# Episode 18 - GenX Speaks Series: Kendall's Story

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-02-05T02:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16566017-episode-18-genx-speaks-series-kendall-s-story.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-18
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode18.html
- People: Kendall (guest), Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)
- Topics: GenX Speaks

## Summary

In Episode 18 of the GenX Speaks series, Kendall shares her journey from a childhood in Oregon and Alaska to navigating adulthood, marriage, and self-discovery. She reflects on her upbringing, the impact of her family dynamics, and the challenges she faced in her marriage, ultimately leading to her decision to prioritize her own well-being and independence.

## Key takeaways

- Kendall was born in 1971 and grew up in Oregon and Alaska.
- She experienced a significant culture shock when moving from Oregon to Alaska at age 10.
- Kendall's family background included farming and a strong influence from her grandmother.
- Her marriage was marked by emotional struggles and a lack of communication.
- A life-threatening health scare prompted Kendall to reevaluate her life and relationships.
- Financial independence played a crucial role in her decision to leave her marriage.
- Kendall is now focusing on self-care and personal growth after her divorce.

## FAQ

### What was Kendall's childhood like?

Kendall grew up in Oregon and Alaska, experiencing a mix of farming life and the challenges of moving to a new environment at a young age.

### What led to Kendall's decision to leave her marriage?

Kendall's decision was influenced by a life-threatening health scare, financial independence, and a realization that her marriage was emotionally unhealthy.

### How did Kendall's family dynamics affect her life choices?

Kendall's upbringing involved strong familial expectations and a lack of communication, which influenced her decisions in adulthood and her approach to relationships.

### What is Kendall focusing on now after her divorce?

Kendall is prioritizing self-care and personal growth, aiming to reclaim her identity and well-being after years of focusing on her family.

### What challenges did Kendall face in her marriage?

Kendall faced emotional struggles, a lack of communication, and feelings of inadequacy, which ultimately contributed to her decision to leave.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRO0qz_yo18)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-18-genx-speaks-series-kendalls-story/id1764838823?i=1000689130477)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2VuOWFRQA5NIf4Xgp67iDa)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16566017-episode-18-genx-speaks-series-kendall-s-story)

