Finding Joy in a Life You Never Saw Coming | Jessica Slice

From high-flying real estate mogul to proud disabled mother, Jessica Slice's transformative journey will shake you awake to your own yearnings. In this candid conversation, the Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World https://amzn.to/3Zh1iv3 author exposes medicine's dehumanizing biases and reveals how honoring our shared fragility unlocks profound fulfillment. Prepare to have your assumptions upended as Jessica redefines what it means to live a good life. You can find Jessica at: Website https://www.jessicaslice.com/ | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jessicaslice | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/disability-motherhood-vulnerability-jessica-slice If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Rebekah Taussig https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL1BwaEd1RzFtUGFacTVMMzU1RTlUOWFGSkViaEswWHhrTHhLc1ItLUxONzg about living creatively and resiliently with physical disability. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jonathan Fields?

  So at age 28, Jessica Slice was living what looked like a dream life. Co-owner of a successful real estate firm, traveling the world, super fit, utterly alive and in charge of life. And then in a moment, actually, a single day in Greece, something went wrong and her life was forever changed. Jessica was plunged into the world of illness, disability, medical gaslighting, and eventually, a complete transformation in how she viewed herself and what makes a life worth living. It would take years, but what she'd eventually come to learn was that different didn't by default mean worse. In fact, it could lead to something, to a life that was filled with equal amounts of grace

• 0:43Jonathan Fields?

  in harmony with new challenges that to this day have never left her. Jessica is now a writer and disability advocate whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Time Magazine, other major publications. Her new memoir, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges An Inaccessible World, explores her journey from driven overachiever to someone who has found unexpected freedom through accepting her disabilities and limitations. In this conversation, we explore how Jessica moved from feeling grief, even shame about her conditions, to fierce self-advocacy, and why including diverse bodies and minds makes every institution, every part of life, every relationship better. Perhaps more powerfully,

• 1:26Jonathan Fields?

  she shares how embracing her limitations, paradoxically, led to a deeper, richer experience of life than constant striving ever did. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  State fair food is getting smaller and pricier.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  We'll have room for fried cookies.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?

• 1:55Speaker 03

  What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  Get that more for your money feeling only on Metro by T-Mobile.

• 2:09Speaker 04

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• 2:17Speaker 05

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 2:48Speaker 06

  Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of the higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings? And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better, save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 3:26Jonathan Fields?

  Your life has sort of like this before and after.

• 3:30Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:31Jonathan Fields?

  And tied to your late twenties. So tell me a little bit about life first. Like, what was life before this moment that would change everything for you? Give me sort of like a, paint the picture for me.

• 3:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, so at 28, when I became sick, I was the part owner of a real estate firm in North Carolina. And I was someone who did everything as much as possible, or as well as possible. So I had originally started real estate in order to earn a little extra money to pay for graduate school. And then what I ended up doing was becoming co-owner of a company and one of the best realtors in the country, and just became all in on real estate. And I was married to my high school sweetheart. I woke up, went for a seven mile run, worked a long day, out to dinner with friends, and then started again the next day.

• 4:25Speaker 07

  So I was living a very active, very motivated life. When not working, I was traveling all over the world. And a thing that was true about that time, and I would have said it even then, is that I had this deep, deep sense that I wasn't there yet. Like, I felt this kind of corrosive dissatisfaction. It almost felt physical, like I could vomit or weep from it. And I, I felt like the solution to that, to that dissatisfaction, was if I could just figure out how to do things better, even if that was have more fun, better, just anything better.

• 5:06Jonathan Fields?

  Right. I mean, you used the word there. I wasn't quote there yet. And I know a lot of people have a similar feeling, but they're probably going to define what there means in differently. What was that thing that was kind of like perpetually beyond your grasp? What did that actually look like? What were the qualities of that back at, you know, at that moment?

• 5:22Speaker 07

  I thought a good life was there. A, a life that I would feel. I don't know that I was looking for happiness, but I was looking for this sense that like, okay, this is what I want. This is what life should be. I'm good enough, or this is good enough. And I don't know if I would have been able to define it beyond that. I kind of knew it by its absence. I knew I wasn't experiencing what I wanted.

• 5:49Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, that's so interesting. The, I think so many of us feel the same way, where we kind of know that there's something that, that is not a part of our life, a feeling that we want.

• 6:03Jonathan Fields?

  And it's hard to define, but we just know that we're not feeling it.

• 6:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not doing it. Like, I, I remember taking these trips that were sort of like larger than life trips, you know, taking a helicopter in St. Lucia and, and just feeling like, ugh, this isn't, why isn't this better? Why am I not appreciating this? Why isn't this what I thought it would be? And I, I kind of, that feeling followed me around and, and like,

• 6:34Speaker 07

  And that, you know, there's the Buddhism idea of the pain and then the judgment about the pain, you know, I had this feeling of dissatisfaction and then blaming myself for not being satisfied, which with what was on paper, like a phenomenal life.

• 6:48Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it's like the shame that we layer on top of it. It's like, oh, I should be like, I mean, come on, look at my life. I should be feeling so much better. I've checked all the boxes. I've done all the things. And yet, like, it's, and like, how shameful that I actually feel this way that I'm not so, you know, as grateful as I quote, should be in this moment in life.

• 7:08Speaker 07

  Exactly, exactly.

• 7:10Jonathan Fields?

  So I'm in Boulder, Colorado right now, but I spent my entire adult life in New York City. And that is kind of like the dominant feeling in New York City.

• 7:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, definitely.

• 7:19Jonathan Fields?

  That's like the ethos, the fiber of life, you know, it's sort of like, yep. But, you know, it's also not the same thing that you complain to other people about because, you know, from the outside looking in, you've got it all. And yet, oftentimes, we're suffering, even though the appearance is, like, we've done all the things.

