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"Rosemary Ellis: Let&amp;#039;s talk about leaving the Today show. Was that a quick decision for you? Meredith Vieira: I knew for a while that I was leaning [toward leaving]; my gut was telling me that it was time to go. After a four-year contract, I signed on for one more year. But as the year progressed, I began to realize that it wasn&amp;#039;t working for me in terms of my personal life. RE: Yes, it&amp;#039;s a great job, but you were waking up at 2:30 in the morning. That is not so easy, especially for someone who is admittedly not a morning person. MV: Right, and Matt [Lauer] would say to me, &amp;quot;Look, you&amp;#039;re leaving your home around 4:30, so get up at 4.&amp;quot; But I couldn&amp;#039;t do that \u2014 I&amp;#039;m the kind of person, I have to go to check that BlackBerry. Nine times out of 10, a lot of work has changed overnight or you&amp;#039;re getting segments you don&amp;#039;t know about. I can&amp;#039;t go to work feeling like I am ill-prepared. For my own peace of mind, I had to get up at that time. But it wreaks havoc with your sleep and the rest of your life. RE: You said that even your health was suffering. What was happening? MV: Sleep deprivation is a bad thing. When you&amp;#039;re tired all the time, you just don&amp;#039;t feel well. It&amp;#039;s easy to gain weight; it&amp;#039;s easy to get depressed. And there&amp;#039;s anxiety...all of those things really started to weigh on me, and I thought, Is it worth risking my health? I don&amp;#039;t think so. Is it worth altering my lifestyle, particularly with my husband? I clearly knew the answer: No, it&amp;#039;s not. Because of Richard&amp;#039;s own health issues [her husband, Richard Cohen, has multiple sclerosis], my getting up at 2:30 makes it very hard for him to go back to sleep, so that wasn&amp;#039;t helping him out physically, either. I guess my concerns, on the other side, were: I have a really good job. I really like the people. Maybe I can somehow make this work. Maybe Matt&amp;#039;s right. Maybe I could wake up at 4. And what happens to me when I give it all up? You don&amp;#039;t define yourself by your job, but I found myself kind of doing that. RE: You&amp;#039;ve had a career in which you&amp;#039;ve had a series of high-demand, high-return jobs. They do define you to some degree \u2014 come on, everybody&amp;#039;s work does to some degree. How do you not let that happen? MV: Apparently for me, it&amp;#039;s very hard not to. It&amp;#039;s funny. On the one hand, people have in the past said to me, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve given up some great jobs. Why would you do it?&amp;quot; And I&amp;#039;ve always said, &amp;quot;Life takes you down different paths, and you can&amp;#039;t keep the job purely for the sake of the job.&amp;quot; Yet I found myself, toward the end, feeling insecure about what would happen to me when I didn&amp;#039;t have &amp;quot;cohost of Today&amp;quot; tagged onto the end of my name. And there are financial considerations, too. It&amp;#039;s a good-paying job in a bad economy. But we&amp;#039;ve been smart about saving our money, and [if I were to use that excuse] my husband would look at me and say, &amp;quot;Come on!&amp;quot;  I ran out of those excuses, but just an hour after I left the show, I went, Wow. I won&amp;#039;t have a place to go. I won&amp;#039;t have an audience, and I won&amp;#039;t have the perks that you get used to. Oh, well, I&amp;#039;m going to be just Meredith Vieira again, with everything that comes with that. And I think there&amp;#039;s also a grieving process. It&amp;#039;s hard to leave a family, my Today show family. RE: Did you talk a lot with Richard before you decided? MV: Yes. Richard was great, because I think he really wanted me to leave. But he never put it out there like that. He wanted me to make the decision that worked best for me. When I asked him, he&amp;#039;d say, &amp;quot;Here&amp;#039;s where I have difficulties, but we&amp;#039;ve lived with this for five years, and I can live with it for another five if you want.&amp;quot;  RE: Did you check in with your kids? MV: Yep \u2014 who were great. They were supportive of whatever I wanted to do. I attached more importance to the label of the job and wondered, &amp;quot;How are you going to feel if I&amp;#039;m not doing this?