Creation Myth, Episode 2: Pregnant

Helena does not want kids. Her husband does. For years they’ve battled it out. Then, while he is on his way back from a surfing trip, she finds out she’s pregnant. What will she tell him? What should she do? She calls her dear friend Joshua for help: he’s wise, he’s a parent, he knows her well. But she doesn’t have a lot of time. Her husband will be home in an hour. This episode was a 2025 Tribeca Official Selection. Hear all episodes of Personally: Creation Myth now, early and ad-free, on CBC Stories Premium on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/channel/cbc-stories/id6443681642.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or Tech in Steps. From GPS-tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  This is a CBC Podcast.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  I was alone when I found out I was pregnant.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  David was on the plane back to Brooklyn. He'd gone surfing in California.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  That was our compromise. If he could spend time in his favorite place, we could live in my favorite place, New York.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  He was due to arrive at JFK any moment. Only an hour and a half before, I'd rolled the test strip in toilet paper and pushed it deep inside the garbage can.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  As soon as David got in the cab, he called me. "I've been in an accident," he said. "Nothing to worry about, but I wanted you to know before you saw me." "What happened?" I asked. He'd been surfing a wave. Suddenly, the water had grabbed his board out from under him, and he fell hard on the pointed part of his board. "Right on my back," he said. "It's not broken or anything, but I can't walk very well."

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I didn't tell him about my situation. I wasn't even sure what to say yet.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  I'm Helena de Chrodt. From CBC's Personally, this is Creation Myth.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I tried to imagine the two of us as parents. It's Sunday morning. David and I are lying in bed. The baby is lying between us, laughing at the sight of their toes. But what about Monday? Would David go to the office, leaving me alone with the childcare? Or would I go to an office? Would David stay home, warming up bottles, changing diapers, washing his clothes when the baby burped on his shoulder? I couldn't quite imagine it, David taking on the housework. He'd never bothered to learn how to cook, and when he vacuumed, he didn't even move the furniture. But I'd seen his instinct to nurture.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  In California, he would often find broken-off bits of succulents on the side of the road and stuff them in his pockets to plant in dirt later. Our first winter in New York, he bought a special lamp for them so that even on the gloomiest of days, they would have light and warmth. That's who he was, a nurturer. But was I? One thing I knew for sure: I did not want to give David false hope. So I needed to sort through my feelings before he got home. I had about an hour.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  When eating a snack and then another didn't help, I decided to call my close friend Joshua. Hello. Hello. Who lived across the country, in LA. So is this morning for you, or is this the end of your night?

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is a reasonable question. It is.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I'd met Joshua at a time when I was still pretty miserable. Dave and I had not moved to New York yet. I had not found my way back to producing podcasts. What I was doing instead was make buckets of pickled onions and chop squash and serve customers and clean the restaurant top to bottom for 50 cents above minimum wage.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  It was there while working the counter that I met Joshua. He came in to eat every single day. And instead of telling me the full story of his dietary restrictions or the amazing retreat in Peru he'd just come back from, Joshua mentioned that he'd been practicing the accordion. He was a musician, and I'd grown up in a family of musicians. Music felt like home.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Soon, we were playing the piano for each other, going for hikes early in the morning. When David and I finally moved to New York, my friendship with Joshua happened almost entirely over the phone. Do you remember when I told you I was pregnant?

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, I remember where I was. And yeah, I remember.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Where were you?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  I was pacing in my bedroom, as usual, on the phone. Except for right now, because I'm in front of a microphone.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  I wouldn't dare pace. The quality of the tape is at stake.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  No, I was pacing, and I was in my room doing laundry on the bed. And that's where I was when you told me.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Joshua was one of those friends who was always trying to talk me into having kids. It didn't annoy me, though, not really, because Joshua had a light touch. He didn't moralize or thunder on about how I would certainly regret it. He just talked about the good stuff, probably because becoming a dad had been good for him.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  It was really a magical and transformative experience for me.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  His path to becoming a dad had definitely not been straightforward. At 15, he decided to drop out of school and join his brother's band as their accordionist. And together, they drove around the country, living in a beat-up bus, and played whatever would make them money on the street: country, jazz, klezmer, Balkan.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I definitely wasn't planning on having kids. And I thought probably I wouldn't have any in my life.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Then, when he was 22, he got someone pregnant. But how was he gonna raise a child? His income as a street musician, without a high school diploma, didn't exactly scream stability. He didn't even have a fixed place to live.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  And so I did go through a sort of self-reflection.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Hey, Mortimer.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  Hey, Dad.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  What's up?