## Transcript

[Music]
Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we
have Kendall with us
as our special guest.
And our first question is
always what year were you born?
1971.
Okay.
Specifically tomorrow.
Oh yes.
With this for a lifetime.
And if this drops when we're hoping it
drops, it will drop on your birthday.
No really.
Yeah.
Oh, that's our goal.
So we'll see if Ryan can
work his magical editing skills.
So you are GenX.
Hardcore GenX.
Right in there.
Right in there.
In the thick of it.
In the thick of it.
Where were you born?
I was born in Oregon City, Oregon.
Okay.
And how long did you live there?
Did you grow up there your whole life?
I was there until I was 10 and then my
family moved to a little
town literally in the middle
of Alaska.
Literally, if you looked at a map and
pointed your finger,
you'd practically hit it.
Called Delta Junction, Alaska.
Okay.
So why Oregon City?
My family, my dad's
family started farming there.
My great grandfather.
They all sat grandfather and my
grandmother's actually family.
Settled their
homesteading and then farming.
So they were part of the Wild West coming
over for the Wild West.
My great grandfather was born in 1987.
1887?
I mean 1887.
Yeah.
My grandmother was 1914.
My grandmother's family was from Wales.
Okay.
Came over.
My grandfather's family
was from Germany originally.
I don't really know anything beyond like
they ended up there.
I don't know how.
Okay.
That's been lost in
some of the pieces of it.
And my parents, my grandparents obviously
were, there was quite
a bit of a difference.
My grandma was 18 when they got married.
My grandfather farmed.
They had, I think, 70 some odd acres in
Beaver Creek and my
grandfather also worked for the
county.
There's a road in Beaver Creek named
after my maiden name.
Really?
Mm hmm.
Out there.
Because your grandfather was what?
Like a mayor or something?
No, he worked with the county, got to
name the road and it's
like a main thoroughfare.
Sorry.
Main thoroughfare from the Beaver Creek
store up the hill, the
Spangler kind of thing.
No way.
Yeah.
That is so cool.
So they settled in Oregon City, which is
really Beaver Creek specifically.
Okay.
Beaver Creek.
All right.
So for listeners, Oregon City is part of
Portland Metro, right?
Correct.
How far from say
downtown Portland would it be?
I don't track anything in mileage
anymore, which is different than how I
grew up to back in the day.
So, but that's dependent on traffic and
it could be, you know, I used to work
downtown and it would take me an hour, an
hour and a half some days.
So it's like two in the
morning on a Saturday.
It's probably 20 miles or 20 minutes.
Yeah, exactly.
So what did they farm?
Hey, mainly hay.
They had, but they also had sheep.
We had sheep.
They had sheep cows.
We had beef cattle for
the longest time growing up.
I didn't realize that hamburger and other
steaks came in anything other than a
white butcher paper.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So we moved to Alaska and
I'm like, why is this plastic?
You know, privilege at the time, but
probably with sustenance too.
I mean, we took care of ourselves.
Yeah.
And probably such high quality beef and
and tasted amazing
and that's all you knew.
And then it's like people who have raised
their own vegetables and
stuff, which we did not do.
Or at least my family didn't.
Yeah, it's a whole
different ball game experience.
Yeah.
So that was your dad
then he he was a farmer.
He grew up on a farm,
grew up working a farm.
Yeah.
And was a farmer.
He was one of nine
and he was one of nine.
Nine.
Yeah.
My grandma had eight eight
births because my dad was a twin.
Okay.
And the boy there was four boys and five
girls and the boys were at the farm and
the girls were didn't but I don't I don't
know that it was a my
grandfather was a was a very stoic.
Archie bunker type but not as verbal I
guess I mean and I was
four when you passed away.
And so I just remember like my
grandmother kind of helped raise me until
I was 10 and when I say
raise me, she just cared for me.
My mom worked.
My mom was an educator and she went to
school and to get her graduate degree and
everything and my dad was going all the
time working selling machinery.
He did a lot of things and but all
working for himself mostly selling
tractors building full barns very
hands-on agriculture background
agriculture background very much.
You know, we didn't
drive anywhere on I-5.
You took the back roads.
You took 99 to get to
Salem kind of thing.
Right.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, right.
But so my grandmother was a very very
very important person in my life.
And so I was with her from basically my
mom says that when my mom and dad when my
dad asked my mom to marry her my mom
dropped out of college.
She was at U of O and she moved.
She came up to Oregon City and they asked
permission of my my grandmother and my
grandma, which is my dad's dad said,
okay, you guys can get married, which I
don't know that they
really needed permission.
But I guess it was respecting.
Yeah.
And my dad was very much a mom's boy.
And so my grandma said yes, as long as
you finish school because my mom of all
of my grandmother's even though it's my
dad's family, they didn't go on to one
aunt continued her
education out of all of those women.
Initially another aunt like did more.
I mean, they all did fine later on.
They were business people and whatnot,
but it just wasn't
that that time in space.
I think in the 60s, it
wasn't a foregone conclusion.
No, not at all.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
And you know, so then your mom.
So was she saying for your mom to finish
college, which grandmother
was saying that my dad's mom.
Oh, so your dad's mom, my paternal did
not want my mom to lose out on her
education because she
was literally almost done.
She needed like maybe a year left.
So when she moved up, she started at
Portland State and then they got pregnant
with me pretty much right after they got
married in 69 and into 70 and she went to
Portland State and then did some class
like when she was pregnant with me.
She was going to college and my grandma
basically took care of me from, you know,
other than my mom and dad,
you know, when my mom get home.
But so my grandma was my person.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, which hurts my mom's feelings
sometimes to this day, right?
Right.
But she was my person.
I think grandmas, there's many instances
where the grandmother is the child's
person for different reasons.
So your dad is a farmer basically or
works in the agriculture
industry in some way space.
Yeah, your mom is a teacher educator.
You guys are in Beaver
Creek and did you have siblings?
My younger brother, he was born in 74.
Okay.
He's also Gen X.
He is just turned 50,
which I don't see him as 50.
You see him as 17.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we live there eventually.
So we lived in different locations within
Oregon or within Beaver Creek.
And then the last couple years we were
there before we ended
up moving to Alaska,
we actually bought about I think it was
23, 25 acres of the of the farm.
And then my dad, you know, contractors,
but built us our house.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So my dad, we had a it was an awesome
house and a huge bull barn and then we
had Christmas trees.
So this was we had a full Christmas tree
farm and that is so cool.
So you spent part of your formative years
growing up on a Christmas tree farm.
Yeah, and I didn't
have to work it was great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
But do you remember people come was it a
kite you're like your cell?
No, no, it was full on.
Yeah.
And like that was a big thing out in
Beaver Creek still is quite honestly.
Yeah.
And so they were all enmeshed in that
with the people and so that
was right at the end of that.
They started doing the thing where they'd
come in and haul with helicopters.
So, you know, they cut the trees.
The guys would come in cut the trees
bundle them and then you
pick them up with a helicopter.
Really?
That's a real shock when you're not
expecting a helicopter out
your back bedroom window.
Yeah.
Did they do that for all of the trees?
Like was it was it like
hand selecting which tree?
No, this was because I mean this type of
Christmas tree farm you're you're growing
and I'm talking like I know these things.
I kind of don't but you know, you're
growing like this fields ready to go and
they just cut the whole thing.
Yeah.
And then you move to the next and so this
one's ready next year and this one's
ready next year and that's like when
we've had fires and huge, you know,
weather things in the last few years, you
know, to wipe out a whole crop, but it's
really wiping out the babies because you
know, they haven't
rooted and all the things.
So yeah.
So then why a helicopter?
What were those special trees?
They weren't special.
It was just the most cost-effective way
to get them up out of the thing in a
large bundle and then take them to be to
ship off because all of
these trees were shipped off.
These weren't trees to hang out.
Yeah.
In Oregon to go by the Christmas tree.
Okay.
They were going to like
California or something.
California, Hawaii, Mexico.
There you go.
That is so interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you guys are running a Christmas tree
farm in Beaver Creek.
That was like a side hustle.
Okay.
It wasn't the main thing.
Right.
Like it was just right.
And so you were an actual farm girl.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess I was.
Yeah.
I mean, I spent a lot of
time riding around with my dad.
I mean, that was actually my dad was a
man of very, very, very few words, but I
win like on a Saturday or something.
He had stuff to do.
He'd take me and a lot of times my
younger brother, we'd be in the truck
with him long before seat
belts and all the things.
Of course.
As all Gen Xers will
be able to relate to.
None of that going on and we'd go out and
he'd be buying machinery or
you know, delivering something or
whatever and we'd play on the
truck or in wherever we were.
We'd end up playing.
I learned how to pee outside because you
figured it out or you
weren't going to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it was and I have
really happy memories of that.
Mm-hmm.
I don't remember.
I mean that was just those
are like nostalgic memories.
I guess probably yeah,
whether they were or not.
I've turned them into that.
Right.
Right.
Which we do probably.
Definitely.
So then why Alaska?
I would like to know that question.
The answer to that question to my mom.
My dad's passed away and but my mom and I
never asked him that question.
But my mom says now is just always my
always my dad's dream.
But it's like what in 1970 or whatever 72
75 whatever what would have said Alaska
especially at that time.
Yeah, I was like, you know, they were
just building the pipeline.
They the Alaska Highway hadn't even been
I mean, it wasn't fully paid when we
moved up and the whole thing.
So I don't really know if it was just the
sense of wide open spaces.
I don't know if it was something that
after Vietnam he wanted to
get the heck out of Dodge.
I don't know.
I really don't but he had through the
whole farming community.
He actually knew a very large family kind
of Salem Woodburned Silverton based area
that had a lot of
property up there to farm.
And then he actually how he got he sold
machinery up there initially when we for
a big international
dealer franchise, I guess.
And so he kind of had a hookup and then
my mom was able to get a job up there and
at that time Alaska you
can make bank to make money.
Yeah, because yeah, and it was it was I
mean it was so she was
making I don't know exact numbers,
but I'm assuming she was making
significantly more than she was working
at Redland School District.
Right, right, whatever.
So what was what the schools you went to
down in Beaver Creek?
I I don't know how big those schools were
but when you moved to Alaska, was it
similar as far as population?
Oh God, no.
I don't know what the
Beaver Creek school does.
So the school that I went to which is
Beaver Creek Elementary because we left I
was in fourth grade.
I was so annoyed because by moving I
wasn't going to get to
go to outdoor school.
Do you remember that was such a big deal?
Every Oregonian knows outdoor school.
Oh, outdoor school is fun.
I think it was a week, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
We would get on buses and we
would have to bring our camp.
Not we were in cabins, but you still
bring a sleeping bag
and all that and you live.
You said you should it was educational.
It's kind of like Friday
the 13th type cabin vibe.
Yeah, but not scary.
And what age?
It's great or sixth grade sixth grade.
I think sixth grade sixth grade.
So I was I was still a year away from it,
but I was just you're almost there.
I was almost there.
I mean, that's what you you worked for.
Outdoor school.
Yeah, outdoor school was and every day
you did something nature related and
learned about things and
it was something like that.
Yeah, because we were in Oregon.
Yeah, right.
I mean everything was there.
So oh my gosh, you
didn't get to go to a door.
I didn't get to go to outdoor school.
My kids did so they
got to live it for me.
That's good.
I wasn't a week though.
I only got to go for like three days.
Oh, you can learn how to grow weed.
I don't need to grow it.
It's legal.
If somebody else is growing it, you can
just go walk into a dispensary for it.
Yes, it's very easy now.
There's no yeah, there's no there's no
need to like mess with your own.
It's a lot better if you
probably don't definitely.
So was there a culture shock though when
you started school in Alaska?
It the school was not the culture shock.
Right.
So I mean, okay.
So I can get a little bit so you have to
imagine, you know, we were we were
very comfortable in Oregon City.
I had very much the or in Beaver Creek.
We have I had very much that life where
you know, you went to school.
Obviously, I went home after school to
grandma then went home.
Mom made dinner even though
she was working full-time.
My dad would either be there be there
later because he's out doing whatever
and then every Sunday you went to church,
you know, went to Sunday
school and then you went home and then
you went to Grandma's and had,
you know, lunch brunch kind of thing and
she'd make fried chicken or whatever.
And then all the other aunts and uncles
not all of them out every time
but would be out there all
the cousins would be at there.
I mean, I've got I think I've got 35
immediate cousins, but my dad was
going on the lower end.
So I've got cousins that are retired now.
I mean long retired, you
know that are in there.
I mean, that makes sense
because he's one of nine.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. My oldest
aunt, I think is almost 90.
I mean, I can I always have to like pull
up the birthdays and do the math.
But yeah, anyway, so so
they got taken from that.
Yes, which was traumatic
and taken as a key word.
Oh, I fully would have sold
I was I was taken 100% taken.
My brother was about
six, almost seven, I guess.
And we went up there.
We drove up and a half ton pickup the
four of us not a dual or like backseat.
All four of us in the front seat.
Oh my goodness.
Whatever we didn't put on a shipping
container to get up there.
Which that's how all of our other stuff
got was in the back of the truck.
And we drove from here to Alaska through
on that or the Alaska Highway.
You know, went through customs on that
was was the whole thing.
How far of a drive was that?
It's 25 about hunt 2500 miles.
Okay, I don't know how
long it took us that time.
I've got some really
interesting pictures of myself.
But I just remember, you know, you had
this cassette thing and like every
there's certain songs, old country songs
that I hear that I'm just like,
oh, I'm back in the truck.
You know, you're right back there.
Yeah, exactly.
What makes me think of my dad and then
when we first got there, wherever we were
we were going to move, which was above
this machine shop
where my dad was selling
machinery wasn't ready for.
So we moved into this like single wide
trailer out on this other property
that was like off of a gravel pit.
And we were there in August, early August
because mom's because we started
school there and like mid August or
whatever and it snowed.
Oh my gosh.
And there was no heat in
which is that was that was rare.
It doesn't really snow in August.
But whatever happened, there
was no heat in this trailer.
Like we're literally off, you know, four
of us are like in on the mattress on
the floor with sleeping bags.
I remember my parents put us in the truck
and drove us to Fairbanks,
which was two hours
away in the nearest city.
Right.
Just so we got in to stay warm.
Yeah, you know, it's like and we were
just like so you guys were you were
pulled out of this the most comfortable
wholesome Norman Rockwell life.
Right in my mind.
Yeah, Christmas tree farm Hallmark.
It sounds like a Hallmark.
It does.
Yeah, warm and cozy.
Yeah, like it's idyllic and 10.
That's what it felt like.
Of course it wasn't.
Yeah, I'm talking about your perspective
at that age to it's snowing in
mid August and we're freezing and it
doesn't look like anything.
I'm familiar with right because it's
there's not a single single Douglas
fir to be seen there all these scrawny
weird-looking trees really
birch trees, which I love now.
That's like one of my favorite tree.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, because it's too cold.
Can't like really get going right?
You don't think about that, but they just
yeah, you should see what
people think of.
There's a Christmas tree.
If you go cut your own, it's ridiculous.
Wow, I would have thought it was similar
to Oregon and Washington
forests.
No, no, there are these really, you know,
I'll show you a picture
sometimes.
Yeah.
Well, there are parts of
Alaska that have forests and stuff.
Well, there's forests.
It's just very different than the forest
I was used to right and
you know, being in Oregon, you know,
we've got the huge, you know,
I mean not that we had the redwoods, but
you know what I mean?
Yeah, and I we went to school
in an area where that was like
that anyways.
Yeah.
So yeah, so the school part was obviously
I was the new kid and
how big were the classes like was the
class size significantly
smaller than in Beaver Creek?
No, actually the the elementary portion
of felt kind of typical,
but like the size of the elementary
school I went to in Beaver
Creek was probably the similar to the
size that I went to up
but my elementary school
was also the high school.
Okay, so they were like attached the
elementary is kind of this
end.
There was the little gym
where we also did the cap, which
was the cafeteria to you and then this
side was like the high
school and the big gym, which
is like the actual sport gym,
right stuff like that.
So what's their middle school?
The middle school is
in the military base.
So Delta Junction was adjacent to Fort
Greeley at the time, which
is decommissioned now,
but they do missile stuff.
Things up there now.
I don't know what they do, but and that's
where the middle school
and there was another elementary school
out there for the kids
that did live on post.
And so I went to middle school there.
Okay, so and then the high
schoolers came in so they were the
highest they came in to be
bused in for the high school.
We got bused out for okay, her middle
school, but so the junior
high when I was a kid.
Yeah, same same same same.
So the military kids you
went to school with the military
kids in high school
junior high in high school.
Yeah, but not
elementary school elementary.
Did you go to?
I'm sorry.
Did they have their own
elementary school on the base?
They had their own.
Okay.
Did you go to school
with like Native Alaskans?
There was a few in our town.
Not many.
Not many at all in that area.
I mean, I had experience in Fairbanks.
There was a lot of Native folks in
Fairbanks and then through
sports.
I we went to towns where they were
predominantly Native
and specifically Barrow,
which is called something else now
that I can't pronounce
and I'm sorry for that.
But which was all Native pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he had to fly in to play.
So what would you say your biggest
culture shock was that
you can remember at that time?
It was for me.
The culture shock was just the
environment itself and it was
just nothing like I'd lived my life and
you don't expect that
right and then for me, it
