# Episode 48 - GenX Speaks Series: Author Jaime Townzen

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-10-01T00:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/17936048-episode-48-genx-speaks-series-author-jaime-townzen.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-48
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode48.html
- People: Author Jaime Townzen (guest), Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)
- Topics: GenX Speaks

## Summary

In Episode 48 of the GenX Speaks Series, author Jaime Townzen shares her journey from a tumultuous childhood marked by family trauma to becoming a successful writer and artist. She discusses her experiences with grief, the impact of her upbringing on her identity, and how she found solace and creativity through watercolor painting during the pandemic.

## Key takeaways

- Jaime was born in 1979 and identifies as part of Generation X.
- She experienced a challenging childhood with divorced parents and family trauma.
- Jaime's parents' divorce led to a complex family dynamic and custody arrangements.
- She found her passion for writing and creativity through painting during the pandemic.
- Jaime emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries for self-care.
- She has a strong connection to her family history, influencing her creative work.
- Jaime's novel was published in 2023, showcasing her growth as a writer.

## FAQ

### What influenced Jaime Townzen's writing?

Jaime's tumultuous childhood and family trauma significantly influenced her writing, as she draws from her personal experiences to create relatable narratives.

### How did Jaime cope with grief during the pandemic?

Jaime coped with grief by rediscovering her creativity through watercolor painting, which provided her with a sense of calm and helped her process her emotions.

### What themes are present in Jaime's work?

Jaime's work often explores themes of family dynamics, personal trauma, and the journey of self-discovery, reflecting her own life experiences.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0YvedMge_w)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-48-genx-speaks-series-author-jaime-townzen/id1764838823?i=1000729425170)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3rH3cw4pDH9EtlgTreKpql)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/17936048-episode-48-genx-speaks-series-author-jaime-townzen)

## Transcript

[MUSIC]
Welcome to GenX Adulting,
and today we have Jamie Townsend with us.
Welcome, Jamie.
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
It's nice to meet you both.
Absolutely. It's nice to meet you too.
I should mention Jamie is
an author and an artist,
which we will get to later in addition to
many other hats that she wears.
Our first question is always,
what year were you born?
I was born in 1979,
very close to the tail end of GenX.
Yeah.
We did.
Yes.
We tried and I think some
people even like your GenX,
but you also fall into
the zennial group too.
Yeah. I definitely have friends on both
sides of that timeline.
I think because I have
siblings that are all older than me,
I always leaned much more
into GenX than I did millennial.
I always just the music,
the pop culture, everything was the older
rather than the younger end of it.
I think that's true of a lot of GenXers who
were the younger siblings,
that even though they're closer to the
older millennial years,
they do identify more with GenX just from
the influence of their older siblings.
For sure.
Where were you born?
I was born in Orange
County, Southern California.
Okay.
I've traveled a lot,
but I've pretty much stayed right here
because I just love it.
I was going to say
you're a native Californian.
I am. I've lived all over the state.
I love all areas of the state,
but I am a very proud Californian.
It would take a lot to get me to move away.
What's the furthest north you've lived?
My husband and I got married when we were
living in Sacramento after college.
He grew up a little, like an hour north of
Sacramento is where he grew up.
I did. Yeah, I'd say that's probably the
furthest north I've lived.
So if you don't mind me
asking, what town did he grew up in?
It's a small little
rice town called Calusa,
which people who buy their rice at Costco
often recognize the name
Cal Rose rice. Okay. Yeah.
And big bags, big white
bags that say Cal Rose.
That is all grown in Calusa, California,
and it's between Sacramento and Chico.
Okay. I've we've driven by
there. There's a question.
Yeah. So where we went to college was 20
miles north of the California border.
So we used to and we're dead heads.
So we used to always go
down to San Fran for shows,
always went to the Redwoods, Arcada, right?
And there's Redding out there. We were
actually in Chico, what, like 15 years ago.
My sister lives there. Yeah. So but we've
and I've done the from Ashland
where we went to school. I dated a guy in
college that lived in L.A.
So I did that whole drive.
And I think that was a big one.
Yeah, I think it was an 11 hour drive,
maybe or nine, something like that.
But California is one of the
most beautiful places on Earth.
There's no question.
I yeah, I have to agree.
If anything that you enjoy doing outdoors,
you can do in California
from skiing and mountain climbing to
surfing and hiking and long distance
bike riding and all the things. Yeah, it's
it's really a beautiful outdoor state.
And I would say 300 of
the days of the year.
We have good weather for
it, too. So absolutely.
And if you go up north, you even get
seasons to work. It's kind of.
I actually you don't
even have to go up north.
So I grew up most of my
childhood was spent in the foothills
of the San Bernardino Mountains at about a
3500 to 4000 foot altitude.
And we got the full seasons there. Wow.
And it's nice once a year.
And that's 70 miles from where I am right
here at the beach in Orange County.
So it's not that far.
Just people don't realize that it's there.
I don't think people realize what
California has to offer.
Because like you said,
it has it has a desert.
It has everything.
And we want it.
It is really a treasure of our country.
I love California.
And I'm from Oregon, which
is also a beautiful state.
It's beautiful in the Northwest.
But I will say that's
my old stomping grounds.
And anytime we used to go.
So were your parents from
California? Are they native?
Both both of my parents were
born outside of California,
but both of them, their
parents moved them to California
when they were relatively young.
So my dad was born in Arkansas and then
his parents moved to Orange County.
I want to say he was probably
five or six years old at
the time when they moved him,
because he was here when
Disneyland opened in 1955.
Oh, wow. So he he was
already here and present for that.
My mom came to Orange County when she was a
freshman in high school
at age 14 from New Jersey.
Her parents had lived in Ohio and New
Jersey most of her life.
And they came up.
My grandfather was an engineer and he had
an opportunity out here
in California for a
while. So what we're in Jersey.
Orange.
So there's more.
There's these storms.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Because I know that she
always associated that it was funny
that they were moving from Orange and New
Jersey to Orange in California.
Brian from Jersey.
So we always ask it's pretty close.
It's actually pretty close to New York.
Yeah. Yeah, that is.
So two east coasters move to California
basically because Arkansas and Jersey,
they're their their families are from
Arkansas would be very
deep south more like.
Yeah. Still on the east coast.
You know what I mean?
For a west coaster, it's the east coast.
The east coast.
Yeah. So they they traveled out west.
Yes. Yes.
How did how did they meet?
Were they in the same town?
My dad was two years older than my mom and
they met in high school.
He was on the football team.
They actually were at the same high school
together with Kevin Costner for a year.
No way.
Mm hmm.
And yeah, they were high school sweethearts
and then being raised
from very conservative parents.
They were sort of forced to marry when my
mom graduated high school at 18
because she was pregnant at that time.
And then she lost that baby and
they were able to stay married
and not have kids for a long time because
my dad ended up going to Vietnam and.
Oh, wow.
And all those things before they actually
had my brother and I.
So OK, so they graduate.
She's pregnant.
They get married.
She unfortunately loses the baby.
And did your dad right out of
high school go to work to start?
Like, did they go and get their own little
place or were they living with your
grandparents?
So they immediately got an apartment and
went to Long Beach State.
My dad had already done two
years of community college,
and so they were going to Long
Beach State at the same time.
And my my dad inherited a contracting
business from his father.
And so at that time, he was learning how to
be a general contractor.
And getting all of the different.
I don't even know that he
fully graduated from college,
but he got all of the different
certificates he needed to
be a general contractor.
And then while he was
when he stopped going to
school, he was immediately drafted
for Vietnam.
And so while he was at Vietnam, my mom
moved in with his parents
because her parents had already left
and she lived with them and actually went
to USC and became a dental hygienist.
During the time that my dad was gone, she
got a degree to do that.
So when she graduated, she
also went to Long Beach State.
Mm hmm. Yeah, they bought it while she was
pregnant or had she lost the baby?
They got married in September and she lost
the baby within a couple of weeks.
And so they immediately were already.
Yeah. OK, it was right away.
They both enrolled in school.
They at Long Beach State
and graduate from there.
Yeah, yeah.
She got her bachelor's from Long Beach and
then she got her continuation.
It wasn't like a master's or anything, but
in dental hygiene from USC.
That's that's pretty awesome because that
wasn't completely normal
at that time for women to it wasn't it was
like women were going to college,
but it wasn't like I know
for my mom and she's a boomer.
I assume your mom's a boomer, right?
1950. Yeah. OK, so my mom was 1947.
So when she was in high school, even like
it wasn't really discussed
among her friends going to college.
So it wasn't how it is for us.
So it's pretty cool that
your mom just went for it.
So my mom's mom was way before her time.
She had a dual master's in
mathematics and fine art.
Her fine art master's was from Cornell.
And she had four children in three years
because my mom is a twin.
So they had a boy and then a
year later they had twin girls
and then a year later
they had another girl.
And so she was a stay at home mom.
My grandma was a stay at home mom, but she
used her mathematics degree
to invest all of the money
that my grandfather earned
and really grow their wealth.
And then she was an artist the whole time.
She also went to Rutgers to
study how to be a good gardener
because she couldn't just take like the
local gardening classes.
She was just a highly educated person and
always seeking out education.
And so and my grandfather also my
grandfather came here from Yugoslavia
when he was 12 and he got his
engineering degree from Case.
And he was always highly pushing education.
And when my mom married
my dad, he had this hope
that she would become his
secretary in his office.
And I think when he went to
Vietnam, she was very much like,
that's never going to happen.
I'm going to build myself a
career with degrees of my own.
And I'm glad that she did.
I'm really glad that she did because they
probably would have gotten divorced
a lot sooner and I would not exist if she
had tried to be his secretary.
Yeah, I mean, it's honestly good for her.
And did he know she was
continuing on with her education
while he was over in Vietnam?
Yeah, and I think I mean, I think he did
respect that her parents
were highly educated people that were
encouraging her to do that.
I think he just thought, well, you'll be my
little wife and we'll be together.
All that I think had a very
naive attitude about it all.
But yeah, I think it was normal to back
then to expect that of women
like that would have just been the natural.
I mean, Gen X men thought that too.
Many Gen X men. So
definitely boomer men did.
But so when your dad
stopped going to school,
he probably knew the risk
of getting drafted, right?
I mean, did he you said he didn't graduate.
So he chose to stop going.
He chose to stop thinking
that he could just go to work.
And at that time, that
must have been around
1971, 72 ish, I guess. I don't know.
I don't know the exact timeline.
But at whatever time that was,
because they didn't have children
and he was not enrolled in school,
he was just first up on the draft.
Yeah, it happened right away.
It was so fast. Yeah.
So how long was he over there?
I'm not sure exactly.
I think it was less than two years because
he had a severe aneurysm
while he was there and actually was in
a enemy hospital for a long time.
And they told my mom on multiple occasions
while she was living with
his parents that he had died.
And he had not.
It was a really stressful experience for
these two young people to go through.
So crazy. Yeah.
The fact that they tried to make it work is
still when he got back.
I mean, they both had been through a lot
apart from like what?
18 or 19, maybe maybe 20.
I think I think she was about 21, 22.
And he was about 23, 24.
Yeah. OK. Yeah.
So it started off with some
trauma with losing the baby.
They were both young, 18 and 20. Right.
And then sort of forced into marriage
before they were ready.
They definitely would not have done it.
Otherwise they were both just going to go
to college. Yeah. Exactly.
So they had kind of a
vision of how life's going to go.
And then boop, not like that. Fun.
Yeah. Obviously. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Which as you do in high school, but which
is ties to your book,
I think a little bit.
But yeah, it really does.
So but then he goes to war
and not that's traumatic.
Hello. That's absolutely a lot of folks.
I'm so processing.
Your mother was told
more than once that he died.
Like, what was the. Yeah.
That's crazy. Why more than once?
I don't understand. Was it like he died?
Oh, we made a mistake.
He's alive. Oh, he died.
Archer. Well, because they
knew he had had this aneurysm
and then they couldn't find him because he
was in an enemy hospital
and people weren't giving me.
So they assumed he had been
dead. And so they said that.
Yeah, I don't have all the details.
Unfortunately, he's not here
anymore to ask a lot of that.
But yeah, I do just I really
have clear memories of my mom,
you know, sharing with me how traumatizing
all of that experience was.
And I loved his parents very much.
But his mother was not a
warm, fuzzy, loving individual.
So for my mom to be in
that house, getting that news
without her twin sister, without her
parents, without really the love
and support of anyone around her.
I think she felt really
scared and alone for a long time.
Yeah, her family was
in Jersey still, right?
Actually, so my grandfather,
he was an engineer of waterways.
And so like after World War Two,
he was sent to Japan to rebuild the
waterways that we had bombed
and were destroyed.
And he worked in Australia
building bridges and waterways.
And that was what he did
in Southern California.
And then he was sent back
to Australia for a while.
He was sent to areas in Africa.
And then he did go back to Ohio.
They never went back to New Jersey, but
they went back to Ohio.
And that's where they
settled when he retired.
And they lived there until
he passed away at age 92.
Yeah. Wow. So did her
siblings kind of go with him?
Did your did your grandmother and her
siblings go to Australia,
go to all these different places?
Her youngest sister did go to
Australia for a very short time.
But her twin sister went
to the University of Arizona
and met her husband
there and became a teacher
and then came back and
resided in Southern California.
Pretty, yeah, I think probably
around 1977, 1978, she came back.
And so they at that point, they did their
best to stay as close
to each other as they could, because they
definitely have always, you know,
I don't know how how many
twins you have in your life,
but when you're the child of a twin, you
you figure out pretty quickly
that their twin is their person like their
spouse will matter a lot to them.
Their children will matter a lot to them.
But their person is their twin.
That is their person for everything.
So they stay super connected, huh? Yes.
So to not have her there, it
sounds like she moved there
after all this stuff went on,
but to not have her with her.
And it wasn't like now where you can just
text or call, you know,
so it's letters and landlines and all that.
And then she's with her
in-laws who aren't necessarily
the most emotionally supportive.
So I'm sure there's trauma there.
So then I assume when she
got the news, he's alive.
That was a joyous moment for her.
And of course, yeah.
And he came home, right?
They sent him home.
And it was like he's dead again.
Well, yeah, like, yeah, that's crazy.
There was there was back
and forth and back and forth.
And then and then there was
concern about what capacity
he would become home in,
because how severe was the aneurysm?
Those kinds of things. But he did.
He did come home.
Gosh, I mean, my brother was born in 76.
I want to say he he had to
have been home by 74 ish.
And he immediately just dove full force
into working for his father
and becoming a general contractor and
building a life for them.
So, you know, they they
bought their own home.
And yeah, it's the most
thing that he even survived.
Not only only did he survive Vietnam, he
survived an aneurysm.
Yeah, I mean, phenomenal, right?
Yeah, unfortunately, he had multiple
strokes over before he passed away
at age 67 and his mother
also had multiple strokes
before she passed away
a couple of years ago.
And even his dad had
multiple strokes over the years.
So I'm definitely aware of this.
And I try to keep it in mind
as I talk to doctors and stuff.
And they ask me medical history.
I'm like, well, so far, I seem good.
But I want you to just
keep track of this for me.
Right, right.
What's their background?
Because it was your mom's was Yugoslavia.
He was Yugoslavian.
But what about your dad's side?
So my dad's mother, Scotch Irish, and she
said she said some Native American,
although I don't I don't believe it. But
I'm who mixed up into so
I think that that's funny.
And my granddad, you know, he I believe
everything from both of them
was somewhere in the British Isles area,
whereas my mom's family was a little bit.
Her mom was it was British in heritage, but
she they those three,
my dad's parents and my mom's
mom were all multiple generations
had lived in the United
States for a long time.
OK, whereas my granddad, when he came here
at 12, he was six foot two
and they put him in a kindergarten
classroom because he didn't speak English.
And so there was just there was a big chip
on his shoulder from, you know,
yeah, Eastern Europe and
all the wars and everything.
He was a pacifist in nature because of
everything he had seen.
He came here with his his
mom was a widow, a war widow.
And so she came here
basically as a mail order bride
for another Slavic man
who had lost his wife here.