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Frankie, is there anybody that can bring me to volleyball?

• 7:42Speaker 03

  I don't think you can get to volleyball today, because I have to go to work. Is there any way I could ask to be alone in here for like the next little while?

• 7:54Speaker 04

  I'll just sit in there.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Just because I'm doing a podcast interview. I mean, I'm actually on the phone at the moment.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  Excuse me.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Good morning.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Good morning.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  I love you.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Will you take Frankie with you, too? Bye, Frankie.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  Frankie, come on.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  You can leave it open.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Perfect timing.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Perfect. Oh, couldn't have planned it better. That's so sweet.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  I feel a little guilty, though, about sending your dear son out of the house because of my podcast.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  No, it's fine. So, okay, so, yeah, I mean, I did, speaking of which, I did think about, you know, killing his fetus at the time.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Do you have to say it like that?

• 8:42Speaker 03

  I did think, I mean, I did. I considered it, you know? But I sort of realized, like, well, I'm not doing anything so important that I need to, you know, like, not try this. Because it's like, what's so amazing about my life right now that I can't sacrifice things for this, you know?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  It made me think about my own life. What was I doing that was so important? Besides, I had made a decision a long time ago that if I ever got pregnant, I would not abort. I wasn't sure why. I donated to Planned Parenthood. I even had a favorite reproductive rights journalist. But for myself, I wasn't sure.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  I didn't want to go against fate. But I didn't believe in fate. I believed in love. Love was the best thing about being alive, and I had room for more. Plus, I was healthy. David was a good man. I didn't want to be a mother. But once the life was there, how could I snuff it out?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  And maybe I would come to love being a parent.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  What was the moment that you realized, oh, this is magic?

• 10:05Speaker 03

  You know, he's born.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  And there's this tiny little baby. And he's still kind of an alien creature looking, covered in blood and placenta and all kinds of stuff. And then, you know, we put him on his mom's chest. And they have a moment, you know, or a long, long time together. And then at some point, it's my turn. And I put him inside my T-shirt. And I stick his little head like up through the neck. And so he's, he's holding my chest. And then his little head is kind of like crooked in my neck. Like, I just felt completely overwhelmed with,

• 10:52Speaker 03

  I mean, love is not, it's like the potential for self-sacrifice. You know, like this immediate thought, like, I will take a bullet for this kid, no problem.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  So to answer your question, it was quite magical from, you know, within half an hour of birth. Also, a lot of my existential dread about life and what's my purpose in life? What am I doing? And how do I spend my time? And why do I waste time? And a lot of that stuff flew out the window, you know? I quickly, I was like, oh, I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm raising a kid. And everything I do, even if I'm watching a movie, if I'm watching with him,

• 11:48Speaker 03

  everything becomes meaningful and infused with purpose.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Whenever someone talked about purpose, I felt a shame well up inside me. I didn't even know for sure what having a purpose felt like. The existential dread Joshua talked about, that I knew. I remember it even as a first grader on the playground, looking up at the sky. It was so wide, so deep. You couldn't even tell if it went on for meters or light years. But instead of feeling awe or wonder, all I remembered feeling was small. Every single one of us was small, like ants you could squash without thinking.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  That's what our lives were like, no more important than bugs. That was me in the first grade. These days, I was mostly relieved I could live a small life. I'd cook breakfast, make my podcasts, repot a plant. And I could be happy, of course. I liked the feeling of flow when I was editing. And when I interviewed someone, I could feel a kind of love, not just for this one person, but for the whole of humanity, that filled me with light.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  But however much I enjoyed what I did for a living, it was just work. And as I kept reading on the internet, work doesn't love you back. A child did. And how? Because friends with kids would tell me. I come home after a day at the office, rigid with stress, and then I see that little face and it all just melts away. That's the purpose I longed for. A purpose so loud and clear, it tuned out everything else. Was that even possible without becoming a parent?

• 14:07Speaker 00

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised. And studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS-tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Hi, I just had to tell you that I think your podcast has changed my life.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  Season one of Sold a Story hit a nerve. It was about teaching kids to read. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. Now we're back with a new season. This time, we go beyond reading.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  I've literally been told by my district that I should not be teaching math. I should be facilitating math.

