Niles Clipson and Mary Harmon-Christian

[00:07] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: My name is Mary Harmon Christian. My age is 55 years old. Today's date is February 3rd, 2021. I am in Decatur, Georgia. My partner today is Niles Clipson and they are my adult child.

[00:36] NILES CLIPSON: My name is Niles. My age is 20. Today's date is February 3rd, 2021. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. My partner today is Mary and she's my mother.

[00:51] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So, Niles, I'm so glad you wanted to join me today to do this StoryCorps interview. I think that perhaps it might be slightly unusual for a parent to be interviewing a child, but I think that you have had quite a bit of life experience already. And I know that I have gained much wisdom from you and learned a lot from you. And I wanted to give you the opportunity to be able to share your story or whatever part of your story you would like to share and to have that documented. It just has a lot of meaning for me and I was just really grateful and glad that you wanted to do to do that. So I leave the floor open in a way for you to share what you feel most like you want to tell of your story thus far.

[01:57] NILES CLIPSON: Okay. Is there a specific space you would like me to start?

[02:02] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Well, how about. So I think that you had quite an interesting story around your coming to understand who you were in about seventh or eighth grade and then going, going from there into your high school time period and then. And all of that had a lot that you experienced and handled and you just saw things about yourself and the world that some people don't see. So I thought perhaps you'd like to share some of that.

[02:43] NILES CLIPSON: Sure. So I don't remember very much of middle school, but I do remember high school slightly more. Middle school was probably was when I started kind of questioning what gender was. I don't think as a child I really knew what that was or had it relate to my life in any way until probably puberty, wherein it becomes very enforced in schools and which was around middle school. So sixth, seventh and eighth grade. By seventh grade, I had realized there was something different. And I went to a Catholic school. So there were very strict interpretations of everything, even around marriage and divorce, actually very highly, which was, I think for me, the first thing that I kind of realized was like you and my dad were going through a divorce at the time. And I had some teachers respond very negatively to that for no reason, but just because it was against their idea of what is allowed in a religion. And they did. They would publicize that, their potential disagreements. So I think that Was for me, one of the first, like, kind of clues about Catholicism not necessarily being something that I had thought it was. I don't think it was really an active part of my life before, just because I was young and, like, obviously it was active in my life, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it meant. But in middle school, that was. Became more predominant. And in seventh and eighth grade, I kind of heard about queer people. Like, there were. There were some gay people in my life that I had met when I was younger, but I didn't really understand that was A, that was what being gay was, or B, that there was associations with that necessarily. I just kind of knew people. Whereas in middle school, I realized that was very loaded. Um, and I think quite quickly, I realized what it was. I don't remember a lot exactly how that discovery happened. And shortly after that, I was like, gender, which was the harder discovery, for sure. Um, but in middle school, that kind of. By the end of eighth grade, I knew, um, and I had, at that time, meeting the age that I am, quite a lot of Internet access. That was something that I could just do. So I had found information online on all these things, which is probably not something that would have been accessible much before me growing up. At the time that I did in terms of just, like, finding information about being queer online independently as a child, because we had, like, Internet access at our schools. We had personal tablets, and then in computer, computers. In high school, it was just part of our learning. And so in high school, I had already. I already knew, which meant that going into freshman year at my Catholic high school, I was relatively visibly queer and very much knew that I was trans, which it took me longer to admit, but certainly I went into high school knowing that I was queer, which means from the start, there were people who were unhappy with that. And, of course, I joined theater, predictably, as queer youth do. And there were some seniors in theater when I was a freshman who were queer, but not necessarily loud about that, but were different types of LGBT or however they identified personally, which was, for me, like, the first people I'd met, really, in real life who are older than me and not online, who were queer. I had met a couple people who were queer at summer camp, but it was a different kind of environment, because at that point, the camp that I went to, it was. Everyone was in eighth grade, so it was slightly more of a everybody's in eighth grade thing instead of, there are adults who are queer.

[07:17] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And when you look back on that time, if you were. If you wanted people who did not understand you to understand something, what would that have been?