&amp;quot; And their attitude was, &amp;quot;Who cares?&amp;quot; \u2014 which I thought was great.  RE: Why did you decide not to stay through September? MV: Two of my kids were graduating [Ben from college and Lily from high school], and we didn&amp;#039;t know where Ben was heading, but we knew his interest was in China. I thought, This is going to be the last summer for a while that we have all the kids around for any length of time. And so the plan was to spend most of July all together on Cape Cod. And if I&amp;#039;ve learned anything from having chronic illness in our family, it&amp;#039;s that time is the one thing you can&amp;#039;t get back. RE: I&amp;#039;m curious: Did you pray about this decision? Is there an internal dialogue that you have about this or any big decision over the years of Richard&amp;#039;s illness or as a parent? MV: I&amp;#039;m not religious in the sense of traditional, organized religion. But I did a lot of running and solitary walking. I find a lot of comfort and peace just being outdoors. Whether on a beach or on a path near our house, I would walk for an hour or two, just alone with my own head to think things through. That helped take away the clutter and helped me look at bigger-picture things. It&amp;#039;s funny that you ask about spirituality, because one of the things I thought about in leaving the Today show was, Meredith, you&amp;#039;ve got to find out: Who are you in your core? My friend Susan LaSalla \u2014 she&amp;#039;s a producer \u2014 sent me one of those meditation bowls, those singing bowls. I had never seen one. And then, a couple of days later, my friend Priscilla Warner [coauthor of The Faith Club] came over with her new book, Learning to Breathe [due out this month]. This past year, she had gone on a search for what&amp;#039;s referred to as &amp;quot;the golden Buddha within&amp;quot; to learn meditation and discover who she is. She showed me how to use the bowl. Then she gave me her book, which is just beautiful. It&amp;#039;s all about finding who you are. She did it through Buddhism and went to retreats and also spoke \u2014 she&amp;#039;s Jewish \u2014 to some very wise rabbis along the way, and to leaders of Christian faith, too. I think if I had read that book a year ago, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have been ready to hear the message. And, boy, did I hear the message. And I thought, What a great thing she did for a year of her life. It made me want to explore that part of life much more than I ever had.  RE: So let&amp;#039;s talk about what you&amp;#039;re planning to do next, now that you&amp;#039;re not on the Today show&amp;#039;sleave-at-4-A.M. schedule anymore MV: A part of me feels, Just don&amp;#039;t do anything. Take a year, do nothing. I&amp;#039;m also getting advice from a lot of different quarters, people whom I respect, who say, &amp;quot;Well, strike while the iron is hot because the thing about television is that in six months, you&amp;#039;re history!&amp;quot; RE: How do you define yourself now that you&amp;#039;ve left this job?  MV: I&amp;#039;m trying to figure that out. I guess I define myself as a mother, a wife, kind of a nutty person. [Laughs] A good person. Serious. I am professional. Hardworking. Committed. Loyal. Also sentimental. But my friend, neighbor, and agent, Michael Glantz, said he felt I had changed a little over the past five years. That there was a bit of a heaviness to my soul because of the intensity of my job. He said, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not like I see it on the air, but I know you. And I feel like there&amp;#039;s a weight on you that you carry because you&amp;#039;re committed, you signed that contract, and you will do your job. Some of the usual lightness of Meredith is missing.&amp;quot; You know, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have even noticed that, but when I think about it, he was right. RE: As you start this new chapter of your life, do you have a to-do list? MV: I want to clean; this house is a mess. I can&amp;#039;t stand all these boxes. I&amp;#039;m so scared I&amp;#039;m going to become a hoarder. And if you don&amp;#039;t start dealing with it soon enough, you get used to it. I&amp;#039;ve given myself some leeway because I finished the Today show, then I had the kids graduating. There has been a lot of emotional turmoil. But now I need to deal with that.  