The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heartsick.
The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears.
I'm Steve Allman.
I'm Cheryl Strayed.
This is Dear Sugars.
Oh dear song, won't you please Share some little sweet Hi, Cheryl.
Hey, Steve.
I have to confess that I've been really vicariously following your gallivanting about the globe.
Yes, I am a believer in doing the things you say you want to do, setting your intentions and following through with them.
And for the longest time my husband and I have been saying that we want to pull our kids out of school and go travel.
And so we did.
We went to New Zealand and Nepal.
And Tanzania and Kenya and Qatar and Portugal.
And it was really fun.
Life-changing.
Life-changing in that deep way that travel can be.
It wasn't a vacation.
It was a trip.
And it was a great way for me to end one year and begin another.
I know a lot of people...
Kind of are like oh, I don't do resolutions and I don't really, you know, set reset myself at the mark of the new year.
But I'm not one of those people.
I love the new year because it makes me reflect upon what's past and and think about what's coming ahead.
I will be honest.
I spent those two months that you were traveling to all those places working very hard on not being bitter about the fact that you were going to all those amazing places and sharing these beautiful photos and stories.
And I am of the belief that if you sort of set aside particular times to reflect, then you kind of make it something that's not part of your daily practice or your daily way of moving through the world.
But that's me being a contrarian.
You know, I think, though, that it's not arbitrary.
I really think about when we think about the rhythms of the planet Earth.
You know, it's no coincidence that at this time that our new year begins and our old year ends is during the days where we have the least light.
And those short days and long nights are about contemplation and reflection and and renewal, really imagining what will blossom when the light returns.
Well now, once again, I am left in a state of wonder and awe at how you spun my febrile little argument into a kind of grinchy miasma of unawareness.
Oh, Steve.
But...
What I will say is that what we're going to do, and I'm super excited to do this.
We're lucky enough to get to do update episodes, which I don't know about you Cheryl, but this is like my favorite kind of episode to do, because we view this to be a conversation with all of our letter writers and users.
You know there's that feeling when we engage deeply with somebody's struggle and then you know the episode's done and we're on to the next one.
And I'm left feeling like, hey, what happened?
Yeah.
What's the rest of the story?
Did they hear the episode?
Did that have an impact?
So that's what we're going to do in not just one episode, but two episodes.
We're going to be revisiting some old letters and getting some new updates and talking to a couple of letter writers.
Woo hoo. which is always exciting.
And one of the things that I'm always struck by every year when I do my own personal kind of looking at where I am, is it's hardly ever a different question or a different struggle I'm having.
Some of the things I thought about this year are things that I thought about last year and 10 years ago and 20 years ago.
We never really escape who it is we are.
And I think we're going to see this particularly today in the letters we're going to discuss about the nature of change, which is it's in most cases, a long term endeavor.
Right.
Yeah, let's start with a letter from a young man who called himself struggling.
This was a letter that we answered back in October.
It was the episode that was called.
This was Cheryl's brilliant idea.
You must change your life.
From the beautiful Rilke poem.
And we talked with the amazing author Mitchell Jackson.
The letter was from a 17-year-old guy.
He couldn't stop smoking pot.
His mom had threatened to kick him out of the house.
He He had big dreams to leave his small town, but he could not stop getting in trouble.
And he asked us basically, how do I get on the right path to set me up for this amazing future that I have in my head but can't make happen in my life?
To me.
That was such an interesting question because you know, we just get all of these letters and we really think about you.
Know, what do we want to delve into on the show?
What ground haven't we covered?
And, of course, in every episode.
In some ways we're trying to help people get set on the right path.
But we'd never really looked at this issue in that kind of larger way, like this very kind of general.
I'm screwing up, and how do I not screw up?
And what better letter writer to address this question to than a 17 year old?
You know, I don't think any of us at 17 felt like necessarily we were on exactly the right path.
I certainly didn't.
Did you, Steve?
No, I think actually at 17, if you feel that you're on the right path, it's a trap.
I believe that our childhood experience and our adolescent experience is so intense, so tumultuous.
I feel like being an adolescent.
It's almost like you could lay the softest fingertip on a 13-year-old and they would experience it as an earthquake.
They're so exquisitely sensitive to things.
And I think that struggling was right in the thick of it.
Will you read the letter we got from Struggling in response to our advice?
Sure.
That's good news, right, Cheryl?