was my it was my family.
It was my grandma.
It was not having that touchstone and you
know, everything that
I'd known up until that point was
different in the sense that
you know, I rode the bus to
school, which I rode the bus to
and from school at my grandma's, but you
know, I came home to
my grandma here.
This is very Gen X of me.
So I was would have been 10 turning 11
that year in fifth grade.
We if we didn't stay after
school with my so my mom worked
in the same elementary school.
She was a kindergarten teacher.
And either we stayed with her, but she
worked she worked long.
She was a teacher that went
to school way early and stayed
way late.
She didn't check in check
out, you know, right as the bells
ringing kind of thing.
And so if we went home, you
know, there was nobody home or
we went home in the first year.
We were home.
My dad was technically there or there
were people there, but
not in our apartment above
this machine shop, you know, it
was just so you know,
you offended for yourself.
You had a snack and watch
whatever was on TV afterwards
or whatever.
I don't remember having
homework that first year.
I remember and every my mom, I don't
think really wanted to
do this and she did it for my dad.
And so she was miserable.
I think my dad was fine.
I think he was had his he
had his things right and my mom
became fine with school and
creating her space there and
did quite well that way.
Ultimately, she became a principal.
But yeah, that first year was
just was rough was rough and
like that, but I will tell
you so they tried to get us out
at Christmas time to come down for
Christmas because that's
a that's a big deal.
Especially like I was
in the church thing.
I was in the church play every year.
I was Mary the last I mean
this like all these like yeah,
status things when
you're little took you.
They took me away
from all of them took me.
I've actually it's funny.
I've never really thought of it like
that, but it did feel
like that.
So they tried to get us out at
Christmas, which I can't even
imagine what those tickets would have
cost back in that time
and there were very few
flights in and out of Fairbanks.
And so they couldn't because
they were booked and so they
actually flew us out for Thanksgiving,
which would have been
a long weekend, right?
My mom couldn't take
time out from school.
She barely started.
Right.
So what means we like flew
up probably Wednesday night at
midnight on the midnight
flight and you know, we're back
by Sunday.
So that Christmas at home, I
can picture it and I've seen
pictures of course, so it
helps stamp that it was like a
divorced family's Christmas where like
the kids get so much
stuff, right?
And we joke about it now
because it's like the trees in
the corner, which is kind of
dead because we had to buy a
live one and they don't
really live well up there and like
there's toys and like I got a doll.
I mean all this stuff just out skate.
I mean it was it was right to
make up for the fact that you
couldn't be down and be
very much a makeup situation.
Well, I mean that makes sense.
Yeah, so is when I picture
Alaska, I've never been there.
And so when I picture Alaska,
I picture cold in the winter.
Yeah, and I picture it's
always light in the summer.
Okay, so in the cold, it's dark.
Okay, and in the
summer, it's like and warm.
So when would the
winter descend on average?
I mean pretty much
September it starts right.
Well, Alaska, I mean we do that.
They do this now a little bit more in the
news that I've noticed
where they say like, oh you're gaining
two minutes of light
or you're losing two
minutes light in Alaska.
That is like a predominant part of the
newscast or was back
then. I mean I live
there for a long long time.
So I'm this was also the 80s
or the yeah, it 82 up there.
And so yeah, I mean basically you're
gaining daylight until
you start to lose it and that's like
September and then it
just gets more and more
significant and by the time you
hit solstice and that kind of thing.
I mean technically, I mean there's
pictures of it, but you
know the Sun does this
it doesn't do this right.
Right, right.
And so it feels like
your day's always dusk.
Okay, until it's dark.
Well, you know where the Sun is right?
It's down here.
Yeah, well, I know I know it's here.
Yeah, it's I don't I what's interesting.
It didn't the darkness didn't bother me
as a kid or teenager
that I recall the cold did
because where we lived in the
interior.
It was very cold.
I mean it was you know, it's not as
normal now or maybe as
often.
I don't know but you know,
our winters were 20 below zero.
That was standard.
You know sometime in that
way and and it was really super
dry where we lived and so
you had snow and it would drift
and blow off the road.
So like we didn't have chains or you
know, they had no tires.
Yeah, you know, it would ice
up if you had a little warm
snap or whatever, but we went outside
recess until 20 below.
Wow.
Yeah, you we didn't get out of school
until it was 60 below
zero and that was only because they
wouldn't run the buses
because the ice fog from the
exhaust would create really
bad, you know, really bad
issues with the with the roads.
You wouldn't be able to see in fact,
yeah, then some kind of
nasty accidents because of that.
It's it's five degrees
in Fairbanks right now.
Yeah, I just like it out.
That is crazy.
So it's cold.
It's cold and it's like that for you
know, from October until
breakup, which is, you know, usually.
April ish, give or take like usually by
the time we had prom.
It was clear and that would
have been in April probably.
So breakup would have
happened, which is what we call when
all the snow goes away.
That's what it's called.
So is seasonal depression a big thing?
I'm there.
I'm sure it is.
We didn't have those terms.
Right, right, right.
Of course not.
Right.
And I mean, I think it is
where we're from in Oregon too.
I didn't have those terms because I
didn't I didn't realize
I grew up in gray.
I had no idea.
I had no idea.
I was growing up in gray, right?
Honestly until I moved to Ashland, I
think because in Ashland
we got more clear skies.
Totally and it could
be cold, but blue skies.
I'd never had that before
really and that and so I think in
Alaska you probably don't
realize you are half seasonal
depression until you
probably leave there.
Well, and that's when
the Sun is out, right?
Even though even if it's a
short way to a time a lot of times
it was bright Sun like you wore
sunglasses all winter, right?
Because it's reflecting off the snow too,
but because it's bright
and clear.
Okay, short period of time.
Right, right, right.
So I wonder if the cold is what might
cause it or like what
you know, the dark.
I think the dark.
It's the dark.
The dark comes in quick, right?
Okay.
Got very little time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how long were you there?
Were you there through high school?
I went fifth grade to and I
graduated high school there.
So my graduating class was about 50 ish.
Wow.
So my entire high school was
about 200 or so give or take.
So did everybody date everybody?
Not everybody but yes, pretty much
everybody worked through
everybody.
You circled the drain on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah.
I mean you had your ones
that you know, we're high school
sweethearts all the way through or
whatever, but the interesting
is is by being there I became
or I was a big fish in a very
little pond, right?
And so the cool thing was to be in sports
and I played basketball
and I played volleyball and I was a
four-year varsity letterman
in basketball and you know
got to travel and it was a real
privilege to do that because
back then or I'm still you're
not your nearest town is two hours away
and the nearest town
in our league was three hours away.
So that means you got on the bus on
Friday afternoon at some
point sometimes JV, but usually and then
always varsity get on
the bus.
You went to Lake St.
Glen Allen because that was
the nearest one you got off the
bus.
You'd play your games Friday.
You'd stay the night at the school.
They'd feed you and then get up Saturday
and you'd have a full
day of games and you get on the bus and
they'd bring you home.
Wait, you slept at the
school in the classrooms.
What a trip.
Whoa.
Yeah, that's crazy.
You know that we had a Christmas
tournament in Valdez every
year which was so much fun
because it was multiple schools
in one place.
Yeah, Valdez was a five-hour bus ride.
Wow.
And are we talking
school buses or luxury buses?
Honey, honey.
I don't even know if
they had luxury buses.
Actually, I'm sorry.
The luxury buses were the
tourist buses that came up all
summer.
Okay.
Yeah, the no we it was school buses
school buses school.
Was there heat?
Well, there was heat but I mean, you
know, your those seats
are hard.
Those seats are hard and
there's a whole yeah, and there's
a whole hierarchy and all your
stuff's in there and your ear.
What about the parents?
They're following in cars that far away.
They very few parents would come.
Oh and we're Gen X.
They didn't come.
See you Monday.
Could you imagine now?
Oh my God.
Be like a convoy.
You're saying Mary.
No, but I bet I wonder if up
in Alaska, you know, I'm sure
there's similar helicopter
parenting that's going on.
And so I bet now there's a little trail
of cars behind those
buses and in some cases they would write
you to have a couple
that would travel more often
than others or if it was like
going up to Ileson, which is the Air
Force Base just before
Fairbanks people come
to that one like that.
Yeah, that far, you know, yeah, but and
but they were at every
home game every single right and more
people that you know,
it was like remember the
scene in Dazed and Confused where
he shows up at the baseball and the old
guys like hey, how's
the arm or whatever and he's like that
kid that guy doesn't
even have a grandkid in school anymore.
Right.
That was what we had.
You had folks that they
just that's what they did.
What was an event?
It was an event for that town basketball
volleyball and hockey.
Of course, but the
hockey rings were outside.
My brother played hockey.
It was great, but it sucked to have to be
a purchase, you know,
so cold.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we got to do all
so I was traveled to I mean,
we had one of our my senior year.
We went to Regionals in
Cordova, which was a five-hour bus
ride to Valdez and a
five-hour ferry ride to Cordova.
Wow.
So all of the schools
in our league were there.
We play our tournament.
We didn't do great, but
we played our tournament.
Well, there was this we
almost didn't get to go because
we were having this horrific.
Sorry, I'm totally this
memory is like coming to me.
But this is great that we had this
horrific storm and we
almost didn't get to go
because it was 60 below zero and
they didn't want the bus
to go, but it's basketball.
Yeah, we're going to make this happen.
Right.
So they do they get us down there.
We play our games, whatever and then
it's, you know, Sunday
probably and we're supposed
to be getting back on the ferry
to get back and repeat the
process and this storm has come
through through the South and the ferry
like we went down to
the ferry and the ferry is like doing
this at the you can't
get on the ferry.
Right.
So we were stuck.
We had to stay.
Meantime the school has school on Monday.
Right.
So all of these teams are stuck there.
Oh, wow.
So where did you all sleep?
They would shuttle us between the we'd
sleep in the classrooms
and then they'd shuttle us
like into the into the gym, but
then they had to feed us and
I remember they would bring us
a video.
You know, this is back when
you had the VCR in a cart.
Yes, and they bring us a
video, you know, we could watch
movies or whatever and of course, we
didn't have our homework
or anything like that.
And so I think we were there
maybe until Wednesday and they
finally were like,
okay, we got to fly home.
Wow.
And so they put us on an airplane, you
know, one of the small
ones and they flew us into Fairbanks and
I mean how many airplanes
because all those teams are had to have
been a bunch of little
airplanes.
I'm sure they had multiples.
Yeah, because I mean at that time it
would have been at least
six, six, seven, eight schools.
I don't know how many.
Wow, but yeah, so.
So sports was your vehicle to travel.
It was and just to get away
from yeah, the same the same.
Yeah, small town over and over.
I mean, it was the same people over and
over, but yeah, yeah,
so then in a small town like that, I
assume there's one grocery
store.
Yeah, and like what a couple restaurants.
Yeah, we had a grocery store,
which is not where so it was
interesting.
I think because of where we came from, we
lived Alaska a little
differently than people that
maybe had always lived there,
right? Or you know, my friends
that have been born there and
their families that that came
there and so like the grocery
store for us was where to get milk and
you needed lettuce and
you know, kind of the those
things and then at least once
a month we went to Fairbanks and you
know, you'd come home
with $400 which back then
would have been a lot, you know,
the whole back of the
thing would be full.
There was no Costco or
anything, but it was that kind of
situation.
Fred Myers was basically it.
Yeah, there was a Fred Mars.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah in Fairbanks and a Safeway.
Yeah, okay and an Albert's no
market back which I think was
Albertson's but but we would
go up there and on the way home
and North Pole we would make my mom go
through the drive-through
McDonald's was the last fast food.
We'd get McDonald's the big thing.
This was more high school,
but we'd get McDonald's and you
know, you have your special McDonald's
and then you'd get extra
and then you take it home and then you
take that school the
next day.
Oh, cool.
Because you had a big mat.
I mean, it's just no that makes sense.
That makes sense.
We did have a tasty freeze.
Oh, I forgot about tasty freeze.
Did you say North Pole?
Mm-hmm.
So North Pole Alaska what
that's the town or where Santa's?
Well, it's both Santa's there.
It's not it's not the
literal North Pole Brian.
That is to melon
under the thing someplace.
No.
No, there's a town called North Pole,
Alaska and they actually
have a place called like if you ever
toured there, that's like
a big tourist thing, right?
They have Santa Claus house.
Okay.
And you know, you could go
like have your mail stamp with the
North Pole and stuff.
That's cool.
That's really cool.
Yeah, North Pole and it's it's much more.
It's like a suburb now of Fairbanks.
Okay, okay.
It's just a little north of
Ileson, which is there for space
and then just south of Fairbanks.
I didn't know that I didn't
know there was a North Pole.
Stop me in my tracks.
Yeah.
I know you were like, wait, what?
Santa?
So, okay.
So you graduate high school with your
class of 50 and what
decision did you make?
Did you say in Alaska?
Did you go to school in Fairbanks?
Like what did you do?
So basically I grew up so my mom
backtracking a little bit.
My mom grew up in Klamath Falls with
three siblings and somehow
or another they they grew up very poor
very my grandfather worked
very hard, but you know, they just didn't
have a lot and somehow
three of my aunts ended up going to
college and graduating getting
furthering their their degrees and that
kind of or their their
education and so my mom's expectation was
you either go to school
or you go to the military.
There's nothing else and so I
always grew up going I'm going
to college.
I'm going to college and so we when we
lived up there every
summer once school ended my mom would
pack my brother and I
up in the car and we would drive to
Oregon and we spent the
entire summer in Oregon until mom needed
to go back to school
and so later on like we did a
school tour and we went to you
about because that's where my mom went.
So sure.
I'd want to go there scared the crap out
of me because it was
huge.
I mean, you have always probably bigger
than Fairbanks at the
time, right and I'm like, my aunt and
uncle lived in Central
Point and so that's where
we spent most of our summer.
So I spent, you know, a lot of time,
immigrant Lake, you know,
we had families still in Klamath Falls,
you know, camping at,
you know, Lake of the
Woods, all the things doing that.
So we spent a lot of time in Ashland,
which is where Southern
Oregon University was.
It's not a sock anymore.
No, now it's not an organ.
We all went it was
Southern Oregon State College.
So I toured that school and then it's
like, okay, this makes
and obviously was
already comfortable with town.
Yeah, but this felt right.
Like I could live here.
So that's where I went and I don't even
think I applied anywhere
else and I never went
and saw the Oregon State.
I might have made a
difference that decision.
Maybe who knows?
So you applied to
Southern Oregon University.
Yep.
And so and you got accepted.
Obviously, I did really well.
I did really well in
school without trying.
The unfortunate part of that is the
education and I don't know
if that's true.
Still the education in my
school at the time was probably
not very great.
I mean, it was pretty in Alaska, Alaska
and my town specifically,
right?
Delta and so I didn't learn how to
because I didn't have to.
I didn't learn how to study.
Didn't learn how to do
anything more than I needed to do just
to pass, but that didn't serve me.
Do you think that was also because you
were the big fish in
a small pond and you were
athletic and all that like you
kind of shuffled along?
Probably I also think that
there was it wasn't challenging
at all and I don't in a lot
of the I just don't think the
teachers challenged
anymore of anyone, right?
But I mean there were there
were kids in my school that were
like super smart and
are and did well, right?
So there was also something
probably in me like it's not
just their fault.
Right, right, right, right, right.
It was like the combo.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I didn't have to.
So why would I?
Right.
Well, did you find Southern Oregon
University challenging?
I found school challenging not
because I wasn't smart enough
to be there.
I didn't know how to do school.
I didn't know how to because my life
before that was like,
okay, great.
I've got a paper, right?
So I wrote it the day before.
Well, that only goes so far in college,
even in the late 80s.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, and I didn't know how
to you know, looking back now,
I have all this different
language and these different
viewpoints.
I think I had a lot of anxiety too and
feeling like a country
bumpkin from you know,
whatever in this environment.
And so I was real into the
social piece because I could
excel with that and I think
you know kids that grew up.
I was the kid with the
report card that always said well,
she's she's fantastic.
We love her.
She talks too much.
She has to you know, what I mean?
I think I probably had some undiagnosed
girl version of ADHD.
I still do but I didn't know how to
manage that appropriately
in school.
So I became very social more
social and spent way too much
time focused on that and
lost myself in the process.
And I think I got I mean there was
different ages and stages
of that in that freshman year, especially
but yeah, so I didn't
do well at school.
And did you ever talk to your parents
your mom about that?
No, we didn't.
I did not have.
I didn't have a really authentic
relationship with my mom.
I didn't have a really authentic
relationship with my mom
until probably the last 10 years or so.
Okay, because I grew up very much.
So it was the on my
mom's side specifically.
I was the first child
the first grandchild.
My mom had this my
mom's a people pleaser.
And there was an expectation placed on me
to be and I got validation
from that.
So I learned that was like it
was like a dopamine hit right
like oh look at how Kendall
she's she's so good at church
or you know, oh, she's this
or she's that and I didn't know
how to manage that with her to like,
disappoint her every if
it didn't go with what she
thought things should be it was
disappointing.
Right.
And so and that was actually
once it got to the point where
you know, you couldn't get spanked or
whatever anymore and
not that I got spanked a lot, but you
know, as you get older
you get grounded and all that
but it was like, you know, I
not really that map.
I am just so
disappointed and that's so harsh.
I'm just saying that
like makes my heart go.
Right.
It triggers a little something.
It does.
Yeah.
So you had this huge
fear of disappointing her.