And brought her 12 year old son and I have,
you know, the Ellis Island
paperwork of like when they landed and.
Yeah, so amazing.
It definitely had a lot of impact, though,
on how their family worked
and how my mom was raised.
And yeah. OK, so your
dad is back from Vietnam.
Do they move out of his parents house?
Do they get their own? They do.
OK, moved all of like, OK, two miles away.
A brand new suburban development that was
very much like picture perfect.
American, you know, Stepford wives,
California at the time,
everything was strip malls and suburbia.
And that's yeah, that's where my brother
was born and where I was born
here in Orange County.
And we're both sets of
grandparents within that proximity.
My mom's parents were gone.
They were in Ohio.
They never came back yet.
They traveled.
Yeah, right.
So they were traveling
and then ended up in Ohio.
But his parents were
working. Yeah, he was working.
But his parents stayed close in proximity.
And so and how long?
Because I know they divorced, right?
Yeah, so actually, now that
you say it, though, his parents,
when my dad fully took over
and once they bought their house,
his parents actually built their dream
house in Hawaii and they left to.
So they they just gave everything.
They gave the company to my dad and they
gave their house in Orange County
to his brother and they left.
And so by the time I was born in 1979,
they were already well established in
Hawaii and had been there for a while.
Yeah. OK. So when you buy the time you were
born, both sets of grandparents
were not gone. They were gone.
The growth in that area during that time
was phenomenal, right? Explosive.
Yeah. So contracting general
contractors did really well.
Because there was a lot of
growth. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
And then how long were they
married until they got divorced?
So they got married when my mom was 18.
I was born when she was 29.
And they split up by the
time I was nine months old.
OK. So you know, I have no
memory of their being together.
My brother was three and a
half at the time or four, four.
By the time they split up.
And do you know why they got divorced?
Yeah. So my dad started
to have a relationship
with the woman across the
street and my mom found out about it.
OK. So do you know how long
that affair had been going on
until she found out about it?
So the people across the
street had already separated
and their divorce was final and the husband
had moved to Minnesota
and they had teenage daughters who were
actually our babysitters.
And I know that my dad met her, the woman,
of course, through their neighborhood.
But then they were
members of a racquet club
and would regularly see
her at the racquet club.
And so it it must have gone on for a while
because my mom, when she found
out she she was completely done.
She was so heartbroken that she had been
pregnant and nursing a newborn.
And all of this was going on. And she
immediately moved out.
She she couldn't even he wasn't going.
He wasn't willing to move out.
So she immediately moved out and got
herself a little condo
and was trying to be the
single mom with the two of us.
But he he got married right away.
And that he married her right away.
Yeah, by the by the time I was three, they
were getting remarried.
And by the time I was four, my mom had
gotten remarried to that woman's husband.
So here's what happened.
It's kind of crazy.
Yeah, everyone. Listeners, buckle up.
Because my my dad's mother
was the daughter of a pastor.
And she flat out told him that
if he was willing to break up
his marriage over this woman,
he better marry her right away
or he'd lose his inheritance.
So he did.
At the same time in California, divorces
were becoming more and more
and more popular in the early 80s.
And because they got married first,
that was considered the
more stable household.
And the courts did
year on, year off custody,
where I would have to live
with my father for a year
and not see my mother for a full year.
No, even though she was.
No, no, no seeing at all.
And so my mom was heartbroken over this.
She had not even like she had not done
anything except been cheated on
and tried to like.
So she ended up
going to Minnesota
because she had stayed friends
with the husband of the
woman across the street.
And he had set up his life in Minnesota and
told her, it's beautiful here.
You can totally, you know, own a home here.
It's affordable.
And and so he like introduced her to people
in the Lake Minnetonka area.
And she got a job as a
dental hygienist there.
And they ended up dating and yes, getting
married by the time I was four.
So my I know it's just crazy.
So my step sisters were the
babysitters across the street.
And now their mom was my
stepmom and their dad was my stepdad.
And my parents were their step parents.
So the four of us children
at that time when I was four,
the oldest was 18.
We shared the same four parents.
So they had a kid going into kindergarten,
a kid going into college
and two in between, all with these four
parents who truly hated each other.
My mom hated my dad and
my mom hated my stepmom.
My dad hated my mom and my
everybody hated each other.
And it was so contentious.
Wow. It created their 15 years. Yeah.
And so I'm just going back.
I'm going back to I don't
understand how your mom,
how your dad had soul custody for a year.
Was that the California law then is that
you could separate children
for that length of time from a parent?
Because my mom needed to work.
She couldn't be 100 percent childcare.
And my stepmom didn't
work and she could be.
And then this was a two parent household.
And so, yeah, I I can't
even believe that it was done.
But I lived with my dad when I was three,
my mom when I was four
and my dad when I was five.
And then my mom was done with that.
She was like, I can't handle this.
And my mom and my stepdad
moved back to California
and she refiled to get custody because
she's like, I am not doing this anymore.
I cannot be away from my
children for a full year again.
Yeah. I mean, because are you
talking about even holidays?
Yes. She just said you
couldn't have no contact.
Right. You know, my birthday.
I have I have a very traumatic memory of my
fifth birthday in which
my mom tried to bring
me a doll for my birthday
and my stepmom wouldn't let her
in and they were going to party.
And so I started crying and I say this
because my stepmom knows
I love her very much. We have
a very good relationship now.
But I got slapped across the face and told
that I was ungrateful
for the party that was being
thrown for me when I'm crying
because my mom sent a toy and I
didn't even get to hug my mom.
Like I didn't actually get to
see her on my fifth birthday.
And it was it was very traumatic. Very,
very traumatic for sure.
I can't imagine a more traumatic situation
than the way your parents marriage and a
more traumatic for your mom.
Let's say she's betrayed and and has the
rug pulled out from under her
and could be who knows having some
postpartum anyways,
because she's had a baby.
Hello. So her hormones
are way off. She's nursing.
Let's take all that into consideration.
Your brother's three and a half.
He's a handful.
And so now we have to leave the perfect
suburban white picket fence life
and as a single mom in 19
in the early 80s, right.
And that wasn't my mom was a single mom,
too. It was not normal.
She did. My mom never got invited to
chaperone at school dance
because the other moms
didn't want her around.
It was not normal to have to
have your parents divorced.
And no matter what any less, I get people
saying it was normal.
It was not and it was not
normal to be a single mom.
They were not accepted.
So your mom is already dealing with that.
And then this warped court system in
California, which I'm shocked
because in general,
California is fairly progressive.
So I don't even understand where that
nothing like that would happen now.
Nothing even remotely close to happen now.
But I understand.
Sure, she's working.
My mom was working, but she's working.
But that doesn't
justify you and your brother
not seeing her every other weekend, let's
say, you know, or every other Christmas.
So I'm just blown away.
I'm shocked.
And to you, because that's all you know.
And your poor brother
actually probably knew different
and then having to adjust to that.
Now that had to have been rough.
And then the trauma on your mom.
So that those years, you know, we talked
about fight or flight.
You were put in a fight or
flight right from the start.
Yeah, it's a lot of Gen Xers were put in
fight or flight right from the start
and probably just continued on that path.
I would assume your childhood, right?
Absolutely. They didn't like each other.
They fought that just
continued all the time.
Yeah, yeah. Every holiday.
Once my mom and my stepdad
moved back to Southern California,
they moved less than a
mile from my mom's twin sister
who had kids, my daughter, exactly the same
age as me, three months apart for me.
And so once they moved
there, my mom got custody
and it was the every
other Christmas with my dad,
every other Thanksgiving kind of thing.
Unfortunately for me,
I that was pretty much
my whole relationship with my
dad was those brief holidays.
I got 4th of July
because my birthday is in July.
He always just said, well, we'll celebrate
your birthday at the 4th of July
and we'll have you for the 4th of July.
And then I got some sort of Thanksgiving
and some sort of Christmas
not necessarily on the day, but and that
was pretty much my
relationship with my dad.
My entire childhood after that.
So my mom was back.
OK, so even though he was lived close, he
was physically close.
He wasn't involved.
You didn't go there every other weekend.
He was. No, because once my
the two stepsisters were 14
and 10 years older than I am.
Once the younger of those
two graduated high school,
my stepmom and my dad
became very happy, empty nesters.
And they had a very prominent social life
because he lived right where he grew up.
And so all of his friends were still there.
And they, you know, she joined the women's
club and he, you know,
had his golfing buddies and they went on
cruises with their friends.
And it became very obvious very quickly
that what was going on
with my brother and I
was not of much interest.
See, she rivals you in terms of
wonky stuff.
You might. I mean, because I know.
So there's definitely
abandonment issues there.
But did your stepfather
was he did he fill that role?
To some degree, he absolutely did.
He was an incredible stepfather for
somebody who had raised two daughters.
And it would have been totally
understandable for him to be like,
listen, I don't want
to do the child toddler
elementary boy through teenagers thing.
Like, I'm not interested.
He didn't do that. He was fully invested.
He was a very loving attentive.
He was more, you know, the
typical father of that era
where he would go to work and
come home and expect dinner made
and his laundry done.
And like, I, you know, I don't
go to parent teacher conferences.
That's for somebody else
to do that kind of thing.
He was more of that.
But we had a very loving relationship.
He was always very invested in
everything that we were doing.
Yeah. Thank God for that.
That you had that other
figure for your brother, too,
because that's important for a boy as well.
So that's that's wonderful.
Unfortunately, my brother is the one out of
the four of us that really, I mean,
I it sounds crazy to say this because
you're saying, oh, I rival
Nicole in the trauma.
But I would say I got off easiest out of
everybody because the teenagers
who understood what was happening when the
parents switched like this,
they that was a very
traumatic experience for them.
They were like, what the
hell is going on right here?
Wait, what do you mean you're married?
What is happening?
And so there was a lot of resentment,
especially from my oldest sister
for a long time about all of that.
And then my brother was the one, I would
say, who he really got lost in the mix
of it because being
separated from our dad for so long.
But then this isn't his father or
stepfather, isn't his father.
He had a really hard time accepting
authority of somebody
other than our father.
But our father didn't really want to be an
invested father anymore.
And my brother tried moving in
with our dad for a few years.
And they were, like I said, real
interested in their social life
and not real interested in parenting.
And so he just got punished all the time
for not being trustworthy.
But they weren't actually like doing what
they needed to do as parents to guide him.
And so, yeah, he really he had a hard time.
He very much loved and respected our
stepfather, the older he got.
But most of his growing up formative years,
he was at odds with both of the
fathers and having a lot of acting.
No, yeah, I think it
makes 100 percent sense.
And especially considering you said that
there was strife and conflict
through your whole child.
That means for your your
sisters, it was always like that.
And they were fully aware
of everything, of course.
And then for your brother
and then that's all you knew.
So I'm sure for at least you and your
brother, but especially you,
but maybe your brother, too, you were were
you walking on eggshells pretty much.
Did you find yourself always like, OK,
where's the next thing coming from?
And did you find yourself also becoming a
huge people pleaser
from all of huge people?
Pleaser. So, yeah, that was
the I was the straight A student.
The I was definitely
chatty in class and everything.
But I was, you know, don't get in trouble.
Don't make waves
because that was Trevor's job.
My brother was the one making
waves and getting in trouble.
And so, you know, when when I would come
into the class two or
three years after him,
they'd be like, are you like your brother?
No, I'm the opposite of my brother.
I'm the good kid. You know, so yeah, I.
Yeah, one of the I was I think
second in my graduating class,
I was class speaker, went straight to UCLA.
Like I had to follow all the rules so that
nobody was ever upset with me.
Very compliant.
And high achiever, a lot of children that
come from high conflict situations
and instability are high achievers because
it also gives you a sense of control
of your life, right? A sense of control.
And it was the only thing when I would be
with my dad at those Fourth of July's
and they'd have 50 people
at their house, it would be,
oh, let's not talk about
what Trevor's been up to.
But Jamie's a straight A student.
Jamie's going to this college.
Aren't we so proud of her?
So I wanted that kind of because I wasn't
getting anything else.
I really was not getting
anything else from them.
So I wanted that feedback and I really was
seeking it out. Yeah.
You were getting the love and acceptance
through your accomplishments.
So you each had your roles.
Your steps. Yes.
I were like, screw this, I'm out of here.
This is nuts.
As soon as I can get away and
get out of this house. Right.
The oldest, the oldest.
But her that the second one was much more
of the people pleaser than not make
waves also, because that
was her role for so long
in her own house that split up when she
was, you know, 14, 13, 14 years old.
So she was yeah, if her older sister was
getting into trouble,
she needed to be the good kid.
Yes. Right.
Well, we both fell into that a little bit.
Yeah. Are you too close?
We were we were pretty close.
I mean, we were 10 years apart.
But unfortunately, she passed
away from ALS in 2019 at age.
Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry.
Thank you. What about
with your older sister?
We're still close.
We have a very good relationship.
But she she chose to move
permanently to Minnesota
when she graduated high school
because she felt like that was
about as close to her parents
as she was willing to live.
And she never came back.
But she has since really
repaired her relationship
and has a very good
relationship with her mom now.
And we all are close. Yeah.
All of us that are remaining at this point.
Unfortunately, there's been a lot of loss,
but those of us who are remaining
are all very close. So
did you notice a difference?
And because you said your older sister was
she born in 1965? Right.
And then you were 64, 64.
OK, so she's she's right there.
She's almost she's Generation Jones and
then oldest Gen X or youngest boomer.
And then you're 79.
So that's the whole range right there.
Yeah. And then your brother and your other
sub sister in between there.
Did you observe any differences
in how each of you were parented
as time went on or was
the parenting similar?
I was too young to ever witness the oldest
Angeles parenting because,
yeah, I was four. She was 18
when they were all remarried.
So I never lived in the
same house with Angela ever.
Christina was when I was starting
kindergarten, we shared a wall.
And she was 15, 16 in high school and
listening to Rick Springfield
and George Michael and braiding my hair and
putting ribbons in it.
And so I did witness
very much the praise of her and what a good
girl she was and how sweet she was.
And you want to be just like her.
And at that during that one year of my
kindergarten year, my brother would have
been in second or third
grade, I guess third grade.
And he was the troublemaker and he was
knocking over the Christmas tree
and he was getting in trouble for riding
his bike too fast and
crashing and needing stitches.
And so don't be like
this kid, be like that kid.
So I definitely learned that from how my I
did witness Christina get parented.
But then once I moved to my mom's for first
grade, I never lived with my dad again.
And Christina never lived in
my mom and my stepdad's house.
So OK. So did you still see Christina ever
when she went over to your mom's
only on Fourth of July and
like every other Christmas?
Yes, that is. That was it. That was it.
Oh, that had to have been rough because you
had been building this relationship
and you probably looked up to her and she
would braid your hair
and then it was sporadic.
And I'm sure that was hard for her, too,
because you were this
adorable little sister.
But I don't know. I think I think maybe
there was there was love there.
But I think I was also
you know, she's a teenager.
Like she didn't necessarily want to be
straddled with babysitting at four or five
or six year old either, especially because
my dad and my stepmom were newly married
and trying to go out
and have fun all the time.
They were glad to just leave me with her.
And that I probably seemed a lot more like
an obligation than I probably
parentified a little bit where she was
responsible for you in that
way and your brother, too.
So you said you were were you always high
achieving right from the start?
Like as early as memory academically, were
you just like one of those kids
that I'm going to get straight A's,
hundreds on everything?
So I know that I struggled a little bit in
those early elementary years to figure out,
you know, I think I was always pretty smart
and I always wanted to do well.
But if there was a conflict with the
teacher, if the teacher
didn't seem to like me,
I would shut down completely.
My fifth grade teacher, though, I am still
friends to this day with.
He was just a real, like positive energy in
my life and really uplifting.
And that was when it really started to be
like, OK, I see you're telling me
I can be whatever I want to be.
He gave me the nickname of Hollywood.
He's like, you may be an actress or you may
be a director or producer.
Who knows? Like he was just always very
much like you just got to work
and you'll get whatever you want.
And so I fully embrace
that from that point on.
So, yeah, probably starting at 10, I would
say I was really genuinely a high achiever.
That's amazing.
He came into your life and was such an
inspiration and just
changed the trajectory.