Yeah.
That's why I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I haven't been doing super great at getting my life together.
About a month after your response aired, my mom caught me smoking weed and I was actually kicked out for a while.
I lived in a trailer park and my life was pretty wild while I was living there.
I was able to get to work and continue to hold my job, but I was dropped from my school classes due to inactivity.
I was basically a high school dropout on my way to completely screwing over my future.
But oddly enough, when I wasn't living with her, my mom and I got along better than we have in a long time.
I think she just needed to realize that I'm figuring things out on my own and I'm old enough to where I need to learn certain things without her help.
Since then I've moved back in, but I'm currently looking at other places and I was able to spend the holidays with my family.
I went to my school and got re-enrolled into the last few classes I need to graduate.
I still have my job and am currently working full-time.
I know that my reality isn't super great right now, but I don't think I'm completely screwed either.
My family still loves me endlessly and I have a lot going for me.
I don't regret anything that has led up to this point.
I learned a lot in this past month and a half that has matured me and made me realize I have a lot to learn before I can truly call myself an adult.
While it might seem like I didn't really listen to your advice which might be true given everything that's transpired in the past two months I would like to speak on it by saying it gave me so much to think about.
Getting away from everything by moving away doesn't exactly solve everything.
In a weird way, your troubles have this way of following you wherever you go."
It made me realize that, in order to achieve my ambitions and dreams, I have to play the cards that have been dealt to me.
And not only that, I have to be smart about it.
There's a million ways I could really screw up my life, but there's a number of ways I can do things right.
I have every intention of doing what I dream of doing.
I'd like to end this email by responding to what Steve asked me to do in the episode write another letter about my dreams and goals.
And he did.
I can't tell you, Steve, how much I love that he did the homework.
He did the homework.
Steve, will you read the letter he wrote?
Dear Sugars, I'm a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, age 17.
I have a lot of big dreams and goals that I want to achieve.
My biggest goal in life is to give back and change lives.
I want to do this by helping people through hard times similar to those I've experienced myself.
I'm going to graduate high school and pursue a degree in social work.
The ultimate goal is to get my master's with a minor in psychology.
I want to start by working in treatment centers.
And as my career advances, I want to become a therapist.
All I want in life is to make sure people know they're not alone in what they're going through.
I know I have a lot of work to put in before I get there, but I know it'll be worth it in the end.
Thanks so much for your advice, and just know that I'll always carry that wisdom with me.
Sincerely, struggling, but hopeful.
Hopeful.
Struggling but hopeful.
You really touched my heart.
I can't tell you how much your response to our advice, and then the second letter you wrote to us, means to me.
Yeah.
I mean some of these lines in a weird way.
Your troubles have this way of following you wherever you go.
That might have been lifted directly out of Catcher in the Rye.
Right.
And it's not weird.
It's the thing we every human comes to realize that at some point.
And the fact that struggling but hopeful is realized by 17 is going to be helpful to him.
I beg to differ.
I always say to writing students what Kurt Vonnegut said.
You know my hero, Kurt Vonnegut, you're going to be writing about your family for the rest of your life.
Struggling, but hopefully you're really a reliable narrator.
You know that things aren't perfect right now.
You know that not everything is ideal.
But in the big picture...
The fact that you're able to step back and forgive yourself for some of the missteps you know, and I think this idea of letting go of regret and saying you know what, everything that happened living in the trailer park, getting kicked out of the house all of that was necessary.
It's all a part of what makes you who you are.
It really makes me hopeful, struggling, but hopeful that you are going to get where you want to go.
Steve, I think what you said about forgiveness and the way that it's connected to being gentle with oneself is really a key point.
And perhaps no letter.
Really, when I think about all the letters we've received, the one that comes to mind the most strongly in connection to that notion of being gentle with yourself or forgiving of yourself is is the letters we addressed on this episode we did back in 2015.
Two mothers had written to us to say really pretty adamantly, I hate motherhood.
I love my child or children, but I am – this motherhood thing is not for me.
They were voicing something that really, really – mothers are not really allowed to voice in this culture –.
And so what do we do with these letters, when these women are saying I do fiercely love my kids, but I don't really want to be a mom?
This is harder than I thought it would be.
Yeah.
In fact, the letter that really rattled both of us.
This was a woman who called herself the bad mom.
And, you know, like struggling, she felt stuck in a situation from which she could not escape.