• 7:33Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 7:34Jonathan Fields?

  So this is your life, objectively, from the outside looking in, it's incredible, but there's this yearning inside of you. There's this sort of like discontent that's perpetually there. Take me into what happens that changes everything.

• 7:47Speaker 07

  I was in Santorini, of course, on a whirlwind vacation and went on a hike. And it was, you know, the day before, I had run my usual seven miles and had planned a five mile hike for that day in Santorini, which, you know, according to my standards, was nothing. But I miscalculated the impact that the sun would have on me. And so about four miles into the hike, I started to experience heat-related illness. And as someone who grew up in North Carolina, I was familiar with the early signs of heat-related illness, you know, that I would start to get shaky or a little nauseated or clammy. And so, and then I also realized I was out of water. And I thought, okay, well, I need to get to this next village at the end of the hike

• 8:32Speaker 07

  and get some food and water and rest and I'll recover. But about a mile from the end, a pack of wild dogs blocked the path. And they bared their teeth and their hair stood up. And it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to get past the dogs. And the only option was to kind of scramble up this like thorn-covered bank out of the way. And so did that and then went this big arc around the path and back onto the path, which added a lot of time to the hike. And so I was already experiencing heat-related illness and then that exacerbated it.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  Made it to the next village, tried to eat and started vomiting, went back to rest. And I just knew, okay, well, I'll rest and then I'll wake up tomorrow myself. You know, this was a hard day, but it would be a blip. But what happened is I woke up the next day and could barely make it to the bathroom without needing to sit on the ground. It was like this, I'd had one body. And then I saw the dogs. And then the next day I was dizzy and nauseated and shaky. And if I tried to stand, my vision would start to blackout around the edges. I went to a doctor and they diagnosed an electrolyte imbalance. And so I thought, okay, well, that's it.

• 9:57Speaker 07

  That's it's electrolytes. So I, they gave me some sodium and potassium. I took those, my levels normalized, but the symptom didn't go away. So I went back to a doctor, went back to the States and I didn't improve. And I started to see doctors more regularly and I.

• 10:18Speaker 07

  I think what's so remarkable, looking back at that time, is how I woke up every day just thinking I was about to get back to my normal life and trying to get back to my normal life. You know, I would put on my running shoes and put on my running shorts and then I wouldn't be able to get out the door. I would go to meet a client and then end up lying on the floor in their bathroom, unable to work. But my health did not measurably improve from the day after the hike until now. And I'm 42 now, so it's been about 14 years.

• 10:50Jonathan Fields?

  So in those, I mean, when you're in the days and the weeks immediately after, when you're just in a window where you're just like, okay, so like, whatever is going on here, whatever needs to normalize, maybe it's a virus, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, like, I just need to kind of like wait it out. What were you physically feeling? Was it just this intense exhaustion? What was going on inside?

• 11:12Speaker 07

  God, I, I mean, my personality being what it was and is, I had this spreadsheet of all the symptoms. You know, I experienced nausea and dizziness, you know, fatigue, but different kinds of fatigue. You know, I learned that there's all these iterations of it. There's this fatigue that makes it feel like your eyes are shutting when you're trying to stay awake. But there's also fatigue that's like wearing one of those weighted vests that you wear at the dentist. You know, there's, there's different versions of fatigue. And I had them all. And then all these bizarre symptoms. My legs would go numb, or my arms would feel floppy, or my face would go numb. Before too long, my skin went from its normal,

• 11:54Speaker 07

  like, Irish pallor to kind of a yellow tint. The bones in my feet started to break. I mean, just really, it's like, the longer it went, the more the symptoms added up. But I was in, I mean, I was just like... And as the symptoms increased, I guess I haven't stayed at that point. I've kind of stayed at the like post treatment or pre worsening point. But, um, but as they added up, I just became, you know, I was in a period of such intense discomfort every minute of the day.

• 12:30Jonathan Fields?

  So when this is going on with you, um, and I would imagine like it's stopping you from doing all the things that you would normally do.

• 12:38Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 12:39Jonathan Fields?

  And I would, I'm imagining also like you're probably dialing doctor after doctor and trying to figure out what's going on, what's going on, what's going on.

• 12:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 12:47Jonathan Fields?

  What are people telling you in those early days?

• 12:49Speaker 07

  That I was just thinking too much about my body.

• 12:52Jonathan Fields?

  Oof. So basically, classic.

• 12:56Speaker 07

  Young woman who's sick.

• 12:57Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 07

  Yeah. They kept saying, well, are you sure you're not just like paying too much attention? Maybe that's the way heads always feel or, um, you know, you'd be surprised what stress can do. You can be surprised what hyperfixation can do. It was just this like constant. And that went on for two years.

• 13:16Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. So it's basically two years of gaslighting.

• 13:19Speaker 07

  Yeah. And I, by the end of it, I believed it.

• 13:22Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. So, so at that point, you're kind of thinking, well, this is, I'm causing this.

• 13:29Speaker 07

  I was positive. I was causing it. I mean, gosh, by that point, I had lost so much weight because what I didn't realize is that I was having untreated severe tachycardia. And so my body was just burning so much food by being alive that I was, I was dropping a lot of weight and I was, I had this feeling every night going to sleep at the end of two years that, that I would vanish, that like, that I would either die or that like I would shrink so much that I would soon not exist anymore.

• 14:06Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. I mean, it sounds just brutal. What, what's happening?

• 14:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 14:10Jonathan Fields?

  What's happening also, I mean, with your relationship with your work?

• 14:16Speaker 07

  I had stopped working. I was earning like a slight bit from like company residuals, but I was no longer able to work. I applied for disability insurance and got denied, so I had no income. My relationship ended, a 14 year relationship ended. So the start of the two years, I had this like shiny, shiny life. And then two years in, I was living in a one bedroom apartment, doing almost nothing certain that I was about to die.

