Latest / Heavyweight / 2026 Update: Julia

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2026 Update: Julia · Heavyweight

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hi, Hello, we're back again in the studio.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, and in your earbuds.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Ye.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Who do we have on the docket today?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This one? Her name's Julia.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Okay. This episode is the first one that I ever
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: did with a stranger. Yeah, like someone that wasn't a
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: friend or a family And it was a little scary.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: It was a little intimidating. Julia is a journalist and
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I needed to step up.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It's a great episode.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Partly because of Julia kept me on the straightened arrow.
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 0:49
  Speaker 6: No, I was gonna say it's great, not because of us,
• 0:51
  Speaker 6: because of Julia and spoiler alert, another woman we talked to,
• 0:56
  Speaker 6: h if.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: You stick around. At the end of the episode, I
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: talk again with Julia, and what was really very gratifying
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: to me was how the episode really did have have
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: an important impact on our life.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: All right, well, I'm looking forward to listening to this
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: one again.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, let's both sit down. I'm already seated, and silence.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Do you have any snacks?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: No, I can't eat a snack silently.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It was a trick question.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Oh did I pass? Yes?
• 1:30
  Speaker 7: You did?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Thank God?
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: All right, and here we go. Oh but first we're
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: gonna pay those bills. Gonna pay my automobills with a
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: word from our sponsor. Hello, happy birthday, birthday girl. Are
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: you going out for dinner tonight with Rick?
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: What?
• 1:55
  Speaker 7: It's not my birthday for another seven months?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: You hang on a second, hang.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: On, I'm hanging hanging out in traffic, So.
• 2:03
  Speaker 7: That's perfect for you.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: According to my calendar alert, it is your birthday.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Because I don't know how many times I'm gonna say
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: it's not my birthday and how many times you're gonna
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: repeat that it is my birthday. This year you didn't Actually,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: this year, you forgot.
• 2:21
  Speaker 7: To call me on my birthday, not even an email, nothing.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, what about that time you got me an
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: ice cream cake for my birthday knowing I'm lactose sensitive.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Do you remember the man at the roller ring kept
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: on knocking on the bathroom door?
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: That's good? Are you kidding me?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: From Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Today's episode. Julia. Julia is a journalist and she's endlessly
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: curious about the world around her. Once on assignment for
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: The New York Times, she investigated the benefits of bacteria
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: and as a part of her research. She didn't bathe
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: for a month. She's done political stories too, where she's
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: kept after a source or a story for years, which
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: is what makes her reluctance to seek out the answer
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: to a question that's been dogging her for over two
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: decades all the more curious.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: I think the story begins on a Monday. I'm pretty
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: sure it's a Monday, and I was fourteen years old.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: This is Julia, and the question she can't stop thinking
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: about revolves around a moment from her own life. It
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: all began twenty one years ago in the eighth grade
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: at one of the fanciest all girls schools in Montreal.
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: I remember wearing my itchy green kilt.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: You have to wear a uniform there, Yes, okay, that's.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: Sort of a puke green uniform with a button down
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: white shirt, and on Mondays we had to wear ties.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: We also had bloomers.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever understood what bloomers were.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: It was just sort of like a balloon with holes
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: in the bottom.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And were they ruffled?