• 15:24Speaker 06

  I'm Emily Hanford. Go to your podcast app and follow Sold a Story.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Was there anything in particular about me that made you think, oh, but you should be a mom?

• 15:41Speaker 03

  I knew that your husband really wanted kids.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  And I knew that for me, in my experience, he was right.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  You know, that probably you would come around and just go with it because he clearly is reliable. He's a, he's a good person and he's going to be a great dad. And if you can just get over this kind of like fear,

• 16:13Speaker 03

  you'll have fun and you'll, it'll be transformative. You know, like I wanted a little bit to push you off the cliff, you know, with the bungee tied to you.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  You really had a hold on me, you know, like you were my friend. You had no real stake in this.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  You had my best interests at heart. And especially, you know, what made it really influential, you know, the things he said is that like, there was just a way in which you convinced me that there is no greater love than the love that you feel for your child. That in a way you'll never understand love truly, fully until you become a parent.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  I mean, okay, I'll just qualify it slightly.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  It's not exactly that you can't understand love if you don't have a kid. I don't want to say that.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  But it is a very different and very powerful kind of love that you will not get to know. You know? And I try to live by the idea that what sort of like whatever's the more adventurous option, you should just take it.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  When I think about having kids, to me, that doesn't feel adventurous. To me, it feels like it's something you have to do because society agrees you have to do it. And it's just like having a lawn that you mow on Saturday or whatever, you know? Like, it just feels to me like one of those things. So the way that you put it now, of course, I can see that. Like, of course, I can see that this whole set of new experiences that are unimaginable when you're not a parent. Of course, they are adventurous.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So that in that sense, it felt like go for the new thing.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  You know, go for the expanding.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  And I just know, I know that you're resilient and brilliant enough to like, find why it's amazing.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  You know, that it's not like you're, you're a closed off person or that you're so, you know? It's like, like of all my friends, like you're gonna be a great mom. Like, you're gonna totally get it.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  You know, you're doing it again. I feel like you're, you're sort of moving the needle inside me. God damn it, Joshua.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Joshua had a knack for bringing out the part of me that dared to dream. He couldn't remember this, but on the phone that day, when I told him I was pregnant, he even got me thinking about names. We were doing like rhythms and stuff and, you know, since David's last name has like two symbols. You were like, it needs to be three syllables. So something like Eleanor, right?

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, yeah, because I like that. And I named my kid for. I like the sound of that.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  But you were actually pregnant and excited.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  I was kind of excited. I mean, there was, you know, I was just feeling so different in my body. Like, this is really so retro and I feel a little bit bad for saying it. But all of a sudden, I felt like such a woman. I always wear pants, you know, like that's just my preferred mode, you know? But all of a sudden, I just was like, I need dresses. I need skirts, like I need something to sort of whirl around me as I walk, you know?

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  And I remember also feeling so peaceful and sort of uncharacteristically optimistic, I would say. Like, I don't, I'm not exactly an optimist, you know? And so just this feeling of calm and of like, yeah, everything will be okay. I really felt that in my body.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I just felt like I was flowing in a new way, you know? Like, the air around me somehow was holding me up.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  And things were just not that complicated.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  It's beautiful.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  This is the person David came home to when he got back from Costa Rica. When I heard his key in the lock, I rushed over to help my dear injured husband with his suitcase. He came in looking tanned, tired, and grimacing as he shuffled in. He couldn't really sit or get back up, so we stood there, unsure of our movements, but excited, like two people flirting at the company party. After a little bit, we did move to the kitchen table. And I supported him while he inched closer and closer down until we sat on chairs. And his face turned serious. While he was in the cab on the way from the airport,

• 21:28Speaker 02

  he'd gotten a phone call from his mom.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  His sister had died that night.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  She'd been ill for over a decade with cancer that had radiated out from her bones and into her brain. She had been suffering so much. So we knew that this was coming, but it was still a shock when it did.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  This was hardly the moment to tell David that I was pregnant. At the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something almost cosmically, painfully beautiful about what had happened, one life ending as another was starting. So I told him.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  I just, he was beaming. So like, on the day that his sister had died, he just, all of a sudden, was like radiating joy. His eyes lit up and he was just, he had his hand in front of his mouth to like hide his big smile, you know? That's how much he was.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Glowing.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Immediately transformed, you know? Yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Wow, wow.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  I mean, he was saying all the right things, you know? He was like, "Your body, your choice," and all that, like, modern man stuff. But that made me think, wow, like, how can I deny this man a joy so deep, you know?