• 14:52Jonathan Fields?

  So where do you go from there?

• 14:54Speaker 07

  I went to a psychiatrist and I told him what I had been experiencing. And I said, something must be so wrong with my brain that I don't even know it, but I am somehow causing this with my own brain. And I don't know how it's like even beyond my ability to recognize, but can you please help me? Can you please prescribe something that can make me stop doing this thing? Because I feel like it's going to kill me. And it's like, there's so much kind of grace in this story is that he had gone through his own health crisis and kind of was just in a position to listen. And so he listened and he asked a lot of questions.

• 15:35Speaker 07

  And he noticed that all the times I felt the very, very worst was when I was standing. He asked for, you know, over the last couple of weeks, when did you feel the sickest? And it was at the gas pump in the shower, waiting in line at the grocery store. And he said, I think you might have this condition, dysautonomia, which is a neurological condition impacting your heart. And I don't think psychotropic medication is going to help that. I think you need to see a cardiologist. And so he referred me to a cardiologist and I got diagnosed.

• 16:09Jonathan Fields?

  When you heard that from him, what was the immediate reaction?

• 16:15Speaker 07

  I knew he was right. I, I, I mean, I Googled it and you know, it's not like too long ago that I couldn't just pull out my phone and Google it in the car after. And I was like, this is it. This is exactly it. And I had of course, seen many cardiologists, but he referred me to someone he knew. He put on the note what they should test for, and they tested me. And what the test involved was having me lean against this table, taking my vitals and then standing the table upright, and then taking my vitals at one, five, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes. And the diagnosis was evident. But it's wild to me that in the two years, all someone needed to do was take

• 16:58Speaker 07

  my vital signs while I stood up. I mean, it was a very low cost test and diagnosis.

• 17:05Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, this, this wasn't like a massive scan or complex. It was, I mean, you must have been thinking to yourself at that point, like, why? Like, why? Like, the last two years didn't have to happen?

• 17:18Speaker 07

  You know, I blamed myself. I was sure that I had done something. Like, I hadn't described my symptoms well, or that somehow I had caused this. You know, I mean, when you are told, um, gosh, I also have to say that I've done so many interviews for this book, and this is the first time I felt emotional in one. But when you are told that this thing that is agonizing is fake, and that you're causing it, like, I felt hearing that, it's just so disoriented. Like, I couldn't trust myself. I couldn't trust my descriptions. And so when I did end up getting diagnosed, it was a relief, of course, but I didn't feel

• 18:00Speaker 07

  angry. I thought, well, I must have done something wrong to be here.

• 18:05Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 18:12Speaker 05

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• 18:42Speaker 01

  State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  We'll have room for fried cookies.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?

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• 18:59Speaker 01

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

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• 19:43Jonathan Fields?

  So at that point, you have a diagnosis. So I'm guessing like the next thing that pops into my mind is like, okay, finally, like we've got this thing, like we can point our finger at something. Now, give me the pill, give me the procedure, like what's the thing? Okay, let's just cure it. Let's get through it. Now we know what it is. Let's fix it and move on.

• 20:03Speaker 07

  Exactly. Well, and as, I mean, judging by what I've disclosed of my personality, you won't be surprised to know I went into treatments like Whole Hog. And I took the medicine they gave me and they told me there was an exercise program that I could do that had a 50% chance of complete remission. And it had to be done at a cardiac rehab facility because I was in such bad shape, I couldn't do it on my own. And when I say exercise, like I need to be clear that the first day was 15 seconds of low intensity reclined, like stationary biking for 15 seconds. So it's, you know, a very specific kind of exercise program. But I did it.

• 20:46Speaker 07

  I did it for over a year. It took every bit of energy I had. I was either doing that, I was either at this cardiac rehab facility or home recovering. I couldn't drive myself and I was single and I had to, you know, develop this like calendar of people who would take me there and back. And, um, and every single appointment was so scary and brought on so many symptoms. You know, I was often like on the floor of this facility. And I, and it was such a wild experience because everyone else there was heart attack or lung transplant patients recovering.

• 21:27Speaker 07

  And I was, by all appearances, the sickest one in the room. I mean, no one else was on the ground. They were all doing these laps around me and, you know, I'm sure at some point they had been much sicker, but it was, it was such a shift in my identity, having been a runner two years prior. So I did the year and as the year was winding up, my sister became sick with the same illness.

• 22:02Speaker 07

  So I finished the program. And the thing that happened was that I was not healthier.

• 22:11Speaker 07

  So it didn't work. And then my sister got sick, as I said, and we went to a geneticist. Our shared cardiologist said, well, it's, you know, obviously suspicious that two people have developed this in the same family. We went to a geneticist and we were diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which can cause dysautonomia. And in people with Ehlers-Danlos, the chance of remission is, is almost zero. So the, the exercise was never going to work.

• 22:39Jonathan Fields?

  Right. So now you have this secondary diagnosis, which on the one hand, so it gives you something new to point to. It also helps explain why the last year really didn't help.

• 22:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 22:51Jonathan Fields?

  And now you're a year down the road. Now you have two diagnoses. Okay, so now I can point to two things.

• 22:59Jonathan Fields?

  The question remains like, where do I go from here? Like, what's next?

• 23:05Speaker 07

  Yeah. Well, EDS was interesting because I had had pain my entire life, my back and my shoulders and my hips. And I just thought that's how every other person felt in their body and no one else complained about it. And, you know, looking back at so many points in my life, I was like, oh, oh, of course. You know, we, I remember spring break in college, we booked a house and all I cared about was the quality of the mattresses in like Daytona Beach, Florida. That like, I only thought about pain at every turn. And, you know, that's not like a 21 year old thought generally. And so it also, you know, that made me feel a little validated.

