she gave birth. I saw her once in the hospital after birth in Manhattan.

She was chatting with me about a bunch of her “good” or “close” friends while I was over today. Since she brought them up, I asked her if any of them (or any other friend, for that matter) had come to visit her since I was last over last month. The response was negative. I was her only friend who had come. The only other people who had been over were Joe’s family plus her own mom. I just found this really surprising. Usually, friends would love to come see their friend after giving birth and just to see the baby. I definitely don’t expect any of her friends to come cook and clean for her, but I’d at least think someone would have come to see her at least once. I am sure it has to do with distance given where she is located. People are lazy in general and don’t like to make huge efforts for others unless there is some incentive for them.

Though she has been my friend for almost thirty years, I don’t see her as just my friend; to me, she is my chosen family, my created and chosen “urban tribe” that I read about in my college sociology class. I treat her the way I would treat my own family members. And I know she sees me the same way. We are always bonded even without blood. And so I am happy to cook for her and stuff her face with browned butter pumpkin cookies and Chinese chicken wine soup. And unlike a lot of other friends I have, she is always, always outwardly and obviously grateful for even the littlest things I do for her. And that’s one of the many reasons I adore her.

When Kaia saw her mama on TV

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Yesterday when I left to get to the CBS studio in time for our live segment on AFSP, Kaia was just finishing up her Saturday morning gymnastics class. So Chris took her home and of course, he got the antenna set up with the TV to see if they could watch me on CBS New York live. Kaia got quite the surprise when she saw her mama on TV. Chris got a few videos and photos of Kaia watching me on the live segment. She kept pointing and poking at me when I was on the screen. Her fingers followed where I went. And she kept saying over and over, “Hi, Mummy! Hi, Mummy!” when she’d see me on the TV.

I know Kaia doesn’t know what her mama does for work or for volunteering quite yet; she’s still a bit young. But I do hope that she looks back at these photos and videos one day and is proud of what her mama did to honor her jiujiu’s life. When Chris’s photos and videos had synced in Google Photos of my being on TV and Kaia watching and touching me on the screen, my heart melted to see how excited my sweet baby was to see her mummy on the live TV. It was so heart warming for me. In some ways, it almost made me more proud to see her reaction than to see myself on the TV!

Having a child is a lot of work. Having a toddler is beyond tough with endless ups and downs. But these “ups” make it all so, so worth it, and they are what I live for.

CBS New York Live – AFSP NYC Walk

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At 9:55 sharp, I checked into CBS’s studio just 3.5 blocks away. And at 10:25am, we filmed for five minutes – no cuts, all live. And this was how it turned out. It was a good thing the AFSP ED asked me to prepare a “why” statement a few days in advance because that statement ended up being what I mentally referenced when I was on the stage speaking.

After checking in at the front desk of CBS News, an assistant escorted us up an elevator and through a maze of long, seemingly endless wide hallways with exposed wires of endless colors. It really felt like those “behind the scenes” shots where you see performers go down long hallways before getting on stage. After what seemed like ages, we finally got to a “waiting room” where there was a lit up sign that said “ON AIR.” Signs everywhere said to keep our voices down. The producer came out to briefly introduce himself, told us that the hosts would ask us these several questions (never shared with us ahead of time, but hey, this is live TV!), and then asked which of us would answer what question. He said everything was already behind schedule, apologized for his brevity and the fact that everything felt rushed, and then got each of our lapel mics set up on us. He tested the mics and made sure they looked good on us without having wiring exposed oddly (my dress was particularly annoying, for some reason…), and then said he’d be back in about two minutes to get us.

Just minutes later, we were escorted onto the stage, where we met Doug and Jenna, the news hosts. They warmly greeted us, and we ran through how to pronounce our names, confirmed our AFSP titles/positions, who was going to answer which questions, and then clarified which camera (of the FIVE) there were to look at, or who to look at when. Our co-chair Scott answered questions about who and what AFSP is, I answered questions about why I joined AFSP and why I continue to support and fundraise for it, as well as how to get involved. It all went by so fast that before we knew it, Jenna and Scott were already in the out-tro view, where they were discussing how to seek help if you need it. Once the director yelled “CUT!”, they thanked us for coming on and commended us for being so vulnerable in sharing our stories and wanting to help others. For news casters, I really felt both of them seemed genuine, warm, and kind, which wasn’t really how I imagined anyone regularly on TV being with regular everyday people like us.

The entire experience was so frantic, fast-paced, and tight, with pretty much zero notice of anything that was about to happen. I know I would never do well in TV production, much less live TV production. But even though it went by so quickly, it was a pretty fun and interesting experience to see how live news is filmed at a major broadcasting station like CBS. I felt really honored and privileged to have this experience as a Walk committee member, volunteer, and fundraiser; it’s not like I have a real leadership role at the NYC Chapter for AFSP, so I realize it was a rare opportunity for me to represent them and share my personal story; they definitely instilled their trust in me in this way. It felt really good to be open about losing Ed in a very open and public way, and the conversation we had live, though very brief, felt very conversational and natural, the way I’d have it if someone were to ask me about my involvement with AFSP or how Ed passed. Even though he’s no longer physically here, he still lives on through me and all that I do. And I will never stop sharing his story and how much I love and care for him, even long, long after his death. I don’t want Ed to have died in vain. I want his life and story to live on.

“It’s really amazing that you both do this,” Jenna said, as she walked us off the stage. “I hope this doesn’t sound trite, but I think your brother and your friends (Scott’s friends he lost to suicide) are looking down on you and feel so proud of the work you are doing and how you are choosing to honor their lives.”

I do hope that is true. I really hope so.