[07:32] NILES CLIPSON: At this point, I don't. I don't care if they understand or not. I am past that. For me personally, it doesn't bring me any. Any sort of emotion, to be honest. I think people have different experiences in life, and if you know it just for me personally, I don't need them to understand. I do want people to not be homophobic and to not be transphobic. These are obviously very important. And, you know, many of the people who are very blatantly homophobic and transphobic are even more racist. So these are significant things that they are. But in terms of a personal level of understanding, I don't need it from them. At the time, I think I felt like I did, but it was also everyone around me was that way in many regards, so it was slightly more of a. Like, oh, everyone around me is mistreating me because of this part. So I would like them to understand why they shouldn't be doing that. Whereas now I'm sort of. People will, okay, they don't have to understand why I'm queer. Just leave me alone.

[08:37] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Mm. Mm. And do you feel like, as you moved on through high school and then when you left, did it get better? When you left high school, did it get better in terms of being able to find people that were kindred spirits and that felt the way you did about being in the world?

[09:07] NILES CLIPSON: Yeah, absolutely. Like, it was. I ended up dropping out of high school early because of a variety of reasons, including just, like, the levels of queer phobia I was experiencing on a daily basis and just really being tired of all the things that were just happening to me as a result of me being queer in that space. And I was just tired of it and didn't feel that my safety was safe. I didn't feel like I was safe at that school anymore, and I was ready to just leave. I didn't find it was something that served me at all. And, you know, of course, there are downsides to dropping out of school early, but I ended up getting my GED fairly quickly and starting. I did a semester of college almost immediately after and then decided that was not the thing. But if I had not done that, if I had not dropped out of school early, I probably would have gone straight to university and had a breakdown in university, which I know many people do. They go straight to school because it's the only choice that they have or think they have. And then they have a breakdown, or they end up hating it, or, you know, they just feel unfulfilled for the rest of their lives. So I think it was better for me to not have gone straight to university. I am grateful for the fact that that kind of completely turned around my life, like, turned it upside down and then made it be a different path. I wouldn't have done many of the things that I've done if I had stayed in high school and gone directly to college, whereas dropping out made me not able to go to most of the schools that I had applied to.

[10:44] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah, and I do want to move on. I do want to hear about all those things, about what you've been able to do with your life that you've created in a different way from the original thought, which is you go straight to college and all that. I just wanted to pause and see if you're looking back on any of that time period before dropping out at Marist. Is there. Is there anything you'd like to say to anyone?

[11:14] NILES CLIPSON: I think if you had asked me a year or two ago, I would have had things to say. At this point, I don't have anything specific to say to certain people. I just worry for marginalized students who go to that school and schools like it. I worry for their safety and their mental health and their health in general. But I don't have anything to say to people in specific because although there is much to be said that has been said many times they are directly endangering children. Basically, that is what is happening. They are directly endangering and harming children. And beyond that, you can say that so many times to a person and they won't change, which means I'm done saying it to them. You know, I think there is use in saying it to them. I think I personally, unless I am asked to and I'm needed to, from someone who is there, don't feel a personal need to. I don't feel drawn to that anymore. I said my piece. They know, you know, I said it many, many times over many years and did not see change at all. And so I'm not interested in talking to those people again. They don't affect my life again. If someone who was there or someone who is being directly impacted by that asked me to, I 100% would. But on a personal level, I don't need to. I don't feel like I emotionally need to. I'm done.

[12:43] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So I know you've gone through so much and that you have incredible strength of character and you've done hard Work to heal from tremendous trauma. And I know that. And as you moved on into the, into the world of leaving Marist, getting work when you were only 17, getting your GED, getting to go on to Agnes Scott, and then how do you see your life? How did you, do you think you had the strength of character to create your own life or. And what kind of life are you finding you're able to create outside that, as it were, traditional path of going straight to college? Because you have been doing that. You've been, you know, you're quite an extraordinary person of agency who's been able to, you know, create community and family at such a young age. And I think I'm. I just wonder what you, how you think about how you've been able to carve out a life in a different path in a different way.

[14:06] NILES CLIPSON: Sure. For me, honestly, once you're on a road, you're on a road. I don't find it useful and nor do I find myself necessarily capable of just constantly thinking what ifs? That doesn't work for me. I don't have those necessarily. There can be grief and mourning, but that tends to come later for me and is not something that hugely impacts my life in the same way that I think I would be impacted if I had a lot of what if questions. And I'm lucky for that. I realize that's not true for many people. I don't know why it is true for me, but I am much a much more of a get on with it person. Like, not in a cruel way, but just this is what's happened now. Okay? I can't change it. Let's keep going now. No point in trying to change the past. I don't find it useful and I don't find myself really capable of that. Once it's done, it's done. I'm no longer like wishing that I could have done it differently because I know that I couldn't have or I know that I didn't. So I've done it. Let's keep walking now. I'm much more just kind of black and white in that aspect. It doesn't affect me as much. Not that there isn't grief and mourning and pain, but in terms of actually regretting things, I find that not something I do very often. So I just get on with things. And apparently that is something that people struggle with, which is completely understandable. It's just not something I've struggled with.