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: No, cursed with a lifelong inability to distinguish between bloomers, couloats, pantelats, pantaloons, drawers,
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: and even knickerbockers. I was glad for the opportunity to
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: finally sort it all out, but that's not why we're here.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: So after about fifteen minutes of inquiry, I was ready
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: to move on. Okay, sorry, yes, I'll go go on.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: As I left morning assembly on Monday and walked into homeroom,
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: I looked for my desk and I stopped and looked around,
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: and it was missing. My desk was gone, and that
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: was where it started.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: The desk had been hidden by her classmates, and that
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: was just the beginning. Without warning, the girl she'd been
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: friends with since third grade completely froze her out, and
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Julia had no clue why. To top it off, her
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: best friend was the ringleader.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: The girl who used to be my best friend. I
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: guess we can give her a name. Let's call her Jane.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: It was just strange knowing that she and I had
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: hung out at my house and all of the secrets
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: music exchange and all of the fun we'd had, and
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: then seeing how she was being now it just it
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: was a bit surreal.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: But yeah, then let's started happening. Was every time she
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: walked into the classroom, Julia noticed that the girls would
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: drop what they were doing and study her. If she
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: so much as scratched her nose or sniffled, they'd furiously
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: take notes. It seemed like everyone was collaborating on some
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: big project that she knew nothing about. The notes were
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: collected by Jane, who buried them in her desk. The
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: girls kept at it day after day until finally Julia
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: reached her breaking point. She gathered up her courage, and,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: like the good reporter she'd eventually become, decided to investigate.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: I eventually snuck into homeroom one day during recess. It
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: was empty, and I searched Jane's desk, and there at
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: the bottom I found a nicely bound document with a
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: cover page. And I picked it up and read it,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: and it said one hundred reasons why we hate you
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: in my memory. This document I'm holding is one hundred
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: pages long, but I'm sure it was only ten. And
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: I opened it and inside I read about myself. Everything
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: was something about me that they hated. I hate the
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: way she walks, I hate the sound of her voice,
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: I hate her face.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: After that, Julia started skipping school. Eventually, she told her
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: parents what was going on, and they contacted the administration,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: but the bullying continued. Ultimately, her parents decided that the
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: only solution was to send her to a new school,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: but Julia still had a few weeks left at the
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: old one.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: I became a double agent. I pretended that I was
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: coming back the following year, and I didn't tell anyone
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: I was changing schools because I had no friends left
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: to tell.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: The school year ended and her new life began, But
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: because her new school was so close to the old one,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Julia lived in constant fear that her old life would
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: find her. Every day, she'd map her route to and
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: from school, carefully avoiding the streets her old friends lived on,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: the coffee shops they hung out at, and for the
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: most part, it worked. For those first few weeks at
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: her new school, she managed to hide in plain sight.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: She was starting to feel like things would be okay.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: But then one day after school, Julia was upstairs in
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: the den doing homework and the doorbell rang. She went
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: to her parents' bedroom window and looked down at the
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: doorstep and saw standing there her former best friend Jane,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: along with a few of her old classmates.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: I hit the ground as if someone was shelling the
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: second floor windows. I was in a state of total panic,
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: and I saw them in my mind's eye there on
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: the front steps, waiting for someone to answer the door.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: And I was just on the ground, trying to breathe,
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: and they rang the doorbell again and I waited.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Eventually they left. And this is the moment that Julia
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: has fixated on for over twenty years. Why had the
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: girls shown up at her door? And what did they want?
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Maybe they'd shown up to bully her, but maybe they'd
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: had a change of heart, realized how mean they'd been
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: and were there to apologize. Whatever the case, Julia was
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: too scared to open the door and find out, and
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: that decision to not go downstairs and face the girls
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: who tormented her still haunts Julia. Even listening to her
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: talk about it all these years later, it still feels raw.
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: I'm thirty five now, and that day has become one
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: of my only regrets because the memory of my weakness
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: sometimes supersedes all of the strong things I've done since then,
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: and it makes me feel weak.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Even though you were you were just a child, I
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: was fourteen.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I think it's the memory of that fear still somewhere
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: in my physiology. It makes me fearful when I think
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: of it, I just wish i'd gone down there. I
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: wish I'd had the guts.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: What do you think has stopped you up until now
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: from just using the question, you know, like just finding
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: the girls and just asking them why they were there
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: that day.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: I'm afraid to find out what I did to bring
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: on the bullying, because it's very possible that I was bad.
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: I think, deep down I don't really know what was wrong.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: I don't know what was wrong with me, and I
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: don't want to know what.