Did you through elementary school and
middle school, did you play any sports
or do art or any extracurriculars?
I was always a swimmer.
And then in middle school, I got into
basketball and in high school,
I did some basketball and
some tennis and some swimming.
But I would say I was
never a real athletic person.
I just like the camaraderie of the team and
like I could do the sports,
but I was never great at them.
So, you know, my mom like
gives me all my old trophies.
We just had to move my mom into a
retirement community.
And so she gave me all these old trophies
and she's like, you should put them up.
I'm like, why?
I don't need all these
participation awards like this is funny.
My mom gave us your
trophies when we got married,
and I think they've been
under our bed ever since.
Like I don't I don't even
know if we might have the shoes.
Blame, that would be cool.
Last thing we need.
No, we're good.
And I think I have my kids.
So I think it's just something you do
because I'm waiting till they get married.
And I'll be like, here's your four bins.
I've been saving a random stuff that you
don't want to stop giving out trophies.
Thankfully, no, I think they still do.
Well, the city does.
But yeah, no, I think I
well, we are they're older now,
but I think for younger ones,
they still get little trophies.
So so then in high school, you did
basketball a little bit.
OK, and did you do any
other like I lettered?
I I was a varsity letterer in tennis.
I was a varsity letterer in swimming.
I was high, you know, a four point oh.
So I got all the academic letters.
I was on the debate team.
I was the spirit club president for, you
know, all the sports and everything.
Now, did your mom and
stepdad come to your games?
Like how our generation doesn't miss a
single second of anything of our kids,
typically, the hearing
section for all your stuff.
I have tried to explain this to my kids so
much that they have no idea
what it's like when you
you go to all your practices
and your parents did not
drop you off at those practices.
You got yourself there or you stayed after
school until practice was done.
And then you got a ride home somehow.
You would go.
I would go to my tennis matches.
Yeah, not a single parent there.
Maybe on the team of 20
kids, two parents would be there.
And they were definitely not mine.
My mom was a working dental hygienist and
she she couldn't take off work.
She she got paid by the patient.
She didn't she didn't have a salary.
She got paid by the patient.
So she took time off.
That was just money
straight out of her pocket.
Now, I think even if a parent didn't work,
though, it wasn't the norm to go do that.
Right. There wasn't this now.
It's like people stay for practices.
We've done it when our kids were younger.
We stayed for practices.
It amazes me to see how many parents are
sitting there for like
a 230 game on a Tuesday.
Like, how can you all be here?
I know why I can be here, but
why how can you all be here?
Yeah. And then, you know, when when my
husband will show up to something,
they'll be like, oh, we haven't seen you in
forever, Patrick, because he's got a job.
I don't know what you guys are doing.
Somebody has to pay our bills.
I don't know if it's I mean, I it's true,
though, because even when our kids are
playing, it seemed like everyone was I feel
like people left work
to come watch this game
and then went back or you're right.
That's such a great point
because somehow everyone was there.
You know, but it's the opposite, I think,
of what a lot your parents came to a lot.
My parents did. Yeah, they
they came to a lot of you.
He had more of that friend.
Parents did, too, though, actually.
Yeah. Where you grew up, I think there was
very few guys, the
dads would sit at practice
and watch and be with each other and then
they'd all show up for games.
He grew up in a small
traditional town in Jersey.
I think everyone was married.
There were probably very few divorces and
was just that very leave it to Beaver vibe.
So I need that you say that my husband, we
always joked when we first got together
that he was from the leave it to Beaver and
I was from the Osborns.
So there was not.
We were as far separate because his dad was
the only middle school science teacher
in their entire town.
So his everybody knew his dad
and his dad had school hours.
So when school was done, he could be at
every basketball practice and game
and ruling his son on and
taking him to tournaments.
And his mom was a part time librarian.
So she worked the hours when he was at
school and she would be there
making sure there was after school snacks
and giving him to things, too.
So his parents were there for everything.
And their little, you know, their little
town still to this day
only has two stoplights.
I mean, there was nothing
else going on in that town
besides the basketball games. Yeah. Right.
I know. And I think I
think there are Gen X there's
and we've talked about this before that had
upbringings like yours and like mine.
And then unbeknownst to us.
Well, no, I actually assumed everyone had
an upbringing like Brian's.
I thought I was the only weird one.
I didn't I thought something was like
what's wrong with my life.
Like I'm the only one
with divorced parents.
And then now that I'm honestly now that I'm
older and Gen X is connecting
through all of these ways, I'm realizing
there are so many of us
that had a similar upbringing to mine.
Well, where is the first generation?
We're the first divorcees, the first
daycares, the first after school
for all that shit, right?
When you're going
through it, you don't know.
Oh, I guess I know you existed. Yeah.
Wait, we were right.
You thought. Yeah.
And we were almost like
living through a part of history
where there was a cultural shift.
And so those of us who were children, you
know, no one knew how to
deal with the trauma we were suffering
because no one had
even defined that trauma.
Yeah. Right.
And there's no
technology to connect the dots.
No, no social media, no
phones or the landlines.
But that was no, but even if they're but we
wouldn't have even known
how to communicate about
it, there were no words to put
to what we were going through, I don't
think, you know, in my
life, my friend groups,
it was probably 50 50, about 50 percent of
them, their parents were still married.
And it seemed kind of idyllic.
And about 50 percent of them were like me.
And and I had my cousin, my mom's twin
sister, they got those parents
got divorced when she was in third grade.
So, you know, what?
Five years after my parents separated.
So I had enough of like, OK, we we
understand one another.
We can sort of trauma bond.
And then so I was more drawn to my friends
that had stable households
that I would want to go spend time there
because it felt calming
to be around that
instead of around my household.
And so it makes complete sense to me that
as soon as I met my husband
and saw what his upbringing
I was so like drawn in like.
And I remember I said to him, you know,
when we first got married, I said,
you better not break my heart because if
you do, I'm keeping your family
and you have to have mine.
That's awesome.
If you ever find when you
would go to those friends houses
where everything seemed perfect, did you
also find it kind of fascinating?
Did you ever watch their how their family
move, talk like just the
just their whole home life because it was
so different from yours?
I found I did that where I would just
observe and they're doing normal stuff.
But it was so foreign to me that I would
just sit back and kind of watch them.
Like I'm watching a TV show almost.
It fascinated me. Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting to look back,
though, because even though the
the fighting and the chaos was a
significant part of my childhood,
both of those marriages ended up lasting
until my father and my stepfather died.
They they ended up
having 35, 37 year marriages.
So they were learning how
to have a good relationship
each in their own households.
But also there was all this
chaos happening at the same time.
And so I was getting both of it.
And I yeah, I would sort of watch what's
happening in my friends houses
where it seemed like
their parents were stable.
I was I was very much an observer, which
I think is why I fell into
loving writing, because I love to
all the nuances you can describe about
people's interactions with one another
and the little details that make a huge
difference because I was
I was observing it all. Yeah.
So you brought up meeting your husband,
which I know was in college.
So let us let's go, I guess.
What senior year when did you know you
wanted to go to college?
When did you decide where
you wanted to go and why?
I knew by the time I was going into my
freshman year of high school
that I wanted to go to UC Berkeley.
I was so certain I'm I'm
going to go to UC Berkeley.
My very conservative stepfather used to
call me a bleeding heart liberal
and it made sense that
I wanted to go there.
And but my brother who had been
sort of.
Jackass in high school, I put it like like
he, you know, he would have 40
appa 40 tardies in his first period class.
He'd have, you know, ditch school all the
time, barely graduated.
He went to community college for two years.
And because I had basically done all the
research and like explained
all the reasons that UC
Berkeley was the most amazing school,
he transferred from
community college to UC Berkeley.
So when I got my acceptance letter, I
gladly held it up and said,
look where I'm not going, because that
campus is still too small
for the two of us to be in the same place.
So I went to UCLA instead.
Was that your backup?
Was that your second choice?
I by the time I was
applying, I had decided that UCLA,
because my brother was already at Berkeley,
I just applied to Berkeley
basically to prove I could get in.
But I had decided that
UCLA was where I wanted to go.
I actually ended up getting into pretty
much all the schools that I applied to,
which at that time wasn't that hard for
somebody with the academics that I had.
But I look back at it now since my oldest
just started college.
I had zero help with applying to colleges.
It was all on me.
I had to do the research.
I had to write the essays.
I had to edit the essays.
I had to mail the essays.
I had to do it all.
I didn't have help
studying for the SATs or the ACTs.
That was all on me.
I had to get myself to the test.
I had to schedule it and pay for it.
And so...
I think all of us Gen Xers who went to
college had to do that.
I think...
Yeah.
I don't remember.
You think about how much we are involved
now with our children before they go to
college and all the...
We know everything that has to be done and
the dates and all that.
No one was guiding us.
We were just kind of like, "Ugh!"
You know, and on our own.
And it's amazing that we all...
Well, it's so Gen X.
Of course we got it.
Because if we want to do it,
we're going to get it done.
But again, another
thing, we just figured it out.
I think it was smart kids like you, though,
that the rest of us followed.
Probably.
Because we had it under control.
We're like, "All right,
we got to follow her."
They were example.
So I...
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think all through high
school, I always was like,
"Well, I have to be a lawyer or a doctor.
I have to be a lawyer or a doctor."
And I thought that if I went to
Berkeley, I would be a lawyer.
And if I went to UCLA, I'd be a doctor.
And so I got into UCLA and I was pre-med.
And that's because that was the expectation
that I had been told by my parents.
Like, "You're smart.
You're capable.
So you need to do this.
That's people who are smart and capable
need to follow these paths."
And so that was what I understood.
And then I got to UCLA and I was miserable.
I hated being a bio major.
I didn't like any of the classes related.
I was in Calc II and I was passing my
classes, but I was unhappy.
But I had passed the AP test on all of my
English and language arts stuff.
And so I was in a high
division English class.
And I was a freshman leading discussions
with juniors and seniors.
And my professor was an adjunct professor
who pulled me aside after class one day.
She's like, "Can you tell me
why this says you're a bio major?"
Because to me, it's very
clear that you love literature.
You love discussing literature.
You're a very talented writer.
Why would you be a bio major?
And it was like this just
lightbulb went off in my head.
Like, "You mean I can just do what I like
because it's something I'm enjoying and I
don't have to go down this path?"
And it was at that moment that I was like,
"Okay, I'm out of here."
I had tried to make things work at UCLA.
I had some good friends who I'm still
friends with to this day,
but I knew that being in
that environment wasn't great for me.
And so I transferred to a small liberal
arts school and moved
into an apartment off campus
with my best friend and
started studying writing instead.
How were you at UCLA
before you made that decision?
Just my freshman year.
So you did freshman year.
So did you live in the dorms at UCLA?
Yes.
Did you know your roommate going in?
My two roommates in a 10 by 12 room.
I did not know them and
they hated each other.
I was right between two people who
absolutely hated each other in every way.
Did you know each other beforehand?
Nope.
Oh, yeah.
Did you do the old fashioned?
I know for me, it was like I sent a letter
and she sends a letter back and I think we
talked on the landline phone once.
Was it that type of thing?
So I was right like the summer before I
started UCLA, they
installed ethernet cords in all
the dorm rooms.
So I was right at that point in history
where people started
having email and started having
a very tail end of high school.
I started I started college in 1997.
Oh, okay.
Yes.
She's much younger than us.
Yes.
But imagine that.
So we're 71.
So in eight years,
because we started in 71.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A 1971.
So we started college in 89.
And so when I say wrote a letter and
landline, it was truly like that.
It looked like a change in eight years.
I remember.
Oh, that's what I'm shocked because when we
like our senior year of college, they put
in this beautiful computing center.
Yeah, that would have been 93.
And they had network printers.
Yes.
So you could print to the network printer,
you could print and
get up and walk over and
get it.
So yeah, okay.
Before then, it wasn't like that.
Not at all.
No.
So we were, we went through
the whole shift of nothing.
Yeah.
And watching it, you know, and then we got
married in 94 and he
started right away learning
this whole computer thing.
So it was brand new baby stuff, right?
For general public.
But you would have been able
to email your roommates, right?
Which we did.
Yes, we actually emailed our roommates.
And I think I did talk to one of them on
the phone, one brief
conversation before we got
to school.
The other I don't think I
did have a conversation with.
And it's funny also just a fun little
tidbit in the difference in
our ages because my siblings
would point this out to me.
My dad as a general contractor who owned
his own business got us
a personal computer that
I learned to type on a personal computer at
home before I ever learned to write with a
pencil.
When I was four years old, I
was typing on a personal computer.
So I'm right there at that, the threshold
of having personal
technology at your fingertips.
But that's a trip.
You probably had maybe ICQ, AIM like the
AOL instant messenger, all that stuff.
Yes, all those things.
Yes.
Were you part of the MySpace or were you a
little older than the MySpace people?
I was on MySpace for a little while.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because you would have been in that oldest
Gen X younger or older millennial and they
were part of the MySpace.
The older millennials were.
Okay.
So when you emailed with
them, did you get a vibe?
Were you nervous or did you click at all?
I think I definitely could see right away
where I was as a
people pleaser, where I was
going to connect with this person and where
I was going to connect to this person.
So one of my roommates was second
generation Chinese from
Southern California and was very
tiger parents, really strict about studies
and did not have much of a social life.
The other was rushing her
sorority the first semester.
And so I had always, like I said, I was
Spirit Club president.
I had always had a big social group so I
could understand that
world and I could understand
the needing to have the
straight A's and buckling down.
And so they both would just complain to me
all the time about the other because they
couldn't understand each other, but I could
understand both of them.
Yeah.
It was a miserable place to be.
You were on top of being a bio major, which
was like completely not where you belong.
You also were absorbing all of this toxic
energy being the in
between of these two people.
So I'm sure by the end of your freshman
year, you had multiple
reasons to get out of there.
You were like enough already.
And so it's amazing.
Another teacher, your fifth grade teacher
was impactful and another teacher came to
the trajectory of your life.
Yes.
And I've actually recently reached out to
her via email and she
was so glad that I did when
I told her that my novel came out because I
was like, you probably had
no idea how transformative
that one conversation after class really
was because I finished
your class and you had
no reason to know whether
you would ever see me again.
And the campus of 30,000 students at that
time, why, you know, you don't, you might
never ever see a student again.
And I said, you, you made
a huge impact on my life.
None of my life would look
the way that it looks right now.
If you had not done that, that day.
And what a gift to her that you did that
because that, that I'm sure
you can't even understand.
Like I can't, I'm not a teacher, but how
much that would have
meant to know that she had
such an impact on one of her students.
So how did your family take it?
I assume you did all the things applying to
your new college, like
no one helped you there.
You handled all that.
How'd the family handle it?
Quite the opposite.
So my mom knew I was miserable at UCLA.
And in March of that, that year towards the
end of my second,
because they're on the Tri
Vester system, it was
the end of my second term.
I was in my dorm room and the Dean of
Admissions from the
University of Redlands called me
in my dorm room and said, your mom brought
your transcripts here
and said that you wanted
to transfer.
And I can tell you that we can have you in,
in next semester, you don't even have to do
anything because I had all
the grades and everything.
They were like, you don't even have to.
And so it just made it real easy because
that was a small liberal arts school close
to my home where a lot of my friends had
gone, including my very best friend.
And it just made it easy.
I didn't have to do anything.
So it was the exact opposite of getting
into college with all
these like lofty expectations
to you know, to go to a big university.
I didn't have to do anything at all.
They just say you're
accepted if you want to come.
And then she did she know you wanted to go
to that school or did she just I did.
I don't think I would have chosen to go to
that school, except
that they made it so easy.
And I was so miserable.
And there were so many of my friends there
that it just it was a
convenient next option.
And when I looked into it, and learned
about their writing
program that the way that their
writing classes worked, you were one of 12
students with a published
author as your professor.
And you wrote all the time and got all this
feedback on your writing.
I was like, Oh, that
sounds way better than this.
And that I because it was a small school, I
could study abroad and I could I could have
a job and not not feel like I was going to
get behind because I'd be able to schedule
all my classes easily.
It wouldn't be so hard as it
was at UCLA to even get a class.