And so you kept not knowing you were
probably having some a
little bit of a learning
disability challenge social
anxiety.
You've come from a Alaska Beaver Creek
background to Ashland
which at the time was a very hippie
bohemian artsy community
beautiful town one of the most magical
towns in America, but
feeling a little fish out
of water probably had some
imposter syndrome going on there.
Yeah, and then not being able
to talk to your family about
it.
Yeah.
Well and back then if you
remember like you talked maybe
once a week you had a phone card, right?
And then you start the
payphone in the dorms, right?
Yeah.
And you know, you did your
20 minutes or whatever and it
was like you're not going
to get into it that way.
No, you really not.
And actually when I left Alaska my mom
and I were very barely
speaking that last summer
before I came to school my
mom still came down here
with my brother and I lived up
there and worked at the big top diner.
Yeah, actually it was a it was a car hop.
Oh, it was amazing.
I made so much money.
Like on roller skates?
Not on roller skates.
Okay, but you would go up
to the car with the tray.
That is so cool.
So much fun.
My best friend in high
school her uncle and aunt owned it
and so it was just like it was like the
cool thing to do too,
right?
Very cool.
I did that all summer and but I had a
house to myself because
my dad was actually gone
that summer too for some reason
working elsewhere instead of
in Alaska and I had a great
summer and that money I made didn't no
one told me that the
money I was making was
supposed to go with me.
Oh, you weren't aware that
that was to go for college like
towards spending money in college.
Yeah, and so yeah, so we had
a huge blow up and that ties
back to communication, right?
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
And then my brother was in a pretty
significant four wheeling
accident right before I
left like days before I left.
Wow to have surgery and was in a
wheelchair for a little bit
and stuff.
And so she was also in right
and and I was getting and she
put me on a plane with two
suitcases and I went to through
you know flew to Medford.
My aunt uncle picked
me up my aunt novella.
Yeah, me up and she helped
me move into my dorm room.
I had to I think you.
Brian knows for that point because we
were in the same dorm
but yes, I was all with my two suitcases.
We went to Woolworth to
get like a new comforter.
Where was there a war in Medford?
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yes.
I know right and you know to get my two
spoons and two forks
to have little something
right, you know, whatever anyway,
so my aunt uncle helped me.
Okay.
So your parents weren't
there to set up your room and all
that and I didn't expect
them to be because my mom
worked and that was the priority.
She wouldn't have been able to take you
know, I watched this
whole event now go on and
even the event I had with my own
daughter taking her to
college and it was like a parade.
Oh, it's something.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've seen some stuff on social
that's even like oh,
yeah, that wasn't my
experience even with Amelia, but it's
still it's like oh,
yeah, it was the whole thing.
It was two cars.
It was like my mom had to count.
I mean it was a whole thing, but so yeah,
it was a much different
but it right there was no expectation.
I actually don't remember a
lot of people having a lot of
that noise though there.
I mean you flew in like
I don't know his parents.
We flew in I had nothing
because I flew in from New Jersey.
Yeah, went to Medford.
We went to the mall
the Rogue Valley ballers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we went to like JC
Penney's and bought my comforter
and sheets and yeah, all that stuff.
Yeah, I mean you brought your suitcase.
I had my dead tapes and pretty much.
Yeah, the dead that are hanging above
your head right now.
I think exactly.
Okay, so you're so you're in the dorms.
You're focusing a
little more on social life.
Yeah, and how'd that freshman year go?
I mean it excuse me.
It went okay.
I didn't great get great.
I didn't fail out.
I didn't wasn't like on academic
suspension or anything, but
I was not it wasn't super successful.
And but I had I developed really great
friendships at the time.
I mean it it's interesting though.
I haven't kept very many of
them, but but it was you know,
it was it was the next phase of life.
I was just paying for it
through student loans, right?
Right.
It's like so I am.
Yeah, so that I mean school wise.
It was just not not great.
And I also thought I was going to be a
teacher like my mom.
And what I realized I think which I
wasn't mature enough to
understand or voice was that
wasn't what I wanted to do.
Right?
Like it was just kind of almost an
expectation, but not that
she told me that but just that well,
yeah, that's what you
do.
That's what girls do.
Right, right, which is funny
because not that I would have
imagined I'm doing the line of work.
I'm doing now, but it's more office
related that type of
thing.
I used to play office as a kid.
Right.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, like I had you know, I
would get like back when they
had carbon copy things, you know, like
proceeding, you know,
I had like a pretend phone and I was
like, you know, back
then I was playing secretary, right?
Because you know, you didn't
think in the 70s like who knew
that you could run your own
business or whatever, but and
being charged.
Yeah.
Yeah, but although I did have that
example, my aunt was that
way, but um, anyway, so yeah,
it's it and I should have just
changed my major, right?
Maybe I would have been
interested in school, right?
Right.
Because you were what was the major
geared towards education
at the time.
Yeah, and I mean
obviously it was freshman year.
Yeah, a lot of English
and all that which was fine.
I excelled at it, but I also
didn't know to ask for help.
So like like go to my my
advisor and have a conversation
or like I went through a
couple different periods where now
I can look back and I know I
was greatly depressed because
I literally didn't leave my
room for two weeks other than to
but food.
Yeah, that's where you got food.
We used to call it was like cafeteria.
I know.
Yeah, a fun dorm though.
That's part of a challenge.
We don't do our own party.
They did you guys had a fun dorm.
I was in the one down the hill that was
more prim and proper,
which is really funny because
I wanted to be in those because
they were the newer dorms.
They were I mean, the arms we were in
were like the ones from
a million a year and they're still there.
I don't even think
they had air condition.
I don't even think they still do.
I don't know if you
need it per se in Oregon.
Unless you're there in the summer you do.
Yeah, but no our dorms.
I have to tell it they were nice guys.
Yeah, they were nice.
They were very nice and I
made sure I got in those.
But we did have butt food a lobby away.
We did but I think I'm glad it wasn't
right around the corner.
Like I had to walk up
that hill to get food.
So that was good.
You have food back.
We didn't know but food was our food.
I'm sure.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure somebody's like
we're not walking up there.
They have well, they have
more dorms down that way now too.
Oh my goodness.
They're built like it's beautiful.
I'm sure but those old
ones are still there.
That's amazing.
But yeah, I know we even knew and I
didn't really know you guys
at all freshman year, but we
knew of your dorm and knew that
you guys it was fun there.
Oh, yeah, we parted.
Yeah, we had a good time.
We must have really cool RAs
because I mean Dan and then
some other dude.
I can't remember.
Yeah, there was two guys, right?
Yeah, that's why
because the guys don't care.
That's the girl RAs
that are like really on it.
But yeah, okay.
So then did you where
did you go for that summer?
Did you stay in Ashland?
No, so I am excuse me.
I so spring term.
I was in a class.
Met a boy and but I went back.
So my parents of course
came back from to Alaska.
They were in Oregon City.
They were at my grandmother's house.
So I went back there
because I didn't have a job.
I wasn't working to Oregon City, Oregon.
Well Beaver Creek actually were they
living in Beaver Creek?
No, okay.
They were just there for the summer.
My mom was there for the summers.
Okay, I went and I got a job
at JCPenney selling the fake
jewelry, right and wearing pantyhose.
Oh, yes, which by that
point I had transitioned pretty
significantly into Ashland and I was
full-on Birkenstocks,
you know, no make up all the things and
I'm working at JCPenney's
putting on pantyhose.
Yeah, but I needed a job.
So it was either that or
working at the at a restaurant
that didn't make sense.
So anyways, but with because of this
boyfriend who stayed
there, I would basically not every
weekend, but I would,
you know Thursday night Friday night,
whatever get in my car
from work at 9 o'clock and drive to
Ashland and then I'd
stay the weekend there and
I'd drive home and so and that
if I remember correctly, I
think I had that down to four
and a half hours.
Oh, yeah, and somewhere on there you
could do a little better
and I knew where
every couple like to sit.
There was a couple rest areas where
they'd hang out right
before that I when I drive that very
rarely now, but I still
like okay, we can watch it
because that's where and because
I did I got a couple tickets.
Yeah, that because I
had a little drive them.
I had a little Ford Escort.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, it was great.
It was a little car got milk on the
license plate thing,
but such a generational thing.
My dad traded a tractor for it.
Well, there you go.
There you go.
Farmgirl in her four desk or so you're
smoking away smoking
your cigarettes.
So it's got milk.
Yes.
So you're working at pennies
during the week going down to
Ashton on the weekends and
then did you continue school
though for sophomore year
like you picked classes.
So yeah, so if I recall
correctly, I think I made it a
full one or two.
I honestly don't remember.
I've made it a full two
terms after so I know I made it
fall because we were
on trimesters, right?
So I made it.
I think I made it fall term.
Now is this when we moved in together?
Yeah, that would have been
so we found our apartment.
Yeah, we met because I was
dating a guy who was friends
with your boyfriend and I
think became roommates and they
became roommates and we
needed a ride from Portland to
Ashland and your was it the
guy was I was dating or Mike
no the guy you are dating had
the truck that has like back
then they had like a cover
can it be can it be cover and
we laid in the back
because you couldn't sit up.
I couldn't sit up.
I think that about that now
if you made me lay in the back
of a covered truck for four
and a half hours, I would lose
my mind.
I wouldn't have done it but
we talked the entire time the
entire way had never met each other.
Yeah, literally like Mike and
I show up at the parking lot
at the shopping center
little Oregon City shopping center
and like get in the I mean,
I don't remember how we got
there.
Honestly, I think my mom
probably dropped me off.
Yeah, and ironically your
mom was living in Oregon City.
Yes at that time weirdly.
That was a weird.
Yes.
But anyways, yeah, we talked and
literally I don't know if
we really decided that at
that moment, but I think it was
like, okay cool.
You want a roommate?
Yeah.
Yeah, like it was one of
those moments in life where you
look for a fact this friend
is going to be your friend like
you're this is going to be a best friend.
It was like this is a person.
This is gonna be one of my
people and so from the start of
leaving Portland till we got
to Ashland by the time we got
to Ashland, I knew okay.
This is gonna be one of my
best friends and then yeah, we
decided to live together
and that was a fun year.
We had apartment and we had
a crappy couch that we paid
for which I don't know why
because we got it from these guys
and they had thrown up on it.
Yeah, and I'm across
the street in that house.
Right.
Where did you guys live?
How do you describe it?
It's past big owls, right?
Yeah past big owls.
It was like there was
a outside of Ashland.
Yeah, there was a market up
there and then you turned and
you started up the hill.
So it was on it was the house you guys
got kicked out of no
that house, but it was that same road
that but it just was
at the bottom of it, but it
was just an apartment complex.
Somebody at some point lived
across the street from us like
Grant and remember they had that house.
Carl Carl they eventually
lived across the street from us,
but wait was big out wasn't
big owls down by the campus.
Are you thinking of the breadboard?
No, well, there was two big owls at one
point, but they closed
the one by the campus.
There was one on the other end of town.
Okay.
Yeah, so we live there and we
sat on that couch and talked
pretty much that whole year.
I mean, you know on that
gross disgusting like I would burn
it now couch.
I mean, it was so I have
well, I've sent you that one
picture. Yeah, look at that
now and I'm just like I know I
mean, I'm sure I slept
on that couch at point.
Oh for sure.
For sure.
I think the guys didn't even
want to take money and I think
I insisted and they're
like you guys are weird.
Yeah, so okay, but so okay,
so we live together sophomore
year.
Yeah, you were definitely in
school the first semester for
sure. The first I might have
dropped out maybe in the middle
of of winter or just stop going.
Let's be clear, right?
But I was working so I think at that
point, I don't think I
was working at Big Owls.
But you but I was working
but I had a couple jobs.
I did. I know you were
not going to school though.
I don't know honestly
because I lived so the problem, you
know, I look back on things
now, but I lived a very I just
wouldn't have talked about it.
It wouldn't I wouldn't I don't think I
would have lied about
it to you or whatever, but I just don't
think I talked about
it. So I wasn't need to know basis.
Yeah, and I wasn't like my
parents didn't know at the time.
No, I remember that can
even once I realized I remember
your parents didn't yeah, and
and it's a little fuzzy even
now and then it's okay.
Yeah, because okay, so so
because I think they thought you
were still going to school
that at least that semester,
right?
Yeah, I was it's it's so
hard for me to realize that that
lived a lot of my life lying
in a way not in a way lying
or lying by omission, right?
Because I was so terrified of
disappointing them or other
people that instead of just
being who I was and being like
okay, this is who I am.
I didn't you know what I mean?
Like and that ate me up
in different ways, right?
Right because and it wasn't like I
created big elaborate
things and it was
like I was manufacturing.
It was just that by not telling the whole
thing or by skirting
that you know, then I didn't
have to disappoint anybody.
Did you did you ever have an
event where that kind of led
you to that or is that just
something evolved and one day
you realize that now that
you're an adult that I wasn't
always honest or that I the
realization of all that you
mean more I guess by a
shitty question, but the question
I'm trying to ask is do you
have an idea of why you got to
the point where you thought
you might be letting down your
mom was there something that
happened where she was like,
oh Kendall, you shouldn't be doing that.
I mean that was a
culmination of expectations.
Yeah from from from times
before I could even remember
probably there was just
condition stuff condition stuff.
I think that's that's a
great way to put it and then and
then you know, there's
comments made in high school or
whatever you're
disappointing and my mom had a real thing
about you know in our little tiny town.
There's a status thing like
my mom never drink a beer in
that town when we go have pizza.
My mom loves a beer with pizza.
Yeah, but she wouldn't do
it in that town because you'd
get a reputation that you
know, oh, did you see an a beer a
single beer?
Yeah, and you had to you know,
she would never go buy a beer
because you had to go to the
liquor store and to do it there
and you know, just she was
very she was very conditioned
on appearances and she
conditioned that into me.
My brother was exactly the opposite.
He didn't give enough and
did what he wanted and said,
you know, he's the young guy.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I resented
the hell out of that.
Sure.
Yeah resented the hell out of
it because I always felt like
I was towing the line or lying about it
and he was just like,
you know, and so whatever you wanted.
So he rebelled and you were compliant.
Yeah, and your way of feeling
acceptance and love from your
mom was by conforming to what
you thought she wanted at all
times and then probably as you realize
you're not that person
and that you're learning about yourself.
You were too scared to
talk to her about who you are.
Yeah, I didn't know how to
reconcile the pieces of me like,
you know, when you go away so far away
from your parents and
all that and you go to such a unique
school, you know, in
a unique experience and
like, you know, I had never even
heard of the Grateful Dead
before I showed up there.
And then, you know, slowly not everyone
gets into it, right?
But you know, I did and it's you know,
it's a it's a culture along
with the music and and it's a spiritual
thing and all those and
and that whole thing was very foreign to
me, but I really took
to it and it was really a part of me and
I didn't know how to
share that with people as a part of me
without it because it
was so foreign to my vanilla
white family and far, you know,
all I mean, it was just it was almost
almost comical when I
would show I mean the first time I went
back to Alaska to visit
the one time and I went back.
I think I had braids in my
hair like with like cloth woven
into him, you know, I remember and I
mean, they thought I was
a freak.
Yeah, and I mean, I was
not even close to what was an
actual. Yeah, what
the real experience was.
I mean, and I wasn't so
and I never was hardcore, but
anyways, it was just it was
just it never dawned on me to
figure out how to authentically have
those conversations,
right?
You were just going going going.
Yeah, and so you're not going to school.
You're working.
Are you still being
you're still being social?
Cuz you were we you were
still hanging out with all of us
and making new friends and hanging out.
Did you because you weren't
going to school was did you
ramp up the partying during that time?
So I think so.
I mean, I kind of ramped up
the partying even in the dorms
because at some point I
ended up with my own room because
my original roommate moved
out or went back home and I get
the time come in to my
parents or my mom, you know, hey,
I keep my own room.
It'll do better for school.
And what that meant was
another friend who did not go to
school and worked usually
the, you know, Friday Saturdays
or whatever, then we started
partying like different days
and then she crashed in my
room because out of space
she didn't have to go home.
And so just and those
things become like real like oh,
are we doing Tuesday?
Are we doing you know what I mean?
It's like yeah, it creeps up
on you and for me personally
alcohol eased a lot
of the anxiety, right?
The social stuff where I felt like I
mean, I still feel like
this that like people
won't remember my name.
They won't remember who I am.
I'm not identifiable enough
that people would know who I
am. I have that problem at
work and I know and what's
interesting and I'm proven wrong often
and I still feel that
way. That's so interesting.
And I've been in my company for 10 years.
I still feel that way.
You feel that way or that's the reality.
I feel that way.
Interesting.
And you felt that way
in school or in Ashland?
Yeah, oh, 100%.
Oh, 100%.
I guarantee you if you ask
anybody from those days, you
remember Kendall, they'd be
like, yeah, I remember Kendall.
Guaranteed, no doubt.
You know, there's people that I think
would remember me, you
know, there's a core group,
of course, like the Guam House
folks.
Yeah, but there's like some
peripheral of those that, you
know, I have memories of and the
interesting thing is though
as I don't like retain names
and those kind of things and
I don't know.
I haven't done a good job of that.
I mean, I think it's just my brain takes
in weird information
and then it can't store all
the things and but then I can
remember if somebody else talks about it.
Yeah, but that could