RE: Are you a serious declutterer? MV: I go through periods where I will really declutter, and I&amp;#039;ll say to Richard, &amp;quot;Never again will you see clutter.&amp;quot; And he&amp;#039;ll just kind of look at me. Because within six months, it starts to creep up again. I do want to clear out, because it also helps clear your head. RE: Who was first on your list of people to reconnect with? MV: So many friends. I&amp;#039;ve had several who&amp;#039;ve said, &amp;quot;I felt like I lost you for five years.&amp;quot; I just couldn&amp;#039;t go out and play. Some people \u2014 on Saturday or Sunday morning we&amp;#039;d take a walk. But there wasn&amp;#039;t that kind of spontaneous &amp;quot;Can you come do something?&amp;quot; And I&amp;#039;ve realized that for those five years, I wasn&amp;#039;t there for my friends. That&amp;#039;s awful. They have come to assume, She&amp;#039;s not going to be around. I don&amp;#039;t think they held it against me. So now I just want to reconnect. RE: You were able to cover a lot of wonderful events on the Today show, from the Olympics to the royal wedding. Are there any big things left on your life&amp;#039;s to-do list?  MV: I&amp;#039;d sure like to spend a month in Tuscany with Richard and take vacations with friends. I can&amp;#039;t wait to have grandchildren; I look forward to that moment. I&amp;#039;m not rushing it...I&amp;#039;m just watching my family evolve. RE: How do you see your relationship with Richard evolving? Obviously the rhythm of your life has changed, so is the rhythm of the relationship changing? MV: Well, he&amp;#039;s been teasing me: &amp;quot;Now you&amp;#039;re going to see what it&amp;#039;s like to be home with a crazy dog that barks all the time, things breaking here and there, and there&amp;#039;s always a workman doing something.&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re going to be a part of the rhythm of my life.&amp;quot; He spends a lot of time here. There&amp;#039;s a dance to relationships, and we had been doing a little bit of the dancing side by side but not together. Now, we&amp;#039;re back together, and we&amp;#039;ve got to figure out the rhythm of that dance. That kind of reconnecting is really important. RE: Richard has had multiple sclerosis since before you were married, and he told you about it on your second date. You&amp;#039;ve talked about how annoying it is to have people assume that you&amp;#039;ve left this job to take care of him or that it means his health has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. How do you deal with that?  MV: Family and health factored into my decision, but it&amp;#039;s not like Richard is, as you said, taking some turn for the worse. Articles said he had cancer; he has had cancer [two bouts with colon cancer]. He&amp;#039;s cancer-free now; that&amp;#039;s not the issue. I was more leaving because he&amp;#039;s healthy. So why not while we are able to enjoy life? He has secondary-progressive MS; we don&amp;#039;t know what&amp;#039;s going to happen. Every year, it&amp;#039;s a little bit worse. On the other hand, he&amp;#039;s doing great compared to a lot of people. And he&amp;#039;s certainly self-sufficient. I mean, the idea that I&amp;#039;m nursing him is ridiculous. RE: I know your older brother Steve is suffering from Alzheimer&amp;#039;s, as did your dad. MV: And my dad&amp;#039;s sister. RE: So this definitely runs in your family. Does that worry you? Do you think about that? MV: I do, because if I forget something, instead of just thinking, Well, you&amp;#039;re overworked, you&amp;#039;re exhausted, I can&amp;#039;t help but think, Gee, is this the first sign? Because when I look at my brother, who&amp;#039;s five years older than I am, I don&amp;#039;t know when it first started. I know there were moments when he&amp;#039;d repeat something or he seemed to forget something he had just done. I think a lot of people thought that he was lazy, or that he didn&amp;#039;t care. What broke my heart was that by the time they officially diagnosed it, he&amp;#039;d spent a long time knowing, Oh, I&amp;#039;m going to end up like Dad. That&amp;#039;s scary. And there&amp;#039;s nothing they can do. And now he doesn&amp;#039;t recognize anybody, and it&amp;#039;s just heartbreaking.  