May 20, 2022 • 48 mins
I'm back! I'm on a journey of self- discovery right along with you! I'm 44 years old now and my daughter turns 17 at the end of the month. We've been on our own for about 3 years now. This skill of learning to write in pencil is something I've been working on for awhile.
In this episode, I'm going to share some examples of how despite trying to write my own life's story with a sharpie, life has thrown curveballs time an time again to remind me I should be writing in pencil. I'm also going to try to convince myself and you guys that there's been no better time than now... single over 40 to keep an open mind and go with the flow.
I found inspiration for this podcast from my daily devotional written by Shauna Niequist called Savor.
My vision for my break from the podcast was one of tranquility. The reality though, is that the break has created anxiety. There's never a perfect time to jump back in or take a leap of faith. So, here I am, back with the podcast after my break that didn't really serve me well.
My first love at the age of 14 is a clear example of my own tendency to get ahead of myself and plan my life. I had a promise ring, names for our kids were chosen, and my engagement ring design was literally torn from a magazine. Then, life happened... again and again.
For me, something that changed the course of my life more that anything else was death. I share the story of my cousin, Mandy's, death when we were both 18 and how it altered the course of my life.
Death upturns everything and I believe death and divorce (or break ups) evoke similar feelings. I think it's important to grieve our past relationships just as we grieve the loss of our loved ones in death. Sometimes divorce comes as a tragic surprise. For others, it's a long painful ending. Either way, it's painful and difficult.
Overcoming loss in divorce doesn't have to be strewn with negative feelings and guilt. We can seek forgiveness, share life with positive people, learn through our dating experiences. We can choose to view our single status as an opportunity though. Personally, I find it thrilling that I have no idea what is ahead.
Opportunities to be open-minded and excited about the unknown as singles over 40:
- Our careers- Maybe it's a great time to choose a different career path or continue our education. It's never too late!
- Creative Pursuits! Your life doesn't have to look any particular way. Nothing is holding you back. Use your extra time to try something new. Your desires and dreams are up to you to make happen!
- Future relationships/marriage - some of us have very strong feelings about what we will and not do in our future... I think we should avoid definitive statements like "I'll never get married again!" How do you know?! I think we should stay open hearted and open-minded about our romantic futures. Personally, I don't have an end game... I have NO idea if I'll fall in love or get married. I am open to anything though.
Life can change on a dime. I've been approached by several different casting agents and directors to be on reality shows. They were all big wake up calls of just how quickly my life would change if I ended up on any of them. If you would've told me a year ago that I would be doing phone and zoom interviews for Hulu or HBO Max, I wouldn't believe you. That's a version of my life I could've never predicted.
I share a story of a beautifully tragic love story of a friend of mine. It's a wonderful example of a second chance of love and exactly how unpredictable life can be.
Have faith and believe that your future holds great things. The unknown can be thrilling. Maybe just maybe you'll choose to follow my lead and for the first time in your life you'll be a visionary and a drea
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to man shopping with Stacy, where I
share my real transparent datingand life experiences for your
amusement and inspiration.
I'm your host, Stacey weer, andyou are listening to season two
episode one, learning to writein pencil.
(00:22):
If you've listened to previousepisodes of my podcast, then you
know that I'm on a journey ofself discovery right along with
you.
I'm 44 years old.
Now my daughter's almost 17.
We've been on our own after mysecond divorce for about three
years now.
And this learning to write andpencil idea is something
(00:46):
is a skill that I'm still tryingto hone.
In this episode, I'm going toshare with you some examples of
how, despite my best efforts ofwriting and mapping out my own
life story with a Sharpie lifehas thrown me some curve balls
and taught me it would be bestto write in pencil.
(01:08):
You know what though, thesecurve balls that life throws at
us, they can also be hit out ofthe park.
We can score home runs withcurve balls.
They're not always a bad thing.
So in this episode, I'm alsogoing to make a case.
I am going to try to convincemyself and you guys that there's
(01:28):
been no better time in our livesthan right now, single over 40
to keep an open mind, to go withthe flow, to be easy, going to
not have our lives completelymapped out.
I'm going to share some ideasabout different facets of our
(01:49):
life and how we can implementthis new skill that we are going
to, um, resolve to get better atwriting and pencil to begin.
I gotta tell you, I findinspiration for my podcast from
so many unusual places.
Now my most preferred place tofind inspiration typically is
(02:09):
from my audience.
I'm asking all the time for youguys to share with me, what's
important to you.
What do you wanna hear about?
Because I want this podcast tobe relatable.
I want it to be like thisorganic growing, um, platform.
If you will, that we can alllearn and get better.
Through this episode though,came to me through a daily
(02:33):
devotional that I have beenreading every morning.
And I've had this book foryears.
You guys, and I've reread itseveral times.
It's like 365 days.
It's called saver.
It's a book by Shawn Equis.
Her last name is N I E Q U I S D.
And it's a Christian based book.
But hang with me.
If that's not your thing, thisis where the writing and pencil
idea came from.
(02:54):
And I'm going to read to youguys most of the page that she
has about this topic.
So these are Shauna's words Ishould have written in pencil.
I should have viewed thetrajectory of my life as a
mystery.
I should have planned lightlyhypothetically and used words
(03:14):
like maybe, and possiblyinstead, every chance I got, I
wrote in Sharpie, I stood on myfuture on what I knew on the
certainty of what life wouldhold for me as though it wore
rock.
Instead, it's more like a magiccarpet, a slippery slighty
wiggly thing, full of equalparts play and terror.
(03:36):
The ground beneath my feet islurching and breaking and making
wave for an entirely new thing.
Every time I look down surprisedonce again, by a future, I
couldn't have predicted, thereis a loosey goosey feeling to
the future right now, both aslight edge of anxiety.
Like anything can happen and aslight bubble of hope and
(03:59):
freedom that well, anything canhappen.
I read this passage on March10th, it's now April the third.
I've had a minute to think onit.
It strikes such a chord with mefor one I've been on a break
from the podcast, a break thatwas kind of unplanned.
(04:21):
I knew at some point I wouldneed to take a step back,
regroup, get some thoughtstogether, give my creative
energy a Lu, um, to recharge andcome back to you guys with
quality, uh, quality material,things that matter.
I didn't wanna just crank outepisodes for the sake of
(04:42):
cranking out episodes.
My vision for my spring break,as I called it from my podcast
was one of tranquility,peaceful, easy kind of feelings
while I, you know, kepta, uh, notepad on my phone of
show ideas, gathered inspirationfrom the world around me, I've
(05:06):
done those things.
I have a pretty solid list ofthings to talk about in season
two, but what I didn'tanticipate and what came of my
break was anxiety.
so weird.
So weird.
I felt more anxious and nervousabout the direction of my
(05:29):
podcast.
My lack of progress on my book,all of it, my life in general.
I think then when I was taking,um, like deliberate conscious
time, just time, um, and thoughtput into what I share on this
(05:52):
podcast with you guys and what Ihave plans for, uh, for my book.
So I guess for me, like thefirst lesson that came to mind
about writing in pencil was justthat idea that there's never a
perfect time to, you know, jumpback in, to take a leap of
(06:12):
faith, to go in a differentdirection.
Uh, you just have to do it.
You just gotta jump.
And so here I am jumping backinto the podcast and, uh, trying
to focus on the book because thebreak didn't work for me.
like that.
Like I, like I thought that itwould, or like I anticipated and
Hey, that's okay.
Who knew that?
(06:34):
Um, yeah, I have a hard timerelaxing and uh, and uh, I suck
at slowing down.
That's a rhetorical question.
Pretty much everyone in my lifeknows that I'm that way, but I'm
working on it guys.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I'm working on it.
I'm going with the flow.
So here I am.
I'm gonna share with you guys astory from my life now from a
(06:54):
very early time in my life.
I've talked about thisrelationship before, but, um,
you guys, it was my first love.
I fell in love hard and deepkind of love at the age of 14.
And it, it was real.
It was absolutely real.
It, it wasn't puppy, dog simplekind of love.
(07:15):
It was a messy, complicated, um,very, very real and meaningful
kind of love as I'm continuingto speak in generalities.
I'll tell you my high school andearly college relationship is as
messed up.
As some of the things that weexperienced together were it was
(07:40):
probably the, uh, healthiestrelationship I've had in that.
Um, we cared for one another alot and I felt cared for by him.
And that hasn't happened to memuch in life.
So to get specific with you toget real specific though, about
(08:02):
this relationship that I was in,when I was very young, I will
tell you, uh, we spentabsolutely as much time together
as possible.
I found myself eating dinner athis family table more than my
own.
I went on almost all of hisfamily vacations with them.
(08:26):
I grew very, very close with hismother and his sister, uh, very
tight bonds that felt veryfamily like.
And I could absolutely seeexactly what our family life
would look like if we were toget married one day, which I was
(08:47):
fully convinced that we would, Iwas devoted to him.
We were committed to oneanother.
And by, I don't know, late inhigh school, I told him that I
really wanted a tangible sign.
Like I felt as though likecalling him, my boyfriend was
silly.
(09:07):
You guys, I was like 16, 17years old.
And I want, I like wanted to be,I wanted to be married.
Like I felt like we weremarried.
And so I wanted a promise ring.
And I don't even know you guys,if that was like a thing,
because I can't really name anyother couples that I went to
high school with.
where the girl had apromise ring.
