This I Write Out Loud episode was a special conversation.
I’m raw this week. What started as a conversation about Mother’s Day turned into something much bigger: grief, caretaking, aging, creative identity, emotional labor, childhood pets, midlife transition, and the terrifying responsibility of deciding when it’s time to let something go.
Specifically, it was about losing Josie.
Josie, the best kitty ever.
Josie is—no, was—our family cat of nearly sixteen years. She was the sweetest. She was also diabetic and not great with a litterbox. After a long decline, she finally collapsed, literally, on Mother’s Day itself, culminating in an emergency vet visit, some really hard decisions and conversations, and ultimately, a sad but peaceful ending. The conversation tonight wasn’t just about pet loss, but about motherhood, guilt, relief, empathy, all of it. It centered the strange emotional whiplash of simultaneously mourning something and knowing the ending was necessary.
We also talked about the essay I published this week, “Happy Mother’s Day to All the Moms. Just the Moms,” and why I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the way even Mother’s Day now seems unable to center mothers without immediately redirecting emotional energy back toward everyone else’s feelings and needs.
And underneath all of it was another conversation entirely:
What happens when your children are almost grown, your house is changing, your rhythms are breaking, your creative ambitions are evolving, and the life you’ve built for twenty years is quietly starting to transform into something else?
It really was a tender, vulnerable, truly beautiful conversation. Thanks to Amy Gabrielle, Karen Marie Shelton, Courtney, Jai C. Porter🇨🇦, Lynette, Jason Odell, Jennifer Heinen, Stacey from California, and so many others for tuning in.
Special thanks to my Founding Members: Pietra Shirley, Suzanne Whitaker, Karen Marie Shelton, Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙, Alan Wiley, Craig Weissman, and Shālah B Pookie. You’re the very best and I’m so grateful for your support.
Thanks for listening.
I’m Dana DuBois, an essayist and GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest — and founder of I Write Out Loud and co-host of The Daily Whatever Show.
Through memoir writing, audio storytelling, and community spaces, I explore the larger cultural forces shaping relationships, feminism, parenting, media, modern dating, and life in mid-flight.
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