Cancer is a heavy topic. It’s a hard thing for anyone in the family/support system to talk about. It’s challenging for people on the outside looking in to know what to say. And, no question, it’s an arduous, isolating, and disorienting time for the one living with it. For Tyler Merritt, a favorite around the JHBC community, the cancer journey was/is an opportunity to
He and Jen sit down to talk about This Changes Everything, the recent book which Tyler penned as a humorous and optimistic love letter to his beautiful life following his recent battle with cancer. Written with the same trademark humor, pop culture and musical theater references, (and a sick companion playlist) that we came love in his first book, I Take My Coffee Black, Tyler laces very candid and vulnerable stories from his highly invasive surgery and cancer treatment with anecdotes like a five-page play written about his appendix, subtitles inspired by Taylor Swift songs, and sometimes completely divergent footnotes about the ten best dogs in fiction, to serve as the connective tissue in his much deeper story of joy and healing. It might sound crazy but it works.
Things may unravel at the end of this discussion when Jen and Tyler debate whether words/phrases like “lovers” and “making love” have gone out of fashion and we’re sorry.
It’s time to bring a close to our Dating, Sex, & Relationships series. And what better way to wrap it all than hearing a candid conversation from Jen and her person–Tyler Merritt. If you’ve listened to this series, you might have noticed that Jen has mentioned Tyler–a long time activist and author—a time or two, and that part of the reason for this series was to explore some new territory that Jen has only been exposed to over the last year or so as she tentatively put her toe in the dating waters after the end of her 26 year marriage in 2020. As we’ve stepped through all the new ways we can meet people, or explored the choice to be single, or looked at how to start over after divorce or loss, we’ve heard the threads of Jen and Tyler’s story in all of this mix. And now, they’re here to give us some insight as to “how it’s going,” with all the joys and challenges every new relationship faces, plus some never before heard conversations about how they came together from completely different places in life including; long time married with kids vs. long time single with no kids, navigating the nuances of being a bi-racial couple and coming from completely different cultural circumstances, balancing their careers while nurturing a budding relationship and the bittersweet reality of dating long-distance. This episode is packed with some “in the moment” musings from both Jen and Tyler and also includes some hilarious takes on how a relationship that started as a new friendship turned into long daily text sessions moving to hours long phone conversations, their “define the relationship” talk, and culminating with a fun bonus segment–the For the Love team’s version of “The Newlywed Game,”–where we see how well Jen and Tyler really know each other (you’ll want to see this on video as well over on Jen’s YouTube).
This year’s Me Camp is in full swing, community. We have traveled from Austin to Aspen, and now up, up, up to the Northwoods of Minnesota, where we find ourselves in Grand Marais. Nestled on the shores of Lake Superior, this teeny tiny town was home to Jen for 3 weeks. And she is doing it all. Eating a plethora of fried fish salads, skipping rocks in the bay, potentially trespassing to sit on a picturesque roof and read her book and drink her wine. BONUS: Jen is joined by none other than the man of the moment Tyler Merritt, who discusses his unique state of being in the great white north, and his surprising and ever-so-northeastern encounter with a music-loving octogenarian.
