Friends, there's no doubt that this year has been challenging on every level here at The Moth, we're thankful for a vibrant moth community made of listeners like you who support confirms that storytelling is a vital source of inspiration, joy and humanity, even during the hardest of times. We're turning to you now to ask that you please remember the moth in your end of year giving if you can support the moth with a new gift of any level before December 31st. At midnight, we would be forever grateful to give simply text give moth to four one four four four.

That's one word. Give e m o t h give moth to four one for four for your continued support will ensure that we can bring you engaging and empathy building stories on our stages and airwaves in 2021 and beyond. Until then, we wish you, your families and your communities a healthy, restful and story where the winter holiday season. Welcome to The Moth podcast, I'm your host for this week. John, good, welcome to 2021. Everyone started from the bottom.

Now we're here. It goes without saying it's a relief. 20-20 is in the rear view, but after the world wind that was this past year starting a new one still kind of feels like staring into the unknown. So for this New Year's Day episode, our two stories are about navigating uncharted territory for our first storyteller facing the unknown. Does it mean going where no one has ever gone before?

It means having the courage to go back to places that aren't easy to visit. Alex Born told this story in a story slam in Seattle with a theme of the night was flawed. Here's Alex live at the mall.

It's 3:00 a.m. and I've been lying in my bed awake for hours because there's a man in my bed and he's not supposed to be there.

Well, he was supposed to be there when the sex was happening, but now the sex is not happening and he's asleep and I'm awake.

He knows the rule. No sleepovers.

I told him he can't stay over because I'm a bad cold sleeper. And now I'm lying awake, going through all my memories of times where I couldn't sleep because there was someone in my bed. It started when I was a little girl.

I would go to bed at night cradling my doll, holding her really close and closing my eyes and thinking I want to look adorable, like the little girls in the TV commercials.

But then I would start to feel smothered. So I would put her like right beside me on the pillow with her head right there.

And I would close my eyes and think, like, that's still cute, right? And then but she was, like, touching me.

So I would put her beside me on the bed and then I would shove her off the bed and she would hit the floor with a thud and I would fall instantly asleep.

So now I'm lying beside this guy wide awake, going through these memories, I told him I was a bad sleeper and that is the truth.

But it's not the whole truth. The whole truth is I've only been out of my marriage for a year and I don't want a man to wake up in my bed tomorrow morning because I don't trust myself with a man.

I don't trust myself to not make all the mistakes I made with the last one, because the last time a man slept overnight in my bed, it was my husband.

And I lay awake that night thinking about our marriage.

And I caught myself calculating how long he might live, how old I would be at the time, and whether I would still be young enough to enjoy sex because he hadn't touched me in a long time.

Like it started out well, like so many things. But, you know, over time I became both the mommy and the daddy in the relationship.

I was earning the money because he was finding himself and I was doing most of the cooking and cleaning because apparently no one can find themselves when they're doing the dishes.

This was not a sexy arrangement. First, it made me cranky, then it made me crazy, and then it turned me into a person who stares into the darkness looking on the bright side of another person's death.

Thankfully, by the time the sun came up in the morning, I remembered that we have divorced so that we don't kill each other.

I packed my bags and I left. I left knowing two things.

One, in my next relationship, I wanted to have sex, lots of good lasting sex.

And two, I didn't want to cook or clean for a man again, maybe never.

But now here I am with this guy in my bed and I don't want him to wake up with me in the morning because you know what?

People in the morning, they want things. They need things like coffee and food.

And I fell down the slippery slope of domesticity once before. And I know how this works. It starts out all innocent. You're pouring them a hot cup of coffee, and before you know it, you're pounding their dirty socks on a rock by the river. You are making them a slice of toast one day and the next day you are planning Christmas dinner for their entire family. I knew I needed a zero tolerance policy to get through this. But now the sun is coming up.

And the only thing I can think of to do is run, so I slide off the bed and I quietly start putting on my jogging clothes. He wakes up, his eyes open, he is surprised to find himself here because he knows the rule. He says, Oh my God, I must have fallen asleep. I'm I'm sorry. Are you actually going for a run right now? I turned to him and I say yes.

And then right on cue, he says it. Do you have any coffee? I stare at him, he stares back. I turn without saying a word.

I walk to the kitchen.

He follows me in there a moment later and he finds me standing stock still staring at the closed kitchen cupboard door with the intensity of a woman preparing to defuse a bomb.

He says, what is happening right now, I turn to him and I say, there's something you need to know about me, he says finally, are you a werewolf, a vampire? Is that why I'm not allowed to sleep over?

And I say, no, you need to know that the more I do things for you, like make coffee or cook you things, the less sex we are going to have.

He stands there staring at me and I can tell he's trying to find a place in his brain to file this thing that no woman has ever said before.

And then he smiles and he says, what about pointing? Can you point at things like coffee and toast and can we still have sex? Yes, I say. Sit down and start pointing, he says. That was Alex Bourne, and she says that she and Mark, the man from her story, enjoyed many years of breakfast together.