• 23:47Speaker 07

  But the biggest reaction was like, okay, so now I know that this is my entire life. I will, for the rest of my life, be unable to stand for more than 30 seconds, be able to sit up right for, I won't be able to sit upright for more than about five minutes. I will be living in this new kind of body for the rest of my life. And it was like, it was just incredibly difficult. It felt almost impossible.

• 24:19Jonathan Fields?

  You write, actually, "My acceptance and identity as disabled brought tremendous freedom. I stopped trying to shoehorn my body into the world and started to adapt my world to my body." That word "disabled" is a word that a lot of people struggle with, people who feel able-bodied, but also people who feel disabled. Talk to me about your early relationship with the word, with the identity.

• 24:46Speaker 07

  So, you know, in those first couple of years, I just called myself sick after the EDS diagnosis. And I was just trying to get used to being a sick person. And I, you know, I had a disabled placard on my car. I eventually started to get disability insurance. So the word disability was in my life, but I thought it was sort of an incidental term. I didn't really think about what it meant. But I did start to contend with my illness. There were a couple poems that really meant a lot to me at the time. There's a Galway kennel poem that says, "Whatever what is, is, is what I want, but that only that." And

• 25:26Speaker 07

  I, I just said that to myself all the time, like, okay, whatever what is, is, is what I want. Like, I, like, may it be true that whatever what is, is, is what I want. Like, I just kind of like tried so hard to want what was true. And then a Mary Oliver poem where she says, "There are many ways to perish or to flourish." And again, I was trying to convince myself, like, maybe this can be a way to flourish, even though it's nothing like what I imagined. And then I started to write myself a sentence that I came up with, which was, "This too is a day of my life." Like, I, I had had all these other days. And, and I didn't mean the day had to be good or special or remarkable, but just

• 26:10Speaker 07

  that it was. It was a day of my life. It didn't not count because I was in pain, or it didn't not count because I was dizzy or on the couch all day. It was, it was a day. And so from there, I started to build a life. I moved to California where the temperature was easier for me. I started dating. I applied to graduate school for social work, which is what I had hoped to do when I started real estate. And it was there that I started to read disability scholars. And that was that moment that you just talked about where suddenly...

• 26:44Speaker 07

  Like I, I no longer was in a body that was deficient from a well body. I was in a body that was part of this community of people. And as I started to read disability scholars, I was like, oh, these are some of the most creative and brilliant and kind and interesting and world changing people that I have ever come across. And if like becoming sick is actually becoming disabled and becoming disabled means I'm part of this community, then like, oh my God, I'm so lucky.

• 27:16Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm, that's a huge reframe. I know you use the phrase disability gain. And you know, it's to view that as saying, okay, so now I'm part of this incredible community. I wonder if part of like what you were feeling before was this notion of, okay, so like there's this world of people out here that I like was a part of, you know, like for the first 28 or so years of my life. And, and that's the world of people who are living their best lives. And now I'm excluded from that. And I'm not a part of a community that has like some sort of path to also living a best life. And so like actually seeing, okay, there is this alternate community here. It's not just me.

• 27:58Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 27:59Jonathan Fields?

  There's a place where I can belong and thrive and flourish and feel connected and see beauty and grace and all these things again differently.

• 28:07Speaker 07

  Exactly. And that they've been doing it, that I wasn't, I didn't need to invent something new, that I was joining into this culture. And it was a culture that I legitimately liked and respected. I didn't have to, I didn't have to bright side it. And I, yeah, that moment was such a moment of, I mean, that kind of extended moment, semester long moment, but was such a profound transformation for me.

• 28:32Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. Meanwhile, you know, you're effectively making all these decisions to rebuild life anew, but rebuild a very different looking life. Because, you know, okay, so you discover this great thing and you're part of a new community and you discover disability scholars and, and yet your body is still your body. You know, it gives and takes what it, what it has. So you're in a mode where you have to sort of like say, okay, how do I reimagine the way that I live, my built environment, my relationships, all those different things? Like this is still the work that's, that's laid at your feet on a daily basis.

• 29:12Speaker 07

  Right. I mean, that's what

• 29:15Speaker 07

  this kind of touches on something I think a lot about, which is that my acceptance of disability and my love for disability culture does not negate

• 29:25Speaker 07

  like the suffering that's part of every day of my life. But there's also something else there, which is that there was suffering in part of every day of my life before too.

• 29:37Speaker 07

  And that suffering was going to kill me, like that suffering felt corrosive in a way that the suffering doesn't now.

• 29:48Speaker 07

  And I think about this so much, like, what is the difference? You know, why? And and I don't know, is it just expectation? You know, I play around with it like part of it is I I kind of just don't think my days are supposed to be that good. I think days are like, days are days and there will be hard parts and there will be good parts and no one thing will be all the way good. No one thing will be perfect. You know, I said to my eldest child the other day, like, I said, you know, it can be useful to tell yourself, bad things will happen today that I will not like. And my husband was like, well, it's kind of dark. I was like, I don't know. I think there's some freedom there too, like that there is suffering and there is good.

• 30:33Speaker 07

  And that's the way it is.

• 30:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Because the so much of the suffering that you had described, you know, in quote before times, it seemed like came from you holding this ideal of what life quote should be. And and never being able to like attaining all of these incredible things, you know, and and still just never being able to check that final box of like, oh, I finally feel the way that I want to feel.

• 31:00Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 31:01Jonathan Fields?

  And now this, you know, there's this shift in. Well, what if like, what if the aspiration, what if, what if the metric by which I was you know, like measuring everything was actually never attainable on that, like no matter like what the state of my body or my wellbeing is, and that alone was causing so much suffering. What if I change that now? Um, and I still have to deal with whatever my body gives me on a daily basis, but, but now maybe I'm not layering on the psychological like complication of perpetually falling short of my expectations.