She'd had two years of infertility, so she'd struggled to have a child.
She finally had children through IVF and she died. told us she hated being with her kids.
She read dozens of books, she took all the parenting classes, but she really simply could not bear the demands of her children and the total lack of personal space.
Part of the reason that this letter really stuck with me is because and Cheryl, I know you feel the same way this is where we live.
When you have kids in the house, especially more than one bad mom had two and especially when they're young, as they were when she wrote us this letter, it really can feel physically overwhelming, as if you simply don't even have possession of your body.
It's the property of your children.
The way she wrote about this was so beautiful and striking.
Cheryl, would you read a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, she's a really good writer.
And also, man, I just was like, yes, I understand.
As a mom, this is my life.
She wrote If my nipples so much as touch the air for a nanosecond, they get pulled instantly into someone's mouth for nursing.
Oh, my gosh.
My kids are 18 months apart.
So, oh, honey, bad mom.
I so relate.
I can't sit down for one second without both kids fighting over me, climbing on me inadvertently, punching me in the eye, the breast, the gut.
There are moments when I have to pull them off me like leeches and run to another room for a hair's breadth of freedom.
You know, I love this likening her kids to leeches.
Man.
You know the way she captures so vividly what it.
You know the dark side of what it feels like to be a mom.
And the thing is about that, about being a mom and a dad, but especially a mom in our culture is how do you get it to stop?
You are not allowed to.
Because you're a mom forever.
And that was the heart of what she wrote to us about.
She said, Short of running away or killing myself, I'm stuck being a parent.
And that's what touched a nerve.
A lot of our listeners wrote to us and really by way of saying, hey, I've been there, bad mom.
I know how you feel.
And this too shall pass.
And that was really kind of the heart of the advice we gave her.
Is we, along with our guest Lois Nakame, really just said you know, it's okay?
You don't have to be a perfect mom.
Forgive yourself.
Yes, sometimes we yell at our kids and say things that we regret.
That's part of teaching them how to function too is to make amends.
Yes.
So we're going to go to break now, but when we come back, we're going to talk to Bad Mom.
We're going to give her a call and see how her advice landed and what's happening in her life and her children's lives now.
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Hello?
Hi Amber.
Hi Cheryl.
Thank you so much for talking to us.
Steve's on the line too.
Hi Amber.
Hi, Steve.
Hi.
It's kind of surreal talking to you guys.
I feel like it's like when my daughter went to Disneyland and met Elsa and Anna.
It's weird that you guys are real people.
Yeah, well, I'm actually wearing an Elsa costume as we speak.
I'm going to visualize that whenever we're talking.
So you wrote to us back in 2015.
You called yourself Bad Mom.
You're not a bad mom.
We told you that.
Your name is Amber.
Is that right?
That is right, yes.
And how old are your kids now?
My daughter is almost seven and my son is four and a few months.
Great.
So we were talking about you a bit before we gave you a call.
We were really kind of recapping, first of all, that fabulous letter you wrote us that we all hope you turn into a novel or a screenplay or something, because you're such a brilliant writer.
And laughing at the way you express so vividly and precisely and articulately that feeling of being a mom and having everyone like gnawing on you and sucking on you and sitting on you and doing everything on you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Your body is not your own anymore, or at least in that phase, right?
It's not.
And it feels like it's going to be forever that it's not.
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
I had to reread that letter and see, gosh, where was I when I said that?
Yeah, because a lot has changed since then, gladly.
Maybe take us back and tell us.
You know what was it like listening to that episode, with your letter on it and our advice and our discussion we had about your letter and what's happened since then.
Yeah.
So I mean it's funny, because when I wrote the letter I never had any anticipation of you guys reading it.
I just I kept thinking, you know they deal with these really, you know life-threatening situations and this is, you know, such a kind of mundane thing.
And And so I was really shocked, first of all, that you had actually read my letter on your show.
And I remember I was sitting in a rocking chair rocking my then what?
He was probably two years old.
Two year old to nap, because he wouldn't nap unless I was holding him the whole time.
So it's rocking him to sleep.
And I was listening on headphones to your podcast and I was just sobbing.
And I remember, of course, feeling like so much shame and rage and, you know, a little bit of pride like Oh, they read my letter.
But just, I guess it was like the word that it was, the word taboo is used.