Alex lives in Vancouver, Canada, but in 2019, she crossed the border into the states, drove three hours and slept in her van in a church parking lot just for the chance to be on the moth story slam stage in Seattle, Washington.

Which is incredible because I can't get anyone to just cross the room and bring me a glass of water. And a story you just heard is the one she told that night to see a photo of Alex and her van from the trip.

Head to our website, The Mofongo Extras.

Up next, Carlton Parks Carlton told this story at a story slam in my hometown of Atlanta, where the theme of the night was gratitude and keep that energy going for Carlton.

Bah bah bah bah. Yeah, about five years ago, I had a very awkward conversation in a hospital waiting room with my sisters that started with if Dad doesn't pull, if Dad doesn't pull through, what are we going to do with Mom? My mother. Went directly from her parents house at the age of 18 into the arms of my father, who she married at 19. Fresh out of the Navy and stayed with him and they married. They say they were married for 53 years until he died in November of 18.

So as we sat there, my sisters looked at me like, you know, you're your mid 40s, you ain't got no wife, you can go do nothing with your life. You got to go live with mom.

So that's kind of half joking. But they meant they said, but. So so my my lease was up at the place where I was and and dad, unfortunately, he did pass and I packed up my stuff and I went and lived in the house with mom. Luckily, the house, you know, pretty nice size house, five bedroom. So we only bump into each other when we absolutely have to herbut her bedrooms on the East Wing. I'm on the West Wing and when it's when it's dinnertime, we meet up in the middle.

It was tough.

The last promise I made to my dad is as I sat next to him, as he laid there and I was sitting next to his hospital bed and I was like, you know, dude, I want you to leave. But if you got to go. I'll take care of my so don't don't sweat it, and the next day it's like he heard me. We pulled him. We pulled him off the machine that next day. So we fast forward to the next five years of my life.

And living with mom and mom is absolutely fine. She she drives. She's in good shape. She's in perfect health.

She doesn't understand why if I copy paste is a is a God copy paste, you would think it's quantum physics.

You really would like mom just, you know, control legs, control v would you please.

And it's just little things like that to make me glad that I'm there. But but no more than one day I'm guessing it was about a year ago. And when you have somebody in your house and you have a mother who has been married to the same man, or if you if you know, love like love is supposed to be loved. This woman was married to my to my father. They met in the seventh grade. And they you know, they dated through high school and they dated, you know, through the one year college that my mom went to.

And and then they got married and then the next 53 years. And then she had to watch that man go away. It was tough on her. And it's tough, really, to see that level of loss. One day as I just go and check on her on her side of the house, you know, just kind of checking in as I came home from work. And she's not right. And I was like, Ma, you OK?

Yeah, completely lying to me, and she kind of pushes past me, go into the kitchen and I was like, Ma, what's wrong? And she just completely loses it. When you have that deep level of love for a person and that togetherness and it's seemingly ripped away from you and you just don't know how to deal with that hole in your heart. I was completely and utterly grateful that I was there for her. You know, it's tough sometimes for me as a mid 40 year old and not married, not doing anything with your life, like my sister said, to kind of, you know, cohabitate with your mom.

But to be there with her as she was going through her tough time to be there with her, as she was hurting and longing for that guy, that guy that she fell in love with in the seventh grade, it made so much sense to me for me to be there for her when she was hurting so badly and she was standing in the hallway draped over me, just bawling her eyes out like I've never seen before. It was meant for me to be there, and that's I, you know, embraced her, I just remembered that promise I made to my father that no matter what, I don't want you to leave me do.

But if you got to go, I'm going to be there for mom. I'm incredibly grateful that that day I was there for her. Thanks. That was called in parks, Carlton spends his days working in finance and his evenings laying out general randomness in his blog, The Mind of the Last Atlanta native Carlton fell in love with stories as a child, listening to family tales on his grandparents front porch. What he's not working on his next great literary work, Carlton can be found weeping over Atlanta sports, as everyone in Atlanta does, and playing the only two songs he bothered to learn on guitar, Blackbird and Seaton's.

Carlton says he and his mother are spending more time together than ever because of the pandemic. He says usually we give each other ample space to do what we love in our respective areas of the house.

She can watch cowboy movies and home improvement shows as loud as she likes, and I can listen to music as loud as I like until it's time for our inevitable hour long debate on what's for dinner, to see some photos of Carlton and his family head to the mofongo extras.

That is all for this week from all of us here at the mall. Have a story worthy week and we're wishing you and yours a happy New Year. John Goode is an Emmy nominated writer raised in Richmond, Virginia, and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. John is the regular host of The Moth's Atlanta Story Slam and has a number one best selling collection of poems and short stories entitled Conduit that you can find on Amazon.com. This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell with Sarah Austin Ginés and Sarah Jane Johnson recording support on this episode from Tiffany.

Good. The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Kathryn Burns, Sarah Habermann, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bolls, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cliche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, England, Norske and Aldy casette. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. For more about our podcasts, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website. The Moth The Moth podcast is presented by PRICK'S, The Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public at Parks Dog.