[15:35] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that, that is something that I certainly have struggled with. So I find it quite appealing that you don't, that you don't have, that you don't necessarily experience that. And so we both, when we were young. You're younger than I was when you did it because, gosh, you left when you were only 18 and I was 23. When you set off to backpack by yourself.

[16:00] NILES CLIPSON: Yes.

[16:01] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: You were only 18, weren't you? And so you set off by yourself. I know you did. So you went to Australia and New Zealand. Do you want to talk about any of that?

[16:13] NILES CLIPSON: Sure. So the lead up, the lead up to that is that I had worked about 60 to 80 hour weeks for the past probably year leading up to me leaving, like leaving the country. And I had also for part of that been in full time college and I don't know, like working 80 hour weeks while in full time school just kind of sucks. And I also didn't feel like I was learning anything that I really wanted to be learning at school. It didn't seem grounded in reality, any of it. I find academia very unrealistic. I find it very, you know, there's certain positives to academia, there's many negatives. And as a student who was working and didn't live on campus, it infuriated me how distanced many academics and professors were from like literal real life. Especially when I was taking classes that were like sociology classes and stuff. It's like, no, people, people aren't. Have you met a person that doesn't exist in academia? Like, have you met someone? And that's not true for a lot of academics, but it's also true for many. And it just was not. I didn't enjoy that. I didn't want that energy kind of in my life. I would rather be actually doing things for people on a daily basis instead of sitting there and theorizing about how you can do good things for people. Because that two hours that I spent theorizing about what's best for getting food to people, I could have just made soup and given it to people. So it didn't like draw me to be doing that. I didn't find it useful for my life. So I moved on from that. But I did want to travel some more. I mainly, my brother was getting married and he lives in New Zealand and he has two kids, one of whom I had never met because New Zealand is relatively far away, the kids are both young. So I decided that I would go to the wedding if I could. And that decision was made after I decided that I wanted to leave school. So I did a semester of college and then dropped out again. And I made that choice and then could go to New Zealand, essentially. And since I had been getting 40 hours of overtime pay every week for the past year, I was able to do it. So positives from the ADR weeks for a year and full time before that. So I was able to do it and basically made the decision, like, a month in advance. But I had been thinking about it for a long time, so it wasn't like, slightly impulsive, but not that impulsive, because something I had thought about for a long time beforehand. Just didn't know exactly where those lines could be, when it would happen. But I did. And I decided if I'm flying to New Zealand, which is very expensive, I can just stop other places, which is true. You can essentially just have other places for either no additional cost or very little. So I did a workaway program. So I worked in Australia for about a month. And Australia is gorgeous. I am an arachnophobe. I'm good on Australia.

[19:30] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Did you see any big spiders when you were there?

[19:34] NILES CLIPSON: If I did, I blotted it out, to be honest. Definitely saw more spiders than you would see here. And I definitely. There's not really squirrels there, but there are lizards that act like squirrels, at least in the, like, kind of American conception of how squirrels act. No way. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. They're, like, sort of domesticated, but not really. Yeah, so a lot of squirrels. And very, very hot. And, like. So, yeah, so hot. Um, and I had been coming. This was January, so I'd been coming from Atlanta, where it was like 50 degrees Fahrenheit, um, and went straight to Australia, where it was like about a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Like, it was like 35 degrees Celsius most days when I was there, which is, like, vaguely ish. A hundred degrees. Um, so it was. My body does not do that as easily. Like, transfer temperatures. It takes like two weeks, and it's only there for, like, three and a half. So I just was not.

[20:37] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: I remember. I remember dropping you off at the airport, which was hard, and you flew to Abu Dhabi by yourself or maybe somewhere in between. And I think.

[20:51] NILES CLIPSON: So, no, I think that was it.

[20:52] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And then on to Sydney. And you went up in the Sydney. What was it? Space Needle. What's there? The tower thing.

[21:01] NILES CLIPSON: It was some rotating restaurant thing.

[21:04] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And I'll never forget that because you took a picture of your cocktail looking out over the Sydney. Sydney Opera House, and there wasn't. And you were not in the picture, but you Were just like here. And that's so you.