• 11:37
  Speaker 8: Was wrong with me.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, it feels like you're being really hard on yourself,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: or being hard on this little kid basically, you know, like,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: do you look at photographs of yourself at that age?
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: I try not too well.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I think it'd be surprised by like I mean, I
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: have memories of being that age where I thought like
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I was at weddings and I thought I was like
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: flirting with adult women and stuff like that. And I
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: look at pictures of myself and I look like a
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: cabbage patch doll.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: I think I probably looked like the tin men because
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: I had a full set of braces. And then after
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: I graduated from my braces. I immediately went to headgear
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: neck gear combo. I don't know if you've ever had that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: But I've only seen them on TV sitcoms.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: So combine that with my glasses. It was a sad
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: state of affairs.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: As soon as she graduated high school, Julia left Montreal
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: for good.
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: Depending on how you know the outcome of that conversation,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: I might have chosen not to leave Montreal. When I'm
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: in Montreal once a year, I avoid the neighborhood I
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: grew up in where all of this went down for
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: the most part, and those girls are long gone. I mean,
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: we're all grown ass women now with careers and jobs
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: and kids. And here I am avoiding friends of friends
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: on Facebook because I don't want any of those girls
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: to know what's going on with my life.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Do you feel like, had you answered the door and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: they had apologized to you, that that would have changed
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: your life in some way, that it would have changed
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: your relationship with your past and the city and these friends.
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: I think it might have, but I'll never know what
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: they wanted to say to me because I didn't answer
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: the door.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: It's scary to return to the moment you've spent your
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: whole life running from. So when I gently suggest that
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: you try to find out why they were at the
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: door that day, Julius suggests that maybe the past to
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: just stay in the past.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: You know, we move on with our lives. We you know,
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: we move on, and it's another thing to open up.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: You know that Pandora's Box.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Again, even the language that you're using about fear of
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: opening up that Pandora's box, it is so similar to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: the language that you used and describe like fear of
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: opening that door.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: So what you're saying is I should really just finish
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: the job.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: After the break opening Pandora's Box, in spite of her
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: initial trepidation, once Julia decided to find out why the
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: girls came to her door that day, she was all in.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Watching her take it on was impressive. Julia went back
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: to Montreal and reached out to her former best friend Jane,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: who agreed to meet with her but said she didn't
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: remember anything. And so, for the first time since eighth grade,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Julia returned to her former school to go through the
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: yearbook and find the names of her old classmates, and
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: then she started searching.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: I reached out to probably twelve girls from from my grade. Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: and in my worst moments, I imagine that none of
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: them were going to write back, and it was sort
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: of going to feel like, you know, I was on
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: the outside of the group again, you know, and that
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: the social dynamics I remembered from the eighth grade were
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: still in play and all that. But then the responses
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: started to trickle in.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, Hello, Yeah, this is Julia.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Julia logged hours and hours of interviews school.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: And rang my doorbell. I thought you might have been
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: one of them. I don't think so. Do you remember
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: anything about that?
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: Was I there?
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: No? Oh boy, I don't remember much about high school.
