Coming Home to Love Me
When the pandemic forced the world to slow down, to stay at home, and to avoid public spaces, people’s listening habits changed. Mine included. During the first lockdown, I struggled to integrate podcasts into my new routine of solitude.
Before the pandemic, I was an avid podcast listener. In the mornings, I listened to daily news podcasts like Front Burner and The Daily. During my long commutes to and from school, I caught up on investigative podcasts like Thunder Bay. In the evenings, I would make dinner while listening to fiction podcasts like The Shadows or dating shows like Why Oh Why.
With nowhere to go, I found myself streaming more TV shows and YouTube videos to pass the time. I thought I was “thriving” because I never had so much time to catch up on television. But as the days of social isolation turned into weeks, blurring between FaceTime calls and virtual Netflix watch parties, I began missing human connection.
Like so many people, I was used to the endless conversations, the witty banter with friends I saw every day, and the infectious laughs we shared during happy hours or spontaneous dinners. Despite being a natural introvert who enjoys solitude, I found the sudden lack of socialization to be unsettling. It’s one thing to choose to isolate oneself and another to be forced into it.
So, I downloaded a few conversational podcasts to play in the background, like white noise. Many of my friends enjoyed conversational podcasts because they could either serve as background noise to imitate a bustling social event, or a casual listen that didn’t require too much commitment or concentration.
The thing is, I have never enjoyed conversational podcasts. While some are done well and have created space for this genre to grow in popularity, I had no interest in eavesdropping on two acquaintances having a conversation.
Aside from daily news, I listened to podcasts for the structured storyline, fiction, or personal journal. More importantly, I loved podcast shows where it felt like the host was speaking to me directly—as if we were on the phone and they were sharing an anecdote. It felt comparable to sharing stories and being vulnerable with your best friend after drinking a few glasses of wine on a Saturday night.
I thought about playing one of the many programs recommended to me over the years, from true crime to reality TV-related shows, to mask the enforced solitude and loneliness.
I won’t lie and say I didn’t like some of the podcasts. I enjoyed a couple, like Bachelor Happy Hour and Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.
But after one or two episodes, I couldn’t help but notice how much lonelier I felt. Listening to the laughs shared between the host and their guests further reminded me of the fact that I couldn’t have those moments anymore. At least not in person.
Whenever I feel emotionally isolated, I come back to CBC’s Love Me time and time again, a show that explores the messiness of human connection. It’s one of the many storytelling podcasts that I listen to that upholds the integrity of podcasting as a storytelling medium: Intentional pauses. Thematic music. A storyline that centres around loss and love in relationships.
Storytelling podcasts speak directly to the hearer about a story, thereby acknowledging their presence with vulnerability, while in conversation podcasts, the listening experience is more like eavesdropping—there’s a clear distance between the listener and the individuals conversing.
And so, one day, I forced myself outside, sat on a bench and scrolled through my podcast feed until I found Love Me. I listened to host Lu Olkowski talk about a time she went to a sweat lodge, and the thoughts she confronted.
“I was thinking about my mom, and I was thinking about not having a relationship with her and not ever having a relationship with her. And that feeling of emptiness, realizing that that’s not something I get to have in my life. And then the beat stop, and they open the little doorway, and they let the cool air in again.”
As she shares her vulnerability, every inhale, every sentence Lu lingers on, accompanied by the soft, slow instrumental underlay, I’m reminded of a summer I spent at the cottage with my best friends. An evening we watched the stars sparkle against the night sky, we listened to the crackling of the fire, and we admired the shadows dancing along our faces.
Perhaps it’s the romantic in me that finds comfort in the breath of another person as they share a personal thought. But that’s the power of storytelling podcasts. The listening experience encourages the listener to tap into their own memory, transported into a moment they forgot about.
I sat there, empathizing with Lu’s reflection: the feeling of emptiness and grieving the loss of what could have been. When traumatic events take place, like a global pandemic, regardless if thousands of people are experiencing it, it’s easy to feel alone in it.
So, there was something comforting in knowing that despite the episode being a few years old, Lu had been grieving a loss, not too different from what I was confronted with—a shared moment of sadness.
Although the routine of listening to podcasts as I ran errands or took the bus no longer existed in my daily life, I made space for Love Me, a comfort podcast that had no surprises, in the mundane of social isolation.
Love Me or ones like it may not be everyone’s preferred podcast. But there are countless podcasts, a seemingly never ending pool of shows to listen to. As overwhelming as the selection can be, the plethora of podcasts genres means everyone has a podcast they’ll enjoy, and at least one they can turn to during moments of hardship.
Knowing the episode was about to close, I walked down the trail back home, where I would replay every Love Me episode until I fell asleep.