(09:28):
I don't know if I saw it on TVor in a movie or what, or made
it up.
But I, I told him like, it wasan expectation at one point that
I wanted that because I was sodead set on the fact that that
was where our future was headed.
I wanted that commitment in avery, you know, tangible, real
(09:49):
way from him.
And he made it happen.
I completely remember I was, Iwas working at the buckle, you
know, selling, um, Z CAIS andPepe jeans and whatever.
And I went out to my car afterwork and I think he had like
decorated my car, left me notes,whatever, and I'm pretty sure he
left the ring in it.
(10:09):
And I may have just completelycontrived that story, but that's
how I remember it.
So yeah, I got my promise ring,which obviously meant that at
some point we would be engagedand married and spend the rest
of our lives together because Ihad it all planned out in my
head.
I also had our children named, Ithink he liked the names too.
I don't know, had the kidsnamed, had, um, had my wedding
(10:34):
ring picked out of a magazine,um, that I tore the page out and
kept.
And, um, I knew what ourholidays would look like because
we had spent all of our holidaystogether.
I knew what our, you know,Sundays would look like because
we had spent our Sundaystogether.
(10:55):
So it was just, um, very, verywritten in stone, you know,
what, what everything was goingto be like.
And, and then, you know, lifethrough some curve balls
and it didn't quite go that way.
Um, I remember waking up on aSaturday morning to early to a
phone call from him, you know,on the landline, picked up the
(11:17):
phone.
Um, we talked on the phone allthe time when we weren't
together, which we were alwaystogether.
So wasn't that unusual to pickup the phone on a Saturday
morning early and he was sobbingand I thought someone had died.
He was crying so hard.
He was like inconsolable.
And I was like, what, what,what?
And I couldn't believe the wordsthat were coming out of his
(11:41):
mouth when he confessed to methat he had cheated on me.
I was absolutely blindsided.
I did not see this coming.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We were happy.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We were in love.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
We
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Were, you know, he,
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I was like
Speaker 1 (12:02):
A junior in high school.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
What you
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Cheated on me with
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Who?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And he told me everything.
He indulged me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Drilled him with questions.
I
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Was
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Sobbing.
He was sobbing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Was shaking.
I was sick to my stomach.
I wanted to
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Throw up.
It was
Speaker 1 (12:23):
The worst phone call up till that point in my life
that I
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Had ever
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Taken my life changed in that moment.
And it did
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You guys,
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It changed
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A lot after that for
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Whatever reason and as
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Crazy as this
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Probably sounds to
Speaker 2 (12:42):
All
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Of you listening.
I knew without
Speaker 2 (12:44):
A doubt that
Speaker 1 (12:46):
If he wanted to stay with me, I wanted to stay with
him
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Through that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I, I, I don't know the reason
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I really, I just, I
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Loved him
Speaker 2 (13:02):
So
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Much.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I loved our
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Relationship so much.
I did not want to give up on it.
And I don't know if that
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Choice was
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right or wrong, but we
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Stayed together.
We stayed together,
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Um, through
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That, but it absolutely altered our future
Speaker 1 (13:23):
and it wasn't
the only thing that altered
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Our future.
A lot
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Of other things happened the next year.
I went away
Speaker 2 (13:32):
To student
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Council camp.
Mm-hmm, I've talkedabout
Speaker 2 (13:35):
This before.
It's one of those
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Like life changing kind of things.
My friend, I had severalfriends, a friend named Carly, a
friend named Latonya.
We went to camp Chile inColorado.
And I remember early on in some
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Workshops, they, they
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Really got us thinking they kind of were, um,
well, they were trying to helpus grow
Speaker 2 (13:56):
As kids, as
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Leaders in our schools,
Speaker 2 (13:59):
All of that.
So there were a lot of thought
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Provoking workshops that we went through And in my
small group
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Was A boy
Speaker 1 (14:09):
From St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Said,
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Boy from St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Was a very
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Dynamic, funny, charming guy.
He reminded me nothing of myboyfriend from home.
They
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Were very,
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Very different people.
And
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Throughout the
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Course of my time at this camp,
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I sure
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Did find myself being drawn to the boy from St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 (14:38):
You can see where this is going.
So we knew some things aboutthis camp because all of us had
had friends that were older thanus who had gone through the camp
before.
And we knew that
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It was
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Kind of common practice for, you know, the last
night that you're there at camp,you sneak out, we were in the
mountains, it was a beautifulsetting.
And they had somewhat of achurch set up.
This was not a Christian basedcamp, but they had like a chapel
that we had our meetings at.
And it was beautiful and hadthis gorgeous overlook.
So we all had plans, the boysand the girls bust outta their
(15:13):
cabins under the watchful,sleepy, not so watchful eyes of
our camp counselors.
And we did it.
We all met up.
So, um, a handful of us, not thewhole camp or anything, but a
few of us had a, you know, hadthis, had this goal of getting
together.
I don't know what we thoughtwould happen, but we did.
We just all got together and wehung out, you know, and, and it
(15:35):
was pretty innocent, nothingcrazy happening.
We didn't have alcohol or, youknow, drugs or anything bad, but
what we did have were a lot ofhormones.
And, um, I guess that was theobjective.
And I think I knew it going intoit.
And so I definitely recall, um,sitting on this boy's lap, I sat
(15:58):
on his lap, threw my arms aroundhim and, uh, we ended up
kissing, right?
So we, uh, kissed and we kissedand we kissed and we kissed and,
uh, found out like we werepretty into each other.
I mean, uh, shock, shocking,right?
Shocking story.
That's what young kids do.
And so then I was left togo home in this horrible state
(16:24):
of guilt and confusion.
And how do you go from like,being so devoted and committed
at, you know, the age of 17 forthe rest of my life?
I, I had told this boy, I hadpromised myself to him and now I
have messed up.
I've messed up big time.
(16:46):
And I didn't know what it meant.
Did I morally, you know, was Iobligated to tell him what
happened or would it be betterto spare his feelings and not
tell him was I going to stay inmy relationship, you know, with
my boyfriend, from home, or wasI going to try to make a go of
(17:08):
it with this boy from St.
Louis?
It was like a three hour drivefrom my hometown.
And, um, it was really ambiguousand messy for, for a few weeks.
And then it all happened.
The B from St.
Louis came to my hometown.
(17:29):
I broke.
I mean, like for a visit, um, Ilike harbored him as a fugitive.
He stayed with, um, a friend ofhis who happened to have
grandparents in my hometown.
He was undercover.
No one knew who he was.
Um, I had a Ron debut with himat the Missouri state fair with
my cousin.
(17:49):
Um, it was a mess.
You guys, I mean, I was
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Like
Speaker 1 (17:53):
In a
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Covert
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Operation, um, hanging out with him under, You
know, without my boyfriendknowing, because I hadn't broken
up with him.
I didn't have the guts to do it.
I didn't know if it's what Iwanted.
And then it just became superduper messy.
It became super messy and heartwrenching and dramatic and
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Awful, awful,
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Awful.
It hurt
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Bad.
I mean, if you
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Guys
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Think back to your
Speaker 2 (18:21):
First love,
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I mean, it
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Just
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Kills.
And so, you know, I didn't havesex with this B from St.
Louis.
Um,
Speaker 2 (18:31):
But I, I cheated, I
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Kissed him.
I made out with him.
I, I had him come to Kansas ornot Kansas city.
I had him come to my hometown ofSedalia without,
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Without
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Breaking up with my boyfriend.
First.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I was, I, I had a lot of faults.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I did a lot of things wrong.
And you guys, that
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Was like
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The beginning of, uh,
Speaker 2 (18:52):
A whole
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Situation in that relationship.
I mean, I just never,
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Ever
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Could have seen things going that way.
My script did not include, youknow, falling for someone else
at a camp in the mountains.
Life threw me a curve ball, andI
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Failed that test,
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That lesson
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Miserably.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I was not faithful to the love of my life.
Um, I did hurtful, harmful badthings.
Um,
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But, but
let's
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Look at it from an adult
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Perspective,
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right.
I mentioned hormones talkingabout a bunch of kids
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Here
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That don't yet
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Have
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Fully formed brains.
That's what my mom friends and Italk about a lot now in regard
to our own children who are, whoare in high school.
And I found this like Post onInstagram that I think is so
Speaker 2 (19:44):
True.
Uh, this guy
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Says, we ask 18 year olds to make huge decisions
about their career and financialfuture.
When a month ago they
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Had to ask to go
Speaker 1 (19:54):
To the bathroom.
Right?
So I guess what I'm saying is Ishould probably grant myself
some grace, but
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You guys,
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I Harbor so much guilt
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Still.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I haven't forgiven myself for some of the things
that went wrong, um, in myrelationship with my first
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Love,
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Um, I never
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Could have, uh, predicted that our lives would
go the way
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That they went,
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Because I had us
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Married, you know, and with kids and grandkids.
And, um,
Speaker 2 (20:31):
We did get back together.
I'll
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Save some of these stories for another day.
We lived together in college, Wewere engaged.
I was engaged at the age of 19.
We had an entire Wedding planned
Speaker 2 (20:47):
That I called off, like
Speaker 1 (20:51):
In very short time before the wedding was to take
place.
And it wasn't just a littlewedding.
I mean, this
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Was a
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Big hometown wedding.
So yeah, I've been through somestuff.