And yeah, it just seems like your mom for
knowing you know, doing what what we would
do now, right?
Like we would do that with our kids.
But I don't think that was necessarily
typical for a lot of our
parents to take that initiative.
And so that's, that's cool.
She did that.
Yeah, I've gone back and forth on it
because I wonder if I I'm
so glad how everything worked
out and it was the
perfect place for me to go.
But I wonder as a mom now with an 18 year
old in New York City, and I'm on the other
side of the country.
And of course, this has
been a hard transition for her.
I don't think that I would just call up a
small little school
right here and say, Here's
the easy out, you know, like, yeah, I don't
think that I would actually.
I would, I would definitely be more like,
you know, you should really reflect on what
you really want and what a change like this
might mean and where you would be happier.
I just, I'm not sure that
that it worked out well.
And I'm glad I'm glad how it worked out.
But that's really good.
That's the approach I would take.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Now it's a really good point.
You know, so it's,
it's, it's great and sweet.
She did that.
But was it appropriate?
Right.
Go back and forth between and what could
you have made it through
and what would have happened?
But like you said, maybe she missed you.
I think she did.
I think she did.
And I think she hoped if I came back to
that area of Southern
California that I would move
back home.
And I never did.
I never considered
their home my home again.
After that, I was very determined to set up
my own life and be a
very independent person
and always pay my own rent
and buy my own groceries.
And I just, I think, I think she hoped that
it would bring me right back to where I was
and it did and it
didn't because right, right.
I also, my brother, you know, my brother
went to Berkeley and he
lives 10 minutes from her
now.
He came back.
A lot of people in that small town came
back and live there and
are raising their families
there.
I never wanted that.
I never chose that.
Even though I met my husband there, we
didn't want to live there long term.
So yeah, I think she did miss me.
And I think it didn't really matter.
I wasn't actually coming home.
Yeah.
Did you live on your own
when you got an apartment there?
And did you have a roommate?
My best friend and I moved in together.
So you said, okay, her parents, her parents
didn't have the
financial ability to pay for
everything.
I was working on a lot of student loans and
at a private university, that was hard.
And so it was a lot cheaper for her to get
a one bedroom
apartment with me and we split
the rent and then to have the
loans that for living in dorms.
Did you guys plan that?
Like once you knew you were going, did you
tell her and she's
like, okay, let's do this.
That's cool.
You had a friend to do it with.
Yes.
You know?
Yeah.
It worked out really well.
It was a really great year and we ended up
actually rushing a sorority together.
So even though we were off campus, we were
very involved on the campus together.
So it ended up being really great.
How big is University of Redlands, right?
Yeah.
And it's about about 4,000 students.
Okay.
So it's like, what was now where we were
like the first year UCLA, right?
Or not even you first.
UCLA was 30,000 students.
And so there were
probably about 8,000 freshmen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where we went to school, what, 5,000?
I think so.
It was around 5,000.
So it's similar size.
How far was UCLA from your hometown?
About 90 miles.
Okay.
But it's a totally different world.
Yeah.
Because like I said, I grew up at the base
of the San Bernardino mountains.
It's a much more rural area.
We always kind of laughed that it was like
you took a town in Texas and dropped it in
Southern California because everybody drove
big lifted trucks and Wranglers and chewed
tobacco and...
Yeah.
That's California.
You get it all.
You get it all.
You get it all.
It's all here.
Anybody who thinks
it's not, just come visit.
We got it all.
So how did you meet your husband?
So he was at Redlands
and it's pretty funny.
My best friend and I decided to throw a St.
Patrick's Day party and
we invited some friends
that he came with mutual friends.
Actually my mom's twin sister's daughter
was at Redlands and she was
dating one of my husband's
friends.
And so we said, "Hey, Lindsey, bring your
boyfriend and his friends."
So he came over to our
apartment with a group of guys.
And he, at the time, was very like, I don't
even think dating is the right word, but I
was interested in kind of starting to get
to know one of his friends who was on the
tennis team.
And that guy was at the party, but Patrick
was going through my CDs and changing the
five discs in my CD
player to change the music.
And I got up in his face and
like, "Who do you think you are?
That you can come to my apartment, come to
my party and change the music?"
And we had like playful banter.
And my best friend always laughed.
She's like, "We could tell right away that
you guys, there was something there.
There was a spark."
And so his name is Patrick.
It was St. Patrick's Day.
St. Patrick's Day will forever be a very
special day in this house.
The next day I went to the other guy's
tennis match and Pat was
sitting there in the stands
watching the tennis match and he and I were
talking the entire time.
And we got to discussing that he had never,
he'd always wanted to get a tattoo, but he
came from a very conservative family and
all of his friends
were pretty conservative.
And so it just didn't seem
like it was ever going to happen.
I was like, "Same, I really want a tattoo."
And none of my friends would ever do that.
But guess what?
I've got a car right there.
If you get in the car,
I'll drive us somewhere.
We can go get tattoos right now.
And that was our first
date, was we got tattoos.
Yeah.
Did you get matching tattoos?
No, no, no, no, no.
Because I learned that at a very young age,
as soon as you tattoo something associated
with another person, it's like the fastest
way to get them out of your life.
So no, we did not.
So you don't have Pat on your arm.
No, no.
What did you get?
He got the Chinese symbol for good fortune,
which for somebody who went into finance,
getting good fortune was actually a really,
it ended up being a really good guy.
And I got an Ivy Heart on my hip.
Okay, cool.
Very cool.
So after that, was that it?
You guys were together after that?
So that was March of 1999.
And then I went in August, I studied abroad
for the next four months.
So we dated for about four months, and then
I left for four months.
Where did you go?
Salzburg, Austria.
I lived in Salzburg, Austria.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
So what made you choose Austria?
Well, the University of Redlands has had a
house in Austria for like, at this point,
I think 50 something years, like, I think
it had been 35 years
at the time that I went.
And I think it's been about
55 or 60 years at this point.
And so it's right up
on the Munchburg there.
And then you study one thing independently
that's related to your major.
And then you study art history as a group,
all 35 students do who
live in the house together.
You study German so that you
can speak with the local people.
And you study...
Oh, the head professor that lived in the
house with his family
was a psychology professor.
So he did group therapy with us.
And we just, we would travel
all over Europe while we...
Did you go to Vienna?
Oh, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
Of course.
Yeah.
And we did an Eastern European trip.
We did an Italy trip.
We were actually in Rome and had
Thanksgiving dinner in Rome
at the Four Seasons and we got
the Papel blessing and we went to London
and Paris and Barcelona.
And I was in
Switzerland on St. Nicholas Day.
It was like this magical experience.
Yeah.
That's cool.
I hope my girls choose to study abroad in
college for at least a semester because it
was just, it was life changing for sure.
Did you go to Freud's house at all?
What was the Freudian theme?
I do think we did.
Although more of the focus was on the
Habsburgs and the museums
related to the Habsburgs and
then also, I want to say like the Bauhaus
movement and the Klimt.
I remember seeing a lot of Klimt and I
don't know that we went to Freud's.
It's the one country I want
to go to actually is Austria.
The Christmas markets are so amazing and so
when my children were in second and fourth
grade, I actually took my mother-in-law and
the four of us went and started in Vienna
and went to Salzburg and Innsbruck and
ended in Munich and we went to
Neuschwanstein Castle,
which is like the Cinderella Castle also.
To this day, even though my girls were
young, they've said like
that was just the most magical
experience they could have ever had and I
totally recommend it.
That's amazing and so was that for about
four months you said you did that?
Yeah, yeah.
And how old were you?
So I was 20, so I was legal to drink there
but not able to drink here.
That is amazing.
So that was my husband's
senior year and my junior year.
We broke up during that semester and then
we got back together after I got back and
we've been together ever since.
Did you have any European
boys over there during your year?
I was so heartbroken.
No, I was beyond heartbroken.
In fact, I started journal writing there
and when I look back
and I read through those
journals it was just me
like, "You have to get over him."
But he was the love of my life.
I know it.
I don't know.
I just knew from the
beginning that he was one.
We knew.
So he graduated a year ahead of you then?
But even though I transferred, I ended up
graduating a semester early.
So he only graduated
one semester before me.
He graduated in June and
I graduated in December.
Okay.
And then you said you didn't stay there.
So did you guys move in
together and go somewhere else?
He went back to Sacramento after he
graduated and got a job in
finance up there and then
I chose to get a job back in the very early
tech days of voice over IP company working
in marketing for a VOIP and I
got my own little apartment.
What's that?
What company?
Oh, it was called Utopia.
No, Itopia.
It was called Itopia.
And yeah, I was like...
In college I had done internships at 20th
Century Fox and NBC, but it was NBCI and I
was building web pages for their daytime
television programming.
And so I had enough web
design and like computer...
Because it was really programming language
at that point still to
do that kind of stuff
that I got.
Yeah, I got the job at the startup, but
they folded six months later.
After I started there?
After I moved my life to Sacramento and got
my own apartment, the company, which a lot
of tech companies in 2002 went bellow up.
Yeah, yeah.
So then where did you go?
So then I decided to enter into the teacher
internship program in Sacramento where you
can teach while you
get your teaching degree.
And I became a fourth grade teacher and I
was in, I think my fourth day of teaching
and 22 years old when 9-11 happened.
And standing in front of these kids, I
didn't actually have a degree.
I had very little experience and standing
there and this was the scariest thing ever
could have happened in my life.
I had no context for how to handle it.
And yeah, that was something.
In fourth grade they're old enough to ask
pretty good questions and think about them.
Yeah, I had 43 fourth graders and they were
very, they ranged from
eight years old through
11 years old and they were very, very, and
there were about, about
30% of them were Hmong.
About 30% of them were Hispanic immigrant
families that lived in the area that Hmong
families also were mostly immigrant
families, all working in the
agricultural area surrounding
Sacramento.
And then I had about 30% of my kids were
inner city black kids,
several of them homeless,
unfortunately.
And so they all came from very different
backgrounds than I did.
And yeah, trying to connect with each of
them and communicate with
their parents about what
was going on in the
classroom when I was just a kid.
By the time your day started, we were
probably three, four
hours into the 9-11 event.
Yeah, because we were over in Jersey.
So I actually had been raised in a house
where my parents had the
news on when you got ready
in the morning so that as I became an
adult, I did the same thing.
And I watched on the news, the plane go in
and I immediately like
got in my car and drove
to school.
And I was the first one on
campus when my principal arrived.
And I said, "What are we supposed to do
about what just happened in New York?"
And she hadn't seen it.
She didn't have any idea what had happened.
So she actually started calling the
district and trying to
figure out how we were supposed
to respond.
And yeah, I'll never forget that day.
Did you guys address it in
that day to your students?
Was it addressed?
Yeah, yeah.
It was very fly by the seat of my pants.
I wasn't given any direct message of what
to say or what to do.
The day was probably
the whole week actually.
The rest of the week was just kind of shot.
We had another teacher on our staff who had
gone to Virginia for her sister's wedding
and couldn't come back
because of the no flying.
Yeah.
Well, the world stopped for a while.
It did.
I really...
Our school was closed.
Our school was closed.
I think they didn't go to
school for the rest of that week.
Everyone...
A 50 mile radius of Manhattan at the time.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, of course they closed.
That makes sense.
Well, Brian actually was supposed to be
there that day, but he
rescheduled his meeting with
Lego to September 12th or he would have
been arriving into the bottom of...
The procrastination paid off.
Which tower would you have arrived in?
Tower 100?
I don't know.
Wherever the path was.
Yeah, he would have been
arriving when it all was happening.
So we all...
It's crazy.
And then a day, 24 hours later, you were
with a team that went
in to help set up on the
peer DNA centers because at the time they
were still hoping for survivors.
And so he helped set
up the network for that.
They set up...
It was peer 94 and they...
It was a big peer.
It's like a warehouse and they brought in
curtain partitions and
set up little temporary
cubicles and we set up all the phones and
computer systems, the network systems.
So people could come in with their
toothbrush or brush or
whatever and do interviews and
type all the information
in and stuff like that.
But it was pretty wild.
Unfortunately, there weren't...
It didn't go the way out.
For our area, it was especially traumatic.
It felt like the whole New Jersey, New
York, the whole
Tri-State area felt like one big
small town had just been attacked.
I was always curious how the West Coast, if
you guys felt it as much as we did.
I think I do believe in San Francisco
schools were closed
because there was a belief that
there might be a target of the Golden Gate
Bridge or some
buildings in the San Francisco
Financial District.
But the rest of California, as I understand
it, really just stayed on schedule.
Kids in school was safer than kids not in
school because parents were working.
Everything was still
functioning in the world around us.
Did you guys have the whole September 12th
phenomenon where
everyone had American flags
out?
There was a lot of
patriotism, a lot of unity?
I do remember a lot of patriotism in the
weeks and months and
years that followed, but I
don't remember really there being a lot of
flags right where I was.
My husband and I at the time
lived in a little apartment.
I think it was just a different experience.
Probably people who lived in
more suburban areas than we did.
We were more inner city of Sacramento,
which isn't the same kind
of inner city as New York
or LA.
But still, yeah, we were surrounded by
people who were very
kind of in a transient stage
of life.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Did you continue
teaching or did that scare you?
I finished that year.
I had every intention to continue teaching.
But for anybody familiar with finance,
Sacramento is not the hub
of finance in this world.
My husband really quickly started to see
that there was going to
be a pretty low threshold
for how far his career
could go in Sacramento.
We were still young, and so he started
looking for options elsewhere.
When he got an opportunity at a really good
up and coming firm in Pasadena, he took it.
I hadn't finished my teaching credential at
that point, even though I had been getting
it for a year while teaching.
The state of California doesn't like you to
do that credential at multiple schools.
You do it at one school and
get the degree from that school.
When I said I wanted to move to Southern
California, they said,
"Well, then you either need to
stay here for another year and finish it,
or you need to start all
over again down there."
I had never intended to be a
teacher in the first place.
When we got to Pasadena, there were a lot
more opportunities in marketing.
I went back to marketing and advertising.
Were you guys married at that point?
We got engaged in July of 2001.
And then 9-11 happened in September, and we
got married in March of 2002.
Okay.
Now you're in Pasadena, you're married.
I found a career in
nonprofit marketing and advertising.
All my clients were World Vision, Best
Friends Animal Sanctuary, Operation Smile.
I loved it.
It was all about telling
stories that saved lives.
When the tsunami hit, for 72 hours
straight, just never went
home and just kept working
and raised $50 million
in 72 hours or whatever.
I really loved that.
We were married for five years before we
bought our first home
and our oldest daughter was
born.
That's what I did for those five years.
When you became a mother, did you continue
working or did you become a stay-at-home
mom?
I always thought that I
would because I loved my career.
I thought I'm going to absolutely go back.
We were at a place financially where after,
as we got five weeks
into my maternity leave,
and I had lined up options for childcare
and everything, and we
saw how much that was going
to cost and what my salary was.
It just made sense that I could stay home.
I was like, "Okay, I will
stay home for right now."
I decided to take a leave.
I worked for a company that was very
supportive of like, "Don't worry.
You can come back
whenever you want to come back."
On her first birthday, I started
consulting, again, just
doing part-time work from home,
but I got pregnant with my other daughter
basically at her first birthday.
She was born 21 months apart.
Our girls are 21 months apart.
So then that pretty
much put an end to that.
I really wasn't doing much consulting work
after that when I had two babies at home.
Absolutely.
Then the idea of the plan was, "Well, when
they're both in school full-time, then I'll
go back to work."
I actually was set up to
do that and accepted a job.
Then my niece, my oldest sister has four
daughters, and her second
daughter was having a lot
of problems.
She was a freshman in high school, and they
asked if she could come live with us.
She's the one that's in Minnesota, right?
This is one little aspect of the people
pleaser, the good kid, my
family from a very, very
early age, probably when I was 17, 18 years
old, started making
the joke that WWJD meant
what would Jamie do?
Everything fell to me from about that
stage, 17, 18, to figure it out.
Everybody would turn to me.
I only really have started to fully embrace
and understand this as I've unpacked it in
the last 10 years.
The oldest sister who's 14 years older than
I am, literally one
week into starting another
job for the first time, leaves her
14-year-old daughter to live with us.