RE: And yet, looking for a silver lining, I&amp;#039;d assume your kids have grown up with sensitivities that they wouldn&amp;#039;t have had otherwise. I&amp;#039;m sure you&amp;#039;ve learned things from dealing with chronic illness that you wouldn&amp;#039;t have otherwise. MV: I couldn&amp;#039;t agree more. I think our children are much more empathetic because of having a dad who has issues than they would have been otherwise. I think it&amp;#039;s helped shape the sense of humor of this family, because that is one of our coping mechanisms. It certainly is with Richard. And they&amp;#039;ve learned to appreciate what matters in a way that I don&amp;#039;t think they would have otherwise; when they were little, I think they were a little embarrassed that Dad couldn&amp;#039;t do all the things that another father could do. But when Ben wants to talk politics, he doesn&amp;#039;t talk to me. He sees his father and knows how smart Richard is, and also the strength of the man. They have so much more respect for him than they might have otherwise, because they&amp;#039;ve really looked into the heart of the person. RE: That truly is a gift. Let&amp;#039;s talk for a minute about another blessing: how you manage to look so great. Is there any special routine you follow for your skin? MV: Oh, thank you. I&amp;#039;ve never stuck with one particular thing except Neutrogena body wash. And I&amp;#039;m still a Jean Nat\u00E9 girl. It brings me back to when I was 13 or 14. I love to splash that stuff on!  RE: And from the inside out, what do you do?  MV: I try to keep my sugar intake as low as possible. And I try to eat more protein and veggies to keep my blood sugar levels in balance. I eat smart \u2014 I do think that&amp;#039;s the sort of thing that will eventually show up in the condition of your skin, your hair, and your nails, and your own feeling about yourself. You feel better in the short run when you have a tub of ice cream, but in the long run, you don&amp;#039;t. RE: What&amp;#039;s your healthy version of a tub of ice cream? What&amp;#039;s your favorite healthy snack? MV: I like nuts a lot; they&amp;#039;re fabulously good for you \u2014 almonds and that kind of thing. And I like those frozen pomegranate bars, the ice bars \u2014 and the coconut ones, too. [Jasper, Vieira&amp;#039;s dog, barks and jumps up on her.] RE: It&amp;#039;s clear to me that Jasper is your fourth child. MV: You know, secretly, I like a little chaos. I think that&amp;#039;s really true for my inner Buddha. I think I like a little nutsy. Maybe I can&amp;#039;t take total peace. Richard once said to me, &amp;quot;Did you ever watch yourself on a Saturday or Sunday? You never sit still. For someone who says she wants to just breathe, it&amp;#039;ll be interesting to see if you are capable of it. I think it&amp;#039;s part of your genetic makeup that you&amp;#039;re a putterer.&amp;quot; RE: Speaking of genetic makeup, tell me about your mom. MV: She was a real stay-at-home mom, very strict and old-school, like my dad. Though some of my fondest memories are of playing jacks on the linoleum kitchen floor with my mom. She never let me win at jacks... RE: So this is where you get your competitive streak from. Any other memories? MV: I&amp;#039;d walk into the kitchen and she&amp;#039;d be sitting by herself, and I remember thinking how pretty she was. Then as I got older, I remember thinking, What have you done with your life [other than raise my brothers and me]? But then at one point, I said that being a nurse would be great, and my mother immediately said, &amp;quot;Why would you be a nurse? You&amp;#039;d be a doctor.&amp;quot; My mother was a feminist way before that term came out. Even though she was a stay-at-home mom. RE: But she was ambitious for you. MV: Yes, and she didn&amp;#039;t want me to ever feel I couldn&amp;#039;t do anything I wanted to do. As I mentioned, as I got older, I started feeling [about her], But what have you done with your life? There was a lot of mother-daughter tension when I was a teenager; I talked back a little bit. I remember having some fight \u2014 I can&amp;#039;t recall what it was over \u2014 and I said to my mother, &amp;quot;Boy, I don&amp;#039;t want to end up like you.