be part of that ADHD.
Yeah, you know, which again could have
been one of the reasons
why school was so frustrating at that
time and like now as
an older adult and certainly
menopausal and all the things
which I've been in for a while because of
surgeries and stuff,
but like my immediate recall is awful.
And so it always makes you nervous like
on a call or something
for work, you know, and it's
like, okay, I got to make these
scribble in my handwriting is atrocious.
So let's even worse, but but
then it's like an hour or two
hours later.
All of a sudden, I'm
going to do that thing, right?
Like I'll get off a call and
know I need to do something
and then it doesn't
come to me for two hours.
Right, right.
It stresses me out and it's something I'm
going to try to kind
of look into a little bit
more because I had to figure out
some better coping skills on it.
Yeah, it makes me nervous.
The older I get I you
know, it makes me nervous.
I'm going to lose that two hours.
Right, right, right, right.
Come for it.
So that yeah, or the middle of
the night, which I, you know,
also have that where you're like, okay,
well, I'm going to get
on the computer because I
won't go back to sleep if I don't
right.
Right.
So so anyway, sorry.
No, no, no.
Did you find that you since you were
using alcohol with social
anxiety?
Did it become an issue?
It it might have you know, I
was never like drinking to go
to work or any it was never that I was
very much of a social
drinker and still am like I
don't sit and have a glass of
wine at home.
I don't have a you know,
cocktail at home or anything.
That's just not my my vibe.
I would say it was an issue
because the longer I stayed in
action.
So so we live together sophomore year
essentially and then
following that I kind of I
mean, I moved so many times.
Well, we lived in that big
house together the next year.
Yeah, but only for a period of time only
for a period of time
and you weren't in
school then you were working.
I was working the rest of us.
There was a bunch of us that
live there then we got kicked
out.
Yeah.
I think you had that you in winter.
So I think had a real sweet
place on the corner on the
corner right up from the library.
So I had this little hallowroom in the
back which I love you
know, I love yes.
Love my little cozy spot
little cozy cave bed on the floor
kind of thing but um, yeah,
but that was a great house still
is a great house.
Yeah, it's an actual family
home now, but um, but before that
before we ended up, I mean, I just
bounced around I think I
lived at Winters's mom's
house for a little bit.
I you know, there was
some till we got settled.
So your life and Ashton at that point
most of your friends
that you had made when you arrived are
still going to school
and your life is kind of
pivoting to spending more time
with people who work work or
don't go to school and then
partying with them because I
because you kind of drifted a
little bit in our group group at that
time because the what
and that was that was me
right because I was self-conscious
about the fact that I mean
that I wasn't didn't have that
commonality anymore, right?
Not that we all sat
around and talked about school.
I'm right, but just that
piece of it and then I also what
what I've done for a very
long time and I don't know if it
was like prior to high
school, but I know in high school,
it started. I was very much
one of the person's the worst
like okay, I've got my
people my friends or whatever, but
I'm going to take care of you, right?
I'm going to make sure you're okay.
You're everybody needed me
and I didn't I mean I got things
in return, but I didn't
get a lot of it in return.
And so that was always at
the detriment of my emotional
well-being, but I had no idea.
Right no idea about that.
And so in that
transferred into college, right?
And so like a freshman dorms, I think
there was a gal that
I was like that with you
know, early on and then I was like
that with you.
It was not to to my
detriment, but it was just like I was
very involved in your life.
And I mean which was our
life right in the sense of like
all of our people.
So that was easy.
Yes, but then as I got other
people than I changed the focus
right and that was the pivot because when
Tristan became your interest
in dating at that point really
became a focus and and it
wasn't because they were like,
you know to the college
kids or anything like that.
It was just it was a
different experience.
We didn't have the same, you
know, you guys were studying.
You were yeah, yeah, yeah,
so we said you it's not more
than others, but no, and so it was easy
just to kind of pivot
from that but then still
bounce in and out, right?
And yeah, I mean there was a
divide there a little bit which
I regret greatly and have but
I think you were going through
your own processing too
because you were kind of living
this covert life still where
your folks thought you were
going to college.
Yeah, I think by that time
like by the time like we moved
up to that one house that we got kicked
out of I don't think
I was fibbing on the college college
thing at that point.
I think they knew I was only working out.
I hope so.
I honestly don't remember.
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of
like right at this point.
The blur the edges of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, I
was living to you know,
it was a big old gal.
Yeah, I keep talking about
big owls shout out to big owls.
I was a big gal gal.
You know, we pulled our tips.
We'd go, you know, get in
the car and go to Dead shows in
California and go drive around and I
mean, you know, live
in a different kind of
bohemian lifestyle at the time.
Yeah, I mean you were
having a great time.
It was a great life having a great time.
It was a lot of fun.
It was not a lot of substance, right?
So what made you make a change?
So honestly circumstances
because Winters decided she was
going to go to school and she
was going to go to California
to do it.
So Winters was going to
go to school in California.
Yeah, she was going to go to school in
California and I was
going to go with her because
it was like basically the band
was breaking up, right?
Yeah.
And so I was going to do that
like put in the notice at work
all those, you know, we had
a big going away party out at
Kurt's.
We burnt our big owls shirts.
I've got really cool
pictures of that actually.
Mason was there and
literally, I think I had a panic attack
not physically, but just
like realize I can't move to
California.
No, no, I can't do that.
And at that point my mom and
dad had actually moved back
down from Alaska had repurchased the
house that my dad had
built us before we moved up to Alaska.
That is really cool.
Yeah, but he was able to get that house.
What it was weird though
because like literally, I mean
there'd been we'll say eight
ten years in between that time.
Yeah, everything was exactly the same.
Wow.
The wallpaper my mom had used in the
seven or the 80, you
know, anyway, yeah, very weird.
But yeah, and so my dad was
there but my mom had moved
back to Alaska.
So she'd been there for
they'd been there a year.
Yeah, and my mom realized that she
couldn't give up her
retirement prospects from Alaska.
And so she went back up to Alaska.
My dad was still in the
house and my brother was there
because he had he was a
junior when she moved down, which
right.
A whole nother thing.
Yeah, he had just when he
graduated in 92, he moved out
the same day and moved
in with his girlfriend.
So my dad's in this house
and they're trying to sell it.
And so at that point, it was
like, okay, I could move back
up there and live, you know, up there
until they sell this
house. But for whatever
reason, I didn't do that right away
and I don't know why
because I actually ended up living
with a friend for like a I
stayed at Big Isles for like
a couple months and then stayed in town.
I don't really know why
that kind of feels like a lost
period.
Honestly, when I think back
on it, I don't remember much
of it.
Yeah.
Um, but anyway, so I moved
that's that's how I got from
Ashland then back up to the
Oregon City, Beaver Creek area.
Okay, and then I've
never left until recently.
I'd never left kind of that core area.
I lived in other Milwaukee and
Gladstone that kind of thing,
but I've been in that same
little what year would you say
that was around like 93 93?
I think 90 when did you graduate 93?
Yeah, so I was up there in 93.
93.
Yeah, because I wasn't like
when you guys graduated, you
know, I had to come down.
I'd come down to visit
and you come up sometimes.
Yeah, and stuff.
So yeah, that was 93.
So then you started working.
Started working at Emporium Emporium.
I forgot about Emporium.
Yeah, that's right.
You work at Emporium.
Shrapnel Emporium did not
have to wear pantyhose to that
job.
That's right.
Yeah, I was in the bonus.
I was in the junior section.
Well, hello, but then I
eventually became part of the
office.
Oh boy.
I know.
Moving up and moving up.
But yeah, I did that and
lived with lived in the house
that they were trying to sell.
And then I think I live
there maybe six five months like
that like maybe fall to
February ish and they sold the
house.
And so because it was a
middle school, my mom couldn't
come down pack up the
stuff and you know, take it up.
So they basically came down
packed up the stuff moved it
into apartment in Gladstone
and I lived in the apartment
rent free with all the
stuff with my mom stuff.
My mom decorated it.
Okay.
I love Barbara.
Yeah, she decorated.
I mean it was fully her house
and I just lived in the spare
bedroom.
Oh, that's so fun and free.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then you hummed
along and met some friends.
Yeah, and and then actually
met my well dated a friend
of my brothers, which you
know, wasn't really anything.
And then ended up
meeting my now ex-husband.
Right.
And so that would have been.
If we were together when
you graduated or not, I don't
think so.
No, but shortly after so by 94 ish
probably and there and
how did you meet him?
I met him at that
other ex-boyfriend's house.
They were all friends from
high school and I was still
friends with with the guy.
I mean, I wasn't anything serious, right?
And we were hanging out and
he came over one night and
that was it quite honestly.
So from the time you met
till when like how much time
span was there between the
time you met and when you
got married?
Almost four years.
Okay.
Yeah, because if we met
around maybe we'll say maybe we
met like fall of 93.
We got married December of 97.
Okay, but we were off off
and on and you know, but we
we partied.
That's what we did together.
So would you say that we've
done some episodes about you
know, before you get married
talk about your expectations
in a relationship
expectations in a marriage what you
how you see roles Brian.
I got married young at 23,
but even then we kind of touched
on that.
Yeah, would you say that
you guys kind of had those
conversations in
preparation for getting married?
Absolutely not.
We we I mean I look back on
it now and it's just it's I
feel like I didn't even
have those conversations with
you.
Like what do you see you're
you know, how do you think
you'll be married like
before Brian or anything right?
It's just like it didn't dawn
on me to have a conversation
about it, right?
It was like that was the next step.
Right and I was
conditioned for the next step.
Right.
But what I yeah, we didn't we didn't have
a lot of conversations
deep meaningful.
You know history conversations or it was
all it was unfortunately
just very surface and and
then it was focused on drinking
a lot like, you know weekend
drinking that kind of thing.
But you know, we had a core group of
friends that were kind
of all was like multiple couples that
like we're all friends
and then there was these
extraneous guys that they all
went to high school with
it was very guy centric.
To those guys and there
was the three girls and yeah,
it was very I mean, I would
tell you was fun at the time
because it was but there
was again not any substance.
Right.
So then do you do you think
you married him because you
thought okay, I'm
supposed to get married now.
And so and this is somebody
I've been with off and on for
four years and and I fought
for it and you fought for him.
Right.
Yeah, like that's the other
thing is, you know, I read a
lot as a as a young person and then I
mean continually until
the last few years actually
and you know, it was all trivial
stuff and it read educational like right
self-help or anything
but it was you know, every
relationship was this like push
pull and then
everything worked out in the end.
Right.
And I also think that
I thought I'd fix him.
Right, right.
So, you know, he won't talk
about his story, but right,
you know, he had he had
rough growing up and all that and
I really thought that it
would be kind of like I mean what
I was modeled my mom wore the pants.
Right.
My dad did a lot of hard
labor work and always was hustling
and stuff.
He didn't you know farming
and all that like one year you
make great money the next year you
tomorrow you've lost it
right and my mom was stability.
And so I really thought that was what
marriage was and and
not to wear the pants like to
be the boss boss, but just to
be the control one.
Yeah, and the and some of
the control as far as like this
is how we're going to raise kids.
This is how but we didn't
have those conversations.
So you were mirror marrying
your parents marriage, but with
not communicating about any
of that with each other because
I don't think mom or my mom or and I
don't think my mom and
dad communicated about any of that.
Right.
So probably in your mind, you probably
didn't even think there
to be communication because
it worked with your parents.
So it must just happen.
So if we get married because
you we got married things will
just happen.
Yeah, it's 100% communication doesn't
really have anything
to do with it.
It's just it just happens naturally.
Yeah, not realizing, you know,
either if you're really going
to have this authentic United Front, you
have to have communication
or you just figure out how to function
and be in that marriage
and accept certain things.
Right.
Yeah, and I really yeah, I really thought
that okay, once we do
this, this will settle down or once we do
that, that'll settle
down and and the reality is of that was
it's it it would and
wouldn't write it would ebb
and flow and and then it, you
know, eventually didn't but
and it did that push pull.
Yeah, that you that you
thought that's normal.
Yeah, and and I was talking about this
with somebody else recently
and basically she's like, you know,
that's a dopamine fix,
right?
She's like you were trained and that's
that validation thing
even for a child, right?
It's validation.
It's like a dopamine fix and
you know, I smoked for years.
I there's other things right like I
didn't do anything too
crazy, but you know, there's some you
know, alcohol could be
a dopamine fix.
Yes, because you know, I am a fun drunk.
Yes, you are.
I'm here to say she's a
great time and tell him and tell
him just that until I'm done
and it's not that I'm angry,
but I'm just yeah, I'm going to bed now.
Yes.
Um, but yeah, it's um,
because it's it's the happy things,
right?
It's the pleasure piece of
it and that's definitely and
that's why when I left Ashland the
decision to leave Ashland
to go to to either California the other
was like I knew enough
at that moment that I
had to leave Ashland.
I could not stay there.
Yeah, because had I stayed I
would have probably become an
alcoholic because I could go to the bar
by myself in Ashland
because it was that bubble.
I mean, I don't know
that you can do that now.
I don't know.
Yeah, but it's you
know, I could go out there.
It was it was
relatively safe at the time.
You know, we wandered the
streets just totally safe.
Lee, you know in the middle of the night.
And I knew enough at that time that I
needed to get out and
Ashland had started to
change a little bit too.
Yeah, right before you
guys kind of graduated.
It got a little we had
to get out too, though.
Yeah, I got a little out of it.
Yeah.
That's I think that's that's
a really good way to put it.
I also think it got a little
rougher around the edges in
some ways or maybe it just
the veil comes off the Ashland
lighting brightens.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that a lot of
Californians were moving in
and they were changing the culture of it.
I personally think that we
got the best years of action and
then it changed and I think for any
magical fairy tale college
town because they're
scattered all throughout America.
I think it serves a purpose,
but I think it's important for
the people that go to college there to
leave because or it's
such your growth.
I think it serves a purpose for those
kids going in and it's
a precious time.
Yeah.
Yeah, but then I think you
need to leave or else it can take
a really bad turn.
I'm curious.
Did you get pressured
off from your parents?
I'm guessing not but did you have any
pressure to get married?
No, or did they try to
talk you out of it or or they
knew she won the whole thing.
So they did not try to talk me out of it.
I always.
I always thought that
they didn't really approve.
I don't think they ever did, but they
didn't say it, but there
was like a judgment level that I always
kind of felt from the
get from the jump, which was which was
real hard for me and
but it didn't stop me.
I think I just thought dug in deeper.
I I probably did and it's not because
they you know, it was
just a vibe you got and in a
way, maybe you were rebelling
a little bit.
I think yeah, I mean kind of
yelling or just I know my own
side.
It's fine.
You know, yeah.
Yeah, I but no they never said outright.
Yeah, and my dad would never have
probably said any of it.
My dad and I didn't have we didn't we
didn't chat like that.
You know, if you rode in the
truck with him, you know, he
picked me up from Ashland to
drive me up and I think you
know, we spoke very
peripherally and then we listened to
country music.
So right, but we were
together and and I I think I've told
you this separately, but you know, my
family was not a demonstrative
family, right and and a lot of families
aren't but we grew up.
We didn't say I love you
even with my grandma who's like
wasn't the most important.
We didn't say I love you, but
there was no doubt that that
wasn't the case, right, but it just so to
talk about emotional
things or something was just foreign.
So we form or to ask for guidance, right?
It just sounds like there was you didn't
grow up with communication
and things were just very surface.
Yeah.
So when it came to that point in your
life, it probably would
have been natural for them to go along
with whatever you were
doing without having a
conversation and I think my mom's
stance was if she thought it
it would dig in deeper and it
would create a rift and then that would
create more problems.
Right.
And so which I see your point.
Yeah, yeah, being a parent myself.
I totally can understand and relate to
that knowing me like
she knew me at that time.
I think she certainly had
a reason to think it right.
It's all it's kind of
fascinating because they think there's
two things if you tie it back to our
whole podcast concept,
but that's that lack of
communication is quintessential
Gen X stuff with your mom and dad and
lack of communication.
And then in some ways you
almost married a similar person
that your mom did.
Yep.
And it's interesting with different
baggage totally great way
to put it.
Yeah, but but very similar in that way
and and trying to get
to the meat of anything later
on once I realized there was
something else missing, you know, or
needing more than it was
like that whole concept
of like wait a minute.
What do you mean you need
XYZ because that's not what you
needed, you know, a week ago or whatever.
Right, right.
And then it was almost like yeah, so it
it and then I didn't
even really have the right words to
articulate articulate it
anyway. And then at some
point, you don't trust somebody.
So you're not going to and
you just it it creates a whole
bunch of noise.
So how would you sum up your marriage?
Um,
there's a lot of sarcastic things.
I'd like to say you can say
whatever you want because we
can always edit stuff out if necessary.
I'm sarcastic about mine too.
I mean you can go as deep into this as
you want, but to give
an idea of what you went through for
people who maybe have
gone through similar things.
I
um, this this would be a
surprise for a lot of people that
know me now even but I would tell you I
was emotionally abused