• 31:34Speaker 07

  Well, that's exactly it. There's the falling short of expectations, like there's the, this isn't what life should be and this, and then the also I have caused this to not be good enough. And the, the combination of the two of them is what destroys you. And the, I don't know, suffering is obviously hard. I mean, by definition, it's miserable. I, um, but it's not the worst kind of suffering is the kind of first level suffering. I don't think, at least in my experience of like existing in a fairly painful physical body.

• 32:10Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. So you mentioned your oldest. At some point, you know, you do start to rebuild life differently and enter into relationship and you, you meet a moment where you start to think about kids. And from, from what I know, and tell me if I'm getting this right, you know, like earlier in life, kids weren't something that you necessarily thought would be a part of your life.

• 32:35Speaker 07

  No, no. I always said I didn't want kids, but the truth was I was positive that I would destroy a child, that I knew, and this was before becoming sick, but I knew how I talked to myself, I knew how I treated myself, I knew what my expectations were. And I had the presence of mind to be like, I cannot put this on another person. I can't do this to someone else. And so I, I don't know, and you know, I out with friends, I would say, oh, I don't want them to cramp my style. I want to travel the world, but the truth was I didn't want to destroy a child.

• 33:13Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 33:15Jonathan Fields?

  So, couple of years down the road, when a lot of things have profoundly changed for you, what changes?

• 33:21Speaker 07

  I mean, the thing that's wild is when I, it was really even before the disability identity, that shifted my, my relationship to my pain and to my illness. But during the time that I was sort of reckoning with my days, like when I was reading those poems and kind of repeating that this too is my day, a day of my life, I had just started to like myself. I, during that time, and it was kind of like miraculous to, to experience, but I, I like who I am now. I trust myself. I think I'm, I think I'm good. I think I'm kind.

• 34:02Speaker 07

  I think I'm loving and I think I'm able to learn and to care. And I, I just totally shifted how I thought about what I could offer to a child.

• 34:16Speaker 07

  And I,

• 34:18Speaker 07

  and after liking myself, it made me want a child because I, I was able to access my own desires, once I stopped being afraid of what I would do to a kid.

• 34:29Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, so powerful. You know, so it was this real internal shift that gradually unfolded based on just

• 34:38Jonathan Fields?

  your capacity to make peace with yourself, to fall back in love with yourself.

• 34:45Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 34:45Jonathan Fields?

  And open up the space to say, well, like, maybe there is room to feel similarly for another.

• 34:51Speaker 07

  I have friends now that I've been friends with, you know, since middle school or elementary school and

• 34:59Speaker 07

  one of them, Casey, describes that time as like Jessica 1.0 shifting to Jessica 2.0, which is funny because 2.0 is generally like a more optimized version and in, in almost every way, I'm like a much less optimized version.

• 35:16Speaker 07

  Like, don't exercise, almost always in bed, very poor eater, you know, but,

• 35:22Speaker 07

  but in also some like deeper ways, I, I am

• 35:26Speaker 07

  a totally different version of myself.

• 35:29Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 35:34Jonathan Fields?

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• 36:19Jonathan Fields?

  City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Good Life Project is sponsored by TinCan. So if you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you probably still remember your best friend's phone number and stretching the kitchen phone cord around the corner for privacy. Our executive producer, Lindsay, wanted that same freedom for her kids, eight and 10. So in January, she got them a TinCan. Now, friends call the house to chat, make plans, and check in without borrowing her phone. They even keep a handwritten phone book next to it. I kind of love that. TinCan is the new school way for kids to talk with their friends. It's a secure landline that lets them call all their favorite people, but with parental controls to keep them protected.

• 37:02Jonathan Fields?

  No screens, no algorithms, no texting, just a phone being a phone. Kids can only call or be called by people on your approved list. Calls to other TinCans and 911 are always free. And there's even an answering machine for messages that are, I'm told, gloriously ridiculous. Go to tincan.com/goodlife to get $10 off your first order, exclusive for our listeners. That's tincan.com/goodlife for $10 off. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Tincan.com/goodlife.

• 37:37Speaker 05

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• 38:09Jonathan Fields?

  So when you start to actually say, "There's space in my heart for a child, and I would like to have a child in my life," I mean, it's a different decision now also. And you write powerfully about, "There are a lot of considerations, and there are also, there are a lot of things that potentially get layered onto you and that decision from the outside."

• 38:39Speaker 07

  I thought about the decision carefully, but I also knew that I had a very good partner, and my now-husband, David, and we had the financial capacity to pay for childcare help if we needed it. But also, that initial decision to have a kid, I wasn't committing to a kid forever. I convinced David, which is like, I'm a little bit of a moral absolutist, which is not a great quality. And I became absolutely convinced that it was immoral of us to have a two-bedroom house in Oakland and not allow someone to live in the second bedroom. I just was like, "We cannot do this. Housing is, you know, there's a housing scarcity.

• 39:24Speaker 07

  There's kids who need a place to live. We must, we must do this." He was eventually persuaded, and we met with this refugee organization, and we were, for a while, gonna host teenagers from Eritrea, and then made our way to the foster system. We were licensed from ages zero through 12. So actually, that initial decision to have a kid was a decision that I wanted a child.

• 39:51Speaker 07

  But I didn't need for it to be permanent. I didn't need for it to be a newborn. It was like this kind of combination of care I had to give plus space in the house.

• 40:03Jonathan Fields?

  And as the old saying goes, like, we make plans, God laughs.

• 40:07Speaker 07

  Yeah. And everyone told us, you won't get a call about a baby because everyone wants to foster babies. Like, that's almost certainly not going to happen.

• 40:17Jonathan Fields?

  And that-

• 40:18Speaker 07

  And so, of course-

• 40:18Jonathan Fields?