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  That night, we talked about how tightly intertwined everything in the universe seemed. And I fell asleep feeling life clearly had a wisdom that was bigger than me.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  The next day, we took a plane to California to see David's family and help with the funeral. The first week was beautiful. We ate and talked and mourned together. And David and I were careful not to show that underneath the sadness, we felt joy.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  But the second week, that thick layer of contentment and bliss I had felt started thinning. In this California suburb where you couldn't bike or walk anywhere, I was reminded of my years living here, feeling trapped and angry.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  And what didn't help was being around David's mother, a person whose vengeful political views were all the more puzzling because she'd never wanted for anything. She was a wealthy, white woman in America and spent her days looking at the palm trees and birds of paradise the gardeners maintained for her.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  And it just made me realize, like, oh, if we have this child, we would at least have to share time in California. And...

• 24:20Speaker 02

  And this person that I don't love would be the grandmother, and she would want to influence this kid and like, ugh, you know?

• 24:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  And I just felt like trapped.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  This feeling of being trapped started in my body,

• 24:36Speaker 02

  as if my body was no longer mine, me, a person, but a mere sack of fluids there to feed this raisin-sized being. And this raisin would only grow into a peach, a pineapple, and then a seven-pound baby. And this baby would tear up my body coming out and then tear up my life, forming a new center of gravity that pulled everything else with it, driven by the force of this new being's constant need, need, need. I was sitting on the floor of my mother-in-law's wall-to-wall plush cream carpet, the kind of carpet that dampens every sound. And I could imagine screaming, my screams immediately being absorbed, disappeared. How had I always been so sure

• 25:22Speaker 02

  that if I were to become pregnant, I would not abort? What was that certainty even based on? An inflated sense of my own morality? A pretend spirituality, a desire to be profound? Would I really force myself to become a mom? Not out of love, but out of principle?

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Suddenly, as clear as you hear my voice now, I could hear my own voice.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  I did not, had never wanted to be, a mom.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  I went to the website of the Planned Parenthood in New York and booked the first available appointment two weeks later.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Then I told David.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  I don't want to pretend to know what he felt in that moment. All he did was hold me. Then he booked my plane ticket for me and drove me to the airport. He would be such a good dad.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Back home in Brooklyn, I dropped off my bags and went for a walk in the neighborhood. The weather was gorgeous.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  I passed the little playground in the street next to ours.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Little kids with colorful outfits were running around, coming down slides two or three at a time, climbing on hanging bridges one foot above the ground. The parents sat on benches, talking to each other, dozing in the sun. I thought about this neighborhood, the main branch of the public library, the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanical Garden, all within walking distance from our apartment. I thought about the subway and those savvy little New York kids swimming through the crowds, ducking underneath the turnstiles, onto the correct platform, comfortable like fish. My heart blossomed. I knew how to raise a kid in the city.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  I was raised in a city. I still didn't want to be a mother, not really. But if David wanted it so bad, I might be able to make it work. And this place, where I felt most like myself, would give me the strength to do it.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  I called David and I told him, "Let's do it, but we need to live in Brooklyn." His first question was, "And how many months out of the year would we spend in California?" I was thinking of school vacations. I also wanted to have time to go visit my own family in Belgium. One month, one and a half?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  David was silent. Then he said, "I think I need at least four."