I quit that job.
How long had you been
working at the new job before that?
A week.
A week.
It wasn't a nonprofit.
This was a brand new company.
I actually accepted a position at the ...
Our girls were doing
preschool and first grade
at a Christian school in Pasadena.
I accepted a job at that school since I had
some teaching experience and everything.
I was like, "I can have the same hours as
them and everything,"
but then I had to resign
immediately to take care of my niece who
was having issues and
do homeschool with her.
I was going to say, because she would have
been going into high school, but she had to
be homeschooled.
It's extremely generous and just wonderful,
really, that you would do that.
Looking back, I'm really glad that we did
try to help, that my husband was willing.
She lived with us for 99 days.
We joke it's like a rap
song, 99 days in Pasadena.
She was definitely not making progress
because the issues that she
had, especially the psychological
issues she had, were very much with her
parents and were things
that they needed to work out
together.
Everything was just on
pause while she lived with us.
We would have little issues, but for the
most part, she was just buying her time.
We had a good relationship.
She was fine.
She was just buying her time.
It became obvious that it wasn't making the
impact that it needed to make.
We had her in therapy twice a week and the
therapist was like, "We're not making any
breakthroughs here because we're missing
half of the situation
that needs to be addressed."
The normal point, bring her to Jamie and
Jamie, you fix her, and
then you bring her back,
repaired, but we're
not going to participate.
That was exactly how, yeah.
She went back and I got our house back to a
level of normal again
and was ready to start
working again the next
year, the next school year.
Okay, so they said, "We still want you.
Come work for kids."
They said, "You're great.
We love you.
Yes, you're a great family.
We'll give you another job."
That was 2014.
I accepted a job.
I started it in August.
The day before Labor Day, we found out the
people we were renting a house from.
We had outgrown the house we had bought, so
we were renting that house out to somebody
else and renting a house because we
couldn't financially buy a
bigger house at that time.
We're sort of renting.
The people we were renting from, even
though we had another two
years on our lease, they
said that the owner had terminal cancer.
He wanted to liquidate all of his
properties, so we either
needed to buy the property or
just move out.
At that point, we were paying
two private school tuitions.
Pasadena is a wonderful city.
It's very pretty, but it is like 100
private schools and
really terrible public schools.
We had been spending all of our free time
whenever we could get
a chance going to Seal
Beach.
It's about a 35-minute drive from Pasadena.
We were in the northernmost part of Orange
County right across from Long Beach in the
southern part of LA County.
We knew that they had the best public
schools and you could live at the beach.
They actually had affordable houses too
because Pasadena did not
have affordable houses.
There were these bidding wars happening at
that point, and we were getting outbid.
We made the decision.
Again, I started in August, and by middle
of September, we decided we were going to
move.
I had to resign again.
Then at that point, we thought, "Okay, this
is chaotic, but we're
going to make it work.
It's going to be okay, and we're going to
get the kids settled
into public school there."
That's a good situation.
We can afford to make all this work.
We were due to move
November 1st, October 15th.
My mom's mom, I got a call that
she was at the end of her life.
Could I go there?
I was holding her hand on October 15th as
she took her last breath.
I was like, "Okay, I'm two weeks from
moving and I just lost my grandma.
This is heartbreaking."
Then October 30th, I was
sitting at the new house.
They had just finished the termites, had
come off, and they were
turning on the gas, and
I had to be there for that.
I had just enrolled the kids in the new
school, and my cell phone
rings, and my husband on
the other end, I could hear his voice
shaking, and he said, "My dad just died."
It was a complete shock because I told you
he was such an integral
part of that community,
and his dad had not been sick.
His heart just gave up
and completely stopped.
He was 77 years old.
Yeah, 77.
That's still young.
That's still young.
No to younger kids, like anyone younger
than us thinks that's
old, but that's actually
not old, especially if you're active and
you're so vibrant and involved in life.
There's still a lot of life to live.
Science teacher.
He was a science teacher.
He taught community college Spanish.
Even though he was retired, he was still
going into my brother-in-law's classroom.
My brother-in-law is a math
teacher at the high school.
He was helping those kids.
My brother-in-law was the
girls' basketball coach.
He was helping with that because he had
always been a coach of basketball.
He was a special Olympics coach for
swimming and basketball.
They were very involved in their church.
He was in every part of that community,
constantly active, an incredible man.
How long had they been married?
50 years.
They were married 50 years
that year when he was still alive.
Were you also close to him?
Was he a wonderful father-in-law?
He was such a wonderful father-in-law.
It was one of those experiences.
Pat couldn't be there when we moved.
He had to fly and help
his mom plan the funeral.
He came and signed the
final papers at escrow.
I took him and dropped
him off at the airport.
I had to go get our kids and tell them that
grandpa died and dad was going to be gone
for a few days.
Then a week after
moving, Halloween was a Friday.
We moved Saturday.
It started school Monday.
Then Friday, I had to pull them out at noon
so that we could drive
to Northern California
for the funeral on Saturday.
My grandma had just
died and we had just moved.
I was sitting there.
I will never forget.
I refused to put the dirt down at the
graveside because I was
like, "I can't physically make
myself do this.
I'm not ready for him
to not be in our life."
That's an acceptance and I
can't accept that right now.
It took a while.
It's really shocking.
It's an absolute shock.
My dad died in a car accident.
I say the first year, I wasn't even
absorbing anything of what had happened.
It really was the second year.
I always tell people when it's shocking
like that, sometimes
the second year is harder
than the first year.
The first year, just kind of tripped.
What just happened?
Then the second year is
when, "Oh, this is reality."
This is how it is.
It's rough.
Was it just your husband and brother?
Did they have other siblings?
They have a sister who's between them.
My husband was sort of
the unexpected third child.
His siblings are 10 and eight years older
than him and he was a
bonus right before his
mom turned 40.
We have a bonus.
We have a 15.
We have a 28, a 20, almost 25 and a 15.
They're the best.
They get parented by everyone.
They're the most English you've ever heard.
Yeah.
That's my husband for sure.
Yeah.
Man, so you're just
like life is just spinning.
Life is spinning.
We have very little to no
support in our new community.
We hadn't found a church yet or anything.
Trying to get my bearings, trying to meet
people, trying to get the
kids into extracurricular
activities and then another.
Being as young as I was when all the
parents were remarried,
that meant that I really had
eight grandparents growing up.
My step grandparents were very involved in
my life because I was this little baby that
just showed up in their life.
My stepmom's mother had been a very
important part of my life growing up.
She lived in Orange County also.
I got to see her pretty regularly.
As regularly as I saw my dad and my
stepmom, whenever I saw
them, it was a holiday and
Grandma Vera was there too.
As I became an adult and she was a widow
living by herself, I
would take my kids to go visit
her, to go take her to the pharmacy and do
some grocery shopping, go out to lunch with
her.
When we moved to Orange County from
Pasadena, that made that even easier.
We didn't have much in our community.
I started doing that once or twice a week
taking my kids there.
Well, then January of 2015, so we're
talking three months
later, she goes on hospice and
passes away.
We lost three people in the first three
months at the same time that we moved.
That really was the
beginning of six years of this.
It was just loss after loss after loss
because I told you my
sister Christina died at age
50 of ALS.
She was diagnosed at 43.
For seven years, she had the slow decline
and she lived in Orange County.
Part of moving to Orange County was that I
could be there closer to help her.
She had three kids.
As her husband was working and she was no
longer able to drive, I would go pick them
up and take them on driving lessons or I
would do whatever I could to help.
She passed away in 2019.
My biological father had
another stroke in 2011.
He had a stroke when he
was working part-time.
He was living in upstate
Pennsylvania and he had a stroke.
He ended up moving back
to Southern California.
His wife had stayed in Southern California
the whole time and he would just fly back
and forth.
Then he eventually came back and he started
his body just quickly,
started shutting down.
In 2015, so we moved to 2014, September
2015, my dad was
hospitalized and for four months
he was in the hospital less
than a mile from my house.
Every single day I was taking my kids to
school and then I'd go to the hospital and
my stepmom would have me there talking to
the nurses and doctors and then he passed
away in January of 2016.
All of this at the same time,
my stepfather had Parkinson's.
He and his daughter, she was diagnosed with
ALS the exact same
year that he was diagnosed
with Parkinson's.
Now that's all happening and my mom is
dealing with my
stepdad who has Parkinson's.
Then as he would be hospitalized after my
dad died, then it was, "Okay, now we need
you to come deal with these doctors at this
hospital and help with these surgeries and
deal with helping with your sister too."
You were told that.
You got two girls.
Well, yeah.
I've got two little kids.
Little kids.
I mean, when we moved they were in
kindergarten and second grade.
So yeah, they were little
and I would get them to school.
I would go deal with the hospital.
I would come back and get them to swim
lessons and then we'd
make dinner and then we'd do
homework and I'd get them to bed and then
we'd get up the next morning and I'd go do
it all again.
Then I'd be a room mom at the same time and
I'd be on the PTA and
all of this is happening
from 2014 through 2020.
My stepdad passed away January of 2020 and
then the world shut down in March of 2020.
Yeah, exactly.
Those six years, that's
what my life looked like.
It was being a mom to little kids and
running around like a
chicken with my head cut off,
helping with whoever was sick and needing
help with doctors and
whatever for six years
until they died and then planning the
funeral and then going on to the next one.
It was just an overhead of
life in general for your own self.
Well, you probably don't even consider it
part of the mix, but it's happening either
way.
When you're in that state,
yourself gets put way back.
I mean, you were
sandwich generation on steroids.
Like
it never ended.
It never ended of
having to care for someone.
The oldest sister,
remember, was in Minnesota.
She was not engaged.
She would come home for a
funeral and then go back.
The second oldest was sick
and so she couldn't help.
Then there was my brother who never really
connected and always
felt a bit like the black
sheep and kind of on the outside.
So he was no help either.
I think the four months that our dad was in
the hospital, he visited him one time.
I mean, one time in those four months.
So it really, it really was.
What would Jamie do?
Jamie's going to fix this.
Jamie's going to talk to the doctors.
Jamie's going to tell us
when hospice is necessary.
Jamie's going to tell
us how to handle this.
Yeah, it fell on you because you have two
siblings who are kind
of no contact estranged
from their parents.
Everyone is sick and then you and you've
been the peeper pleaser.
You've been the high achiever.
You're the one that is, I always say the
most compliant children
are the ones you have to
worry about the most.
They're the ones that are struggling
because everyone's like, oh, they're fine.
They're fine.
Don't worry about that.
Nobody's checking in on them.
Nobody at all.
Actually, sometimes people are shocked
because unfortunately, when
these high achieving teenagers
kill themselves and people are like, what's
what they had everything, you know, they
seem perfect and they're
they're literally like dying inside.
And so I'm always like, you got to got to
check in on those kids because they're you
can't assume they're OK.
Like the ones that are in their head,
they're in their head.
Yeah, you have to.
So for you, I'm I only I assume like Jamie
was put completely like Jamie didn't exist
and you were just in and what's it called
autopilot and grinding.
I've been really lucky
throughout all of this.
My husband's number one goal was always to
do what he could to help me.
So he he was always like,
OK, what do you need from me?
Even though he was working 80 hours a week
in a finance job, he was like, what can I
do for you?
Do you want weekly massages?
You want a gym membership?
You want what can I do?
How can I help?
So he was like, I will have housekeepers to
help clean the house while you're dealing
with this.
I had one person who was always looking out
for me, getting me to a place where I could
actually prioritize
myself and really put my needs.
All these other emergencies had to stop.
And really, it wasn't until July of twenty
twenty when the whole world had been shut
down and it didn't look like there was
really any any upswing coming anytime soon.
Everybody kind of I couldn't go be anywhere
anymore and everybody had kind of died at
that point that we expected to die.
And so I finally started that July.
I decided to do
watercolor and I started to paint.
I had never been an artist really before.
I had always been kind of crafty.
I'd been creative.
I'd been a DIY or, you
know, my dad was a contractor.
So I have the tools in the house.
I can put things together
and fix things or whatever.
But but I started to create again for the
first time in more than a decade.
I just had not created
anything as somebody who's a writer.
I'm I'm a creative person in that regard.
And and I started painting watercolor and I
started to feel that like that release of
all that tension and stress.
I started to feel my breath come back to a
normal state by just sitting there and
meditatively painting watercolor and
focusing on something
beautiful and not focusing on
any of the chaos around me.
It was like I could like breathe.
I guess it was amazing.
It was so wonderful.
And you honored yourself and you allowed
yourself to kind of
reenter your body and be present.
Yes, exactly.
And I think it's amazing you just quote
unquote picked up
watercolor speaking to someone who's
not I do right.
But I'm not artistic at all.
You're not artistic
and none of our kids are.
So we're not an artistic family.
So the idea of just being able to pick up
watercolor sounds so foreign to me.
So you have to have some I mean, did you
not draw anything growing up?
Did you not know you could do this?
I was a doodler and I I was you know, like
when the girls were
little they would be coloring
and I would be writing them a children's
book and like sketching little things like
little illustrations for it.
But I mentioned my grandma had a master's
in fine art from Cornell.
Yeah.
And my mom's twin sister is an English
teacher, but she was also
an artist for a very long
time like in galleries and things.
And so and even my oldest step sister was
an artist in her throughout her 20s.
She actually one of she got she was like
the career college student.
She went to college for like 10 years and
one of her degrees was in art.
And so I had art around me all the time.
And I just never considered myself an
artist because I hadn't taken art classes.
I just I you know, I took an arts and
crafts class my senior
year when I ran out of classes
to take and I had to be on
campus for periods, you know.
And so I just didn't
consider myself artistic.
I was just always crafty.
And then, yeah, once I sat down and started
doing these tutorials online, these free
tutorials on YouTube, it just I I did it
once every two weeks and
then I did it once a week.
And then I started painting once a day.
And then I was painting
several hours every day.
I set up a desk in the garage and I and I
was bringing joy to my family because I was
I was lighter and more relaxed.
And I started putting my art just all over
the walls for something colorful to look at
during covid when we
couldn't leave the house.
And by by January of twenty twenty one,
that creative spark
reignited my desire to write
again.
And I by May of twenty twenty one, I had
applied to grad school.
I ended up going and getting my master's
online over the next 15 months.
And by the end of that 15 months, I had
written the first 10,000
words of the novel that I
have published earlier this year.
It took sitting down and giving myself
permission to do something
that I loved again, just like
way back when I left UCLA.
And I said, I'm done
living for somebody else.
I need to do this for me.
I finally did it again.
It just took, you know, 20 years.
It was probably covid was probably pretty
good for you then
because it stopped the world,
especially right in Southern California.
Yes, or that we joke that covid never
happened because we're back.
But you guys kind of shut down.
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I just think, first
of all, in general,
women, we don't give ourselves
permission to be present for just us to
selfishly be present for us
to find out what do we like?
What are our outlets?
So it's already hard enough under normal
circumstances to do what you did.
But then coming off of this tornado of
grief and trauma and sickness
and death spiritually had to
have completely just been such a struggle
emotionally, mentally, just
everything physically for sure.
I mean, did you get an
autoimmune disease during all this?
Because that's a recipe
for an autoimmune disease.
I didn't. So I did have the support of my
husband and the insight to
seek out a very good psychologist.
And I did a lot of cognitive behavioral
therapy and even some MDR and
really worked through a lot of it.
And that's where I started to understand
and recognize some of the habits that were
formed in my family
around putting things on me.
So I mentioned my stepdad was was passed
away in January of 2020.
Well, my mom is then a widow during covid
locked in her house by herself.
And she is sinking deeper and deeper into
alcoholism because of her
loneliness and isolation.
And she ended up getting scammed out of
pretty much all of
their retirement savings.
We're talking six hundred and fifty
thousand dollars taken from
her before we discovered it.
And when we discovered it and we really we
intervened and because we had no reason to
believe that any of this was going on.
There was no no reason. Her twin sister was
aware that she was on her phone all the
time, that people were constantly.
But she didn't alert any of us. My brother
only discovered it when
they were on a trip in Alaska.
They had arrived and he heard my mom's
phone going off constantly, constantly.
He's like, who are you
talking to? What is going on?