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: I remember one time you were hiding in.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: A bathroom stall, But just like Jane, not a single
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: person said they could remember showing up at her door
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: that day.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Well, I honestly don't remember doing that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I don't. I don't remember anything. I just
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: don't remember it. Promise you I have no recollection of this.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
• 16:29
  Speaker 8: Sorry, sorry.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Well, what each of them did remember was their own pain.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: There'd been a lot of bullying that year, and no
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: one felt safe. Julia heard about one girl who'd found
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: her desk filled with meticulously cut out images from porn magazines.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Another girl remembered someone spreading rumors.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: That she had aids. I hated that place, said one.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: It's all a big fog of chaos, said another, a
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: dark cloud over the class. You never knew who you
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: could trust. We were awful, awful little girls. The more
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Julia heard about it, it started to sound like a
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Stephen King novel, and not one of those cutesy ones
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: about clowns or talk cars. In almost every conversation, one
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: name kept coming up as the person who had it
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: the worst. Even Julia acknowledged it. The name was Sarah Taba.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Sarah had the misfortune of being the only eighth grader
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: who was slightly overweight, and as such she was always
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: kept at a distance in high school. I was also
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: someone who existed on the margins, so I understand how
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: oftentimes kids like me, kids like Sarah Taba, become the
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: eyes and ears of the school, fidgety, uncomfortable witnesses forced
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: to watch from the wings. I'm reminded of this all
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: the time with the friends I went to high school
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: with who were more popular than me. Remember the time
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Robert Siolick wore a three piece suit to school? I
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: ask the time Madame Reber slammed the classroom door so
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: hard the clock fell off the wall, the day Sharon
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Wiener got suspended for leaving the schoolyard during recess. Of
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: course they don't they living their lives. But I was
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: on the sidelines taking it all in, remembering.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Hi, Sarah, Hi, it's been a really long time.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yes it has.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Having all these conversations made Julia think about Sarah and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: what she might remember. But when she asked her if
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: she had any recollection about the day those girls showed
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: up at her door, Sarah couldn't remember anything.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: The first thing I thought of when he said a
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: group of girls right in the doorbelt, I immediately thought
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: it would be a bad experience, Like it wasn't people
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: coming looking for you to be like we miss you?
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Where are you?
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Grade eight was a bad year at that girl. Either
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: you were being bullied and picked on, or you had
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: to turn around and become the bully.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's something toxic, something dark.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: I think normal bullying. If there's such a thing as
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: normal bullying, you can identify the perpetrator and the victim
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: and the like. But it was just so pervasive.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: Do you remember the day that you realize that I
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: was gone.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: I don't, actually, no, I remember feeling like you were
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: just sad all the time.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: I remember you being sad too. Yeah. One thing I
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: remember people would call you tubby taba.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I remember a lot of stuff
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: like that. I can't help but think that our grades
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: behavior had impacts on the staff. What do you mean, well,
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: I actually I'm assuming you knew this, but maybe you didn't.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: But Miss McDonald killed herself the following year. Yeah.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Mss McDonald was Julia's favorite teacher and Sarah's too. Miss
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: McDonald had gone to the school as a student and
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: later returned to teach biology. She was the fun teacher
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: who wore frog earrings.
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: You think that there was something to do with what
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: was happening in the school that caused her to commit suicide.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I think it had a role in her depression. She
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: left right in the end of our grade eight year.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: She because what I knew of her and with her school,
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: it was her passion. She was an old girl. She
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: was there teaching. She wanted to instill this love of
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: animals and biology and all of us, and we were
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: a bunch of brats. I remember there being a lot
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: of associations between that pig that she had on top
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: of her TV and her a lot of comments about
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: her way. Yeah, had an impact.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Ms McDonald had been hospitalized over the summer, and when
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: she came back in the fall, she was no longer
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: the biology teacher, but a substitute. The last period of
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: the last day she taught before she killed herself was
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: a class called Personal and Religious Education. The students considered
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: the class a joke. Sarah was there that day and.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: The grade was just running around and doing everything they
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: weren't supposed to do in the classroom. She tried to
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: get people to calm down and sit down and pay
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: attention and like, I wasn't even trying to teach us anything.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: I don't even know if there was any material to
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: cover that day. And then we showed up at school
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Monday morning to find out that she killed herself for
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: the weekend.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: Oh my god.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: She was my role model. She was the person who
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: survived the school despite not being the stereotypical prefect or
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: perfect girl. She was just this wonderful, round woman who
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: rejuvenated life and as an overweight teenager. For me, that
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: was like, okay, so you don't have to be perfect
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: to achieve anything. She was my role model who the
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: next year killed herself and like shattered all my dreams
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: that you can go about living your life the way
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: you're living your life in this environment and succeed, which
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: made me want to completely change my body. The only
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: way that I was going to get through this school
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: was to lose a bunch of way to gain the
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: respect of these people that have basically disliked me since
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I was eleven, and I did it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been really over the years. I wondered about you,
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: and then when I looked you up on Facebook, I
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: saw pictures of you and I clicked right by them.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: I thought, oh, I have the wrong person. Yeah, because
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: you didn't look like yourself, right, So I mean you
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: didn't you just stopped eating it sounds like.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, in tenth grade, tenth through eleventh grade, and
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: then basically destroyed myself in the process because it's an
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: illness that I've been battling for the last twenty years.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: It's amazing what your childhood experiences can push you to
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: do so that I definitely remember because that's how I
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: ended up in the situation. I am now I'm actually
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: talking to you from outside of a clinic for treating
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: eating disorders.