And I remember thinking, just feeling a lot of shame with that.
Like I was, I was like, Oh my God, you know, I I'm, I'm sort of the bad one.
I'm the wrong one, you know?
And I knew that obviously when I was writing a letter, I wouldn't have called myself the bad mom.
But it suddenly felt like I was in this really really, really teeny minority and And I guess my hope had been that, you know, when you read the letters it was like oh, everyone feels like this.
So that was, you know, I just kind of had to overcome that shame.
But there was something that one of you said I think it may have been you Cheryl said something about the relationship, you know, between me and my children.
And that, it didn't hit me right away.
But, you know, obviously, I listened to the podcast a few times over.
And a couple of weeks later it suddenly landed with me.
I was like, Oh my God.
Yeah.
My trying to be this perfect parent and failing, and then being consumed with guilt and anger at myself for all the ways that I fail or fall short.
That's getting in the way of the relationship that I have with my children.
And in some regards it enabled me to then go, Oh wow.
Like.
So if I mess up and don't do the perfect mom thing um, I can just sort of apologize and say I'm sorry.
And let go of that whole phase of being angry and guilty and, you know, beating myself up, because that's not serving anybody.
And it's certainly not serving the relationship that I have with my children.
So I see that as like that was a catalyst, that moment when you guys read my letter and it really kind of pushed me into healing and into, you know, changing my perspective.
Hmm.
That's wonderful.
I think that you had written in your letter right about really wanting to be a mom.
And then you know, reading all about it and having all these ideas about what being a mother would be.
It's kind of like the whole romantic fairy tale thing.
You know, we all think it's like going to be this kind of Prince Charming scenario.
And then you actually have real relationships.
And I think a similar thing can happen when it what actually happens in the nitty gritty of a day with kids.
Oh, totally.
You know I loved kids from, like you know, the age of four.
I was a.
You know I started babysitting, I think, at age 10.
It was never a question that I was going to be a mom like I.
Just I've always loved kids.
I've always been told I was good with kids.
You know, it was always this thing for me and I have no idea how I got through life without anyone ever telling me what it was really like.
I don't know if I just missed that memo or that class in school or something, but it was such a shock to me what it was really like.
And I just found it so, I found I just didn't have the tools.
And so I was clamoring, like reading all these books, taking all these classes.
And you know the part of the country that I live in Progressive parenting is a very popular thing and it's almost like a competitive sport or something here.
I mean, everyone is taking so many classes and reading so many books and trying to be the most kind of progressive and emotionally empathetic parent that they can be.
And I definitely got swept up into that, and I was so worried about failing my kids.
I mean, as a parent, the stakes feel so incredibly high.
You're like, if I mess this up, they're going to be ruined forever.
I had to kind of get myself off that train where I was like okay, you know what.
It's fine if I talk to my kids, maybe in not the most progressive, respectful parenting way, all the time.
It's fine if I snap at them sometimes or I give them more sugar than I want or they watch more TV than I want.
You know, because what matters, as I was saying earlier, as you brought up, was the relationship that I have with them.
You know, that's ultimately the thing that I'm hoping now is going to really, you know, make them into happy, healthy human beings.
And will give us a good relationship.
And I started seeing this new therapist and um, I was talking about my own childhood and some things that had happened.
And he stopped me at one point and he said you do know that that stuff that you're telling me, if you were one of my child clients, that's mandatory reporting stuff to CPS.
And I was like, what?
Um, and I always knew that my childhood was kind of messed up and crazy and not traditional.
But I never really understood how abusive it was until I started working with this therapist who really specializes in childhood trauma.
And from understanding that and understanding what my childhood was actually like, I was able to kind of reframe myself as well, rather than always looking at myself as a failure and never being good enough.
I was suddenly able to look at myself more as a survivor I guess, for lack of a better word but more as like oh wow, I came from this really kind of crappy thing.
And look where I got to.
So it's actually kind of great.
I may not be like the best in the world, but I'm I'm doing OK.
You know, right.
Amber, I wonder is there a particular moment or anecdote you could share with us that lets us see a window into how you think about things now as a mom, versus when you wrote us that first letter?
Gosh, that's a hard one.
Yeah, I think the thing that came to my mind is it was a week ago.
I sort of snapped a bit at my daughter, my kids maybe they were fighting and I yelled a bit at them.
And then afterwards I apologized and I said, gosh, I'm sorry.