&amp;quot; To this day, I feel terrible about that. She let it roll off of her. You know, once I had kids, I could see more of my mother in me. I&amp;#039;d constantly think, What would my mother be doing? The holidays, all the things that make a house a home \u2014 all those things that she gave us are the most important. MV: She was always there for us. That&amp;#039;s why I could go off and do what I did, because my mother provided the foundation for it. My father was a doctor, but my mom was the rock in the family. If anything went wrong, my dad would say to her, &amp;quot;Elsie, would you deal with this?&amp;quot; She didn&amp;#039;t take anything from anybody. For instance, when I had my first Communion, my mother felt that the church didn&amp;#039;t treat women especially well. She had an issue with the monsignor and, I don&amp;#039;t remember if it was the night before, she appliqu\u00E9d little blue flowers on my communion dress. And you don&amp;#039;t do that \u2014 it should be all white. But she would always say, &amp;quot;No, you&amp;#039;re an individual. You don&amp;#039;t go in lockstep with everybody else. Show a little bit of spunk.&amp;quot; RE: Do you have family rituals now? When you all hang out, do you talk and debate politics? Are there games that you play? MV: We&amp;#039;re a big charades family when we all get together. There&amp;#039;s charades, and then there&amp;#039;s drunken charades. You haven&amp;#039;t lived until you&amp;#039;ve played drunken charades with your mother-in-law! When we have holidays together, that&amp;#039;s a big thing. RE: Whom do you most admire and why? MV: I used to always say my parents, but I think at this point in my life it&amp;#039;s probably my husband, because I&amp;#039;ve watched somebody deal so gracefully with the issues that have been thrown at him. I&amp;#039;ve learned a lot from Richard: to really appreciate life, to live it fully, to value it, to not take yourself too seriously. He embodies all of that, and he has a strength that I think is quite amazing. I watch him. He&amp;#039;s been in some tough spots, physically. And he just gets up every day and keeps going. I really think that&amp;#039;s an impressive thing. Richard will say, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the alternative?&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s just somebody I really admire. RE: He&amp;#039;s been lucky to have you. MV: I think we&amp;#039;ve made a good team. I believe you love who you love, but also, you kind of don&amp;#039;t go down that road [of worrying about the future]. Like I&amp;#039;ve said before, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow... RE: Or they could find a cure for MS tomorrow. MV Exactly. I don&amp;#039;t think you buy much by looking down the road. I like to live in the present. I struggle with that, though, because \u2014 even for all of this &amp;quot;letting your life flow&amp;quot; stuff \u2014 I also have anxieties. RE: What are your anxieties? MV: This might be a Type A-personality trait, but I never felt good enough about myself. I could be better at this, I could be better at that. I could look better. My work could be better. That whole idea that you&amp;#039;re going to get caught, you&amp;#039;re going to be found out as a fraud. That&amp;#039;s one of those reasons I got up at 2:30 in the morning. I feel I always have to work harder, I have to impress all the time. Impress whom? With what? People say, &amp;quot;Just be yourself.&amp;quot; Well, my anxiety is that people aren&amp;#039;t going to want that. RE: That makes the fact that you left the Today show all the more impressive. MV: That might be my crazy need to have things a little bit off-kilter. RE: Or it may just be that you&amp;#039;re ready to grow into whatever your next thing is. MV True. I&amp;#039;m curious what it will be. RE: I hope you&amp;#039;ll keep us posted. MV: Of course I will! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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