https://soundcloud.com/wearemel/episode-5-divorce-with-mike
Every couple of weeks, MEL Radio’s The Struggle Is Real podcast features a guy who has been through some shit in order to find the light, lessons and LOLs from his life’s darkest moments. On this episode, magazine legend and MEL contributor Mike Sager talks to host Lara Marie Schoenhals about the “death spiral” he went through after his divorce from his wife of nearly 20 years.
When he knew it was over
“I didn’t realize she was seeing someone else. I had been working hard on a new book. When I finished, I felt like I was king of the world. I asked her to come out on the deck and lay in the hammock with me to celebrate. She gave me this look. And I just knew. It was an arrow that pierced my eyeballs and went into the back of my brain.”
The lowest point
“I would wake up early, when the sun was just coming up. I would get two hours of work done and send some emails and make some phone calls. But for the rest of the day, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. That went on for a very long time.”
What it’s all meant
“I love writing because it isn’t over until it’s published. It can start one way and be totally awful, but you can throw it out and start all over again. Or you edit it until it’s good. A lot of what I do professionally is vomit up emotions and go back and refine them. I’ve tried to handle life that way, too. Because it’s the only way I know. So that’s what I do over and over again: I vomit stuff up and then I try to learn from it.”
Listen to the full episode below.
https://soundcloud.com/wearemel/episode-5-divorce-with-mike
Keep on struggling with more Struggle Is Real episodes:
https://soundcloud.com/wearemel/episode-4-i-couldnt-bring
https://soundcloud.com/wearemel/episode-3-andrew-michon
https://soundcloud.com/wearemel/episode-1-sam-lansky-goes-to-1