[21:21] NILES CLIPSON: I don't really do selfies.

[21:23] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Oh, it just cracked.

[21:24] NILES CLIPSON: I mean, there was a view. There was a view. There was a view. You know, you figured it out.

[21:30] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: You figured it out.

[21:31] NILES CLIPSON: Yeah.

[21:32] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And then you had your experience there and you went over to New Zealand and then you. You flew back through Abu Dhabi and went to Milan and any.

[21:43] NILES CLIPSON: I think Milan.

[21:44] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. Anything in particular about that trip that you learned about yourself or. Because I always find traveling to be an inward as well as an outward journey.

[21:57] NILES CLIPSON: Yes, absolutely. And I agree with that. And I think so. I have 160 page journals and I have the same one but different covers for every journal. I've used like literally every journal this company produces and they're like a five size, so they're sort of small, but they're 160 pages. And I fill out one a month and I filled out more than one a month when I was traveling, but still vaguely route that about that. Whereas now it's like a month and a half between journals for the most part.

[22:33] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So I know you got to learn a lot. Yeah. And you got to see Alison in Berlin, was that right?

[22:39] NILES CLIPSON: Yeah. So she is in my high school. My high school. Sweet. Who I close with and was. She's my memory from high school. I don't remember anything from high school, but she does. She just tells me what happened in high school. But she was in Germany. She was living there for a year and she's fluent in German and was. Was there for a year. So we met up in Germany and I've not seen her in a long time because she'd been in Germany for at that point like eight months. So we got to see each other, which was nice. And I went to a few different places in Germany and yeah, I went to Milan, which was nice. I also went a few other cities. I have it all written down. But I'm very beautiful and have a poor memory.

[23:39] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So I remember when it was lovely.

[23:43] NILES CLIPSON: I have a lot of pictures.

[23:46] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And I remember you ended up in Devon, which is where you were born. Yeah.

[23:53] NILES CLIPSON: Yes, that was part of the point actually. I had not been. This trip was planned through about March. I went to. I went back to England for like three weeks and then left again and went to Germany and Denmark and then came back to England and then left again and went to Italy with you and then came back here and did a road trip around the entire United States and then went back to Devon and I was there full time, like living there in about August of 2018 or 2019. And that is. And that is where I was born. And I had wanted to go back. I had not seen family that I have in England for quite a while, and nor had I seen Devin in quite a while. And it was lovely being back. I would still be there today. Covid has made things sort of different, as I am back in the States. I have an American accent again and back. But I was planning on living there for longer.

[24:50] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. And I remember when you were working at the Green Ginger, Literally, like. Sorry, Green table. Literally, like 100ft, 200ft from where your father and I were married. And so you not only went back to the location, you went back to the very spot where you were.

[25:12] NILES CLIPSON: That was unintentional where it all happened.

[25:14] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And it was just. There was something very healing, something very powerful about that, I think. And when I went back. I know. And when I went back there for Christmas last year and spent those three weeks with you, I found it to be, you know, that landscape I had fallen in love with. And I think it's way back in 1995, when I first went there. And I had never been in a landscape where I felt so safe. And some of that was the absence of guns, I have to confess. Like, I had never been somewhere where there was no guns. And I love the experience of just the being out walking at night without fear by myself. I loved it. And so there was something very sort of inwardly pleasing to me that you ended up back in that same spot and really loved it and enjoyed it.

[26:07] NILES CLIPSON: Yeah, I do love it there. And the moors, especially, have always been very important to me and have always been my kind of favorite landscape. But it had been a long time since I'd been there, probably five years. And so being able to be back on the moors made me really realize, yeah, okay. Actually, yes, I do hate cities. There is a reason that I feel much worse when I'm in a city. And that was something that I really needed to know. And it was a coincidence that I ended up, like, literally so close to where you had met, both in where I lived and where I worked. But it was very funny and it was lovely. I lived with a woman and her son, who I am still in contact with and love very much. And they're walking distance from this cafe that I worked at, about three miles out of the closest, like, town. Um, and I decided not to get a car when I went back because of a variety of reasons. Um, so I was living without a car, which means that I wanted to be walking distance from the nearest, like big town. Um, big is a strong word here. Um, and so I would walk the three miles to town to get groceries and things like that. And my work was about a mile and a half away. It was in between. And that's just what ended up being best, both like financially for me and placement wise. I wanted to be more in a rural area, so it was really nice. The place where I lived was like directly backing up into the woods and I walked the woods and fields every day to get to work along the river, which was exactly what I wanted and do very much. Ms. But I came back to the States because I was going to be hiking in the Appalachian Trail with one of my close friends and then Covid, so we didn't do that. And now I'm here and we live together now, but I am still in the States.