My life has taken some turnsthat I did not think it would
take, um, some my own doing, youknow, based on my own choices
and some just completely
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Out of left field, right?
This is
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Life.
And if you are like me and overthe age
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Of 40,
Speaker 1 (21:20):
I am sure
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That you have
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Experienced some, some similar
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Surprises, right?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
As I was making my outline and thinking about what
I wanted to talk about on thisepisode, thinking about
disruptors in my life, thingsthat have changed
Speaker 2 (21:37):
The course of where I thought I
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Was going.
And one of the biggest events ofmy life still to this day
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Was death.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I mean, how many of you
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Have had the death of a
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Loved one,
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Completely
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Change
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Everything
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In the blink of an eye and, you know, tragic
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Death,
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Unexpected, um, death
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Actually altered
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Some of my relationships and changed the
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Course of
Speaker 1 (22:15):
The rest of my life.
My cousin died in a caraccident.
When I, when we
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Were 18, we had just
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Graduated from high school together.
She was at a softballtournament, riding home in a
caravan of cars, um,
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Back
Speaker 1 (22:35):
To our hometown when the
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Driver of her vehicle that she,
Speaker 1 (22:40):
She was in, it wasn't her vehicle, but she was in a
Volkswagen van sitting in a beanbag chair in the back.
And her young friend wasdriving.
Another young friend was sittingup front.
None of them had seat belts on,they,
Speaker 2 (22:53):
All three were ejected
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And my cousin died.
And, Um, it was
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Still
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Is the most tragic thing that I've ever been
through.
And when that happened and Icould go into tons of painful
details.
But when that happened, I foundmyself seeking the comfort Of my
first
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Love.
I did carry through
Speaker 1 (23:22):
A relationship
Speaker 2 (23:23):
With
Speaker 1 (23:24):
The boy from St.
Louis for quite some time.
And it was kind of messed up andfun and stupid and hurtful and a
million different ways too.
But
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I,
Speaker 1 (23:34):
When my cousin died, I found myself longing to be
with someone who understood, whocared about me, who would
protect me, who would hold mewhile I cried.
And that was him.
That was my first boyfriend, notthe fun, arrogant, dumb
guy that I enjoyed being around,uh, from St.
(23:57):
Louis.
So, so that changed things.
We got back together.
That's, you know, it changed thecourse of my college.
Um, we became engaged, you know,just a couple years after that.
So death, right.
It, it, um, upturns everything.
And I didn't bring this up tomake you cry or bring up, you
(24:20):
know, hard things that you'vebeen through.
Maybe I did, maybe I did bringit up so that you think about
hard things that you've beenthrough.
That's, that's probably true.
Um, but for me, death anddivorce share a lot of
similarities, divorce, orbreakups of, you know, important
relationships, whatever thatlooks like for you.
Um, divorce in its way, bringsabout, you know, a loss that can
(24:45):
feel a lot like death.
And I think it's important togrieve your past relationships
if it was a marriage or arelationship for many of you,
your divorce may have been asunexpected and tragic and
(25:06):
shocking as the death of mycousin was to me, for others of
you, maybe it was a smolderinglong, painful, horrible ending
that drug on for a long, longtime, either way, either way,
(25:28):
it's typically painful and areally hard thing to get
through, right.
Guessing none of you like satdown in your journals when you
were, you know, 11 years oldwith your little lock and key.
I had so many of those that Inever wrote in, but, um, you
(25:48):
know, no, none of us sat downlike writing our life story
thinking, and then one day I'llget divorced and I'll get to
start all over again.
at the age of, you know,42.
That sounds, that soundsawesome.
Uh, no, I mean, life happens andhere we are, and it doesn't have
(26:10):
to be tragic anymore.
It doesn't have to be sad,hurtful, um, guilt ridden, you
know, that's what this processthat I'm going through.
And I think most of you are too.
We're forgiving ourselves.
We're learning.
We are trying to be betterpeople.
(26:32):
We are seeking positive peopleto be around, to share our life
with trying to learn throughdating what we're looking for in
a new partner one day, what wedeserve so far as how we are to
(26:52):
be treated and how we shouldtreat others.
Right.
I've tried to impress upon youguys, many, many, many times
that one way to look at where weare in life as single people
later in life is op it's anopportunity.
(27:17):
It can be exciting just likeShauna Equis.
You know, she was married withtwo very small young boys when
she wrote that page in her book.
And I don't know what she wasgoing through personally, that
made her wake up and realizethat, you know, she didn't have
it all figured out yet.
but, um, but you guys, Ican relate to, I know, I, I
(27:42):
don't know your stories.
I don't know the intimatedetails, but I think I know how
you're feeling because I'm overhere feeling the same way.
So at the beginning of thispodcast, I told you that I would
do my best to make a case toconvince myself.
(28:02):
And you guys that, thatthis can be a good thing that
not planning our lives out, notyet knowing exactly where we are
headed can be thrilling.
It can be a magic carpet ride.
That's what she, that's what shesaid.
Right?
so let's talk about someof these facets of our lives
(28:26):
right now, where we have anopportunity to be open minded,
to view uncertainty as just thatuncertainty, but in an exciting,
positive, good way.
Right?
So let's talk about our careers,right?
(28:47):
Have you ever wanted to trysomething different?
Have you ever hoped for anadvancement?
It spent it's not too late.
It's not too late at all.
I mean, sadly for most of us,we've got a solid, like what, 25
years of work ahead from usahead of us.
Think about that.
(29:08):
Where were you?
25 years ago?
You didn't even know who youwanted to be yet when you grew
up.
Right.
Well, a lot of us still don'tknow what we wanna be yet.
And if you find yourselfunfulfilled in your career, Hey,
guess what?
There's still time to dosomething different.
I've watched a lot of my friendsexplore different career paths
out of unhappiness or notfeeling gratified, or maybe just
(29:33):
ambition and desire to, to dosomething greater.
This is a great time to be ableto do that.
I think the only way that thathappens is for you to, um, build
your confidence up, to have ahealthy mindset, to surround
(29:54):
yourself with family and friendsand loved ones who are
supportive and encouraging youguys.
I, I mean, one of mygreatest successes right now is
doing this is just sittingbehind this microphone and
learning along with you.
As I keep saying, I neverwould've started a podcast and
(30:14):
this is a small success and youguys can laugh.
I don't care for me.
It's a big deal because Ifollowed through with something.
I had no idea how to start apodcast, you know, um, whatever
a year and a half ago.
Um, now I'm, you know, on seasontwo, still, still plugging away,
still going, still findingfulfillment through this.
(30:37):
So, you know, I mean, I can takeit in another direction.
If you have creative pursuitsthat you've always wanted to do,
what are you waiting for yourlife?
Doesn't have to look anyparticular way.
You can take up, you know, aninstrument.
You can, you can be a runner.
You can, you can do greatthings.
(30:58):
Nothing is holding you back.
If you're like me, maybe youhave more time on your hands
than you used to because yourkids are getting older.
Maybe they're out of the house.
You guys, it's kind ofthrilling.
It really is.
It's sad.
And I mean, I get worried aboutwhat life is gonna look like
when Laney leaves home, but youknow, I've also come to terms
(31:23):
with the fact that I can dreadthe day I can ho I mean, I do
hold on very tight to everymoment with her and try to soak
it up and all of that.
But I also try to remind myselfthat it's an exciting time in
her life.
She needs my support to spreadher wings and fly and do big
(31:43):
things.
And I too plan on doing bigthings and having a, you know,
uh, goals and ambitions anddesires for myself.
And I think that's one of thebiggest opportunities for all of
us at this point in our lives.
Is that again, I've said this amillion times on this podcast,
(32:03):
you can, you can be selfishright now because you're not
sharing life with a partner.
Yes.
You have children.
Yes.
You have a job.
You have responsibilities.
You can't fully be selfish, butso far as your dreams and
desires and what your futureholds, that's on you, you can
make the most of it.
You can do amazing things.
(32:26):
If you believe in yourself, ifyou work hard and try to, so
what's holding you back, right.
Who says that life has to look acertain way.
It doesn't, you can write yourown chapters, just, you know,
write'em in pencil.
Don't write'em in sharp becauseyou just never know
(32:48):
what's gonna happen.
That's the whole point.
Right?
So yeah, maybe this midlife is agreat time to, uh, further your
education to learn new skills,to take up hobbies, to try
something different.
All of those things are true, Ithink.
But also when we're talkingabout not planning out our life,
(33:10):
it's one of my pet peeves.
Have you guys ever gone on adate with somebody?
And they're like, well, I'mnever getting married again.
Like I have no desire to getmarried.
I've already made the decision.
I think that would be foolish.
It would be so ridiculous.
I have no desire to ever getmarried again there.
I said it it's done.
It is, you know, written in avery big, bold black Sharpie.
Don't with me.
I'm not getting married again.
(33:31):
Wow.
Um, I've heard it a lot.
Not just on dates, but inconversation with other single
people.
I mean, Hmm.
Okay.
Like, I understand that.
I understand it financially.
I understand it from a legalpoint.
I understand it for some, assomeone, I am someone who has
(33:51):
been hurt.
Um, I'm guarded too, but I tryreally hard to not make super
definitive statements like thatbecause I just don't know I'm
over here trying to be openminded.