You know, I'm sorry that I yelled there.
I could have handled that differently, but I was just really worried because you were hitting each other with that stick.
And my daughter said, you know, mom, you always do that.
You always yell and then say you're sorry.
And, you know, why don't you just not yell at all?
And I think that you know, a couple of years ago, had she said that, I would have been really consumed with guilt and just been like, oh God, I'm so horrible.
You know, yeah, that's so I mean, you know, because she's right.
Right.
You know, I should just not yell.
But the truth is, I can't.
That's not who I am.
And I'm doing my best to not ever yell.
But sometimes I slip up and I yell.
And, and I just remember, in the moment, instead of beating myself up, I just kind of thought oh, my daughter's really smart.
And I said to her, I said, you know, honey, that would be great if I could.
I'm doing my best.
And you know people mess up sometimes and you know you have to forgive yourself and you have to forgive other people.
And so that's really different.
Yeah, that's so hugely important.
Well, I think too, there's something about modeling that, like we always talk about modeling behavior.
Right.
And and we almost always mean like good behavior.
Like I want to be a model for my kids and show them how to respect others, or how to be kind to others, or how to do this, that or the other thing.
But what I've come to know as a parent is that it's really important, I think, to model conflict, to model difficult things, to model anger and rage, and to model apology and forgiveness and all of that kind of stuff that we forget about when we talk about the models we are for our kids.
My husband and I sometimes argue in front of the kids.
I know some family cultures where they say oh, my parents never once argued in front of us, but they were miserable for 40 years.
And I would much rather have a family where the people are, And so we all know that we are impatient sometimes and that we all have a breaking point.
And I think it's really powerful to show your kids how you manage those points.
Yeah, kids are truth serum.
And not only that, they are a polygraph machine.
They understand when you're being dishonest, in fact, the more honest we can be with them about our feelings.
That's kind of the ultimate modeling that you do for your kids.
Mom does not want you on her body.
Kid can deal with that data.
What they can't deal with is mom internalizing that sense of frustration, you know, trying to tamp it down, and it suddenly exploding in a very chaotic way.
I think kids know the truth.
And the more that we can be honest with them about that, they really actually feel profound relief.
Yeah.
I feel like so often you know modern, progressive parenting books and classes are telling you to be authentic, but only if you're calm and loving.
Right.
So they're.
They leave out this whole section of what if you're not feeling calm and loving.
You know how do you be authentic when you're angry.
And that's also okay for your kids when they're around, you know.
I guess one of the other things I learned is that change takes a long time.
At least it did for me.
You know, I always wanted change to, I'm kind of an impatient person.
I, you know, I guess it just took me, like you know, whatever it is, my kids are, you know, four and almost seven.
It took me that many years to kind of figure this out and figure out exactly what kind of parent I wanted to be and that I could be.
You know, I I wouldn't even say now that like I love parenting.
I love being a parent and I love my kids more than anything.
I still don't love like driving them around to dance class and soccer class or whatever and doing dishes and laundry like that sort of rigmarole is still really hard.
And, I think, modern day society.
If you don't have a really tight village of friends and family near you, You know it's really true.
Like, it's just so hard if you don't have any support.
You know.
So one of the things that we mentioned before we called you is this notion of change taking a long time.
And I'm curious about what's ahead.
You know, is this a work in progress?
Are you done?
What are your thoughts about motherhood now as you move into a different age with your kids?
I'm hoping I'm done and I'm perfect now.
I mean that's, I like the.
I like the idea of, not that it's necessarily a work in progress, but I like the idea of that.
It's a relationship, right?
I'm growing and building a relationship with my children and it's deepening.
And I love now all the different dynamics that happen between you know me and my husband, me and my children, him and the children.
You know them together.
I think it's just, as time goes on, we all change, right?
And we all keep just relearning who we are.
And, you know, every day, every week, my kids are doing some new thing or saying some new thing.
And I'm always like, oh, whoa, this is new.
You know, I think in one week my daughter like told me she had a crush on someone, dyed her hair pink and lost all her teeth, you know, and I was like yeah, it was.
So there's a lot to keep up with.
And for me, it's about like, I just want to be a happy rider on the train.
You know, I like to think that it's like a night a train going somewhere nice and we're all on it together.
And, and you know, I don't want to feel like I'm the conductor.
I just want to feel like we're all enjoying the ride together and getting to know each other all the time.