[28:04] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And I never ever. And when you had left home, it kind of wasn't, it was kind of a, there wasn't a moment like I had of course anticipated there would be a moment and I'd be dropping you off at college because I'm a middle class person, which had that, you know, that idea in my head. And so when you ended up leaving, dropping out of high school and then you got a job in a bakery and started working at 3am and I mean you work hard, you did not sit around overnight.

[28:38] NILES CLIPSON: Very entertaining. Yeah.

[28:40] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: And then you were working at Varuni and you know, you're working a lot so you ended up just basically only coming home on the weekends for a while and then eventually you just moved out and there wasn't a moment but all of a sudden I realized you were gone. And I remember that was a difficult time for me and, but I went through it over a period of time and then to have you come back during COVID and live with me for six months was actually a profound blessing too for me and never thought we'd have that time. So there was in some ways, in spite of the world changing event of COVID there was some interesting things that happened that may never have happened and one of them was you coming back to the States. And so now you've, so you lived with me for about six months and then moved in and you have this wonderful little family that you've created with your two friends and I don't think a lot of people that aren't queer have as strong of connections. Would you say that or not? The kind of family that you're able to create.

[29:58] NILES CLIPSON: Yeah, that I would choose, but I agree in some ways. We were actually talking about this earlier today around, like, having bread.

[30:10] SPEAKER C: Niles, I'm sorry, I need to interrupt. I'm getting a. There's a lot of echo here on the, on the line. Can you maybe turn your volume down or something? Try again.

[30:20] NILES CLIPSON: Is that better?

[30:22] SPEAKER C: Yes. Yeah.

[30:23] NILES CLIPSON: Okay.

[30:24] SPEAKER C: Could you start again, please?

[30:26] NILES CLIPSON: Sure. I see where you're coming from. I think that's maybe not the word choice that I would choose, but I do agree in many ways I agree and I disagree. I think the idea of a found family is much stronger within the queer community and primarily based in the queer community. I think that very strong family connections are found in many cultures, but mainly not in white people. In my experience is that type of, like, super strong female connection is far less important and doesn't exist really in a lot of white families in the same way that it exists in most of the rest of the world and most other cultures. But I think especially in really Western white societies, that has been less, less like, important. But in queer communities, that is. That kind of comes back with importance, but it is found family instead. And I think that that idea of found family is much more queer specific because a lot of queer people end up with their families from birth or only parts of their, like, birth families. So they end up making their own family much more frequently.

[32:01] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. And what does it, what does it feel like for you to have a found family? What is it? Can you describe that? What it's like?

[32:14] NILES CLIPSON: I mean, for me, that is just. That is very lovely. It's very lovely. It's, I think me when I was 12, learning that I was queer even though I wasn't like, you know, actively being hate crimed every day when I was 12. It was when I was 14, but not when I was 12. It was just something that I was figuring out. So much of the narrative around, like, queerness is, I can't be gay because if I'm gay, I'm gonna die. Because. Because, like, especially media, like in the past five years has kind of gotten better. But, like, before then, there's still a huge, like, barrier gays trope where any gays, like, any gays, any gay people or queer people in media die. They die at the end of the film or at the end of the book or they're only there as a plot point. That is like, so sad. There hasn't been a lot of, like, I know that when I was 12 and looking for queer media, it was all awful. Like, it was so sad. And so terrifying. And none of it was kind or had good representation. That was like just queer people being alive and existing. It was all like, this person is violently killed for being gay at the end of the movie. But you watched the whole movie of them figuring this out and then they die or they can never get together with their lover. Like, it's. It was all that. And that's still definitely, like, a prevalent trope in media. So I think it was, like, never something that I would have expected happening when I was that age. I don't actually know if that's what I thought, but I am pretty sure that's probably what I thought of that. This is something that can never, like, result in positive things in my life. And that's something that I unlearned through pure force of will because everybody around me hated me. So I was like, well, I can't be queer phobic to myself because everybody around me is homophobic, so I can't do it. They've got to do it. So I kind of talked myself out of that one when I was, like, 15, but I'm sure before that it was definitely a struggle for me. And after that was only not a struggle because I was experiencing so much of it externally that I was like, well, I'm not going to help them because I hate these people, or at least I hate what is happening to me. I'm 15 and mad, so I'm just going to not participate in this. And I'm just going to be even more loud, which is not something that I think I could do today. I think I'm much more tired than I was then, but certainly was how I acted then. So now I think, like, having found family is not something I would have expected, but it's lovely. I love these people very much. And it's been a few years with the same people who I care about deeply. And that's really nice.