  It happens.

• 40:20Speaker 07

  Yeah. It did. Our second call was about a newborn. And they said she needed a place for a few weeks or a month and asked if we could pick her up from the hospital the next morning. So we got a call around 9:00 PM. And at 9:00 AM the next day, David went to work. Because we thought this was very temporary. You know, we thought it was almost babysitting. I went to the hospital and I met the child, who is now our eight-year-old daughter.

• 40:48Jonathan Fields?

  What's that moment like?

• 40:53Speaker 07

  There's this photo of me sitting, you know, I didn't have my wheelchair with me and I can only walk for about 30 seconds. So I made it inside, sat on the ground, walked a little bit more, sat in the elevator. And there's a photo of me sitting on the floor in the elevator. And I have this, like, completely shell-shocked face, like, I guess I'm about to, I guess I'm about to get a baby.

• 41:17Speaker 07

  And she was eight days old. And I went in and I had to wash my hands for three minutes, up to my elbows, and went in and met her.

• 41:28Speaker 07

  And God, she was just magic. Like, I, um, the nurses said it and I felt it immediately. There was something so alive about her in the bassinet. And she had had a very hard start, which is her story to share if she ever wants to. But there was just something so eager for life and they they talked to me for a while and then they had me see if I could feed her a bottle and change a diaper. And when I gave her the bottle, the hospital bottle, I put the the little nipple in her mouth and she wouldn't take it. And then I she opened her mouth like more. And so I put the whole entire thing in her mouth. So like her lips were all the way up to the plastic part.

• 42:13Speaker 07

  And then she just drank the whole thing. And and that's kind of her personality, just like give it, give it all to me.

• 42:22Jonathan Fields?

  Just drink in life.

• 42:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:24Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. When you're there, sort of like saying, is this really happening? I guess. And then the nurses are there and they're taking care of you and watching and sort of like saying like, try this, try this, like, let's make sure. Did you? What was the energy you were getting from them, from the people around you? Like, like, because making sure that you're like, they're like, I want to make sure that this person who's coming can care for this kid. Was there any, did you feel any judgment? Or was it all pretty open?

• 42:55Speaker 07

  It was open. It was getting my license was very difficult. We, I mean, encountered a few obstacles. The classes were not accessible and they were in a hot environment I couldn't tolerate. And we were told, well, if you can't do this, maybe you shouldn't be a parent. You know, the the licensing was difficult, but the nurses, gosh, that time just feels so shiny in my mind, but they felt. Yeah, I mean, gosh, I'm emotional thinking about this too, but but I loved her so immediately. And I think they saw that. I felt very supported in the hospital. I remember one of them said, you're very funny. You're going to make a great mom.

• 43:40Speaker 07

  And I thought, I don't, I don't know that that's like necessary, but thanks. Yeah, I mean, they were surprised. They asked where her going home outfit was. And I was like, I don't have any outfits, actually. And so they went to the lost and found and there was this like massive onesie that she was drowning in. And then they asked where my stroller was. I said, we actually don't own a stroller. And we did have a car seat, obviously, for legal, I mean, for legal reasons, but.

• 44:11Speaker 07

  So they put her in this like funny little stroller thing and wheeled her out and we pulled out of the hospital and I stopped at the first light and I still remember speaking to her and I said, okay, I love you and I'm going to try my very best.

• 44:28Jonathan Fields?

  When did you start to feel like, okay, this isn't fostering anymore?

• 44:37Jonathan Fields?

  It sounds like it was a matter of seconds.

• 44:41Speaker 07

  No, I knew I loved her, but I thought she would only be there a few weeks, but I knew I would love her all the way for those few weeks.

• 44:51Speaker 07

  I think it took a month or so to really know, you know, there were family members of hers. We thought she might be able to be with long term and I was very open to that. I, I really believed and still believe that family reunification is, is ideal.

• 45:10Speaker 07

  And I don't know if it's disability or illness, but I felt like I could love her

• 45:17Speaker 07

  a hundred, like I felt like I could love her all the way and want her to be back with her family. Like I felt like I could want one of the, both of those things at the same time.

• 45:28Jonathan Fields?

  So when you bring her home, she becomes a part of your life and eventually becomes your daughter.

• 45:35Jonathan Fields?

  Now you're, you're like, you're raising a child, living with a disability and the world, as you discover, isn't so set up for that.

• 45:47Speaker 07

  No, no, I mean, the first six months were this little bubble of heaven. I just, you know, my days of doing almost nothing really worked well with her days of being a newborn. She, she was a baby and I know not all babies are this way, but she really never cried if we were touching. If we weren't touching, she did cry. But I'm very good at sitting around all day. And so she just was next to me or on me or sleeping, you know, sleeping against my leg or under my arm or on my chest. And, and we spent almost six full months like that.

• 46:31Speaker 07

  And then after that, started to go into the world. And that's when I encountered that like the limitations of my body didn't, you know, work as well with being in the world with her. I, at that point, got a wheelchair, like a power wheelchair, so that I could go more places with her, which really opened up my world. But then I started to learn how few places are accessible.

• 46:53Speaker 07

  We started to take trips and encountered, you know, issues like at one airport, I was told I wasn't allowed to carry her on my lap, on my wheelchair. You know, it was like, once we left that, that bubble, I started to really have to confront what it means to be a disabled parent in the world and not just in my house.

• 47:15Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, what, what does that start to look like? Because confronting it is like one thing, saying like, okay, so this is the reality here. But you also have to navigate it. Like, you have to live in this world, in a world that is not equipped or built or resourced often to support you.

• 47:36Jonathan Fields?

  And, I mean, clearly, I think probably most people are getting, there's a fierceness inside of you.

• 47:44Jonathan Fields?