And I just my biggest hope with my children and with being a parent is like.
I want my kids to know that I'm here for them, that I love them and I will always listen to them.
That capacity to listen and to let them have their feelings is, in fact, the outgrowth of what you've been talking about this whole time, which is allowing yourself to have your set of feelings, even the ugly ones, especially the ugly ones.
Yeah.
I love.
You know this idea.
The first thing you said to us about the things that changed is I gave up on being perfect.
And by deciding that you no longer have to be a perfect mom, you also decided your kids don't have to be perfect.
Because, of course, when we try to be perfect, we expect the people around us to be that, too.
And that, I think, is you know, you were talking about the relationship with your kids which again, I think that is the key right there is.
You know, I look back on my mom.
I mean, my mom is known around the world to people as my beloved mother.
And she wasn't perfect, but man, she loved us.
But even some things my mom did, frankly, were kind of like, wow, that was a really bad idea.
Right.
You know slips she made or a thing you know.
She had to go to work one time and the babysitter didn't show up, and so we were left alone.
But that didn't make her a bad mom.
No, that's a really good point because in my head I'd always seen your mom as just perfect.
Right.
It's good to know she messed up every now and then and you still turned out okay.
And to kind of bring it full circle, your parents did a lot right and you've done a lot of things right because you've become a very loving and, I think, refreshingly realistic mom, not self-punishing, not trying to meet some impossible measure, very clear-eyed about how hard it is to love kids, because you know they're cute and they're darling and they're precious to us and they're also maddening and they're you know.
Completely irrational and they're a struggle.
But I think good moms and dads are able to recognize that it's not easy and it's not supposed to be easy.
Parents can make missteps and then they can also do a lot of things right.
And their kids can learn that same lesson that there are a million ways.
Our first letter writer said this Amber, you know there are a million ways that I could screw up, but there are also a lot of ways that I could do the right thing.
Well, Amber, you have been so generous in sharing your story with us.
Thank you for writing to us.
Thank you for sharing your insight and growth with us.
It's been a delight to talk to you.
Thank you guys so much.
I really appreciate you reading my letter because you know, as I said, that was the kind of impetus for change and you know, for things to be different.
So I'm really grateful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Wow.
So bad mom's experience can really.
I love how it sort of connects Steve to this conversation we had at the beginning of the episode when we were reading the letter from Struggling But Hopeful about this.
You know obviously extremely different situations.
But I think that it's really instructive to think about change as a lifelong process.
Yeah, she really had to do the difficult work that we so often counsel when people are struggling to make change, which is you have to go backwards a little bit.
You have to at least look backwards and recognize hey, the reason I'm having such a hard time with this is because of stories I've been telling myself for a long time about what it's like to be a kid or what kind of mom I'm going to be.
Right.
And I think that we began when we were talking about struggling.
You referenced that Rilke poem, you must change your life.
And that realization can come to us abruptly.
My guess is when Bad Mom wrote to us and when Struggling wrote to us, that thought, I must change.
It cannot go on this way.
But what's interesting about change is it isn't abrupt.
The realization of the need to make change might be abrupt, but almost always, putting the changes in place is a process.
And we're going to keep talking about that next week.
We'll talk to another letter writer and get responses.
And also, and Cheryl, I know you love this part.
We're also going to get some feedback on our advice giving, which is also a delicious part of our job.
It's like we get a lot of notes, don't we?
We do.
They always say, you know, Cheryl was totally right about that.
And Steve, you were mistaken.
Yeah.
And you know what we will do, Cheryl?
We will take in that criticism.
We will not get defensive.
We will not erect those lesser defense mechanisms.
And we might even.
I can't promise, but we will attempt to make some changes if those seem necessary.
The show at Talkback Sound and Visual in Portland, Oregon and Ugly Duck Studios in Boston.
Our engineers are Josh Millman and Samuel Krieger.
Our mix engineer is Josh Rogeson.
Our theme music is by the Portland band Wonderly, with vocals by Liz Weiss.
Please find us at newyorktimes.com slash dearshugars.
You can send us your letters at dearshugars at nytimes.com.
That's dearshugars, plural, at nytimes.com.
Or leave us a voicemail on our hotline at 929-399-8477.
And please check out our column that comes out every Tuesday in the New York Times Style section at nytimescom.
Slash thesweetspot.