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: So I'm really sorry, Sarah.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: It's not your fault. That's the just a sad reality
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: of all of this.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: It's like, yeah, please picture you know, my nerdy looking
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: fourteen year old self giving you a big hug.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Oh thanks. I actually do have to let you go
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: because we have to have lunch now, but it was
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: nice to speak, confute and do keep in touch.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: The conversation had left Julia feeling devastated. The scale of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: her own pain had been altered in the face of Sarah's.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Later that night, I couldn't stop thinking about Julia and
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Sarah's conversation, and as I turned it around in my head,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: a theory began to form. Miss McDonald had died around
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: the start of the school year. Wasn't it possible that
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: those girls had shown up at Julia's door to let
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: her know. Maybe they'd been worried about the way Julia
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: had just disappeared from their school and feared the worst.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Wasn't it possible the girls had meant good that day
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: that they came to the door, and if so, wouldn't
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: knowing that changed the way Julia felt about the past
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: twenty years and maybe even changed the way she saw herself.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: So I took this last task upon myself. Hey is
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: this Christine? He Hey Jennifer, this is I found up
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: all the people Julia had already spoken with, and I
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: ran my theory by them.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: To be honest, I would love to believe that's what
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: their intentions were.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I can't be sure about anything.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: I can't say yeah, sure, that's it because I don't
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: have a memory of it.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, thank.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: You, bye, all right, you have a great night. Okay,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: bye bye bye.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, take it easy.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Hi, bye bye.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: There was there's only one thing left for me to do.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I just feel like I'm at a loss, Like this
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: whole thing started off as me encouraging you to give
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: it a try and that it might be helpful in
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: some way, and I don't feel like I brought you
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: any closer to knowing what happened at the door that day.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: And I just if there's one of us who's disappointed,
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: it certainly isn't me. I don't know whether I was
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: emotionally equipped to open the door as a fourteen year old,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: But to me, the important part is is that I
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: opened the door. Now, I couldn't have I couldn't have
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: confronted that if I hadn't literally done what we decided
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: we were going to do, if I hadn't had these
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: phone calls and ask these hard questions. And I've forgiven
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: that little girl for being so frightened. I was so ashamed,
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: I was so regretful, And I don't blame myself for
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: being afraid. Then I had every right to be. It
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: wasn't rational. And so I think the biggest challenge for
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: me and all of this was to allow myself to
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: slip back into that fourteen year old girl's skin and say, look,
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: you know, I get it. It's okay, you know, it's okay.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: I'm proud of who I was. Then It's been a
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: long time since I could say.
• 29:01
  Speaker 9: That, and you feel like that's happened like that, that's
• 29:08
  Speaker 9: how and in this process, yeah, I do, Well that
• 29:13
  Speaker 9: makes me feel better.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm happy to make you feel.
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: Better, Jonathan, I might ding dong, I'm ding dong.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: Is this the part where I rewrite history and answer
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: the door. That's right, ding dong, Okay, I'm answering the door.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: Open the door.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: What happened to you?
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: I change schools?
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: And you know why, Now.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: That the fernitures returning to it's goodwill home, now that
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: the last month's rent is scheming.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: With the damage to poss take this moment to do so.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: If we meant it, if we talked.
• 30:42
  Speaker 8: We felt around for far too.