• 28:28Speaker 02

  It was the start of a long conversation. For the next two weeks, each night, we would call each other and talk.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  David was coming up with the most elaborate schemes to spend time with his beloved ocean. "We could live on a boat for a few years and homeschool." A boat homeschool? I felt trapped as it was.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  We kept talking, getting nowhere. And at 1:00 AM, the night before my appointment at Planned Parenthood, David still hadn't said he could live in Brooklyn. If I didn't want a kid, not really, and he didn't want to have a kid enough to give up living in California, how could we have one? The next morning, I went to the clinic. While I was sitting in the waiting room, David was blowing up my phone. But my phone was already stored away in a locker downstairs. So, yeah, that's when I had the abortion.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think I called you that day.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  You did. Yeah, that's the conversation that really sticks in my mind. And I felt like the conversation after the abortion was a more genuine, less hormonal influenced, you know, less of that drug just coursing through your veins and maybe more of who you really, you know, you really are in a deeper sense. And that was very profound for me, as your friend, to sense that the you who got the abortion was the genuine you.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  And like, I think the thing that struck me the most was how deeply relieved you were.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  And that, that was not how I would have felt. And so it was, it was a foreign experience to me. But I felt that I really did feel the relief. And that's really when I realized, like, oh, you shouldn't have kids. Like, your purpose on the, on earth doesn't involve having children.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  I remember you saying that. And I can't tell you how happy that made me, and it still does. But I was nervous to call you to say that I'd had an abortion for a couple of reasons. You know, like, first, I knew that you wanted me to have kids.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  But second, it had to do with religion.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  You know, you're Orthodox Jewish and not Reformed Orthodox, but like, old-school Orthodox. And I didn't know what that meant for your position on abortion. And so I didn't know, and I was really nervous. Like, I was afraid that you would judge me.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I, well, first of all, my inclination to encourage you to have kids was never to do with religion.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  And I guess I should clarify for the record that my version of engagement with orthodoxy is pretty weird, you know, not particularly dogmatic, I suppose. I mean, I do take halacha seriously in my life, I guess. Like, Jewish law is something that I find to be a useful practice and a humbling practice for me. And I would never think that it's right for someone else, you know? So I...

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that it's it's sweet to me that you were worried about it like, oh, maybe he'll be so just like religiously, but but also like, I don't know, that's not a good friend like a good friend doesn't put their religion in front of the friendship.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  I know, I know, I know. I just didn't know if somewhere in your soul, you would be disappointed with me and I didn't even want that or that I had just sort of fallen from my standing as like a person you felt equal to or something, you know?

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, no. It was honestly a transformative experience for me. So I'm grateful. I gained in empathy for people who really don't want children.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  It's like, um, it's not their purpose.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  What do you think is my purpose?

• 34:10Speaker 03

  So I generally think that the point of life, at least for me, is to try and be aware of the sublime in everyday boring reality. Even the grocery store or a garbage with plastic,

• 34:33Speaker 03

  that's all of our purpose. But I think personally more for you, just in my sense as your, you know, your friend, it seems like a particular version of that. It's like finding the sublime in people in relationship, um, the connection between you and the person you're interviewing or you're speaking to or that you're in relationship with or that your neighbors with

• 35:09Speaker 03

  is a divine relationship. And so to me, that feels like a very legitimate purpose.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  I'm wondering if it's okay if I stop recording and stay on the phone with you, but get ready for work. Or should we?

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Oh, well, then let's just let's just finish it because if we say something interesting and it stopped recording, I'm gonna hate myself, so.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks for having me. I hope it works out.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  After Joshua and I hung up, I went for a walk. I passed the same playground that at once made me believe for a second I might be able to have a kid. It was Friday around noon and sunny. A pair of kids with cute hairstyles and matching outfits were squirting each other with a water gun. Next to the playground, a man in a white tank top was cleaning his car, blasting the kind of music that would not be kid appropriate if only the kids could understand the words. On the other side of the street, an elderly lady sat on the top of the stairs leading up to her home

• 36:25Speaker 02

  between her flower pots, looking at the summer day scene. I felt my breath deepen, my gaze soften. Was this what Joshua meant with this sublime?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  As I kept walking, the sounds of happy kids' voices followed me down the block. Then I turned the corner.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  What I didn't know then was that my life was about to fall apart.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Creation Myth is written, produced, hosted, and sound designed by me, Helena de Groot. My story editor and senior producer is Veronica Simmons.

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  Editorial sound design support by Brendan Baker, who also mixed and mastered the episode. Special thanks to my friend Joshua Kaufman for talking to me about purpose at an ungodly early hour. The team behind Creation Myth further includes Anna Ashite, who is our coordinating producer. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Noorani is the director and Leslie Merklinger is the executive director of CBC Podcasts. This project was made possible with the support of VPM Media Corporation. I'll be back next week with a new episode. But while you're waiting, you can listen to another show on Personally. Sorry About the Kid,

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  about a 14-year-old boy, Paul, who was killed by a speeding police car. His younger brother, Alex, had always worshipped Paul. But after his death, Alex almost immediately started to forget him. So he asked his family and friends to help him piece together what happened and who his brother was. I saw his reflection in the mirror as he was combing his hair. And then he said, "Bye, ma," and left for school. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening. And if you want to binge the whole series ad-free,

• 38:45Speaker 02

  you can subscribe to our CBC Stories Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click the link in the show description.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.