And before they did a drive where they
wouldn't have access, she
said, I need to go to a notary.
I have to sign
something at a notary right now.
He's like, what? We're in Alaska.
Why do you need to go to know? She's like,
oh, it's it's nothing big.
Don't worry. And he then
he's like, give me your phone.
And he started to see what was happening.
And it was one of her last remaining
accounts that she was trying to shut down
and hand over all the money to
somebody who was scamming it.
It was it was so it was
everything was on the news.
It was I'm on an oil rig.
I can't access my money.
I love you so much. We're
going to be together forever.
It was the whole romance.
Yeah, I think I'm familiar. Right.
I feel like I saw that on social media,
like people were talking about.
There's mills in Indonesia
that are doing this. Yeah.
It was even the picture that they were they
were circulating the picture on the news of
this former military guy that
they were using his picture.
And that was the same picture. I mean, they
had and she watches the news and she fell
for it hook, line and sinker.
And then so when we intervened and we got
her to get sober and we started to discuss
that somebody needed to be put in charge of
her finances, she admitted.
She's like, well,
that's Jamie. And like, what?
And that's when I got to look at the trust
and see that when I was 17, turning 18
years old, that summer after I graduated
high school in 1997, my mom and my stepdad
went to Tahiti for two weeks.
And right before they left,
they made their living trust.
And even though I was 18 and I had a sister
that was 32, a sister that was 28, a
brother that was 22, they named me as the
one who needed to be in charge.
And that's what I had to unpack during
covid when I was in those therapy sessions.
I had to unpack like, why was I always the
go to of dump it on Jamie?
If if the shit hits the fan, it's Jamie's
problem to deal with from the as soon as I
was an adult, it started.
And I had to really like when I started to
really unpack that and started painting
watercolor and started
taking time back for myself,
I had to start establishing boundaries
around how I could possibly handle moving
forward now with two widowed moms and a
widowed mother-in-law and two teenage
daughters, like young
preteens at that point.
And it really to this day is something that
I still on a daily basis before I got on
this call with you, I was with my stepmom
because she has cancer and we're going
through her paperwork
with City of Hope and trying
to figure out the care and what.
And I still am struggling on a daily basis
to figure out how to balance this this
relationship of caring for my kids, caring
for these aging parents and finding time
for myself because it's just it feels
impossible some days.
I think it's 100 percent the greatest
challenge or one of the greatest challenge
for women, but especially Gen X women right
now, because we are right there.
What you're talking
about, we are right there.
Your situation is very extreme of what a
lot of Gen X women deal with.
But I always say boundaries are self-care.
But we were never ever
allowed to have a boundary.
I mean, if we even thought
of it, people were offended.
If we wanted to reclaim anything for
ourselves, like it was expected for us to
be selfless, it was expected of us to give
and to not think of ourselves.
And so to even try to claim boundaries now
could also still trigger people close to
us, because when you set boundaries, the
people that have been
crossing them, they don't like that.
Yep. Yeah, it can trigger a
whole a whole bunch of stuff.
And then you didn't really know what
that's, you know, so did you
did you get to any answers?
Because everything you just said, there
were other children in the mix, but they
chose Jamie to be the one to do it.
All right. Did you find any
answers or discover anything?
And so why they chose her? Yeah.
Really, my my mom's explanation to me
because my stepdad was already gone was
just that at that point when I was going to
go to UCLA and I was going to be a lawyer
or a doctor, they just saw me as the
greatest promise of all four kids of the
most likely to succeed, the most likely to
figure it all out for them, the most
trustworthy of the four to handle it.
Yeah, we would always have been though.
She had always been that
like she'd been the good girl.
She had been the pleaser.
And so that was the older role.
The older two had
little babies at that point.
So my first my oldest sister, my first
niece was born when I was a senior in high
school and my other sister, her her first
was born when I was a freshman in college.
So it was at that point that they were
starting to have their babies.
And my parents, I think, also said, well,
they're going to have too much on their
plate if something happens.
They've got babies to deal with.
So Jamie doesn't Jamie
Jamie can deal with this.
But then even when you did have babies, it
was still Jamie can do it.
It was it was you were.
Christina was sick.
You were always in your role.
You were put in the role and
it was just expected of you.
And so it's amazing that you had the
wherewithal to go to
therapy during all this.
And of course, that you
have such a supportive husband.
That's huge.
But just the fact that you were able to
because what you did and
are doing is healing yourself.
The fact that you started this healing
journey, you saved yourself because I'm
sure you were drowning.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And some days those boundaries that I've
set are immediately jumped over.
They, you know, they
die right into my life.
And I have to I have to recognize when old
habits are popping in and I'm
just I'm just fixing things.
And I need to like, no, no, no, no, no.
We're going to pull
those boundaries back again.
It's a daily challenge because this was
only in the last five years
that I really learned to do this.
And life didn't stop being hard.
I mean, my my stepdad
passed away in January of 2020.
Well, my mother in law had a stroke this
past October and she
passed away in January.
My stepmom's cancer
has just been discovered.
My mom's twin sister has cancer.
And so she's you know, my mom's really
emotional about all of that.
And and we had my mom had
no money to keep paying.
She was in a four thousand square foot
house on five acres and she didn't have
money to pay those bills.
Her Social Security
certainly wasn't doing it.
So my husband and I were covering the
difference until she agreed to move.
And I've been managing her finances for
five years now and really
making them last as long as possible.
And really, I have to on a daily basis,
like discuss with her budgets and like how
to not spend money willy nilly because she
for so long, my stepdad
owned his own business.
They had plenty of money.
They it was never an issue.
And so she never developed those habits of
being physically responsible, even though
my husband has a successful career.
And we have plenty of money.
He was raised in farm country in Northern
California with, you know,
a teacher and a librarian.
He always was fiscally responsible.
And that's the household that we've lived
in for our whole marriage for twenty three
years is being fiscally responsible.
And so me, you know, me, my relationship
with my mom at this
point is really contentious.
I loved her and had such a close
relationship that I
named my daughter after her.
And now she's in early stages of dementia,
all that drinking plus family history.
She's really, you
know, starting to decline.
And it's like having a teenager in a lot of
ways, her impulsivity and irresponsible
choices that she makes.
Thank God she's still sober.
But I'm, you know, I'm not going to kid
myself that that's necessarily going to
always be the case
because I don't live with her.
She refused to move here
because her twin sister is dying.
And so she wants to be close to her.
And so we're it's just it's
there out where I grew up.
So about 75 miles from
here, which is just long enough.
Yeah. But you're having to manage her from
she is far enough where she can
get herself into some trouble.
Yes. Yes. I worry about her with driving
when I when I happened to be driving it on
the same street with her.
And I see her and she does something that
I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my goodness.
You almost got killed just now. What are
you doing? Yeah. Yeah.
So she's there and she she lives alone.
She does. And she lives in a in a
retirement community, but in her own home.
My brother is all of
10 miles from her and he
has not taken the responsibility.
And so it's still like you said, life is
didn't get any easier.
You're still in it, that
you're still in the ocean of it.
It's just that in in the midst of the
storm, you know, with your husband's help,
throwing you that that lifeline of just I'm
here, I'm here, I'm here.
But invariably, it's up to you to save you
to really save yourself and to set those
boundaries and and boundary setting.
I tell my daughter this especially because
I try to everything I've learned.
I'm like, I want you to know this much
earlier. And she's almost 25.
Boundary setting is a skill that just like
exercise, just like, you know, all the
things we have to work on.
It's not something like, oh, I set
boundaries. Now they're
set. Everything's fine.
It's something like you said daily has to
be reset, reset,
especially when it's midlife.
Like you're not quite midlife like I am.
But when it happens, when you've lived your
whole life with no boundaries,
it's it's really creating a
whole new life for yourself.
So it's it's a whole new playing field and
it has to be acknowledged every single day
or else you get lost in the ocean again.
Yeah, yeah. So exactly.
So my stepmom really leaned in in 2015 to
me helping with my dad
in the hospital every day.
And she didn't have to really accept the
responsibility of
understanding all the doctor stuff.
And now that she's sick and by herself,
she's like, no, Jamie, come on.
This is your job. You need to.
And so I've really had to be like, OK,
let's be really clear.
Let's talk about how I can be most helpful
in and still keep up my
my responsibilities because I have a life.
I write. I'm marketing a book.
I am visiting my daughter in New York City.
I'm a mom to my 16 year old who's here in
the house and a junior in high school.
I I'm not I'm not doing
this on a daily basis with you.
I love you very much.
I care very much about your, you know,
hopefully ability to heal
and put this behind you.
But we need to have really clear
understanding of how I'm going to help.
And and yeah, every day that those
conversations come up and she can be very
emotionally manipulative.
My mom can be very emotionally
manipulative, just
sobbing because I'm an empath.
As I said, I was always
that bleeding heart liberal.
Yeah, they definitely.
But Jamie, you're the
one who understands this.
I need you. I can deal
with this without you.
Yeah, I have a whole thing about empathy
because I'm also an empath.
And I learned for myself that I have to
save my empathy for certain situations and
certain people in my life,
probably meeting my
children and my husband and my mom.
She lives with me and my dogs.
But I'm going through life, feeling empathy
for for everyone and every situation I
learned completely
drained my my energy, my soul.
It's it caused so much internal stress
because I wasn't holding any emotional
boundaries for myself because I was
literally going through
everyone's life experience with them and
carrying the baggage of what they were
going through along with
what I was going through.
So with each person I took their OK, now
I'm going to take your emotional.
I'm feeling everything they're feeling.
And so what I learned to do in order to
save myself was I lean on sympathy where
you can go through it
with someone and compassion.
But I've had to really recognize, OK,
you're you're falling into
their experience too much.
This is their experience.
This is not your experience.
You've got to pull yourself back or you're
going to be drained like you used to be.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
And I heard you say
that in a recent episode.
I think that was maybe
your Charlie Kirk episode.
And I that absolutely resonated with me.
I also, though, I don't know if this
resonates with you, but being a child
through all of this
this trauma my whole life,
I am naturally very calm and level headed
in the midst of chaos.
And so somebody like my stepmom wants me to
be there because I don't look like an
empath in that situation.
I'm not crying with her.
She'll be a crying mess.
And I am very focused on then clearheaded
and figuring it out
and solving the problem,
because that is what I was trained to do my
whole life for survival in this weird
situation that I was raised in.
Right. And so it is it's much more the
emotional toll after
the adrenaline goes away.
And like what even when the girls were
little and the kids were put in bed.
And then I would like just I would just
like break down like and that's what my
husband would be there for me for.
And so learning to to breathe through it
and to not be in that chaos all the time,
but to really separate
myself from it as much as I can.
So like, you know, how about I help you to
my stepmom with the
portal from my own house?
I can I can log in and I can look at things
and figure some things out.
But I don't need to be
right there with you.
Like I don't you don't
need me present for that.
Really trying to set boundaries literally
around the amount of time that I am in the
chaos is the best way that I actually help
that sort of emotional empath side of me.
Yes, during the middle of it, I'm not in
their experience at all.
And I don't think I would have survived my
childhood if I was in the experience of
these parents who are screaming at each
other on the side of a freeway
as they change cars from on Christmas Day
from one to the you know, like I I couldn't
be in the I had I literally would just shut
down and go to sleep in the car.
And like I would just go to sleep to turn
it all off as my own act.
So much of that. Yeah.
And so that's yeah, that's
I agree with the sympathy.
And yet at the same time, I think there's
there's still an
emotional toll no matter what.
It just doesn't that
how the adrenaline of the.
For sure. But you just nailed it because
it's funny you said that because I I'm
great under pressure.
Like if there's if there's an if someone is
someone's hurt like if we're talking
emergency situation when I'm the most calm
because you just got the
hands you just emotionally.
Yeah. And in fact, and this isn't an
emergency situation, but last Thanksgiving
or two things, giving ago, I was making one
of those sweet potato casseroles and I had
marshmallows on top and I forgot about it.
I put the boil on just to brown it.
But of course, as most a lot of us in the
kitchen, we're doing in the last, I always
say the last 30 minutes before you put
everything on the table.
It's one of the most top five most
stressful moments of everyone's life ever.
And unless you've done
that, you don't understand.
So it was one of those in the oven.
We open it up and it's on fire.
And Brian's like running around like a
chicken with his head cut off
like, oh, and I was like, no, no.
But you know, you were.
And I just was like, oh, it's on fire.
And I shut it.
And then he's kind of
like, what are we doing?
I'm like, no, it'll just
because it doesn't get air.
It'll just turn off the oven.
Yeah.
Cut the oxygen off.
And then and then everyone's like, and I
hope that I was impressed.
If I'm usually the common
one, too, that one threw me off.
I didn't like what the hell do we do here?
Those emergency situations.
But it's because we grew up
disconnecting in the chaos.
So we actually go into that mode and we're
like, OK, I know how to do this.
My my humanity switches off.
I'm just going to go right to, you know,
going through the motions.
But and and what you
said about losing it after.
Yes, that's that's that's so right on that.
You know, I've cried alone
in a bathroom so many times.
I can't even tell you any time.
So many times sitting on the floor leaning
against the door sobbing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Once you can breathe. Yeah.
Yeah. Once you can breathe.
I'm sorry.
No, I was just I think you're the word you
said that stood out to me
as you've trained for this,
meaning that chaos.
I've been training for this.
It's my time to shine in a sense.
Yeah, when that happens and you've been
training since you were two.
She knows one or two. Yeah, I just I mean,
the fact that you're so
I'm just so impressed that every everything
that you had going on,
that you still were able to start water
coloring and and just
take that step for yourself.
It's so impressive and that you honored
yourself in that moment.
And I'm sure therapy did help.
But still, you had to do it.
You had. Yeah.
I don't know if the perfect storm could
have existed in any other
way because you're right.
In in Southern
California, everything shut down.
California was like you are locked down.
And so for the first time in my husband's
career, never before that
could somebody who worked
in finance work from home.
That did not happen because the proprietary
information like the client
could never even take it on a zip drive.
They had computers at work that stayed at
work and nothing came home with you.
And so he would stay at work for 15 hours
rather than him home.
Right. And then suddenly, March 13th.
Now you're working in
our bedroom 20 hours a day.
And our kids are in their bedrooms.
Yeah. And I'm not
driving people all around.
And I actually had no idea.
But in at Christmas time, we bought a brand
new puppy that came home March 7th.
So we ended up with a pandemic puppy
without knowing we were
having a pandemic puppy.
So he was like yappy and needed to be dealt
with to keep them able
to do all their Zoom calls and everything.
So I needed.
So I was walking seven miles a day with him
listening to podcasts.
And I was exhausted.
I was so drained and exhausted
from these six years of loss.
And now the world is literally like there
were there were all the BLM protests
and there were fires
happening all over the country.
And and people people had lost their minds.
And so I think that it was it was a total
salvation, like a self-preservation
mechanism of mine to click on that.
Let's let's sit in the garage and paint
watercolor because I need.
Yeah, I need to survive.
Nothing in the rest of the world is telling
me that that's possible.
But I can do this right
now and it's going to be OK.
And my puppy can be at my feet and it's not
nobody's going to be bothered.
And it's going to be OK.
It was total self-preservation.
Yeah, mom's going to be in the garage.
Let me do my thing.
But can we just take a moment?
Because how old were you
during all this from 2014 to 2020?
How old were you?
At 2014, I was thirty six.
All right. Thirty five.
Thirty five. OK, so thirty five.
And forty right. Forty forty one.
OK, so you were right.
I'm forty six now.
So in the last five years, since forty one
is when I've really changed
and like started setting boundaries and got
my master's and all the things.
Yeah. OK. Amazing.
But also there is definitely
you could have been starting some
perimenopause stuff during that time, too,
because period around thirty seven and its
average is early 40s.
And that's when women start having all this
other stuff going on.
And half the time they don't even know why.
Like, you know, having trouble, sleep,
anxiety, depression,
like putting on weight,
all these different things.
You could have been having
some hormonal stuff going on, too.
But so much was going on.
You probably wouldn't even
recognize it at the time.
It's possible.
I also, though, have had
an IUD for like 15 years.
So that has helped
with a lot of the payment.