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: From things that accidentally.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Uh, Julia, Hi, how are you? It's a it has
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: been ten years? Yeah, ten years. Have you listened to
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: the episode recently.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: After you reached out? I listened to around my neighborhood,
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: and you know, hearing myself be scared on the recording
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: made me scared again, and then hearing myself be triumphant
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: made me feel made me feel fully grown all over again.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: And it was it was cool. It was it was
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: a really special thing to be able to collaborate with
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: you on that.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: And you feel like it changed something for you.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: I think it changed a lot of things for me.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: For one thing, it gave me permission to reimagine myself
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: as a player in my own life. I didn't have
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: to be the girl that things were done too. I
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: could be the woman who could choose to do things,
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: and it gave me the opportunity to rethink my relationship
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: with Montreal, and all of that felt like such an
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: unlock stemming from our time together. Yours of line, Jonathan.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: That's really nice. Did any of the of the girls
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: who showed up at your door that day did you?
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Did they ever reach out? Did you learn anything more
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: about that actual incident?
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: I never learned anything about the incident. It remains a mystery.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: But I did get out of the blue. A couple
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: of days after the episode aired, a voicemail from one
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: of the girls in my grade, not one of the
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: main girls who made the Julia book, but she called
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: and left a sobbing voicemail, and then I called her
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: back right away. I actually don't know how she got
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: my number. I called her back right away and we
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: had a very heartfelt conversation.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: That's so nice that it generated all of this. Did
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: you ever speak with Sarah tab again?
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: I just reached out to her the other day, Huh.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: I was inspired to reach out to her by you
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: reaching out to me and re listening to my episode.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: But it's really our episode. Sarah's and mine, and I
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: think it's okay for me to share that Sarah Taba
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: is thriving.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Oh that's so good to hear, I know. I know,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: so you think you might see her?
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, we made plans for me to hang out
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: with her next time I'm in Montreal.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: You're not moving back to Montreal, are you.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: I am kind of moving back. So the big headline
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: is that I really fell in love with my hometown,
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: and I've been spending my summer's there getting to know
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: a new version of I'm sure all, getting to know
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: a new version of who I can be there. And
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: I fell in love with a wonderful man, and he
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: and I are talking about buying a condo in Montreal.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I've lived a lot of different places over
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: the past years, but I'm always a little jealous of
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: my friends who remained in Montreal and have a cool
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: life there and have grown roots. And I'm envious of you,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: you know. Hearing that you're moving back like that, I
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: think that's really cool.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: You know, we're not talking about spending winters there. Let's
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: just be clear.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Well, sincerely, I mean, if I am there for more
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: than a couple of days you'll ye'll hear from me sincerely,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: that would be a joy. Thanks to everyone who originally
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: put this episode together. Will be back in one week's time,
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: that's right on Puny Little Week with something very special,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: a very special treat. If you will, Uh, can I
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: say khluila? Will you allow me? Yeah?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: You can.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: This is going to be unbelievable. People are going to
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: think that we're doing some kind of bit right now,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: but you and I are going to be featured on
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: a children's podcast.
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: We're going to be debating, We're going to.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Try to take each other to the mat, knock each
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: other out. Uh. And also, boy, we have a lot
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: to talk about as well. We have our newsletter. What's
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: your favorite thing about our newsletter?
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: I like to know what's on everyone's mind. Like stuff
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: comes up in the newsletter, things we've enjoyed or been
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: thinking about that we're not necessarily even talking about one
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: on one.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: No, No, you find out things about me. Yeah, I
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: find out things about you and Stevie.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm shocked.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: You know what? My favorite thing about the newsletter is
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: that it's the it's on the Internet. I don't have
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: to get paper cuts opening up an envelope that comes
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: to my door. People have to know my business, so
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I ask you, one and all to please subscribe to
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: that newsletter, which I don't know if I mentioned, is
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: completely free and you can find it at patreon dot com.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Slash Heavyweight