Do I feel like kind of ansometimes for thinking, for
being a romantic like, oh, Imean maybe one day I will, I
(34:15):
will meet my guy.
The guy that I, you know, is agood match for me.
And we can be solid partners andbe happy care for one another
mutually respect one another.
Do I feel kind of stupidsometimes for like my head, you
know, like my head's in theclouds that no, I really don't.
(34:37):
I want to stay openhearted andopenminded now I, you know,
probably sound judgey for, and Iam probably for like, you
shouldn't have hard and fastrules for what you think is
gonna happen.
Just like I don't expect to getmarried.
That's not a goal of mine.
(34:57):
It's really not.
I think it drives my mom crazythat it's, that's not, I don't
have an end game.
I do not have an end game.
I am not trying to write therest of my story.
I don't know.
I don't know if I'll be singlethe rest of my life.
Does that mean that I will neverfall in love again?
No, I mean, I don't, I don'tknow.
(35:17):
I hope so.
I'm open to it.
I'm open to love.
I'm open to relationships.
I'm even open to marriage.
Now with that being said, what,what would it take to, for me to
get married?
I mean, a whole of a very highlevel of comfort.
That's what it would take.
um, and a lot of, uh,patience on the part of whoever
(35:39):
wants to marry me.
That's for sure.
But I'm trying to not putlimitations or, you know, be
close minded because I justdon't know.
I mean, we all know that, thatold saying, like, you know, you
know, you're gonna fall in lovewhen you're not looking for it.
Okay.
(35:59):
Well, I mean, that's true forsome people, but some people put
a lot of effort into it and theymeet someone too funny, things
happen, you know, um, you canhave a strategy, you can have an
end game, you can have a goal inmind.
And despite all of those effortsbe taken, you know, in a
completely different direction.
(36:22):
So instead of feeling maybe, um,helpless, hopeless, wandering,
you know, I think it is good toat least know yourself, know
what you want.
I mean, if you know, in yourheart that you want to be
married again, then by allmeans, go out there and try to
(36:43):
find a spouse, you know, butdon't lose sight of the rest of
your goals.
And I know I'm being very Ramly,but I can't help it.
I mean, this topic just lendsitself to, uh, you know, a whole
slew of different ideas about,about, you know, having faith
and believe that no matter whatdirection your life takes you,
(37:05):
it's still full of opportunityfor happiness, for growth, for
good things.
And instead of being scared,worried for your future, trying
to control every aspect of yourlife, maybe just let go, you
know, Jesus take the wheel.
(37:25):
Maybe just have a little bit ofthat, of that, um, mindset that
it doesn't have to be plannedout.
And maybe just, maybe that's agood thing.
I find it incredibly exciting,very, very liberating.
And I'm enjoying every minute ofnot having a clue of what's in
(37:48):
front of me.
You know, I've recently kind ofbeen reevaluating.
Like what, what am I trying todo with this podcast?
What do I, what are my hopes forthis book?
I've said it before, like, Idon't wanna do anything half.
Like if I write a book, I wantmy book to be good.
I want it to sell.
I want things to come from it.
I want to make, I want toinfluence.
(38:09):
I want, I want those things.
Um, because I believe in mymessage and I believe in my
mission and I'm trying to helpother people, well, you guys,
out of nowhere, this is, this ishow life can change on a dime
right out of nowhere, I've beenapproached by three different
casting companies for televisionshows.
(38:30):
They're all reality shows.
They're all related to what I'mdoing here.
Being single dating, um, givingadvice or not like there are
three very different shows thatI've been approached for each
time that has happened.
I have kept an open mind.
Two of the shows that I wasapproached for would be
(38:51):
tremendous fits.
It would be fun.
I would learn from it.
I would be excited.
I would feel proud to, to be apart of it.
And then one of them was like sofar outside of my comfort zone.
It's not even funny.
Like I found myself, um, in aninterview with a casting
(39:13):
director, not, I mean, I wastrue to myself, but I was
definitely not what they werelooking for.
And I knew it, you know?
And so I was still hopeful,honestly, that they chose me for
it because here's the deal.
I knew what a difference itcould make in what I'm trying to
(39:34):
accomplish here.
The mission of their show wasnot aligned at all with my
mission to spread someoptimism, joy, and happiness to
singles like me, it, it reallywasn't.
It was like pure fantasy.
It was kind of stupid in myopinion, but I was still willing
to do it because I knew that ifI was on this reality show on
(39:59):
Hulu, that it would draw moreattention to what matters to me.
Right.
Talk about a game changer.
Like if you would've told me ayear ago that I would be
approached to be on shows, and Iknow I'm not alone.
You guys, some of you haveprobably be been DMed on
Instagram or cuz it's happenedto me.
(40:21):
Like I've had friends pass alongopportunities.
To me, Tony reminded me that ata party recently, she was like,
my, my girlfriend.
She's like, I sent that castingagent to you.
I'm like, I know.
And I still hope somethinghappens.
Um, and I know that, I mean, youcan laugh at me.
I don't care.
Reality TV is reality TV.
It's a big part of my life.
Actually.
I quite enjoy it.
(40:42):
And living as transparently andvulnerably as I do, I think it's
a fricking fabulous fit for me.
And I hope it happens one day.
But talk about not being able topredict the direction of your
life.
When I got pretty far along inan interviewing process for a
show, all that I could thinkwas, oh my God, I was terrified
(41:02):
at first of all, like having toask my boss for like four to six
weeks away off work, that wasscary.
Um, I knew that if I was on thatsaid show, once it aired, like
my Instagram would go from, youknow, 2,500 followers to 25,000
(41:23):
followers.
And I know how hard it is for mesometimes to keep up with
messages and posts and stuff nowsounds silly, but that's like,
that's like a big responsibilitycuz I don't wanna be an and not
message people and acknowledge,you know, things that yeah.
Matter to me.
So I mean just little thingslike that, but not only that,
(41:44):
but I, I was hopeful that itwould mean great things for my
book.
It would draw, like I said, itwould draw more attention to the
things that matter to me andthen it didn't happen.
Okay.
So that's a roller coaster,right?
That's happened three times.
Um, but again, if you would'vetold me a year ago that that
would even be happening, I'd belike, oh my dear God, that's
(42:07):
nuts.
That's a version of my life thatI never ever could have
predicted.
Right.
Well, that's kind of a weirdscenario.
I get it.
And maybe not that relatable tomost of you who, you know, don't
spill their guts on a podcastand take photos of everything
they go through in their life toshare with other people.
I get it.
(42:27):
But we all have heard of thosepeople who one day, everything
changed for the better.
I have a beautifully tragicstory I can share with you
actually that comes to mind of afriend of mine.
She was in, um, an unhappymarriage that ended in divorce.
And when she became single, shewas approached for a date, um,
(42:51):
by one of her very closestsorority friends' brother,
someone that was totally off ofher radar.
She had never considered beingin a romantic relationship with
him before, but it made a littlebit of sense and they started
dating and they fell in love andthey got married.
(43:13):
She had never had any childrenof her own.
And she soon found herself astepmother to his two beautiful,
loving kind awesome daughters.
And she now has a healthy,loving, beautiful example of a
second chance at love if youwill.
(43:35):
And she's radiant and happy andglowing.
And she speaks so adoringly andfondly of her husband, it's just
been the most beautiful thing towatch and learn from.
And then tragedy struck out ofnowhere.
(43:55):
She had some lower back painthat couldn't get resolved and
she floated around to a coupleof different doctors.
She had some other symptom GIsymptoms that she'd always lived
with her whole life, that shekind of dismissed as nothing.
And then one day, um, she wasdiagnosed with colon cancer was
(44:16):
a tumor that was sitting on herspine that was causing her back
pain.
But anyway, she had to gothrough a lot to figure all of
that out and thank God that shehas the husband, the loving,
supportive, caring, nurturingnursing
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Sweet
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Husband that she has because they are now going
through a cancer journeytogether and end of life
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Story
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Together.
And as tragic as
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Is, I know that for my friend,
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Her life
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Has been such
Speaker 2 (44:59):
A gift.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
You know, she
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Appreciates
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Her husband so much because of
Speaker 2 (45:04):
What she
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Experienced with her first husband.
You know, I think a lot of uscan can say that,
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Like I
Speaker 1 (45:11):
She's living it, she's living, um, a life of
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Gratitude because
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Of things that harder things that she's been through
in her past, and now she'sfacing the hardest time of her
life, but she has
Speaker 2 (45:23):
The
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Caring, loving support of a wonderful man.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's tragic.
That's, that's such
Speaker 1 (45:31):
A clear example of how we can never plan anything
out.
Um, I have other examples in mylife of that
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Too, actually,
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Where people have found, um, true love, you know,
a very endearing sweet, pure,
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Good love
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Later in life
Speaker 2 (45:49):
For it to be short lived,
Speaker 1 (45:52):
I would
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Say that's
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Better than to not have experienced
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Love at all.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Um, just examples of, you know, the unpredictability
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Of life, why fight it?
Why, why try to control it?
It's totally
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Out of our control.
We all know it.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
We just gotta
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Relax and go
Speaker 2 (46:14):
With the flow.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Right?
My last
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Little thought
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Provoking
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Idea that I'll leave you
Speaker 1 (46:21):
With is maybe instead of trying to
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Precisely
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Plan out your future with hard and fast rules
Speaker 2 (46:30):
For exactly
Speaker 1 (46:31):
What that's going to look like.