through a lot of it.
If not most of it.
There would be great.
Years of of positive,
you know fine and fine.
Now I wouldn't accept the fine then I
wouldn't accept now.
But it was fine.
I got to a fantastic children
out of it who are amazing and
loves of my life.
But I didn't yeah, I didn't
serve myself out of it at all.
And
I spent too many years
not realizing that and or
disassociated from the whole thing.
It's it which is this is a
journey that I'm starting.
I think this kind of leads back to the
pod to you, right, but
I'm calling this the year of
me and my intentions, right?
I don't do like
New Year's resolutions
and all that kind of stuff.
But for the first time in my life, I
wrote down things this
year and I just put them on
the fridge and it's not like a
checklist like do them all but it's like
these are the things
that I would like to get out of it.
And it's everything from you
know, I want to start eating
better.
I want to start, you
know, moving my body.
It's it's not even about losing weight,
you know, all the things
to like, okay, I need
to unpack some stuff.
It isn't just the marriage,
but it's the stuff before that
too, which all cumulates into
everything and up until this
point, I've had all these other focuses
and rightfully so in
my opinion, I wouldn't change
the last 10 years of my life.
I wouldn't change for the
thing because I had to focus on
make sure they were okay and I did and
they are and they've
they've done their own work
and they are amazing children
and they will become
even more amazing adults.
I mean, they're adults
now both of them, but
my baby boy is an adult, but it's
this is about it's time to
reflect on me and I have the
energy now to do it.
Right.
I don't you know, I'm the only thing
that's different in my
energy now is I'm kind of I'm
what I call and this isn't my
term. I've heard this elsewhere, but the
same with generation.
So I've got a mom, you know,
that I'm very involved with.
She's totally independent.
She's you know, in a great
community and all the things,
but I'm very involved with
her life and she with mine.
And we have the most authentic
relationship we've ever had,
but she lived through
the last 10 years with me.
Right.
Can I pull this forward?
Yeah.
Um, she so when my marriage dissolved
finally or when I dissolved
my marriage finally, my mom actually
ended up she had retired from teaching
and in sisters organ
and moved over to Oregon City into her
own place and everything.
And she effectively helped me.
She was a co-parent to me.
She really helped with kids just, you
know, faring people about picking
up kids from school, whatever.
So I could work and
so she's so so that's a real good source,
but I do have a lot of
you know, I'm focused on her a lot too,
but I have time to be focused
on me.
So this is the first time you feel like
you've had time for yourself.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Sorry.
I'd cut you off.
But yeah, you're reclaiming your energy.
Yes.
What's interesting is I knew I deserved
it all along, but for the
first time I believe it.
Yeah.
If that makes sense.
Yeah.
And I have the energy.
Thankfully, I have the financial ability
to do so, you know, which
is I mean backing up to be honest, the
reason one of the reasons
I was able to finally
one of the many reasons there was lots of
reasons that finally needed
to end but
is I was finally in a financial position
to leave and not need any
support to do so.
And so I could figure out what my exit
was and make it all happen.
So would you say
that's a huge catalyst in this for women
who are in an abusive
marriage?
The financial part is probably one of the
main reasons they are
stuck.
Absolutely.
And even if it's not abusive, even if
they're just unhappy, right?
Right, right, right.
Even if it's just not the right fit and
they live with a man who
just doesn't communicate but there's
nothing like they're not,
you know, that yeah, it's absolutely
it's unfortunate because
I thought years prior to that, I mean,
I've been planning to leave
for years off and on, you know, we go
through these lulls or whatever
and the thing that always threw me was I
didn't think I could do
it. Ironically,
looking back, I could have.
And had I been open to what was going on
or not even all of it,
but just more so, my parents would have
helped me in a heartbeat.
Other people would have helped me in a
heartbeat had they needed to.
You know, could have
should have would have.
Well, I think there's a lot of women that
are in situations like
that and don't share with, is it shame?
Is that the reason?
100% it's shame, which is I don't know
why it's right because it doesn't
make sense now because these when you're
in that situation, you're
the victim.
But the victim feels shame for being in
that situation and has a problem
asking for help because of that.
Would you say that's
an accurate statement?
Yeah, and and there's this belief that I
can do it myself and so or
that I've got myself into this so I can
fix it stubbornness in a way.
Maybe I don't know.
I maybe that's not the
word, but it's determination.
Yeah, like like something and that's why
those lulz and that, you know,
the the peaks in the valleys, right?
Like when it when it
piqued or like, okay, cool.
We made it to this.
Yay, we made it here.
And then we'd have a good period of time.
And there was there was unfortunately, he
was very good at recognizing
when he almost gone too far.
And then he'd, you
know, come back, right?
And you back in.
Yeah, and I and I would just I mean, and
it wasn't like I don't mean
it's like, oh, how's the sun you got wine
and roses and da da da.
No, it was just those subtle things that
like I thought were okay,
cool. We're in this
partnership now, right?
Like I look at some of the folks, you
know, I have I have some really
good group that works with me and they're
all let's see, they're
all in their 30s.
So Millennials, Millennials.
Yeah, and I you know, I hear I don't get
in their big details, but
the way they talk about their partners
and and you know, the their
family life and everything
and I'm just like, holy crap.
Wow, that is what partnership looks like.
Yeah, that's what's like when you come
home from work, somebody
asked you how your day was and not just
that they asked you but they
listen and they actually
give a give a crap, right?
Like I mean, I have other friends who you
know, sure that but their
partner knows who they work with and what
they do and what that
means and like, no, you don't need to
know all the Harry details
of what I do, but right you need to know
I'm important at work
and I'm validated at work and that should
mean something because
it's supported you for.
Yes, in part, so right.
Do you remember when you
talked about how you didn't feel in
general that you have
an impact on people?
They won't remember you.
So do you think that came into play in
your marriage where it
was very easy for you to believe anything
negative he told you
about yourself?
Well, that's really interesting.
Wow.
Probably I mean certainly negative
conversations and you know,
yes, not just about me, but my family and
you know, how things
should be or shouldn't be or whatever.
But yeah, I mean probably so
and also he was a person that
everybody knew especially
in our little town, right?
Because he'd grown up
there and never left.
And you know, he was the guy when you
went to the bar, everybody
knew his name and he was the big
personality and he was the
fun guy and and it's like, oh, you're
married to him and it's
like, huh and you know, I'm
not out every weekend like he is
and all the things.
So once we got married, we actually got
pregnant right away.
And so that really changed
and and from his perspective,
I think I wasn't focused on him anymore.
My focus was the kids.
Yeah, and that was
probably beyond just other things.
I think that was the death
knoll for that, but maybe an
invisible in a way.
Yes.
I mean, I had that already right.
I had that that feeling but yeah, that
was probably part of
it. Right.
Yeah.
So what was the catalyst in getting out?
Like you said it was
probably your job, right?
That you could actually
financially get yourself out.
I got a really good job
that was with a company.
I had no idea about that.
I'm still with and have been there a
company that supported
growth in me and I mean my
boss my boss created my job
description that I got hired
from and had no idea really
what he needed and I came
into it and I've written every
job description since right
and as I've promoted up right
lead a team now and blah blah blah.
But which is amazing.
I didn't take a moment for that.
That is amazing.
I'm I'm proud of myself.
Yes, it's very impactful.
It's huge.
It's very huge and I actually believe it.
Right.
This is the first I mean,
I've always felt validated at
work and important in my
roles, but they were a little
bit more administrative or
you know, that type of thing
and this is the first time and and
certainly, you know, a
company that supports that growth.
You know creates loyalty.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It sounds like we've been
touching on the financial
aspect, but it feels like
you you have the you have the
confidence.
Yeah to leave based on some
of the wins you got in your
professional life and
building up your self-esteem your
confidence level.
I think you got this.
Yeah, I think all of that
there was there was some stuff
that happened before that.
I actually had had surgery
and gotten really quite ill in
almost died.
Do you mind?
Are you comfortable sharing what surgery?
Yeah, so I had of 14 years ago.
I think I had a full hysterectomy.
So everything and so I've been on
estrogen since then and
I also had bladder sling
surgery at the same time at
the same time.
What was it called?
Bladder sling surgery.
So it's like once women have
babies, you get you know, the
female bits the female bits and things.
Yes.
What why did you have the hysterectomy?
Because I had endometriosis
and so I was I was what I didn't
know at the time was I was like
completely overdosing also
on ibuprofen and everything
so like and it was because of
that you build up a tolerant.
I mean, it's like anything
the tolerance and so then I was
like Hans I would if I took ibuprofen
because I had a headache
because I get rebound
headaches because I'm taking so much
of it.
I take five of the highest one.
Right.
And so it was like so that you know,
there's a lot of things
going on inside your body
for that but they mean to end
the material.
So this was why I had the
the thing that hysterectomy and
unfortunately, I went home with a
catheter and that weekend
I developed sepsis basically and they
took me to the hospital
and an ambulance and I was
an ICU for I think three days
two days for sure maybe
three then they transfer me into
Portland at Portland Proff
in off of 84 because my liver
had started and my kidneys
were shutting down and so I was
in the dialysis unit, but I did not
thankfully they rebounded
I didn't need to let dialysis
but they I was on some really
crazy antibiotics, which is why I know
I'm deaf in one ear.
Interesting.
Yeah, and so I was in that
hospital for another five days
I think went home and then I
was my aunt says I was like I
was an episode of house that old show
which I never watched
but I had I was home like two days and
they ended up taking
me back to the hospital and
I basically had a little mini
stroke. I had a little mini
heart attack and I mean my body
just like blew up inside.
I mean in some weird way.
So I was back in the ICU in
Oregon City, I think for four
days and then was on a bunch of stuff
came home but recovered
from that thankfully, but
literally almost died twice,
right?
Which sounds very dramatic,
but it's true and I do have to
say I appreciate my husband
because had he not so the first
when they prescribed me the pain
medicine, they overprescribed
it and so he was following
the regiment because I was kind
of out of it.
Yeah, and he actually like I
was sleeping and he woke me.
He tried to wake me up to give me the
pain medicine and he
couldn't wake me up.
Okay, and so that was like if
he had not tried I'd be gone
because of the pain
medicine and OD on the medicine.
No because of the sepsis.
Because the sepsis has
already started, but which we didn't
know, right?
Which you could tell if you
looked at the because I was on
a catheter, you can tell when she saw
that but so if he hadn't
tried so the when I say the
overprescribing the pain medicine
he had he had elected because and
actually this was smart
of him.
He was like, okay, I'm going
to dose this differently, but
I'm going to prescribe it like you know,
they just were giving
me too much at one time and
anyway, so he did save my life.
So I will definitely trip that
was during the opioid epidemic
really.
Yeah, the doctors were overprescribing.
Yeah, 100% and yeah, my doctor might have
might have contributed
to some things.
I don't know now and you know, who knows
but but after something
like that happens, you
really start to go wait a minute.
I'm here for something right
like I'm not here to just sit
in my room after I get
home and feed the kids.
And not like you know, my
home our home life at that point
was very much we came home,
you know, my ex would be in the
living room, you know, playing.
I mean that was his domain
and we weren't really invited to
hang out and if you did you
had to listen to him on the game
in you know, that gets real
old listening to Call of Duty
and all that and and so the
kids and I went to our rooms
and we had a pretty small
house and you know, that was it.
And so that was the existence and the
kids and I were real
close still are but that's
no way to live your life.
You know, it's just it's it's
just not an existence, but I
was so disassociated for a long time that
that was my existence.
Right, you know, but so that was the
wake-up call I think and
I went to therapy for a while after that
because I'm like this
doesn't like there's got to
be more to this right in my
therapist was real good about
leading me to a point and it
was I stopped therapy because
we got to the point where it
was pretty obvious that
I I really had a path.
I had it.
I had a decision tree.
You're at a crossroads, right?
Yeah, and I wasn't ready to
make the crossroads yet and
what made the crossroads and I
was I was temporarily working
in another company because
I've been laid off it at a long
time job.
I was working for another
company out in Beaverton.
Yeah, quite the drive.
But that's when I got the
job where I met now and then it
was like, okay, I'm
being paid what I'm worth.
I'm being told I'm worth it,
you know, and I hadn't really
even started moving up yet.
But those things just start
to add up and then you're like,
okay, I can make this next plan, right?
And then things were
escalating at home too.
And that was real apparent.
Sorry, there's a bug.
Yeah, things were escalating
at home and it was real clear
that they had never been
physical and you know, I don't
know for sure that they
would have become but it just it
didn't look good for either
of us, you know, and the tools
I had before to de-escalate things
weren't working anymore.
And the effect this was
having on the kids, you know, the
shame that I have is that it
took me so long to think about
that in the way that it made me do
something because all
along they were being
affected the same way.
They had their own issues
with him that I was always like
playing middle ground,
right, to keep them protected, you
know, from the verbal or
whatever that worked ish, you
know, the more we talk, the
more kids and I talk about it
now, right, you know, like,
okay, that that wasn't doing
enough, but I thought I
was helping at the time.
But yeah, so that financial
piece was a really big catalyst
for me to say, okay,
I can figure this out.
I can afford an apartment if
I need to, I can do which I
ended up being able to well, I walked
away with nothing from
because we had a house and I
sold him the house for a dollar.
The house was in my name and
did you do that because you
just needed to be done.
I needed to not be
entangled with him in any way.
I didn't want him to fight
me on any way that I wanted to
handle the kid situation,
which didn't work out the way
I wanted it in the end as
far as how I thought that was
going to go, but it was what
I knew would get him there or
what I thought would get him
there, I should say, because
he did always kind of have this.
I mean, he threatened that he
would fight me for the kids,
you know, and I couldn't I
couldn't I couldn't afford
that, right, could not afford that.
And so to me, the money didn't didn't
matter because I could
at least support us by
myself without needing like, you
know, parental help or something,
although it could have
been there if I needed it, but I the
money wasn't worth it.
I think that's so telling
that of what you had been put
through and what that part
of your life was like that a
house that you purchased you
for us for you guys, but you
purchased that you were
willing to sell that to him for a
dollar. I mean, I
think that just says it.
Yeah, right there.
That's how desperately
you needed to be away.
I paid for my sanity,
right with that, which is fine.
Right.
Yeah, and and he didn't, you know, I
didn't take any support
from the help for the kids.
He was in school at the time
to become to do better, which
was great and he did great.
He's living his life.
Then he lives it the way he
wants, right, which is fine.
But I didn't I didn't want to
be beholden to him in any way
because then there would have been a
sense of control that
he could have had, right?
There would have always
been this, you know, out here.
And so, anyway, so yeah, so
we did, you know, I was able to
buy my little place,
ironically, where your mom lived
back in the day, and it
was a great oasis for us.
So let me ask you this.
You buy a three-bed a beautiful
three-bedroom two-bath.
Yeah.
A beautiful room for your
daughter, for your son, and you
have your own room.
What did it feel like to have
this space that was completely
safe and calm and peaceful and yours?
What was that an adjustment?
It was because I would catch myself
thinking, oh, I got to
go in the room and watch the TV.
And it's like, no, I don't.
I can sit on my couch and watch TV.
Yeah, as much, you know, like I watch TV
in my room now, like,
you know, in the morning I
watch the news because I'm a
Gen X.
I like to have my morning
news and when I'm getting ready
and then, you know, every
once in a while in the evening,
like when I'm going to bed,
I'm like, okay, I'm going to
finish this program before I go to sleep.
But, you know, before that's the only
place I ever watched
television except for
Friday nights because he was gone
every Friday night.
And so that was the kids
and I is like, safe night.
Right.
That was our fun night.
We had fast food Fridays.
I mean, anyways, it's just kind of crazy.
But, yeah, it was, it was
like I exhaled after being
underwater for years.
And the hard part was just
dealing with the aftershocks
of all the other stuff.
Right.
So once you're away from
the daily part of it, then you
settle into like what in the
hell I've just put myself and
my children through for all
these years and now you're
dealing with guilt on top of shame.
And that's what I went to
therapy for a while on that and
actually did some work
called EMDR because the right I
think might did the initials right
because I was having I
wasn't having full-blown
panic attacks, but it's like if I
would just think about
certain things, it was like I was
having a physical reaction to it.
Right.
And so she really helped kind
of get me past that and then
I still use that tool even
now like my safe place I used
to help me go to sleep if
I'm anxious or my brain won't
shut up.
Right.
And then just, you know,
giving me more language and then
it pivoted from my the thing
with that therapy for me is
I really only worked that immediate
trauma of like getting
out of it.
Right.
Yeah.
And then I was so then I
pivoted to the kids because both
of them were in different
ways in their own chaos and I was
needing to help manage them and get them
their therapy, which
you know, you can only leave
work early and so many times
and so the focus became them rightfully.
So in my opinion and I was okay.
I was I was managing.
I was maintaining.
I wasn't just associating.
I was present, you know, all of that.
And so we got through, you
know, living, you know that and
you know got my son had some
real issues at the end of high
school.
We got him through that and then you
know, he kind of blossomed