  And there's a loving side of you, but like, there's clearly a fierceness inside of you. And it sounds like you turned some of that to, okay, let me really understand this. And let me also understand not just what's happening to me, but like, what's the bigger picture here?

• 48:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, thanks for saying that. I, I did, I.

• 48:13Speaker 07

  I also, as she got older, it started to be clear that, and I write about this some, but that she's autistic and that she had her own needs and that she was living, you know, as a disabled person too. And so I think there was like this sense of, I'm going to.

• 48:33Speaker 07

  Like, I am going to live as if the problem is not us, as if the problem is like the world's refusal to include us, or accommodate us, or value us. And I, um, I think as her needs started to emerge, it was like, okay, well, if I can't be proud of and insistent on the, the value and the importance of my own limitations, like, what will that say to her about her limitations? So I think I also just started to like, really work to model someone who is okay with the body and the life that they have been given.

• 49:14Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 07

  Or not ashamed of it.

• 49:16Jonathan Fields?

  Right, and, and it seems like, but it's, it's also beyond that. Like, somebody who is, is a strong advocate for what, what you need and, and I'd probably, I would imagine would argue like are entitled to, as you move into a world that often isn't built to support you.

• 49:38Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I, I mean, I'm, I'm having trouble thinking outside of today. I, um, I got a call from someone at school today that there was an issue. And I could tell that they were not being respectful. I could tell that the person in charge wasn't being respectful. And I felt, like, you said fears, but I felt that part of me that says like, no, this is not acceptable. This is not how we will be treated. And, and this is not what my kid deserves. And I, I just feel so certain

• 50:22Speaker 07

  about how she deserves to be treated and accommodated and respected and absolutely adored for who she is in this world. And that also, I guess this is the big, this is like, what I haven't even really touched on is that the world is better with her in it. Like, it's not only that she deserves this, like, in nature of, of being a person, or her own dignity, or that all people deserve this, but that...

• 50:48Speaker 07

  That if she is not in environments, the environment is worse off. Like her, her joy and her knowledge of animals and the, the way she sings and the, the way she cares about other people's feelings and her jokes and all that. She makes things better. And so it's not only that she deserves it, but that, that other people deserve to have her there too. And I'm like committed to insisting on it and I'm committed to insisting on it for myself too, that I think I make environments better, even with all my needs and limitations and requirements and exhaustion and I think people are better off for having me around.

• 51:30Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. Did you come to that feeling about yourself after you came to that feeling about her?

• 51:36Speaker 07

  Good question. I think in conjunction. Yeah.

• 51:42Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, it's big. It's very, it's a very different thing than saying like, like I'm, I'm entitled. You know, like, um, you know, to, to what quote like others would have available to support them and say like, no, like, like it's not just you needing to dig in and figure out how to support me, but like, I make this world, I make this day, I make this life, I make this moment better by being here. And can we, can we acknowledge that too? I mean, it's, that is a hard thing for any person in any body to show up and own.

• 52:18Speaker 07

  And that I don't need to do things perfectly or ideally, or, I mean, it goes kind of back to this old version of life that I thought the, the good enoughness was like right around the corner. And that wasn't true then and it's, and it's not true now. It just is. But it also plays out practically. Like it's not just conceptually. So the, the medical field, there are very few physically disabled doctors. I mean, the stats are kind of tricky on this, but it's estimated to be less than 2%. 25% of people are physically disabled.

• 52:55Speaker 07

  Medical school residencies should all be more accessible, not only because disabled people deserve to be doctors, but oh my God, can you imagine how medicine would change if disabled people were practicing medicine? Like, can you imagine what would have happened when I started seeing doctors with those symptoms when I was 28? If there were people with fragile bodies in those roles and people who had experienced like a loss of health, making those decisions, doing the research, listening to patients? Like, it, it isn't only that they deserve to be there. It's like this very practical thing that systems are better when there's a variety of bodies and minds involved.

• 53:36Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense. And, and you're right, you know, you've done a substantial amount of research, you know, to sort of like show that within the medical system, the healthcare system, at least in the US, you know, disabled people, people living with disability are, are often treated very differently.

• 53:53Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh, that's wild.

• 53:54Jonathan Fields?

  And somebody who would show up with nearly identical, you know, like quote, uh, symptoms.

• 53:59Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:00Jonathan Fields?

  Take me into this a little bit.

• 54:01Speaker 07

  So there's a doctor at Harvard, Lisa Zoni, and she has studied, uh, disabled people. Well, she's studied a variety of things, but one of her, you know, research subjects is disabled people and cancer. And she's found disabled people are so much less likely to be tested for cancer and treated for cancer because doctors say there is like a reduced, you know, or questionable value of having us treated. Um, like what's the, the point of saving this diminished life? Which I guess it's clear at this point, like I disagree with foundationally. And it's so flawed for a few reasons. One, disabled people are actually very good at cancer treatment because we're so used to fragility and we're so used to complication that when we're treated for cancer, our outcomes

• 54:45Speaker 07

  are fantastic and we're able to ride those waves of treatment. Two, disabled people actually like our lives at far higher rates than anyone would think and at equal to rates as non-disabled people. So it's this philosophical phenomenon called the disability paradox. And so anyway, all that to say, there's this assumption in medicine that being disabled is just as bad as dying and the lived experience of disabled people.

• 55:18Speaker 07

  Does not reflect that. And you have to think that the part of that is because doctors aren't disabled.

• 55:25Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. I mean, it's interesting also, right? Because if you look at, you know, there's a classic U curve of happiness data that shows that, you know, early in your life, you're at the top of the, like, you're really happy when you're in your teens and maybe early twenties. And then it just kind of like drops down the middle. And then later in life, it comes back up when you're in your like sixties often and seventies. And simultaneously, that's also the season that probably the greatest percentage of a population is living with some form of disability. And yet it's reported as being most satisfying, most fulfilled, like, life is often best then. So it's like, it just, like, the assumption just doesn't hold by any data, by any measure.