I don't have really any of those symptoms
because that small amount of hormones that
come through the IUD have really helped.
I don't I don't suffer yet.
I hope I won't.
Huge because I think about
everything you were going through.
So that's another tool that
probably helped was that you had
you had, quote unquote,
hormone replacement therapy
without even getting
hormone replacement therapy.
Like you had that helping you.
Thank God. Because I've been like that
would have been, you know, crazy
if you were also dealing with that, too.
But now are the watercolors behind you?
Did you do those?
Oh, yeah, those were really early ones.
I like I like to have
them sort of as a reminder.
Because as I said, I
started in July of 2020
and those were all tutorials that I was
doing by January of 2021.
I had painted this is my dog Blondie.
I painted this portrait of her.
I was doing my own compositions and my
Mother's Day of 2021.
I did this rose that's covered.
I wanted to learn how
to paint a water drop.
And that is covered in
like thousands of water drops.
So I spent my Mother's Day sitting there
painting thousands of water
drops on this giant rose.
So I like to keep those to
remind myself that like, you know,
where there's a will, you
can you can figure out the way.
Like if you want to
learn, you'll be able to do it.
And so those were early but
transformative in my creating my,
you know, artistic style and believing that
no matter how many hours
it would take, I could
figure it out and do it. And yeah.
I mean, if that's that's the beginner.
Yeah, this. Yeah, this is
I was six months into my journey.
So it's Jamie. Yeah, I know.
Exactly. But it was that are listening.
She's got some of her
watercolors behind her.
If you watch on YouTube,
you'll be able to see it.
But I can see the
droplets actually on the rose.
Did you do the cover of your book, too?
I did. Yeah.
So there's the
droplets to get a better idea.
Beautiful, beautiful.
So have you had to be hard?
It takes a little time, but once you
figured it out, it's like the same
basically the same technique
over and over and over again.
So where did the
watercolor journey take you?
Was it something that you just kept in your
garage or did you expand?
Did you share it with people?
Yeah, so I was painting so prolifically
that I would start giving them to people.
Yeah, I would.
I'd make everybody's
birthday cards out of watercolor.
I started doing a lot of that.
And then by the time I was actually like
seeking out publishers for my book,
I knew that I needed to
like have a website and stuff.
So at that point, I
decided to start making products
like note cards from some of my paintings
and putting them on a website
and just starting to get some videos online
of me painting and things like that,
just to get a sort of name for myself.
So like all of those handles on like
Instagram and TikTok or Jamie gets creative
because I was I was using my watercolor to
build a little bit of a following
as I was trying to get my book published
and then getting it published
and started marketing it.
Yeah, I did.
I get all my best ideas
when I'm walking the dogs.
Yeah, we have two dogs.
So I I was on a walk at one point and like
I just got this vision
in my head of what I
wanted it to look like.
Because the book is set in the 90s.
I wanted it to have very like bright colors
and like also sort of a tiny bit
of like a vintage feel, but like clean
lines and everything.
And so I had learned Canva
already and I just came home
and like started putting it together.
And and then when I actually was going
through the publishing process,
I did work with a cover designer and I she
gave me 10 different covers.
And I said, I'm sorry, I
don't like any of them.
I like mine better.
And so she actually like
touched up my design and made it.
You know, she she did like the tie into the
back and like she she formally
made it into a cover, but I did
the artwork from the beginning.
It's amazing.
I mean, you truly are an artist.
You really are an artist.
And it's so impressive.
And it has to have been so cool.
Did you sell some of your stuff?
Have you sold like the
note cards or any of that?
Yeah, yeah, I have.
I've sold I've sold quite a bit and I've
participated even in some art fairs
and art shows and it's just it's fun
because life is still hard.
I don't put a lot of energy
into marketing that stuff.
I just have it available.
And as events come up
that fit into our schedule,
I'll participate in an
art show or something.
But I don't I really have
wanted to keep the watercolor.
I call it like pure for me.
I do what I feel inspired to do.
I paint what I want to paint
just because I want to paint it.
So people often ask if they
can commission artwork from me.
And I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.
I don't want you to sit here and tell me
what you want me to paint.
So the only commissioning
I've ever allowed to happen is
I donate pet portraits to
different organizations.
So like 826 LA, there's
eight to sixes all over.
They work with inner city
kids on writing and getting their
resumes ready,
applying to college and stuff.
So I have donated pet portraits that and so
then they they auction them off
and I will do a pet
portrait, whoever wins that option.
And same thing with the girls
when they were in the
basketball program to the high school,
I would donate each year
one or two pet portraits.
And so that's the closest I've ever come to
commissioning artwork
because I like animals and I like seeing
their sweet personalities.
And so I'm like, OK, I'll do this.
But I have really strict like this is the
size it's going to be.
You can only have one
animal in it like I might.
And basically you get what you get.
Yeah, that's not your dictation.
Yeah, that's so very clear, though, like
you're donating it almost for charity
or it's a you know, it's
volunteering of your time.
So it stays along those same lines of
you're keeping it still in that space.
So yeah, I just really
I like the watercolor
to be for like nourishing my soul.
I really like it to be something that
inspired that I get inspired
and I sit down and I want to paint and I do
a lot of painting on vacations
or like I'll take a picture of a sunset
when I'm, you know, out
and I will go in and paint it.
But I I don't want I don't want
to make it so that my painting
becomes something that I have to do in
order to earn an income.
I'm blessed. I'm really very blessed that I
don't have to do that.
I know not everybody has
that level of privilege,
but I'm grateful that I that I do and that
I can set that boundary for myself
because it really does
feel like it's just mine.
And it's just my food for my soul.
Right. Your outlet. Yeah.
Yeah. And you've set a boundary around it.
You cherish it and you protect it.
And so I'm I'm sure you don't have an issue
setting that boundary.
You probably fight that
when you're like, absolutely.
I can't pass this one.
You know, you're willing to fight for that.
Yeah, not every day can I
paint for hours and hours.
Like I did during COVID.
But like one of my my boundaries is that
every day I do a sketch
and I color it in my little sketchbook.
And that's like 15 to 20 minutes every
single day, even Christmas day.
Like this is an exercise that I like am
really strict about doing for me.
And then I also write my three journal
pages every single day.
It doesn't matter what is
happening in the rest of the world.
If I can do those two things,
I can do them on an airplane.
I can do them anywhere I am.
And like that is protected.
And I start my day
that way every single day.
That's amazing.
Set me off on the path of like what's
important to me will matter today,
no matter what else
happens the rest of the day.
You're getting to yourself.
It's so you're honoring yourself.
I love that.
That's it's so important.
And it's something we could all learn, men
and women, but especially women.
We give so much of ourself that like you
just said, even if you're
you make sure and give yourself 15 to 20
minutes a day just for you
because it sets the tone and it probably
helps you then continue to do that
for the rest of the day
and exercise the boundaries.
Exactly.
No, I was just thinking I it
has to also be like that relief.
Now you can fill back up, but then you go
paint or you go right.
And it's out.
You've released it from your mind or body.
And right. I assume so.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Especially the journal writing.
That's that's something that Julia or Julia
Cameron always in the artist way.
She really pushes the
three pages of journal writing.
And it's not going to be your good writing
that you do when you're
when you want to sit down
and write, like write, write.
That's not your journal.
Your journal is to clear the mind.
It's to really just
get all that garbage out.
And so, yeah, if if something happens to
me, I am told my family, like,
please just burn the journals because
there's a lot of rage on the page in there.
There's a lot of complaining about all the
appointments that are going to fill
up the rest of my day and well, this is
just how today's going to go.
And I'm going to probably only do this
little sketch and nothing else
creative the rest of the day,
but like I get it out there.
And that is so like you said, that is so
important for just clearing out
like my feelings about this
chaotic world I'm in matter.
And my my ability to
process it is more possible.
And I can approach everything with more
calm, rational responses
because I've given space to
how I feel about all of it.
And I've given space to my creative needs,
even when the chaos is still around us.
Even when I am going to a funeral that day,
I still paint in the morning.
Like, it's still happening.
You know, it's just I love it.
I love it.
Are all of your paintings, are they bright
and say colorful and cheerful?
Or do you have any that are kind of dark
and, you know, that type of thing?
It's funny that you say that.
So I do lean very bright
and cheerful and colorful.
I do a lot of beach landscapes.
I love California beach landscapes.
And
but when I was writing the book and I
decided to give my main character
watercolor also to deal with her trauma
that she's going through in it,
I was very much in the mindset of a bitter,
frustrated teenage girl.
And I found part of my exercise in writing
was really like doing some of the things
she was doing, you know,
when she would eat, drink Mr.
Pibb and eat a nutter butter like I would
do that so that I could really describe it
and like go through the sensation of it.
And same thing when she was
painting, I would be painting.
And so some dark things really
did come out during that time.
And I have that work to
sort of accompany the book.
And I've shared some of it, like I have a
Pinterest board and things like that
when I was coming up
with some of the ideas.
And so I've shared some of it.
And yeah, it just I have
to get into that mindset.
And usually because my my watercolor is
such a precious thing to me that I really
I want it to be a joyful experience.
And I tend to be drawn to paint things that
are bringing me more color,
light, happiness, joy,
rather than the dark stuff.
The dark stuff ends up
in the journal pages.
And it's a balance.
You're balancing
yourself with the watercolor.
OK, so let's talk about the book.
It's called Absorbed.
Yes. So when when did this start?
I know you said you started the first
10,000 words after you the watercolor
led led you to that.
It gave you the bridge to get to that point
and spark your writing again.
So what happened from there?
So I started the book literally.
I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii for my
grandmother, my dad's mom's funeral.
We were spreading her ashes
because she had just died.
And it was my last term of college.
I had six weeks to get
these 10,000 words written.
And my oldest daughter was beginning her
sophomore year of high school.
And my youngest daughter
was beginning eighth grade.
And school was starting the next day.
Literally, we were leaving on the plane to
get home and get them into school.
And I said, I need to write what I know.
That's the only way that 10,000 words that
make any sort of logical sense are going
to come out of me is
if I write what I know.
I was like, OK, well, what do I know?
Well, I love music.
My husband and I, when we started dating,
started going to all these
concerts, punk rock concerts.
And we still to this day
go to concerts all the time.
And we are really we
love the music of the 90s.
I'm like, OK, I know that I
was a lifeguard in the 90s.
And one, you know, some of my favorite
movies were like Taddie Shack and like I
loved 90210 and I loved
like Dawson's Creek and I loved Clueless.
And so I was like, OK, I can do this.
I could write a story about
like a teenage girl in the 90s
because I'm surrounded by teenage girls
also with two teenagers at the time.
I have teenage girls all around me.
I could write about a teenage girl in the
90s and it could be like Baywatch meets
Clueless at the community pool.
And so I just gave me like all these ideas
they just started generating.
And so I just I started making
like a scrapbook of ideas, like pulling
pictures off the Internet
of who, you know, who would look like which
characters would look like what?
Who did they want to be when they grew up?
What kind of cars did they drive?
You know, what kinds of food did they like?
What did they, you know,
fight about all these things?
And it just it generated so many ideas.
And I really was drawn to
the idea of of telling a story
that touched on the topics that are
pertinent to teenagers now.
But we're very much a
part of our life back then.
And some things I said it in 1996, which
was really important because that was
actually when the Olympics happened in
Atlanta and there was the bombing at the
Olympics, so that was a big moment.
There was that was the year that
Independence Day, the huge blockbuster
movie came out, right?
We would like line up around the theater to
get our tickets and get our seats
because you couldn't use to, you know, buy
a ticket over the phone or something.
You couldn't reserve a seat.
You had to go sit
there and line up for that.
And Planned Parenthoods were being bombed
in that middle 90s time.
There was a huge debate happening over
women's right to say no and to have a
choice about their body and about their
birth control and about abortions.
And all of those things we have not evolved
that much as a society because
we're still dealing with this
kind of stuff happening right now.
Right. Yeah.
So I wanted I really wanted to talk in a
story that's like a coming of age
story of a teenage girl, I wanted to talk
to both the Gen X and older millennial
moms now and their teenage daughters and
say, like, you actually understand each
other better than you realize, because what
you are going through is what we were
going through. Maybe we
didn't have a cell phone.
Maybe we didn't have Internet.
But we had Nikki Taylor and Cindy Crawford
that we were comparing our bodies to.
We were told that the only way that you
would ever be desirable is to wear a
Wonder Bra and to take Fin
Fen to like lose all the weight.
Like we had the same kinds of pressures on
our bodies and we had the same kind of
pressures to the feminist
revolution has come a long way.
But we were at that stage being told women
can do it all and should do it all.
And girls are learning that
exact same lesson right now.
And the pressure is huge on them.
So I really wanted to write a story that
would show that would bridge that gap and
show moms how they could be more
compassionate to their daughters because
they really do understand
what they're going through.
But it would draw them in through the pop
culture and through going back in time
when cell phones didn't exist and that the
same story could tell those teenage
daughters, you can talk to your moms
because they really do get it because they
really were there. And and so far, like
I've gone to all these
book clubs of and even like boy moms have
said, I'm so glad you wrote this book
because there are scenes that took me back
to that nuance of being in the car
and being afraid to say no, because, you
know, you're so insecure and this is your
big crush and you don't
want him to like hate you.
And and so is it
consent or is it not consent?
Is not saying no.
The same is saying yes.
Well, obviously it's not.
And so these moms now of teenage boys are
like, I know how to have that
conversation now because I was right back
there where Stacy in your book is where
she's so scared and she has natural desires
in her to want to be with this guy.
But she's not ready.
And like this this constant tug and pull of
how to do the right thing and say the
right thing and look the right way.
And it all feels like
none of it makes sense.
And she's just trying to figure her way
through it and making so
many mistakes along the way.
So that's awesome.
Anyway, yeah.
And, you know, and you're right.
Everything you just said, it's parallel.
We went through it just in a different time
and it's nuanced, but it's the same
shit. It's the same.
I mean, I will say that.
I don't know if it's with social media or
what, but at least with the Gen Z
generation,
I think that the the consent,
at least it's talked about more.
Where with us, it wasn't
it wasn't even a thing.
It wasn't even
that word wasn't in our vocabulary.
No, at least it's there.
Do you know what I mean?
It's a subject that is discussed.
It's not a new concept.
Yeah, I am.
I agree with you.
I'm also a little concerned because I'm as
I'm understanding it, Gen Z is like
actually having the least
sexual experiences of any generation, like
they're really just not
not blossoming sexually the way that most
teenagers did in all the generations
before and really coming into their own.
They seem to be like putting the brakes on
before they even get there.
Really?
I'm finding that a lot.
I'm amazed and I've actually looked into
some research on it and it's it's
incredible to me. There are definitely
still kids being teenagers and
making those choices, but it is
significantly lower than it was.
So are you talking about
because Gen Z is 15 to 28.
You're probably not talking
about the ones in their 20s.
You're more talking about the teenagers.
I yeah, I mean, I but I think the studies
are even on the ones in their 20s that
they just are in general having a lot less
sex than their counterparts of the
same age 20 years ago, 40 years ago.
They just in general
are having a lot less sex.
It's a lot more online connecting and not
physical connecting with other individuals.
They're just not crossing over into the
physical realm with a lot of people.
That makes sense.
Well, and the dating
apps are such a nightmare.
So there's a lot of games going on there.
A lot of where people are like, yeah, let's
meet up and then they block them.
They ghost them, whatever.
So that's a whole thing.
But yeah, the building the relationship
texting, texting, texting and having like
a three month what would have been three
months for us dating face to face,
they can accomplish it all within a week.
It's a constant talking.
It's condensed down.
You know,
but so other than the online.
Could it is it at all that young women are?
I'm not going to say I'm not going to say
I'm having more self-respect.
That's not what I mean.
But are they being more intentional with
who they have sex with?
Is that generation?
You know what I'm trying to say?
I do. I do think I
understand what you're saying.
And I hope that that's the case.
I think for a lot of Gen Z, they're still
on the younger side to maybe even
articulate that that's
exactly what's happening.