Maybe
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Try
Speaker 1 (46:35):
To take the stance that I've been trying to take.
And I don't perfected either,but I am over here being a
dreamer maybe for the first timein my life, Really dreaming,
really being open-minded to big,bold things that could happen to
(46:56):
view life is exciting and notscary.
And maybe dreaming for you isgoing back to school.
Maybe it's moving to a differentstate.
Maybe it is buying an RV anddriving around the country,
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Experiencing
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Adventures in your retirement.
I know people that are doingthat along these lines.
This
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Is probably why I have
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Created a vision board instead of a
Speaker 2 (47:22):
List of goals,
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Trying to be a visionary for my future.
Instead of like a, instead oflike a script writer or
something in conclusion, I'mgoing to reread the last
sentence from this page of thebook saver by Shawn Equis.
And here it goes, there's aloosey goosey feeling to the
future.
Now both a slight edge ofanxiety, like anything can
(47:45):
happen and a slight bubble ofhope and freedom that well,
anything can happen.
You guys, I love that so much.
I hope that you can look towardyour future and even your
present with optimism andhopefulness and be a dreamer
because you just never knowwhere life is going to take you.
(48:06):
So join me in learning to writein pencil.
Will you thank you all so muchfor your patience while I have
taken a spring break from thepodcast.
Thanks for rejoining me herewith season two.
I appreciate you guys so verymuch.
And as always, my ask of you isthat you would please send the
(48:28):
link to the podcast to a lovedone.
That is how podcasts grow.
And that is how we share thismessage of optimism for other
singles like us.
And up next episode, two I'mback, baby I'm back.
And I am feeling single a F that's the title of
(48:49):
episode two coming out in twoweeks.
Welcome to man shopping with Stacy, where I
share my real transparent datingand life experiences for your
amusement and inspiration.
I'm your host, Stacey weer, andyou are listening to season two
episode one, learning to writein pencil.
(00:22):
If you've listened to previousepisodes of my podcast, then you
know that I'm on a journey ofself discovery right along with
you.
I'm 44 years old.
Now my daughter's almost 17.
We've been on our own after mysecond divorce for about three
years now.
And this learning to write andpencil idea
(00:46):
is a skill that I'm still tryingto hone.
In this episode, I'm going toshare with you some examples of
how, despite my best efforts ofwriting and mapping out my own
life story with a Sharpie lifehas thrown me some curve balls
and taught me it would be bestto write in pencil.
(01:08):
You know what though, thesecurve balls that life throws at
us, they can also be hit out ofthe park.
We can score home runs withcurve balls.
They're not always a bad thing.
So in this episode, I'm alsogoing to make a case.
I am going to try to convincemyself and you guys that there's
(01:28):
been no better time in our livesthan right now, single over 40
to keep an open mind, to go withthe flow, to be easy, going to
not have our lives completelymapped out.
I'm going to share some ideasabout different facets of our
(01:49):
life and how we can implementthis new skill that we are going
to, um, resolve to get better atwriting and pencil to begin.
I gotta tell you, I findinspiration for my podcast from
so many unusual places.
Now my most preferred place tofind inspiration typically is
(02:09):
from my audience.
I'm asking all the time for youguys to share with me, what's
important to you.
What do you wanna hear about?
Because I want this podcast tobe relatable.
I want it to be like thisorganic growing, um, platform.
If you will, that we can alllearn and get better.
Through this episode though,came to me through a daily
(02:33):
devotional that I have beenreading every morning.
And I've had this book foryears.
You guys, and I've reread itseveral times.
It's like 365 days.
It's called saver.
It's a book by Shawn Equis.
Her last name is N I E Q U I S D.
And it's a Christian based book.
But hang with me.
If that's not your thing, thisis where the writing and pencil
idea came from.
(02:54):
And I'm going to read to youguys most of the page that she
has about this topic.
So these are Shauna's words Ishould have written in pencil.
I should have viewed thetrajectory of my life as a
mystery.
I should have planned lightlyhypothetically and used words
(03:14):
like maybe, and possiblyinstead, every chance I got, I
wrote in Sharpie, I stood on myfuture on what I knew on the
certainty of what life wouldhold for me as though it wore
rock.
Instead, it's more like a magiccarpet, a slippery slighty
wiggly thing, full of equalparts play and terror.
(03:36):
The ground beneath my feet islurching and breaking and making
wave for an entirely new thing.
Every time I look down surprisedonce again, by a future, I
couldn't have predicted, thereis a loosey goosey feeling to
the future right now, both aslight edge of anxiety.
Like anything can happen and aslight bubble of hope and
(03:59):
freedom that well, anything canhappen.
I read this passage on March10th, it's now April the third.
I've had a minute to think onit.
It strikes such a chord with mefor one I've been on a break
from the podcast, a break thatwas kind of unplanned.
(04:21):
I knew at some point I wouldneed to take a step back,
regroup, get some thoughtstogether, give my creative
energy a Lu, um, to recharge andcome back to you guys with
quality, uh, quality material,things that matter.
I didn't wanna just crank outepisodes for the sake of
(04:42):
cranking out episodes.
My vision for my spring break,as I called it from my podcast
was one of tranquility,peaceful, easy kind of feelings
show ideas, gathered inspirationfrom the world around me, I've
(05:06):
done those things.
I have a pretty solid list ofthings to talk about in season
two, but what I didn'tanticipate and what came of my
break was anxiety.
So weird.
I felt more anxious and nervousabout the direction of my
(05:29):
podcast.
My lack of progress on my book,all of it, my life in general.
I think then when I was taking,um, like deliberate conscious
time, just time, um, and thoughtput into what I share on this
(05:52):
podcast with you guys and what Ihave plans for, uh, for my book.
So I guess for me, like thefirst lesson that came to mind
about writing in pencil was justthat idea that there's never a
perfect time to, you know, jumpback in, to take a leap of
(06:12):
faith, to go in a differentdirection.
Uh, you just have to do it.
You just gotta jump.
And so here I am jumping backinto the podcast and, uh, trying
to focus on the book because thebreak didn't work for me.
Like I, like I thought that itwould, or like I anticipated and
Hey, that's okay.
Who knew that?
(06:34):
Um, yeah, I have a hard timerelaxing and uh, and uh, I suck
at slowing down.
That's a rhetorical question.
Pretty much everyone in my lifeknows that I'm that way, but I'm
working on it guys.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I'm working on it.
I'm going with the flow.
So here I am.
I'm gonna share with you guys astory from my life now from a
(06:54):
very early time in my life.
I've talked about thisrelationship before, but, um,
you guys, it was my first love.
I fell in love hard and deepkind of love at the age of 14.
And it, it was real.
It was absolutely real.
It, it wasn't puppy, dog simplekind of love.
(07:15):
It was a messy, complicated, um,very, very real and meaningful
kind of love as I'm continuingto speak in generalities.
I'll tell you my high school andearly college relationship is as
messed up.
As some of the things that weexperienced together were it was
(07:40):
probably the, uh, healthiestrelationship I've had in that.
Um, we cared for one another alot and I felt cared for by him.
And that hasn't happened to memuch in life.
So to get specific with you toget real specific though, about
(08:02):
this relationship that I was in,when I was very young, I will
tell you, uh, we spentabsolutely as much time together
as possible.
I found myself eating dinner athis family table more than my
own.
I went on almost all of hisfamily vacations with them.
(08:26):
I grew very, very close with hismother and his sister, uh, very
tight bonds that felt veryfamily like
And I could absolutely seeexactly what our family life
would look like if we were toget married one day, which I was
(08:47):
fully convinced that we would, Iwas devoted to him.
We were committed to oneanother.
And by, I don't know, late inhigh school, I told him that I
really wanted a tangible sign.
Like I felt as though likecalling him, my boyfriend was
silly.
(09:07):
You guys, I was like 16, 17years old.
And I want, I like wanted to be,I wanted to be married.
Like I felt like we weremarried.
And so I wanted a promise ring.
And I don't even know you guys,if that was like a thing,
because I can't really name anyother couples that I went to
high school with.
(09:28):
I don't know if I saw it on TVor in a movie or what, or made
it up.
But I, I told him like, it wasan expectation at one point that
I wanted that because I was sodead set on the fact that that
was where our future was headed.
I wanted that commitment in avery, you know, tangible, real
(09:49):
way from him.
And he made it happen.
I completely remember I was, Iwas working at the buckle, you
know, selling, um, Z CAIS andPepe jeans and whatever.
And I went out to my car afterwork and I think he had like
decorated my car, left me notes,whatever, and I'm pretty sure he
left the ring in it.
(10:09):
And I may have just completelycontrived that story, but that's
how I remember it.
So yeah, I got my promise ring,which obviously meant that at
some point we would be engagedand married and spend the rest
of our lives together because Ihad it all planned out in my
head.
I also had our children named, Ithink he liked the names too.
I don't know, had the kidsnamed, had, um, had my wedding
(10:34):
ring picked out of a magazine,um, that I tore the page out and
kept.
And, um, I knew what ourholidays would look like because
we had spent all of our holidaystogether.
I knew what our, you know,Sundays would look like because
we had spent our Sundaystogether.
(10:55):
So it was just, um, very, verywritten in stone, you know,
what, what everything was goingto be like.
And, and then, you know, lifethrough some curve balls
and it didn't quite go that way.