• 56:09Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh, that's such a good point, and one I've never considered. But of course, I mean, what 70 year old doesn't have some pain or some, some impairment, or, I mean, maybe a couple. But, but you're right, that, but that's when people are happiness. So if we are judging life, you know, there's the question of, do we judge the value of a life based on how satisfied someone is with the life, which I, you know, which I think is a question you think a lot about. But if we're judging it on satisfaction, then that doesn't hold weight. And so then what are we judging on? What are we, you know, what's the, what's the metric?

• 56:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. I mean, it's something that I think about a lot. And I've talked to so many people about it over the years is, you know, like, can you live a good life if you're ill, if you're in pain, if you are like mired in grief or loss, like, can, or is this experience of a good life still available to you? And the answer is yes. You know, it may, you may have to step into it differently, you know, and the way that you, you think about and the things that you sort of like measure that life by become different, sure. But oftentimes, they're more real measures than you had before, you know, and is equally accessible. And often also, you know, you appreciate moments and things that become

• 57:24Jonathan Fields?

  available to you more readily. At least that's been my experience as I sort of like move into later years of my life, too.

• 57:34Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's funny. I forgot about that U curve, but like I, as a forty two year old with two young kids, I'm at like peak dissatisfaction. I think statistically, statistically right now, this is like.

• 57:44Jonathan Fields?

  And you're pretty good, actually. It's like.

• 57:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 57:47Jonathan Fields?

  Can you imagine how awesome it's gonna be when you're seventy?

• 57:50Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh. I think I'm really gonna thrive as a seventy year old. Yeah. But I'm really cut out for that. I, I, and I think it's this sense,

• 58:02Speaker 07

  it's this feeling that life should be a certain amount of good and that we should be able to get it there. It's like this individualism or the like, this kind of, this idea that like our pure willpower can get us what we want. And I think that like destroys us in so many ways. And it, and that's not to say that it's not important to feel powerful. Like, I certainly feel powerful as a person.

• 58:26Speaker 07

  But you have to like, hold that with how little we control. I mean, we just control the tiniest bit ultimately, you know?

• 58:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. But I mean, this goes back to, you know, like what you were mentioning in the beginning of our conversation, this like Buddhist notion of suffering. And that when I first started dropping into Buddhism and, you know, like, I heard this phrase, like, life is suffering. And I'm like, no, because you completely rejected it. I'm like, no. And then, you know, but I've, mine more new, and maybe this is just the overlay that I want to have on it. My, but my sort of like nuance take on that is that the are, we are hired hardwired to want to grasp at everything, control everything and lock down, make life as certain as humanly possible.

• 59:14Jonathan Fields?

  And because that very thing is impossible, like, the only thing I'm certain of is that certainty is impossible and will be for life. That that causes suffering, you know? So if we let go of the grasp of the need for everything to be known all the time, like, it makes sense that there would be a certain amount of suffering that goes with that, that gets let go, like, let go enough. Like, that's not proper English, but that we free our, we free ourselves from, um, when we just say, okay, so you're like, there's some stuff I can control. There's a whole lot that I can control. And what if, you know?

• 59:53Jonathan Fields?

  As the monk said in the final episode of White Lotus this season, there is no resolution.

• 1:00:01Speaker 07

  No, no, there is, yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 07

  There isn't. We're never going to make it there. We're never going to finish the thing we're striving for.

• 1:00:13Speaker 07

  And I mean, we haven't talked about this specifically, but,

• 1:00:19Speaker 07

  but don't you feel like so much of this is about death too? I mean, that's ultimately what it is, right? That we, we want to avoid suffering and we're striving, but also we're just, we just want to do everything we can to convince ourselves that this isn't going to end. I think that has been true for me, at least.

• 1:00:39Jonathan Fields?

  I think it's true for most people. You write in the book, "disabled people spend their lives claiming their power and independence while working to accept life's transience."

• 1:00:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Jonathan Fields?

  And yeah, I mean, I think so much of what we do on a day to day basis is in

• 1:00:59Jonathan Fields?

  the name of a subconscious quest for immortality.

• 1:01:04Speaker 07

  Yes, I think that's so much of it. And I also think it's our fear of disability and why we're so resistant to inclusion and to looking straight at disability, to looking at fragility. Because I think I can be such a like, the reality of my life, the vision of me in a wheelchair of all my needs. I'm just like this, oh, my God, I'm going to die. Like, people just are like, I don't want to look at that because then what else am I seeing? And that all bodies fail, that all bodies are fragile, that we all will have pain, that we all will die. And I, I think there's something in the complete illogic of striving for a good life

• 1:01:47Speaker 07

  while like, but then you have to have the second part, but that you know it's impossible. You know you will die and you know it's all meaningless, like, or fruitless or doomed. And I think that's like where, like, or at least where I encounter magic. And this like, the, the like rage against the dying of the light. This like, I will do everything I can for a completely, a failing mission.

• 1:02:15Jonathan Fields?

  That feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, I always rock with the same question. If I offer up the phrase, "to live a good life," what comes up?

• 1:02:30Speaker 07

  Telling the truth about what you're experiencing and what you're capable of, which is probably not very much.

• 1:02:39Jonathan Fields?

  Thank you.

• 1:02:41Jonathan Fields?

  Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Rebecca Tossig about living creatively and resiliently with physical disability. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube, too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did, because you're still listening here. Do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor. Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome, too.

• 1:03:26Jonathan Fields?

  But just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  State fair food is getting smaller and pricier.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  We'll have room for fried cookies.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Get that more for your money feeling, only on Metro by T-Mobile.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 base on device discount, waived activation fee. Not available if with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

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• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.