[34:58] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. And I think it's really helped you with your resiliency, too. And you have a tremendous amount of resilience. And so, you know, you've come through a lot already. And what would you put that down to? In part.

[35:19] NILES CLIPSON: I think, partially not the answer you're expecting. I think partially it's because I was suicidal at a very young age and had that experience from most of the life that I remember. Again, I do have memory loss. Part of that is concussions and head injuries. Part of that is memory loss happens to a lot of people. And part of it is memory loss is significantly higher in people with PTSD and depression. Um, and so for me, there's not. There's definitely spots that I don't remember. I remember being suicidal at a very young age. Um, and. And so that I think for me, it's like, well, you can't actually kill yourself. Like, you can't do that, but, like, you want to, so you just gotta suffer. Um, and so at a certain point, I kind of eventually just talked myself out of being suicidal and moved past that necessarily being a huge symptom for me, to different symptoms. Um, and so I just keep going. I don't know. It doesn't really. At a certain point, like, you just realize that you don't have a choice. And at a certain point, you kind of look back and you're like, oh, actually, I don't have a choice because I'm just going to stay here. It just happens slowly. You, like, notice less and less or more, and you notice more and more, really, that you're not trying to kill yourself every day.

[36:34] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: That's a powerful thing to say. That's a very powerful thing to say, and I'm very glad that that is true. And as you are now 20, do you have a sense of looking Forward into your 20s? Is there a. Is there a. Rather than having to look backwards to the teens and all that that has been. I sense that you're on that. That you are moving away from that and not escaping it, but evolving out of it. Growing out of it, I would say.

[37:15] NILES CLIPSON: Evolving, yes. I'm doing a lot of relatively advanced therapy at the moment, including emdr, which is a specific type of therapy for PTSD and trauma patients. And so there's a lot of looking back intentionally in more controlled environments, when it's historically has been, I don't have memories, I didn't exist before today. But at the same time, that enables me to then look forward in a way that I haven't in the past, because I don't think I'm going to be dead in a year. Whereas my entire life I was like, well, I don't have to plan because I'm going to be dead by then. Which is relatively common amongst people who grew up suicidal or depressed. But now it's like, okay, I am probably going to be alive, so got to maybe choose what I'm going to do while I'm alive in five years. And I'm. That's a. That's a milestone that I hit of like, I'm going to be alive in two years from now, a while ago. So now it's like, yeah, I'm going to be. So what is what I want to do? And I know that answer with COVID it's harder to make that happen in a reality, but I'm much more set on. I want to be outside all the time, and I want to talk about trees and mushrooms. I want to study nature, and that's something. That's something I would have known.

[38:27] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: So I don't know if you remember this, and. But years ago, we were in Washington, D.C. and we both ended up just falling on the floor and crying. And I looked at you and I said, I knew someday you were going to suffer. I just find it. And I forgot my exact words. But you can't live a life without suffering. And how difficult it is as a parent to see your child suffer. And you want the most that you can to take it away, but you can't. And I am just so grateful that for whatever reason, the messiness of life, that you've made it here and that you have turned that corner, because the world is a tremendously beautiful place with you in it. And you bring such. You are such a blessing. You are such a blessing. And I have always called you my treasure, and I always will. And it really doesn't matter what other people think, does it? It just really doesn't. But they can impact us. They can.

[39:51] NILES CLIPSON: They can. And there's other things in my life that contribute to my PTSD that you aren't aware of, and I don't want you to be. And I'm sorry for telling you that, but I am past really caring about how other people view me. At least not like that.

[40:10] MARY HARMON CHRISTIAN: Yeah. Well, it's time to wrap up now. But I just want to say thank you for being so brave and vulnerable, and I am honored to be on the journey of life with you. And I give thanks for the gift of your life and of who you are. So thank you for joining me today, and I just love you very much. Thank you.

[40:39] NILES CLIPSON: For you. I appreciate you, and I'm glad that we got to do this.