Um, I remember waking up on aSaturday morning to early to a
phone call from him, you know,on the landline, picked up the
(11:17):
phone.
Um, we talked on the phone allthe time when we weren't
together, which we were alwaystogether.
So wasn't that unusual to pickup the phone on a Saturday
morning early and he was sobbingand I thought someone had died.
He was crying so hard.
He was like inconsolable.
And I was like, what, what,what?
And I couldn't believe the wordsthat were coming out of his
(11:41):
mouth when he confessed to methat he had cheated on me.
I was absolutely blindsided.
I did not see this coming.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We were happy.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We were in love.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
We
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Were, you know, he,
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I was like
Speaker 1 (12:02):
A junior in high school.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
What you
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Cheated on me with
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Who?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And he told me everything.
He indulged me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Drilled him with questions.
I
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Was
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Sobbing.
He was sobbing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Was shaking.
I was sick to my stomach.
I wanted to
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Throw up.
It was
Speaker 1 (12:23):
The worst phone call up till that point in my life
that I
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Had ever
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Taken my life changed in that moment.
And it did
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You guys,
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It changed
Speaker 2 (12:34):
A lot after that for
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Whatever reason and as
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Crazy as this
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Probably sounds to
Speaker 2 (12:42):
All
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Of you listening.
I knew without
Speaker 2 (12:44):
A doubt that
Speaker 1 (12:46):
If he wanted to stay with me, I wanted to stay with
him
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Through that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I, I, I don't know the reason
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I really, I just, I
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Loved him
Speaker 2 (13:02):
So
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Much.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I loved our
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Relationship so much.
I did not want to give up on it.
And I don't know if that
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Choice was
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Right or wrong, but we
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Stayed together.
We stayed together,
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Um, through
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That, but it absolutely altered our future
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Our future.
A lot
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Of other things happened the next year.
I went away
Speaker 2 (13:32):
To student
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Council camp.
Mm-hmm
Speaker 2 (13:35):
This before.
It's one of those
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Like life changing kind of things.
My friend, I had severalfriends, a friend named Carly, a
friend named Latonya.
We went to camp Chile inColorado.
And I remember early on in some
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Workshops, they, they
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Really got us thinking they kind of were, um,
well, they were trying to helpus grow
Speaker 2 (13:56):
As kids, as
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Leaders in our schools,
Speaker 2 (13:59):
All of that.
So there were a lot of thought
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Provoking workshops that we went through And in my
small group
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Was A boy
Speaker 1 (14:09):
From St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Said,
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Boy from St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Was a very
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Dynamic, funny, charming guy.
He reminded me nothing of myboyfriend from home.
They
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Were very,
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Very different people.
And
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Throughout the
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Course of my time at this camp,
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I sure
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Did find myself being drawn to the boy from St.
Louis
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 (14:38):
You can see where this is going.
So we knew some things aboutthis camp because all of us had
had friends that were older thanus who had gone through the camp
before.
And we knew that
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It was
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Kind of common practice for, you know, the last
night that you're there at camp,you sneak out, we were in the
mountains, it was a beautifulsetting.
And they had somewhat of achurch set up.
This was not a Christian basedcamp, but they had like a chapel
that we had our meetings at.
And it was beautiful and hadthis gorgeous overlook.
So we all had plans, the boysand the girls bust outta their
(15:13):
cabins under the watchful,sleepy, not so watchful eyes of
our camp counselors.
And we did it.
We all met up.
So, um, a handful of us, not thewhole camp or anything, but a
few of us had a, you know, hadthis, had this goal of getting
together.
I don't know what we thoughtwould happen, but we did.
We just all got together and wehung out, you know, and, and it
(15:35):
was pretty innocent, nothingcrazy happening.
We didn't have alcohol or, youknow, drugs or anything bad, but
what we did have were a lot ofhormones.
And, um, I guess that was theobjective.
And I think I knew it going intoit.
And so I definitely recall, um,sitting on this boy's lap, I sat
(15:58):
on his lap, threw my arms aroundhim and, uh, we ended up
kissing, right?
So we, uh, kissed and we kissedand we kissed and we kissed and,
uh, found out like we werepretty into each other.
I mean, uh, shock, shocking,right?
Shocking story.
That's what young kids do.
And so then I
(16:24):
of guilt and confusion.
And how do you go from like,being so devoted and committed
at, you know, the age of 17 forthe rest of my life?
I, I had told this boy, I hadpromised myself to him and now I
have messed up.
I've messed up big time.
(16:46):
And I didn't know what it meant.
Did I morally, you know, was Iobligated to tell him what
happened or would it be betterto spare his feelings and not
tell him was I going to stay inmy relationship, you know, with
my boyfriend, from home, or wasI going to try to make a go of
(17:08):
it with this boy from St.
Louis?
It was like a three hour drivefrom my hometown.
And, um, it was really ambiguousand messy for, for a few weeks.
And then it all happened.
The B from St.
Louis came to my hometown.
(17:29):
I broke.
I mean, like for a visit, um, Ilike harbored him as a fugitive.
He stayed with, um, a friend ofhis who happened to have
grandparents in my hometown.
He was undercover.
No one knew who he was.
Um, I had a Ron debut with himat the Missouri state fair with
my cousin.
(17:49):
Um, it was a mess.
You guys, I mean, I was
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Like
Speaker 1 (17:53):
In a
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Covert
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Operation, um, hanging out with him under, You
know, without my boyfriendknowing, because I hadn't broken
up with him.
I didn't have the guts to do it.
I didn't know if it's what Iwanted.
And then it just became superduper messy.
It became super messy and heartwrenching and dramatic and
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Awful, awful,
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Awful.
It hurt
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Bad.
I mean, if you
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Guys
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Think back to your
Speaker 2 (18:21):
First love,
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I mean, it
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Just
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Kills.
And so, you know, I didn't havesex with this B from St.
Louis.
Um,
Speaker 2 (18:31):
But I, I cheated, I
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Kissed him.
I made out with him.
I, I had him come to Kansas ornot Kansas city.
I had him come to my hometown ofSedalia without,
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Without
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Breaking up with my boyfriend.
First.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I was, I, I had a lot of faults.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I did a lot of things wrong.
And you guys, that
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Was like
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The beginning of, uh,
Speaker 2 (18:52):
A whole
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Situation in that relationship.
I mean, I just never,
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Ever
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Could have seen things going that way.
My script did not include, youknow, falling for someone else
at a camp in the mountains.
Life threw me a curve ball, andI
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Failed that test,
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That lesson
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Miserably.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I was not faithful to the love of my life.
Um, I did hurtful, harmful badthings.
Um,
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Look at it from an adult
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Perspective,
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right.
I mentioned hormones talkingabout a bunch of kids
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Here
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That don't yet
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Have
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Fully formed brains.
That's what my mom friends and Italk about a lot now in regard
to our own children who are, whoare in high school.
And I found this like Post onInstagram that I think is so
Speaker 2 (19:44):
True.
Uh, this guy
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Says, we ask 18 year olds to make huge decisions
about their career and financialfuture.
When a month ago they
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Had to ask to go
Speaker 1 (19:54):
To the bathroom.
Right?
So I guess what I'm saying is Ishould probably grant myself
some grace, but
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You guys,
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I Harbor so much guilt
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Still.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I haven't forgiven myself for some of the things
that went wrong, um, in myrelationship with my first
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Love,
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Um, I never
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Could have, uh, predicted that our lives would
go the way
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That they went,
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Because I had us
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Married, you know, and with kids and grandkids.
And, um,
Speaker 2 (20:31):
We did get back together.
I'll
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Save some of these stories for another day.
We lived together in college, Wewere engaged.
I was engaged at the age of 19.
We had an entire Wedding planned
Speaker 2 (20:47):
That I called off, like
Speaker 1 (20:51):
In very short time before the wedding was to take
place.
And it wasn't just a littlewedding.
I mean, this
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Was a
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Big hometown wedding.
So yeah, I've been through somestuff.
My life has taken some turnsthat I did not think it would
take, um, some my own doing, youknow, based on my own choices
and some just completely
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Out of left field, right?
This is
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Life.
And if you are like me and overthe age
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Of 40,
Speaker 1 (21:20):
I am sure
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That you have
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Experienced some, some similar
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Surprises, right?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
As I was making my outline and thinking about what
I wanted to talk about on thisepisode, thinking about
disruptors in my life, thingsthat have changed
Speaker 2 (21:37):
The course of where I thought I
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Was going.
And one of the biggest events ofmy life still to this day
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Was death.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I mean, how many of you
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Have had the death of a
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Loved one,
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Completely
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Change
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Everything
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In the blink of an eye and, you know, tragic
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Death,
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Unexpected, um, death
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Actually altered
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Some of my relationships and changed the
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Course of
Speaker 1 (22:15):
The rest of my life.
My cousin died in a caraccident.
When I, when we
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Were 18, we had just
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Graduated from high school together.
She was at a softballtournament, riding home in a
caravan of cars, um,
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Back
Speaker 1 (22:35):
To our hometown when the
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Driver of her vehicle that she,
Speaker 1 (22:40):
She was in, it wasn't her vehicle, but she was in a
Volkswagen van sitting in a beanbag chair in the back.
And her young friend wasdriving.
Another young friend was sittingup front.