in his own way and he's done
more work on himself later and
is you know, really present
and going to change how he has
relationships in the future and all that
which I'm so thankful
for and then my daughter, you
know, went through some pretty
significant things in high school.
Of course, she was a covid
kid as far as high school.
So yeah, there was that
there was some other in Oregon in
Oregon to where it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, because some come to
find out like it wasn't like that
everywhere.
I'm Florida had no idea.
Yeah, I would have come earlier.
Did you know her question
around you're sitting there in
your own place and safe and
you described what it was like
for you.
Did the kids have a
similar type of experience?
Did you guys ever talk about that?
Were they relieved as well?
Yes, after so when we initially that
first year we were split
up the idea would be because I'd seen
this pattern by my by
some other family members and it worked
really well was that
okay, we'll do a week on week off, right?
And we were less than a
mile away from each other and I
drove by that house every single day,
which is crazy until
May 7th of last year.
Who's counting?
Yeah, it's counting now.
That's just like a retrigger.
Retrigger.
Retrigger.
And I mean, it became
less of a thing later on.
But yeah, it was just like I
just went by there a while back
because I went to visit old
friends in my neighborhood and
I'm like, I don't have to do that.
Yeah.
Anyways, but yeah, they
did once once we got that first year we
did that week on week
off which ended up failing miserably once
they were permanently
in my home.
I think and once my son kind of got
through some of his stuff
they did.
I mean my place was a safe place.
I was a safe.
I was always a safe place.
Yeah, and I think we got closer because
the conversations got
way more real because when we
were when I when I was still
my ex and it we were all in the home.
We weren't talking about it
at that level like and granted
the kids were younger all the
things but we didn't you know,
I was just playing
interference all the time, but we didn't
talk about what just happened.
It was like this.
We didn't talk about the
fact that you know, he came home
at 2 o'clock in the morning
and punched a hole in the door
and we're fighting and
screaming and my son's comforting
my daughter, you know, I mean
we did talk about it but not
you know, and so those
things we actually talked about.
Yeah, those are the things
that they come to you with it.
Yeah.
Yeah, they still do.
I find it very interesting when we get
together for any length
of time and not just if they're both
there because my son
lives in another state now,
but but even individually very
often things come up and and
they just need to talk about
it and I don't want to
talk about it anymore.
Like because it breaks my
heart, but they need to talk about
it.
They're unpacking it.
Yeah, and and that's okay
and I'll talk about it as long
as you need to talk about it
and you're their safe person
to unpack it with and you understand.
Yes, and that's the thing.
We all understand the same thing.
You guys trauma bonded.
Yeah.
So they don't have to explain certain
things to you because
you get it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, you know, and you
don't do that with your friends
right now that you know,
and so anyways, but yeah,
so so yeah, I think it was their safe
place and certainly,
you know, all of us and I
learned a lot from them.
Honestly, they've they
started pushing on me to especially
my daughter to be more authentic.
I mean, I will tell you that
I didn't start to feel like
a person my own authentic
person until I left that and then
it was like and I would
part of that is then I started
to talk about things that were happening
that I didn't share.
I had I have friends to this
day that had no idea the level
of it and they saw the fights.
They saw the drunken things
that might happen, but they
had no idea the level of it
and I might even say that some
of them might think
that I'm exaggerating.
Right, but I think that happens.
Yeah, because typically when
the woman is in that situation,
part of her peacekeeping is
downplaying what's going on.
Absolutely and keeping it
the dirty little secret.
Yeah.
So if if they were there,
they think they saw what they saw
what they saw, but they
didn't see what was going on.
So they're only seeing their perception.
Yeah, not reality.
Yeah, and that's hard
for me sometimes though.
Because I need some
of them to yeah, right.
I need them to acknowledge it.
And not downplay it
themselves and believe you.
Yeah, and believe that
this happened to you.
Yeah.
Are they common friends who
are referring to or just yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, and that probably is the
aggravating that might be
aggravating a little bit.
Although they're not.
I mean, I would tell you
they're not his friends now.
They're not, you know what I mean, but by
association, there's
some real tight circles.
Yeah, right.
And welcome.
Spoken to someone who's
own Kendall since she was 18.
So he's feeling a little protective.
I mean seriously though, if I
know who cares if your life,
it's your reality.
It is and I mean I keep speaking it.
I don't shut up about it or
whatever and I don't need to
talk about it all the time to them.
I don't mean it like that.
It just be nice, right?
It's been nice if they acknowledge it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's yeah.
So I think though sometimes when people
are bystanders to an
abusive relationship, one of
the reasons I think it's easier
to think it wasn't as bad as it was
because then they have
to accept that they may have
some guilt because maybe and
even if they're blameless really,
absolutely, but they may
then feel oh, I should have done
something or I should have
seen it or I should have stepped in or
why didn't I see what
was going on in front of me.
So even if that's not true,
they may be feeling sometimes
people feel that way so that they're like
I'm going to pretend
it wasn't as bad as it was
because it relinquishes me of
any responsibility.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and I don't know if that's the
case, but nobody else has
any responsibility.
Of course, of course, like,
you know, my mom to this now my
mom's just like it kills her, right?
Because I hid things real well.
I mean, she knew she knew peripherally
things weren't great.
She had no idea.
She does now because my kids
talk about it in front of her
and it and it kills her.
But you know, I think
it's an you know, my mom.
Is a more authentic person now, I think
than she ever was too.
Maybe that's age for her.
I don't know.
You know, your children, my children.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, they certainly have a more
authentic relationship.
They don't hide things from her.
It's interesting.
You're using the term authentic and I
found as our kids have
gotten older.
It's authentic.
We have very authentic relationships.
It's an amazing thing.
Right.
Part of that is them holding us
accountable as they've gotten
older.
And it's do you find that your kids are
doing that with you?
100% 100% Amelia calls me
on my shit all the time.
Yeah, yeah, which I
hate and I love all this.
Yeah, same thing.
She went through some pretty
significant stuff kind of in
the high school era and we had
to do some family counseling.
Thankfully for it too.
And I mean, it's because I was really
interesting during some
of that time.
I really reverted to
like how I was brought up.
It's like, what do you mean?
It's not that bad.
You know, what's not that bad.
That's not your right.
And that was the thing I had.
She had her reality, her
memories of it, you know, whether
they happen or not and they in her mind,
they did and I would
I would be like that's
not that didn't happen.
That's yeah.
No, yeah happen.
And like now I'm just like I'm sorry.
Like that's the worst thing,
you know, I mean I did that to
my brother for years about us coming down
here in the summertime
for Alaska because he would
he for years would give my mom
a wrath about it.
Like, you know, I didn't get
to stay and play baseball and
blah blah blah and I'm just like, what
are you talking about?
We were with our family.
We got to go camping.
We got to Disneyland.
We did it.
Well, his reality was he wanted to stay
home and play baseball
with his friends.
Yeah, you know, and that that was his
experience and I told
him that this last summer.
I'm like, you know, look,
I'm I'm never going to give you
crap about that again.
I'm sorry.
I did because that's what you wanted.
I get it.
You know, so funny because we were not
brought up to really
pay attention to
other people's realities.
It was like it's just
the reality we all share.
It is what it is.
We all were there at the same thing.
Right.
Everybody experienced it differently.
Yeah, you didn't really
acknowledge that it was just this
collective thing that
absolutely can all agree on.
I think we were all just power powering
through, you know, we
didn't have guidance really.
We didn't have anyone
checking in with us emotionally or
physically in a lot of ways too.
So we were all just
kind of pioneering things.
We we have been pioneering
our life since we were children
and we're still pioneering.
We're pioneering.
I've talked about this old age, the
second half of our life
quote unquote old age.
But we're I feel like Gen X is a is a big
pioneering generation
because we've had to be we've
had to but as a result, yeah,
you're right Brian.
Like we didn't we all just kind of were
in the shared experience
and we just kind of did it.
No one was really talking to
each other because we're the
sandwich generation as you
call it is, you know, my mom is
that from the silent generation.
She doesn't really share a whole lot.
But then we have kids that are
zillennials, millennials and
they share everything just
just Gen Z and zillennials.
We don't have any millennial.
But yeah, they share
everything sometimes you're like, oh
goodness of everything, huh?
All right.
Thanks.
I mean, okay.
Yeah, that's okay.
That's something and then I
have to learn like to unpack
what they're really, you
know, especially what what does
that mean exactly because you know,
there's a lot of new
things and and you know,
especially in Oregon, you know,
there's a lot of different
experiences than than saying,
you know, other parts of
the country or whatever.
And so yeah, and but you
know, I'm learning every day.
Yeah, and I'm open-minded to it.
Because that's what they
need me to be and I'm not going
to risk alienating them
because I can't get over it.
Right, right.
Yeah, like it's it's a
different version of suck up.
That's a learned skill for us though.
It's 100%.
Yes.
They force us to rise to the occasion.
Yeah, I feel like she's
probably more of a natural with
this.
Yeah, where she's always
been the the empathetic one.
What do you call yourself an empath?
Right?
Oh, I wouldn't say officially but I have
empathetic tendencies.
Yeah, I'm I have empathetic
tendencies but far much more
lagging.
Yeah.
Well, it's just more of
a matter of fact, right?
Like, okay, and I mean, I
grew up very much, you know, get
up, get over it.
Like, what's the problem?
Move on, move on.
Right, right.
That's right.
Move on.
Like, why are you yelling in this?
You know, this one, right?
His neck hurts.
It's like, dude, come on.
Right.
Shake it a little bit.
You'll be fine.
Right.
No, but I think but then
when there's things that aren't
with in childhood, we act out our
decisions are the result
of not of those things
not being dealt with.
And so it really tumbleweeds into the
next phase of your life.
If it happened in
elementary school, it's going to come
through through junior high,
high school, college, marriage,
being a parent, not
resolving the root of the problem is
going to present itself at some point.
And I think for many Gen Xers, we end up
have ended up resolving
things midlife.
Yeah, because we've just been powering
through and all of a
sudden it's like, okay, we need to
resolve what's what happened.
Whatever it was that happened to us.
Yeah, because we all have our own
experience even though we
have a shared experience.
I feel like once we hit kind
of our 50, we we finally said,
okay, we need to deal with this because
this even and it feels
like it sounds crazy to unpack your
childhood trauma at 50,
but it's really the
first chance we've had.
Yeah, well, it's like I've
said like I need to unpack this
for me now.
I don't need to unpack that like if you
go back to childhood
with my mom, my mom and I are
fine and it would only make her
feel bad and she doesn't she
doesn't need to go there and
it's okay.
That's fine.
That's not what I need.
What I need is for me because I've got
another, you know, not
50 years, but another 35 whatever, right?
Maybe 50.
Maybe 50.
But you know, and then also for me like
at some point, maybe
there's a person in my life.
I just want to make sure that I'm the
best version of me and
have an authentic or real, you know,
connected relationship
or whatever that might look like, you
know, in the future.
I'm not looking for it
tomorrow, but I want to be prepared
for it in case it comes, you know, in
case I find, you know,
meet somebody and so, you
know, which I'm hopeful at some
point to do.
I don't think I'm ready for
that now and I haven't been,
I haven't dated or anything in 10 years.
So I'm I'm you've
been working on yourself.
I've been well working on myself and
working on and focusing
on my kids.
Yeah, your kids.
Yeah, which is which
is an uncommon, right?
But now it's like, you know,
I'd love my two cats, but I
don't want to be the cat lady.
Right, right, right.
You know, well, you said it
yourself 2025 is your year.
Yeah, you know,
it's time to start focusing
on a lot of pieces of of who I
am and what I've been made
up, how I've become who I am.
Yeah.
And you know, and
seeing where that leads you.
Yeah, and makes and I'm
excited for it though.
Yeah, I'm excited to do that work.
I know it's gonna be hard
and you know, we'll be very but
I but I'm excited to try.
I'm hopeful.
I have.
Yeah, I'm hopeful and I I
just I'm anxious to see what
would I get through to it
just to just settle some of the
noise, you know, some of the
the stuff that floats around
in the back of my brain when
I'm sitting there in my house
listening to, you know, whatever.
This is a unique thing for
our generation though, right?
Because I don't think your
mom and my mom probably your
mom.
They're not unpacking things.
No, no, no.
Unpacking is like
it's the whole new thing.
Yeah, no, but but then the
kids behind us or the people
behind us.
They've been more coddled
maybe or taken care of maybe
closely more closely
parented than we were or something.
You mean you mean the
generation like Millennials and
Gen Z.
Yeah, I mean Gen Z
definitely because Gen Z is we raised
Gen Z Gen X or are raising
Gen I should say are Gen Z,
you know, it goes it's a vast age range.
So I'm just curious why we
have so many issues and I mean
I get it in terms of the we were feral.
We weren't watched our
parents didn't guide us through
things, right?
There was no talking but it
feels like that's a unique
phenomenon for this this
generational stuff in a sense.
I feel like because silent
generation and and boomers like
they probably had similar
as far as they were they were
just seen and not heard
powering through, you know, silent
generation just keep going
going don't say anything.
I sometimes I wonder if with
Gen X what's unique about us
and why we are a pivotal
generation is we were also feral
and out there and not checked
in with it just kind of like
boomers kind of like silent
generation, but we also were
empathetic and compassionate and
thoughtful and loving in
outward way.
So and kind in an outward way
as much as Gen X doesn't want
to get involved and control
other people and let them live
their life.
They're always I feel the
first to be there to help or if
somebody needs something.
So we were I feel like we were
very aware of of people around
us, but we still didn't give
a shit what anyone thought.
So it's a weird thing.
Whereas I think maybe with
boomers and silent generation.
I don't think there was that that
connection of what of
what other people might be going through.
They were just having
their own unique experience.
But we we kind of had a chip on our
shoulder, but at the
same time would stop
everything to help you.
So it's I don't know if that makes sense.
It does and it what's
what's interesting to me is it is
somewhat universal because
I'm from New Jersey or from
Oregon.
She's from Alaska for the
most pretty formative years.
We all have the same kind of thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Just shared experience.
Yeah, from a generational perspective.
No matter what part of the country.
Yeah, yeah.
We're all kind of have this
rough tough exterior and we
were had to be
self-sufficient from a very young age and
and never really had a chance
to process a lot of what the
trauma we went through.
But that didn't stop
that didn't make us selfish.
Yeah, we aren't a selfish
generation and I don't know if
Millennials will agree on
that, but we really are not a
selfish generation.
You know, we're Gen X has
been pivotal in society and so
much of it has come from love and
kindness, you know, and
so I just but we also don't give a fuck.
Well, what's interesting
like I'm just listening to your,
you know, your story and it's amazing.
And now you've hit this phase where
you're like, I'm going
to work on myself and you've got this
whole body of knowledge
and experience to really do it, right?
There's tools now at your disposal.
Exactly.
So I didn't experience the
scars, the battle wounds.
At no point did those tools,
although there, at no point
did I think to look
into them earlier, right?
Than when I the couple
times I did there because things
happened, right?
Not a cumulative of whatever it was
things happened that
happened significantly to me not to just
the whole experience.
And so yeah, it's interesting.
It's interesting the shift.
And I also feel that I am
allowed to now and I didn't
feel maybe allowed to before.
Yeah, like I because it
would have been selfish to do so.
Is that right?
Yeah, your kids age thing
that I don't know if it was the
kids thing.
I just think it was my focus
should be elsewhere than on
me.
Right.
Although others might
disagree with that, but yeah, you
just you just really nailed it.
We're not a self-centered generation.
Yeah, you know, so I think so
you're like what you're talking
about like that's not your first thing is
to think of yourself.
No, it's like get all this done.
Then if you need to worry
about yourself, you can figure
it out, right?
Which is where we're at and
this is what we've seen so far
on some of the posts we
put out there and feedback.
We've got interaction.
It's a women really
identify with this women your age.
Yeah, really identify with that.
They're done.
They've had enough or
reclaiming their energy or they're
ready to focus on themselves.
I mean and that's a
universal thing for your age group.
And that's like I mean that
can be what I'm doing that
can be like it.
I mean, you know in a
successful marriage.
It's the same thing.
There's a there's a there's
a change in energy or where
in the focus needs to be and so it's it's
important to acknowledge
that and I think that's why
you know a lot of women have
real problems when their
kids go to college, right?
Yeah, because that's been their focus
even if they're professionals.
That's been their focus
other than that professional and
so trying to find where they
fall is you know, you get a
lot of identity from that
and I certainly did and but but
it's you know, what you do
best is your create humans to
put them to the next yes to
the next spot and then they
do successful and it's like great.
You've done your job.
Well, yeah, but it's being allowed to
reflect back on yourself
then and say okay, cool.
I've done this.
I've done it.
Well, you know as well
as I could we're all good.
So now I need to to find who
I am again and what that means
and I don't think I ever found that you
know, a lot of maybe
people have that before they
get married or in those pivotal
20s, you know, you kind of
start to build that and even if
it went off course you can
come back to some of it and like
I said, I didn't feel like I was an
authentic human and I mean,
you know, I was a piece of
that marriage to right like right
he had his pieces and there
was they were damaging but I'm