None of them had seat belts on,they,
Speaker 2 (22:53):
All three were ejected
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And my cousin died.
And, Um, it was
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Still
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Is the most tragic thing that I've ever been
through.
And when that happened and Icould go into tons of painful
details.
But when that happened, I foundmyself seeking the comfort Of my
first
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Love.
I did carry through
Speaker 1 (23:22):
A relationship
Speaker 2 (23:23):
With
Speaker 1 (23:24):
The boy from St.
Louis for quite some time.
And it was kind of messed up andfun and stupid and hurtful and a
million different ways too.
But
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I,
Speaker 1 (23:34):
When my cousin died, I found myself longing to be
with someone who understood, whocared about me, who would
protect me, who would hold mewhile I cried.
And that was him.
That was my first boyfriend, notthe fun, arrogant,
guy that I enjoyed being around,uh, from St.
(23:57):
Louis.
So, so that changed things.
We got back together.
That's, you know, it changed thecourse of my college.
Um, we became engaged, you know,just a couple years after that.
So death, right.
It, it, um, upturns everything.
And I didn't bring this up tomake you cry or bring up, you
(24:20):
know, hard things that you'vebeen through.
Maybe I did, maybe I did bringit up so that you think about
hard things that you've beenthrough.
That's, that's probably true.
Um, but for me, death anddivorce share a lot of
similarities, divorce, orbreakups of, you know, important
relationships, whatever thatlooks like for you.
Um, divorce in its way, bringsabout, you know, a loss that can
(24:45):
feel a lot like death.
And I think it's important togrieve your past relationships
if it was a marriage or arelationship for many of you,
your divorce may have been asunexpected and tragic and
(25:06):
shocking as the death of mycousin was to me, for others of
you, maybe it was a smolderinglong, painful, horrible ending
that drug on for a long, longtime, either way, either way,
(25:28):
it's typically painful and areally hard thing to get
through, right.
Guessing none of you like satdown in your journals when you
were, you know, 11 years oldwith your little lock and key.
I had so many of those that Inever wrote in, but, um, you
(25:48):
know, no, none of us sat downlike writing our life story
thinking, and then one day I'llget divorced and I'll get to
start all over again.
That sounds, that soundsawesome.
Uh, no, I mean, life happens andhere we are, and it doesn't have
(26:10):
to be tragic anymore.
It doesn't have to be sad,hurtful, um, guilt ridden, you
know, that's what this processthat I'm going through.
And I think most of you are too.
We're forgiving ourselves.
We're learning.
We are trying to be betterpeople.
(26:32):
We are seeking positive peopleto be around, to share our life
with trying to learn throughdating what we're looking for in
a new partner one day, what wedeserve so far as how we are to
(26:52):
be treated and how we shouldtreat others.
Right.
I've tried to impress upon youguys, many, many, many times
that one way to look at where weare in life as single people
later in life is op it's anopportunity.
(27:17):
It can be exciting just likeShauna Equis.
You know, she was married withtwo very small young boys when
she wrote that page in her book.
And I don't know what she wasgoing through personally, that
made her wake up and realizethat, you know, she didn't have
it all figured out yet.
(27:42):
don't know your stories.
I don't know the intimatedetails, but I think I know how
you're feeling because I'm overhere feeling the same way.
So at the beginning of thispodcast, I told you that I would
do my best to make a case toconvince myself.
(28:02):
And you guys
not planning our lives out, notyet knowing exactly where we are
headed can be thrilling.
It can be a magic carpet ride.
That's what she, that's what shesaid.
Right?
(28:26):
right now, where we have anopportunity to be open minded,
to view uncertainty as just thatuncertainty, but in an exciting,
positive, good way.
Right?
So let's talk about our careers,right?
(28:47):
Have you ever wanted to trysomething different?
Have you ever hoped for anadvancement?
It spent it's not too late.
It's not too late at all.
I mean, sadly for most of us,we've got a solid, like what, 25
years of work ahead from usahead of us.
Think about that.
(29:08):
Where were you?
25 years ago?
You didn't even know who youwanted to be yet when you grew
up.
Right.
Well, a lot of us still don'tknow what we wanna be yet.
And if you find yourselfunfulfilled in your career, Hey,
guess what?
There's still time to dosomething different.
I've watched a lot of my friendsexplore different career paths
out of unhappiness or notfeeling gratified, or maybe just
(29:33):
ambition and desire to, to dosomething greater.
This is a great time to be ableto do that.
I think the only way that thathappens is for you to, um, build
your confidence up, to have ahealthy mindset, to surround
(29:54):
yourself with family and friendsand loved ones who are
supportive and encouraging youguys.
I
doing this is just sittingbehind this microphone and
learning along with you.
As I keep saying, I neverwould've started a podcast and
(30:14):
this is a small success and youguys can laugh.
I don't care for me.
It's a big deal because Ifollowed through with something.
I had no idea how to start apodcast, you know, um, whatever
a year and a half ago.
Um, now I'm, you know, on seasontwo, still, still plugging away,
still going, still findingfulfillment through this.
(30:37):
So, you know, I mean, I can takeit in another direction.
If you have creative pursuitsthat you've always wanted to do,
what are you waiting for yourlife?
Doesn't have to look anyparticular way.
You can take up, you know, aninstrument.
You can, you can be a runner.
You can, you can do greatthings.
(30:58):
Nothing is holding you back.
If you're like me, maybe youhave more time on your hands
than you used to because yourkids are getting older.
Maybe they're out of the house.
You guys, it's kind ofthrilling.
It really is.
It's sad.
And I mean, I get worried aboutwhat life is gonna look like
when Laney leaves home, but youknow, I've also come to terms
(31:23):
with the fact that I can dreadthe day I can ho I mean, I do
hold on very tight to everymoment with her and try to soak
it up and all of that.
But I also try to remind myselfthat it's an exciting time in
her life.
She needs my support to spreadher wings and fly and do big
(31:43):
things.
And I too plan on doing bigthings and having a, you know,
uh, goals and ambitions anddesires for myself.
And I think that's one of thebiggest opportunities for all of
us at this point in our lives.
Is that again, I've said this amillion times on this podcast,
(32:03):
you can, you can be selfishright now because you're not
sharing life with a partner.
Yes.
You have children.
Yes.
You have a job.
You have responsibilities.
You can't fully be selfish, butso far as your dreams and
desires and what your futureholds, that's on you, you can
make the most of it.
You can do amazing things.
(32:26):
If you believe in yourself, ifyou work hard and try to, so
what's holding you back, right.
Who says that life has to look acertain way.
It doesn't, you can write yourown chapters, just, you know,
write'em in pencil.
Don't write'em in sharp becauseyou just never know
(32:48):
what's gonna happen.
That's the whole point.
Right?
So yeah, maybe this midlife is agreat time to, uh, further your
education to learn new skills,to take up hobbies, to try
something different.
All of those things are true, Ithink.
But also when we're talkingabout not planning out our life,
(33:10):
it's one of my pet peeves.
Have you guys ever gone on adate with somebody?
And they're like, well, I'mnever getting married again.
Like I have no desire to getmarried.
I've already made the decision.
I think that would be foolish.
It would be so ridiculous.
I have no desire to ever getmarried again there.
I said it it's done.
It is, you know, written in avery big, bold black Sharpie.
Don't with me.
I'm not getting married again.
(33:31):
Wow.
Um, I've heard it a lot.
Not just on dates, but inconversation with other single
people.
I mean, Hmm.
Okay.
Like, I understand that.
I understand it financially.
I understand it from a legalpoint.
I understand it for some, assomeone, I am someone who has
(33:51):
been hurt.
Um, I'm guarded too, but I tryreally hard to not make super
definitive statements like thatbecause I just don't know I'm
over here trying to be openminded.
Do I feel like kind of ansometimes for thinking, for
being a romantic like, oh, Imean maybe one day I will, I
(34:15):
will meet my guy.
The guy that I, you know, is agood match for me.
And we can be solid partners andbe happy care for one another
mutually respect one another.
Do I feel kind of stupidsometimes for like my head, you
know, like my head's in theclouds that no, I really don't.
(34:37):
I want to stay openhearted andopenminded now I, you know,
probably sound judgey for, and Iam probably for like, you
shouldn't have hard and fastrules for what you think is
gonna happen.
Just like I don't expect to getmarried.
That's not a goal of mine.
(34:57):
It's really not.
I think it drives my mom crazythat it's, that's not, I don't
have an end game.
I do not have an end game.
I am not trying to write therest of my story.
I don't know.
I don't know if I'll be singlethe rest of my life.
Does that mean that I will neverfall in love again?
No, I mean, I don't, I don'tknow.
(35:17):
I hope so.
I'm open to it.
I'm open to love.
I'm open to relationships.
I'm even open to marriage.
Now with that being said, what,what would it take to, for me to
get married?
I mean, a whole of a very highlevel of comfort.
That's what it would take.
(35:39):
wants to marry me.
That's for sure.
But I'm trying to not putlimitations or, you know, be
close minded because I justdon't know.
I mean, we all know that, thatold saying, like, you know, you
know, you're gonna fall in lovewhen you're not looking for it.
Okay.
(35:59):
Well, I mean, that's true forsome people, but some people put
a lot of effort into it and theymeet someone too funny, things
happen, you know, um, you canhave a strategy, you can have an
end game, you can have a goal inmind.