sure there was a piece of me
that was you know, part of that
puzzle to arm, you know, I
know there was a piece of me that
was part of that puzzle.
So, you know, my kids saw that too.
Right does that mean you know, right?
Well, but I think that and we've talked
about this before the
Gen Z women especially are
taking that time in their 20s
to figure out who they are to
authentically know themselves
and and then if you know,
then they will have that as they
go into their relationships
if they choose to go into a
relationship or marriage or if they
choose to have children
they have that sense of who
they are and I think that's
amazing.
Well, my I mean watching my
daughter, she's almost 21.
Her boundaries that she's
she's created and she I mean, I
am so proud of her for what
she will and will not put up
with. Yeah, whether it's
relationships or friendships even
and you know, it's messy
because she's 21 and they're all
21 and it's college and
whatever but but the stuff that
is like no like I'm you
know, and not just because she
and you know, the dad she had
or or the mom she had it was
just I think she'd have that anyway.
Yeah, so she is because she's got the
core strength to say
no, I'm worth more and you
know, yeah, but the healing
she's done through therapy
and through being able to talk
to you authentically and
you've given her the space to
unpack that has a lot to do with that.
I mean, so you made a really
good point about going through
the you know, the finding the time for
yourself and reclaiming
your energy and focusing on whatever
unpacking trauma that
it it doesn't it can happen in
a healthy marriage to I think
sometimes when people think
women are talking about, you
know, I'm going to reclaim
my energy and I'm going to you
know, have time for myself
and I'm going to do this thing
and that that they're saying they're
going to leave their
husbands or that they're
going or that means you're going
to get divorced that divorce and
reclaiming your energy are
parallel or it's inevitable
or that the husband's done
something wrong to
create this whole thing.
It's like right now that yes, kind of
isn't about the husband
correct.
Honestly, I don't know
where the partner or the partner
somebody else.
I mean, it's about this, you
know, that person and in how
we have managed all of it like it's not
even about necessarily
how somebody else is like,
oh well, I'm not going to cook
for you every night or what
you know, it is it no it doesn't
mean that there's a that the
relationship is broken that
there is something
wrong in the relationship.
Now, it doesn't mean that
some things should maybe evolve
in the relationship and I
100% think that the woman in
this situation should talk to her
partner, her husband,
whatever about what she's
going through and he may need
to evolve and change
along with her for her needs.
But just because a woman is
reclaiming her energy does not
mean that she is getting
divorced or that she's leaving
her partner.
And I think just
devil's advocate on that too.
I think in that case like in
a healthy relationship, right
and they need something
different from their partner that
they've need needed for 20 years, right?
Like the right thing is to
give them a little give the
partner a little
space to catch up, right?
Because like when I was
ready to get divorced or when I
finally pulled the trigger and it was
like there was a moment
but let's be honest.
I've been planning that for years, right?
Like I was already there by
the time it finally happened,
you know that person I've
read this before too, they're
like by the time the person leaves,
they're six months ahead
of the person that you just told them
you're leaving, right?
And so now that person is
trying to catch up on the train,
right?
Yeah, same thing if you
need something different from a
relationship and you just
you can't say okay, I mean some
of the things are easy, but like if it's
a bigger like evolving
thing like, you know, you need to give,
you know communicate
it and then give some space to like
create new habits or
whatever that might be and I
don't know what you don't have
an example.
I think it's a I think it's a huge thing.
I took that from a couple
episodes ago where we evolve
slightly slower.
I think yeah, I think we
mature slower when we're younger.
Yeah, and then you
guys get to this point.
Maybe it's hormonal.
Maybe it's the kids are
leaving your shifting, right?
You've got not a void, but
you have this opening this
opportunity because the kids have left
and that's been probably
your primary focus.
Now you start thinking and
you start thinking about this
next phase.
Meanwhile as men, we're
just doing the same thing.
You do need some time to catch up and
communicate and listen
and it's not the easiest thing.
Well now and also sometimes women will
let things go things
they've been asking for from their
partner and we've talked
about this in past episodes
because of what's going on in
life raising kids and stuff.
So she has communicated it to
baby to her partner and she's
at the point now where it's
like you have to listen so many
times you've been
communicating it for so many years.
It's what's different now, but something
is different because
you guys have hit
that point to your point.
I knew X amount of time ago.
I wanted to divorce and I was there now.
I just had to get line
up the ducks in a sense.
But you've say it for years
and years and years, right?
And then finally you really mean it.
It's like whoa, the game just changed.
I'm I'm still over here.
Yeah, okay.
But how now from a male perspective, how
do you justify not listening
for all those years to that request?
I'm going to plead the fifth on this one.
See that's a whole nother thing.
It's like yes, you just expose yourself.
Women maybe have been saying
it for years and years and years
and it's not the woman's responsibility
that you need time to
catch up on that.
No, I do go back to the you get you get
put into these roles and
oftentimes the man's role kind of keeps
going along the same path
and because you're so focused on kids and
raising those kids if
you have kids that you
now have this opportunity.
You have this extra time.
Other you can do other things and you
start to do those things
and you get thoughts in your head and you
start to act on them
and it's just changes.
It's changing for you
at a different pace.
I think that it is changing for guys.
Okay, so the flip of that would be like
you hear about, you know,
midlife crisis is which for a long time
were were men's midlife
crisis is right.
Yeah, and or when they retire and like
men don't know what to do
with themselves, right because
historical gender roles right
there in an office job or
whatever and then it's like now
they're you know, so
it's it's something similar.
It's just that now we're also doing it.
I don't think we I don't think women as
often or as vocally or
or as identified were
doing it 20 years ago.
They were right and now we're just
talking about it because we
as the genic.
I mean, I've asked my mom
about menopause and she says well,
I didn't really have that right and BS.
She didn't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm sure she didn't.
I didn't live at home with her.
So I didn't know no no no experience it
but they didn't they didn't
talk about it.
But no, but genics is also
changing narrative on that.
Absolutely.
I mean, you know, all of this is like
it's it's involving for
men and women.
You know differently for our generation
than it did previously,
you know, I'm sure your dad, you know,
when he I'm assuming
he retired.
Yeah, and you know, that would
have been transition for your
mom to have him home all the
time and you know, all of those
kind of things.
It's just but they
wouldn't have had the community.
I think you hit it though.
I think you hit it.
Our parents didn't really do it.
Your mom really probably
didn't do a huge shift.
I don't my mom really didn't either but
you guys are and it's
a generational thing and
you're changing the game.
I think for men because as if
I look out, I never expect my
mom claiming her space
and I'm packaging shit.
That's not even a reality.
I'm packaging.
Right packaging pack to whatever it is.
That's just not a reality.
So the game has changed.
Yeah, and we'll catch up, but I don't
think that we're quite
there.
Well, you guys aren't
haven't identified it yet.
Are you guys having?
It is.
Yeah, I mean catching up is
probably at your probably about
five years behind and and I mean and
that's on Gen X women
because we are an
incredibly loving group, but we also
don't take shit.
And so you're what you're
dealing with is that all of our
love for all these years
was given to our families, our
children and our husbands
partners, but now we're in the
I don't I'm not going to take
shit face and that's I think
a lot of that is like
because I know so many Gen X women
and they're all badasses in
love and in sticking out for
themselves.
Right now now, but but we gave they gave
over the of themselves
in those years just as as
passionately as as they're
passionately trying to
reclaim their energy now.
So I think what you've what
you touched on earlier, we're
talking about like the Gen Z women is
that they're doing it
first.
Yes, instead of ending with it or or
getting middle, right?
They're like, heck no, I'm going to start
here and then figure
out the rest of it on top of that, right?
What whatever that means
like, I mean the idea that my kids
have a marriage and not because of how
bad it was, but just
in general, like how I was or like my
parents was it there's
absolutely no reason.
No, no, and and I think
that they will go through their
lives speaking at least to Gen Z women
authentically knowing
themselves and honoring themselves
through all their phases.
Hopefully, I mean as a
mother, it's always hard.
You always but I still
think they're going to approach
motherhood differently.
Yeah, it's gonna be really
interesting to see that actually.
Yeah, and I would even say
with my son who's 26, you know,
watching him and the what he's done the
work he's done after
a relationship and and what he
needed to do for that to like
make sure he has the appropriate
boundaries now for future
whereas I you know, if he hadn't done
that quite honestly,
he might still be in a not healthy
relationship because it
you know, it was mirroring some things
not not from abusive
standpoint, but just
mirroring some like okay.
Well, I'm just going to settle for this.
This is what I get.
You know, this is my lot whatever.
I don't think that's the case anymore.
I feel like he's he's transitioning, you
know, as I've as we've
he and I have talked, you
know on some things coming up,
you know going forward.
It's like, okay.
All right.
Oh, thank God.
But you know, yeah.
Yeah, it's so encouraging it
is and I do think I I don't
think Millennials got enough credit.
I think Millennials started this.
I think that in general
Millennials started the shift.
I really do.
Yeah, they're married to their marriages.
Yeah, you said yourself.
Oh my god watching you man.
You have Millennials you work with them.
Yeah, and listening to them.
They're just kind of a natural partners.
Yeah, it's like, you know,
expectation that just because
a kid's sick that means that the mom has
to be off or whatever.
That's like that's not the expectation.
You know, we have a more flexible
workforce now, which
also helps.
I think some of this but the
expectations of like I think
about my boss who again was a great
supporter still is he
he's not that much older
than me, but he was much more of
like well if your but pre
covid, you know, butts in the
chair, you know, seven to seven that
means you did a good
work day, right?
If you leave at 3 30 to go to an
appointment, it's like how's
your half day?
Yeah, you know, he
used to joke like that.
Yeah, just to make me insane.
He's even he's come around now.
Yeah, you know through code and so it's
like that flexibility
from a workforce men are getting it too.
Not just women and the expectation is
that the men I mean,
I told my boss one time.
I'm like, yeah, it'd
be nice if I had a wife.
Yes.
Yeah, you know, because
it's like a good point.
Who do I have to take a
kid to an appointment?
I don't have a wife
because his wife stayed home.
Yeah, you know, yeah, great.
I'm they could structure it.
I don't and I'm not not going
that way, but it's like, you
know, yeah, I don't have that.
So that's me right and you
know, and he was fine, but it's
just yeah, but with the
Millennials, I think that that
shared responsibility.
It's starting with them.
Yeah, I think they definitely have
cracked cracked the shell
and then I think Gen X raising
Gen Z the way we have they're
just going to run with it.
But you know, what's
interesting is when you when you manage
people and you manage different people or
different generations
of people you get to
guys same like me at Gen X.
It's you get you know, you get
into these career development
kind of conversations and
we're not as say dynamic as a
Millennial who really does have a plan.
Yeah, they want to map it
and they want to go towards it.
And they want you to
participate in it and it is actually
cool because again, it's
holding you they hold you more
accountable and I think it's
somewhat interchangeable to
say accountability and
authenticity are very similar.
You know, in sometimes I get
annoyed that I have to be like
oh, yeah, they pushed me like that.
It's like they like, you know, I've
worked I've I've again,
I've managed some people that are Gen X
and it was just like
okay.
It was more.
I wasn't really managing it was like,
okay, they just kind
of worked and you know told
them what to do and then these
others like okay.
Well, and here's my plan and
this is it and I'm just like,
the Millennials have
to participate in this.
Okay, I'm going to think
about it and it but it's pushed me
to be a better.
I mean, this is pivoted into employee
stuff, but yeah, it's
pushed me to become like oh, that's what
it is to be a leader
not just a boss or a you
know supervisor or something and
and I welcomed it like
eventually once I got over myself
and yeah, okay and then
got some tools around it.
I think that's touching
into what's allowed you to be a
stronger person.
It's not just a better manager.
Yeah, you become a better person.
Yeah, that's a point.
That's actually really good point.
I mean honestly, you know, this this
company I work for I
you know, they're great and I
honestly it's been the solve
self self or you know over a lot of
things because it's allowed
me to do this last 10 years.
I mean, I've been there 10 years to get
through this and have
such a stable not just a stable
employment, but just also then
grow in the company which
has given me another, you know,
I spent a lot of time overly focused on
work because it gave
me a lot of validation that way and I
wasn't getting it elsewhere.
And so I've learned to balance that and
that's another thing
that I think Gen X is trying to figure
out that balance now
later in life, right because we didn't
under we didn't have
that tool because the
expectations when we were all working
for Boomers.
Yeah, kind of like I was talking about
the Millennials have
helped us they well and but
do you I mean those initial
millennials would be like, oh
god, they want an Xbox in the
break room and it's like,
what are you talking about?
What do you mean?
You're not in a you know,
there's some really funny.
Yeah, I'm not on tik-tok, but there's
some really funny reels
that I watch on Instagram.
They're probably tick-tock where it's
like different generations
responding to business things.
Yeah, and it's like,
oh, yeah, that's so true.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
interesting the Millennials.
They want a better work-life balance.
Yeah, and as a Gen X or I'm like, well,
what the hell is that?
You know, I've I still have the the
Raspberry but not the
Raspberry.
What the hell is that
the Blackberry buds?
Yeah, the Blackberry in my hip for years.
Yeah, I still get like a buzz
and guys my age can relate to
that.
Yeah, but the Millennials they wanted
more balance work-life
balance and they get you
thinking well, why shouldn't we
have more work-life balance?
Right now, I think they changed the
landscape of companies and
then as a result, I
mean they definitely did.
Yeah, and then as a result, it's
automatically what Gen Z
kind of is looking for and they're
looking for work and
then when they don't
find it, they're like, what?
No, I yeah, this isn't
what I'm looking for.
So I think the Millennials have
definitely created that work-life
balance expectation
for the Gen Z is 100%.
So yeah, which they got a wrath of crap
for for a long time.
Yeah, I actually and I will
probably I you know, apologies
to them all because at some point I
probably said that, you
know, 10 years ago or
something was part of that, but you're
right.
I mean, I think they really
started it and it's forced us
to kind of look back and be
like, okay, what the hell am I
working so hard for?
Yeah, I mean, I want to work hard.
I want to be a good employee.
I want to do all the things
but you know, the truth is if I'm
not there tomorrow, they were
somebody's going to miss me.
Yeah, but it's going to
they're going to keep going.
You know, what I found is that since
covid and the best thing
about it is I work from home now.
Yeah, and instead of that
being in your chair from 7 to 7.
Yeah, I may probably check
email every day at 637 in the
morning. Yeah, then I'm away
for a little while and then I
come back and then I'll work
throughout the weekend, but
it's not really working.
It's just checking in
and keeping tabs on things.
Yeah, but it's I don't know.
I feel like I have a more
of a balance balance in that.
Yeah, well, I'm on I'm on vacation and
you know, I was doing
work emails before I came in
here and you know, I took a
call like what are you doing?
And like I'm just checking in
I you know, if I did this then
I don't have to worry about it.
Yeah makes going back easier.
Thanks going back easier and it's not
like I'm sitting around
waiting for anything and
yeah, sitting at the island, you
know, what yeah well shout out to the
Millennials for helping
Gen X and work life balance.
I'll take it.
I'll take it for sure.
Listen Kendall.
We can't thank you enough
for sharing your story with us.
Yes, you know being so
vulnerable with us and with our
listeners.
I know there's going to be some people
that can relate to a
lot of the things that we talked about and probably feel
very seen from some of it.
So I hope so.
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's
I know I'm not the only one,
you know, you know certainly
feel like that at the moment,
but yeah, it's this has been
cool and just you know happy
to have been here
happy to be a part of it.
So we're absolutely thrilled because we
do have quite a journey
we've had with Kendall.
We've known her since we
were teenagers, which is crazy.
You're going to ask her five-year plan?
No, because I think 2025 is
her this is her year and that's
her that's her plan and I just feel like
that's your immediate
plan.
Yeah, and I know Kendall's
going to come and see us again.
So we're going to
reflect on how did that go?
Yes, you know, yeah,
I'm really happy for you.
I think you're doing awesome.
I think the self-awareness or revelation
the authenticity the
whole thing.
It's awesome.
Congratulations.
You good timing.
I mean, it's like I'm not a victim now
just now on and that's
the thing that's unfortunately depending
on who might see it.
There's other people out
there who might think I'm playing
a victim.
It's like no, not you're so not your no,
this was my experience
and all of this is now going to take me
to the next experience.
So yeah, 100% this is in a way.
I'm not saying this is closure, but I
think this is a great
foundation to bounce off of
as you tackle your year of you
because your truth deserves to be said.
Yeah, and no, you're not a victim.
You're a Queen, you're a lawyer and
you're an inspiration
probably to a lot of people that are
going to hear this and
may even motivate some women to take some
steps to get themselves
out of a situation.
So just sharing your story
for that alone is courageous.
And something too is very inspiring.
So thank you here.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
We love having you.
So next time you visit we will have
Kendall on again and see
how where she's at in her
life, you know, oh absolutely.
And again, thank you to
everyone for listening.
We welcome all comments
questions and we will see you again
next time.
Bye.
Bye.