And despite all of those effortsbe taken, you know, in a
completely different direction.
(36:22):
So instead of feeling maybe, um,helpless, hopeless, wandering,
you know, I think it is good toat least know yourself, know
what you want.
I mean, if you know, in yourheart that you want to be
married again, then by allmeans, go out there and try to
(36:43):
find a spouse, you know, butdon't lose sight of the rest of
your goals.
And I know I'm being very Ramly,but I can't help it.
I mean, this topic just lendsitself to, uh, you know, a whole
slew of different ideas about,about, you know, having faith
and believe that no matter whatdirection your life takes you,
(37:05):
it's still full of opportunityfor happiness, for growth, for
good things.
And instead of being scared,worried for your future, trying
to control every aspect of yourlife, maybe just let go, you
know, Jesus take the wheel.
(37:25):
Maybe just have a little bit ofthat, of that, um, mindset that
it doesn't have to be plannedout.
And maybe just, maybe that's agood thing.
I find it incredibly exciting,very, very liberating.
And I'm enjoying every minute ofnot having a clue of what's in
(37:48):
front of me.
You know, I've recently kind ofbeen reevaluating.
Like what, what am I trying todo with this podcast?
What do I, what are my hopes forthis book?
I've said it before, like, Idon't wanna do anything half.
Like if I write a book, I wantmy book to be good.
I want it to sell.
I want things to come from it.
I want to make, I want toinfluence.
(38:09):
I want, I want those things.
Um, because I believe in mymessage and I believe in my
mission and I'm trying to helpother people, well, you guys,
out of nowhere, this is, this ishow life can change on a dime
right out of nowhere, I've beenapproached by three different
casting companies for televisionshows.
(38:30):
They're all reality shows.
They're all related to what I'mdoing here.
Being single dating, um, givingadvice or not like there are
three very different shows thatI've been approached for each
time that has happened.
I have kept an open mind.
Two of the shows that I wasapproached for would be
(38:51):
tremendous fits.
It would be fun.
I would learn from it.
I would be excited.
I would feel proud to, to be apart of it.
And then one of them was like sofar outside of my comfort zone.
It's not even funny.
Like I found myself, um, in aninterview with a casting
(39:13):
director, not, I mean, I wastrue to myself, but I was
definitely not what they werelooking for.
And I knew it, you know?
And so I was still hopeful,honestly, that they chose me for
it because here's the deal.
I knew what a difference itcould make in what I'm trying to
(39:34):
accomplish here.
The mission of their show wasnot aligned at all with my
mission
singles like me, it, it reallywasn't.
It was like pure fantasy.
It was kind of stupid in myopinion, but I was still willing
to do it because I knew that ifI was on this reality show on
(39:59):
Hulu, that it would draw moreattention to what matters to me.
Right.
Talk about a game changer.
Like if you would've told me ayear ago that I would be
approached to be on shows, and Iknow I'm not alone.
You guys, some of you haveprobably be been DMed on
Instagram or cuz it's happenedto me.
(40:21):
Like I've had friends pass alongopportunities.
To me, Tony reminded me that ata party recently, she was like,
my, my girlfriend.
She's like, I sent that castingagent to you.
I'm like, I know.
And I still hope somethinghappens.
Um, and I know that, I mean, youcan laugh at me.
I don't care.
Reality TV is reality TV.
It's a big part of my life.
Actually.
I quite enjoy it.
(40:42):
And living as transparently andvulnerably as I do, I think it's
a fricking fabulous fit for me.
And I hope it happens one day.
But talk about not being able topredict the direction of your
life.
When I got pretty far along inan interviewing process for a
show, all that I could thinkwas, oh my God, I was terrified
(41:02):
at first of all, like having toask my boss for like four to six
weeks away off work, that wasscary.
Um, I knew that if I was on thatsaid show, once it aired, like
my Instagram would go from, youknow, 2,500 followers to 25,000
(41:23):
followers.
And I know how hard it is for mesometimes to keep up with
messages and posts and stuff nowsounds silly, but that's like,
that's like a big responsibilitycuz I don't wanna be an and not
message people and acknowledge,you know, things that yeah.
Matter to me.
So I mean just little thingslike that, but not only that,
(41:44):
but I, I was hopeful that itwould mean great things for my
book.
It would draw, like I said, itwould draw more attention to the
things that matter to me andthen it didn't happen.
Okay.
So that's a roller coaster,right?
That's happened three times.
Um, but again, if you would'vetold me a year ago that that
would even be happening, I'd belike, oh my dear God, that's
(42:07):
nuts.
That's a version of my life thatI never ever could have
predicted.
Right.
Well, that's kind of a weirdscenario.
I get it.
And maybe not that relatable tomost of you who, you know, don't
spill their guts on a podcastand take photos of everything
they go through in their life toshare with other people.
I get it.
(42:27):
But we all have heard of thosepeople who one day, everything
changed for the better.
I have a beautifully tragicstory I can share with you
actually that comes to mind of afriend of mine.
She was in, um, an unhappymarriage that ended in divorce.
And when she became single, shewas approached for a date, um,
(42:51):
by one of her very closestsorority friends' brother,
someone that was totally off ofher radar.
She had never considered beingin a romantic relationship with
him before, but it made a littlebit of sense and they started
dating and they fell in love andthey got married.
(43:13):
She had never had any childrenof her own.
And she soon found herself astepmother to his two beautiful,
loving kind awesome daughters.
And she now has a healthy,loving, beautiful example of a
second chance at love if youwill.
(43:35):
And she's radiant and happy andglowing.
And she speaks so adoringly andfondly of her husband, it's just
been the most beautiful thing towatch and learn from.
And then tragedy struck out ofnowhere.
(43:55):
She had some lower back painthat couldn't get resolved and
she floated around to a coupleof different doctors.
She had some other symptom GIsymptoms that she'd always lived
with her whole life, that shekind of dismissed as nothing.
And then one day, um, she wasdiagnosed with colon cancer was
(44:16):
a tumor that was sitting on herspine that was causing her back
pain.
But anyway, she had to gothrough a lot to figure all of
that out and thank God that shehas the husband, the loving,
supportive, caring, nurturingnursing
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Sweet
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Husband that she has because they are now going
through a cancer journeytogether and end of life
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Story
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Together.
And as tragic as
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Is, I know that for my friend,
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Her life
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Has been such
Speaker 2 (44:59):
A gift.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
You know, she
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Appreciates
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Her husband so much because of
Speaker 2 (45:04):
What she
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Experienced with her first husband.
You know, I think a lot of uscan can say that,
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Like I
Speaker 1 (45:11):
She's living it, she's living, um, a life of
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Gratitude because
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Of things that harder things that she's been through
in her past, and now she'sfacing the hardest time of her
life, but she has
Speaker 2 (45:23):
The
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Caring, loving support of a wonderful man.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's tragic.
That's, that's such
Speaker 1 (45:31):
A clear example of how we can never plan anything
out.
Um, I have other examples in mylife of that
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Too, actually,
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Where people have found, um, true love, you know,
a very endearing sweet, pure,
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Good love
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Later in life
Speaker 2 (45:49):
For it to be short lived,
Speaker 1 (45:52):
I would
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Say that's
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Better than to not have experienced
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Love at all.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Um, just examples of, you know, the unpredictability
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Of life, why fight it?
Why, why try to control it?
It's totally
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Out of our control.
We all know it.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
We just gotta
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Relax and go
Speaker 2 (46:14):
With the flow.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Right?
My last
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Little thought
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Provoking
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Idea that I'll leave you
Speaker 1 (46:21):
With is maybe instead of trying to
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Precisely
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Plan out your future with hard and fast rules
Speaker 2 (46:30):
For exactly
Speaker 1 (46:31):
What that's going to look like.
Maybe
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Try
Speaker 1 (46:35):
To take the stance that I've been trying to take.
And I don't perfected either,but I am over here being a
dreamer maybe for the first timein my life, Really dreaming,
really being open-minded to big,bold things that could happen to
(46:56):
view life is exciting and notscary.
And maybe dreaming for you isgoing back to school.
Maybe it's moving to a differentstate.
Maybe it is buying an RV anddriving around the country,
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Experiencing
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Adventures in your retirement.
I know people that are doingthat along these lines.
This
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Is probably why I have
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Created a vision board instead of a
Speaker 2 (47:22):
List of goals,
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Trying to be a visionary for my future.
Instead of like a, instead oflike a script writer or
something in conclusion, I'mgoing to reread the last
sentence from this page of thebook saver by Shawn Equis.
And here it goes, there's aloosey goosey feeling to the
future.
Now both a slight edge ofanxiety, like anything can
(47:45):
happen and a slight bubble ofhope and freedom that well,
anything can happen.
You guys, I love that so much.
I hope that you can look towardyour future and even your
present with optimism andhopefulness and be a dreamer
because you just never knowwhere life is going to take you.
(48:06):
So join me in learning to writein pencil.
Will you thank you all so muchfor your patience while I have
taken a spring break from thepodcast.
Thanks for rejoining me herewith season two.
I appreciate you guys so verymuch.
And as always, my ask of you isthat you would please send the
(48:28):
link to the podcast to a lovedone.
That is how podcasts grow.
And that is how we share thismessage of optimism for other
singles like us.
And up next episode, two I'mback, baby I'm back.
And I am feeling single a F
(48:49):
episode two coming out in twoweeks.
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