I do think that there's also these are
these are teenagers and young 20s,
somethings who grew up in the me to
generation and they grew up being afraid
of what happens to women and hearing that
you can get in an Uber and then
that person could attack you, that you
could meet somebody who said that they
just wanted to get to know you through a
dating app and that person might attack
you. And I genuinely think that a lot of
young women are afraid of meeting someone
and they are not meeting them face to face.
They're meeting them online and they know
that that online persona could be
completely false. And so
they're just very hesitant.
They're just really like
you've got to go a lot further in exposing
who you are as an individual and being
really open and honest with them before
they'll even come close to considering a
sexual relationship.
What are you talking?
Would you say what?
I mean, I have so I have nieces that are
turning 30 and then my my daughter,
the youngest is 16 and I've seen it through
that whole 14 year gap.
I've seen it with all of them that they
just when they meet someone and they
start dating, they're a lot slower than
than we were to even get into a position
where they might have sex. Like
they just don't even like, no,
you don't come to my
house. I don't go to your house.
Yeah, I'll meet you there.
I won't go in the car with you there.
Let's just hang out as
friends for a long time.
We'll snap each other for six months.
You know, all these things,
they just are much more hesitant.
They're much more cautious because they I
really do believe they've grown up in a
world that they should they believe they've
been taught that they should be
afraid that they can be attacked at any
point because that's what they've seen
in so many of these stories.
I wonder, do you think that's an east
versus west coast thing?
I don't know because I don't know if that's
happening here as much.
And I mean, because our daughter is 24,
almost 25 and our son's 28
and I don't I feel like we've
seen more of a hookup culture.
I don't know if it's still happening with
the youngest one, right?
He's just on the other two and all their
friends and all the kids there.
I don't want to say all their friends.
Let me rephrase the kids their age.
Yeah, it felt like.
That they are maybe
were older than the me too.
So they've kind of got their wings below
them in a sense or they're I don't know.
They were because that was that was when
they were in high school.
That was what wasn't that like 2012, 2014,
15, like somewhere around 15.
I think the marches were happening around
2015, 2016, something like that.
Yeah, it weren't happening here.
I think I think Florida.
Yeah, I think maybe
Florida versus California thing.
I don't know.
But also my niece is in Minnesota.
Very similar.
Yeah.
But what she's talking about as far as it's
almost like because I've seen it.
I know what you're talking about.
It's almost like there's so much
information and there's so much like every
worry that a mother has is now on social
media, on the Internet.
Be care like how we just say to them,
be careful we have our
talks and they go out the door.
Now it's every other tick tock short is
talking about now I just have to tell you
a story I was at Publix and there was
something on my car and I had someone
walk that stuff, but I mean it's constant.
It's constant.
So spontaneity and the
just taking those just having those like
exciting moments where you just let it all
go. They're not able to let it all go
because they have so much anxiety about
what could happen.
Well, that's everything's being
filmed so they could be
destroyed in a second.
And fentanyl is a real thing.
You know, we might have gone to a party and
like somebody hands you a joint and
you just whatever or you just take the
right to have these kids are so aware of
getting roofied of getting handed something
that the first time they try
anything I could kill them that moment.
And so they are very afraid of that.
So I just think in general, when we were
teenagers and connecting with people in
real time and hormones were strong in both
sides of that connection and things
happened, that's just not what I'm seeing
happening because they aren't smelling each
other's pheromones when they are on
snap. They aren't, you
know, getting inebriated
because they're afraid of
what might be handed to them.
I'm not saying no one is.
Certainly there are kids.
There are certainly in
our community, though.
Growing up, I would say probably about 50
percent of the kids I knew were going to
parties and hooking up with people and kind
of, you know, experimenting with drugs
and sex and alcohol in my kids school, I
would say it's probably ten percent of the
kids are doing that, not 50, not even
remotely close to 50, which these kids are.
Us. Yeah. Yeah.
They're they're they're
really shut down and they are.
They're studying or they're playing their
sports or they're like so overcommitted
that they just don't even have the time.
They're much more responsible.
Yeah, they are.
In a lot of ways.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because that's because when we were growing
up, it was like you went.
We had keggers and we would just
go out and party every weekend.
And but to your point, we were never
worried about fentanyl.
I mean, the most chemical
thing we had was acid and coke.
But no one was hosting me with that.
No, there wasn't any
of that to worry about.
And that does that does happen in Florida
because there's I know of a kid that that
it's happened to. But so and that's
happening everywhere.
But so you're right. You have that.
So you don't have just the inhibition with
drugs and alcohol that we we did.
And the roofie. Yeah.
My daughter and all her friends constantly
are aware of their drinks all through
college in high school, they were always
with their friend groups, guys and girls.
But so there wasn't that worry.
But once they got to college and then at
the bars now, that is that's an automatic
thing. They don't even think about it.
They just exactly with
watching their drinks.
They are trained to be cautious.
And kind of stick together.
Have you noticed that with your daughter?
Yes, they operate as a better unit than
when you guys were younger or age.
You guys fought or were caddy, right?
You would run the boss
compete with my part of Gen X.
I don't know about your part, but the
girlhood in Gen Z is amazing.
They're very in general, very supportive.
They hype each other up.
They're like, oh, my
God, I love your dress.
We have great emotional intelligence to
when they do have those caddy moments,
which they do girls
have those caddy moments.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They actually work through it and figure it
out for the most part.
It's incredible. I believe it is.
Thank God.
You guys have great emotional intelligence
to address these issues with women.
Of course, friends
fall through it, fall out.
Of course, there's keggers with some kids.
Of course, there's kids
getting knocked up in high school.
I don't think that's
ever going to 100% go away.
Right. I'm just saying that the difference
between what it was like in
the 90s and what it's like now,
these kids are raised in
a world of being cautious.
Also, I am leaning more towards the younger
ones because like my my one
who's a junior in high school, she was
entering middle school when Covid hit.
Her sixth grade year was entirely online.
These kids learned to be afraid at the time
that they should have been feeling more
independence and more excitement
about the world. And instead, they were
like, everybody only sees me online.
So I better not screw up
online because that's the only like
it all needs to be perfect.
And when I do get face to face with them,
we have to keep our
distance and we have to be careful.
And then as they even came together in high
school, they're all just real
cautious around each other.
That was that generation of those that
young like those 16,
17 year olds right now.
It is amazing to watch just
how they court one another online
for a year and then end up no, we're not
going to actually have a relationship.
Like they just don't even go there.
Like they spent so
much time being cautious.
They shot their shot online.
And then it's like you've gone
through the whole arc online.
And then it's kind of like we did it, but
you didn't really do anything.
Well, my older son, he hates social media.
But one of the things he always says is
it's so fake because you have all this
time to come up with the perfect response.
So that organic back and forth, that face
to face, that instant of I'm getting the
real you because it's
happening in real time doesn't exist.
So he's like, it's great for guys because
she'll say something.
And I've got however long I want to come up
with just the perfect response.
And he goes, and then you watch guys go
out on a date and they're tongue tied
because they have to they can't the skill
of doing this. And he did
attribute some of that to Covid.
He did. He said that when he
viewed it as being socially
something, because he was getting out of
college at that time in 2020, 2019.
He graduated.
So all those kids that got out of college
that normally would go into the bar
scene like after work, they get their jobs,
their meeting singles and going on the
weekends and stuff that
didn't happen for them.
So that was that was all online.
So that social stunting and then combine
that with being afraid of everything and
the anxiety. So then there's no inhibition.
There's no fun free.
So I never attributed it to
stunting their sexual, their
normal teenage sexual experiences.
But it did.
I did. I thought about that.
I think there's going to be an interesting
pendulum always swings.
It swings really far one way and then it
swings really far the other way.
And I think, you know, a lot of these
things are very natural
animal instincts that will
eventually kick in in certain ways.
And it's going to be interesting to see
what happens as they get older and how
this evolves and changes. But I think just
their whole approach to the world
is very, very different and relationships.
And like you were saying about the texting,
like the girls side of that is
they're like curating the perfect response
amongst all their girlfriends.
They're like, OK, so if I say it this way,
how would he take it?
What if I say it this way?
Oh, let's check in with that
guy and see what he would think.
He's our friend.
So he'll give us feedback on
what he would think if I did this.
Right. They're curating it all.
And then, yeah, you get them face to face
and they're so afraid of like,
what if I say or do the wrong thing? Yeah.
Yeah.
It's funny you say that
the pendulum is swinging.
This is almost like
going back to the 40s or 50s.
I'm going to go through this period of of
conservatism or purity type of thing.
And they'll come out
really well on the other side.
But it's not even like it's been that way.
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
When they all figure maybe when they all go
to college and they have to see each
other, although I'm hearing that's more and
more online and you don't know.
There's so many fewer boys in the in-person
college experience too
than there ever were before.
So that's like that's an interesting part
of my older daughter being at this school.
She's like, there are
almost no straight men here.
How is this? Like she's like, I don't I
don't even I don't think I could meet a guy
to date right now because they're all the
guys I'm meeting are like gay or they are,
you know, they're a little too
aggressive with her in person.
And so she's really afraid.
And she's like, what are you doing?
Like back up.
So are the straight guys like are they just
taking online courses or something?
Are they just as I understand it again,
like these studies are being done.
There's just fewer and fewer and fewer guys
going to college at this point than
more before in New York.
Yeah. OK.
Yeah. And she's at a very liberal school.
It's about four thousand students.
But it is like I think her school is like
70 percent female at this point.
Yeah. New York's changed for sure.
What a trip.
Yeah, I never had correlated and I have to
know I have to really like
a villain. I could do 15.
I mean, he's on his phone a lot, but he he
he has like he hangs out with the girl.
He does all those normal things.
So, yeah.
And they do get together.
But I don't know.
It's like in large groups.
Yeah. That's how my 16 year old it's always
his friends in large groups.
Yeah. They hang out.
And yeah. So but now I'm going to have to
like really watch and really observe this.
But I didn't ever think about, again, how
it affects just that normal.
Because, yeah, we were all just kind of
just do whatever I generate because we
were the 80s. We were right.
Yeah, we were crazy.
But I think the 90s was very similar when I
talked to people who went through
high school and college in the 90s because
we graduated college on three.
I think you guys were very
similar to what we did in the 80s.
Yeah. I think it's the same.
So party in a field.
Yeah. Probably shouldn't have
gotten in your car and driven.
But you probably did.
We all did that.
I wonder, though, did the did
I think Hollywood was
probably rocked by me too.
Right.
With the breath.
There's Holly weird in some ways.
So the lot of the that I.
So is that in your news cycle there?
If you're watching local news like that,
you know, because it's miles away for us.
It's multiple states, 3000
miles away type of thing.
Is that just like front and center there?
I mean, like the Harvey Weinstein thing.
Yeah, yeah. Like that that affected a huge
population in this area.
And so, yeah, those the ripple effect of
that into all of the different.
We have so many industries
that touch the Hollywood.
And like it had a really widespread effect.
Most of the lawyers that were dealing with
the Weinstein stuff were here
and their clients were here and like, so it
was all very loud and vocal here
for sure and still to this day is and yeah,
women women have very little
hesitation about standing up for like, you
can't talk to me that way.
You can't you do a crossing
line with me right here and.
What's her name, Blake
Lively and that other guy there?
Right, just in Baldoni.
Doni. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm sure that's local news, right?
For us, that's national news type of thing.
But actually, they're
all the way in New York.
Those all those people are in New York, but
it's very front and center here.
Yeah, we get all of it.
Yeah. In the industry.
That's interesting that what you said about
that the Me Too is so very like front and
center there because like out here,
it's it's like exists and what you're
talking about exists and everyone knows
that happened and the
results of it exists here.
But it's not like a topical thing.
It's not just an act up and
down the whole East Coast.
Yeah, like we've done a lot of
traveling over the, you know,
our someplace travel across the we're up
and down the all the way up to like
Boston or, you know, it's not as I don't
think it's as topical.
I know one talks about it, but do people
still talk about it out there?
Yeah, I mean, in fact, my husband, I just
started watching a show that was
Friends and Neighbors.
Have you heard of Friends and Neighbors?
And it's a pretty recent show.
And and like one of the major things that
blows up his life is even though he was
a divorced man, a younger woman in his
office came on to him and he loses his
career because of it.
Like it's so it's still it's even showing
up in in still what's being put out there
because it's still very much a prevalent
reality in a lot of the other.
I just like I assume that a lot of the
results from it have been implemented
into corporate America
at the very least, right?
So that it's just kind of still there's
still human beings who are living and
working in the same place and they are
sexual beings and then they have a
relationship and then it
blows up one person like this.
This is something that I talk about with my
husband a lot because there's sort of
the pendulum swing so far the other way
that there's ramifications for one person
and not for this other person, even if this
other person maybe, you know, maybe
initiated it, it's seen as an opportunity
to get that guy out or something.
It's just like a what?
It's nice.
Yeah, in some ways.
I'm not saying it always is.
I absolutely am not.
But but I think I think
I think even though
it's a movement that ended, you know, maybe
10 years ago or eight years ago,
it still has a very strong
prevalence in day to day working life in a
lot of these big industry jobs like
Hollywood jobs, like financial jobs, like
lawyers and doctors, because we see all
these doctors, you know, like
the gymnast doctors are start.
It's all it's finally coming out.
A lot of the people who
have used their power.
Yeah, exactly.
It's honestly a good thing.
It really is.
That power dynamic got
too far out of control.
Honestly, I bet it was always there.
And this finally caught
on, caught the attention.
Hey, this isn't okay.
So it's a good thing.
But, you know, the
weaponization of it's not a good thing.
That's terrible.
Yeah, that's what it is.
When you now that the genie is out of the
bottle and that power dynamic,
the abuse of it, right?
So the genie is out of the bottle.
You better watch your ass
and just be a decent person.
Or there are results.
So does your book go into it?
Like obviously it's in the
90s, so it doesn't go into it.
But do you dive into
consent during that time?
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
So there's basically the premise is that
the main character is very
inexperienced, very naive, a very people
pleasing type person.
Like, you know, I was drawing on a lot of
my own experiences for this.
And then she ends up working with somebody.
She has a crush on and he
starts flirting with her.
So she thinks, you know, he likes her.
And in this case, he would like wear like
the What Would Jesus Do bracelets?
And he was a part of the Christian Club
on campus and he would play
worship songs on his guitar.
So she thought like he was a good guy and
like somebody safe to date.
And then they get alone in the car and he
pushes it further and further and further.
And she liked him.
And she but she's afraid to say no.
And then that happens probably about a
third of the way into the book or maybe
a quarter of the way into the book.
And the rest of the
book is really unraveling.
Like, you know, why did you
think you could do that with me?
And like, I didn't even have the words
because I had never been in any situation
like this before. And because she was so
naive, she didn't have any sort of birth
control. She wasn't she had never
experimented with any of this before.
And so then she ends up, you
know, finding out she's pregnant.
And like then she she's like, my whole life
is going to be blown up by this.
And he's like, well, but
everybody will, you know,
they will hate us if they know that you
went to Planned Parenthood.
We can't do that.
And but but it's not going to affect you.
It's going to affect me.
It's not. And so it's just a lot of those
conversations are throughout the book and
really like hit hard on like,
you can't do this to people.
And so they like she and another girl who
she works with at the pool both kind of
dealt with this guy the same way.
And so they start to tell him like, like
call him things like a hit it and quit it
asshole, like he's just in it to get laid
and then he dumps you and like treats
girls like slot machines and like and so a
lot of that is, you know,
her figuring out her own self worth and
that her voice she should have used her
voice and finding out that her voice
matters and and sort of getting back in his
face and and he learns from it.
She learns from it.
They all kind of like
learn from this experience.
And so but it's with like that shame that
she probably yes from it and that
probably realizing it's not hers to carry.
She shouldn't have the shame.
And but what's so interesting is during
that time that you've set the story in, no
one was talking about anything that you're
writing about. No, but that you got to
think about in the 90s,
like with the Monica Lewinsky stuff.
And so like I'm sort of
but also like she like
to be a teenager at that time, you saw that
like if you were the girl that it was
exposed, that you did this,
your life will be blown up.
You are a slut.
You're a horrible evil person.
And so she's like, I can't let
anybody know that this happened.
Yeah, they're all going to call me a slut
and they're all going to shame me.
Exactly. So or because of the joke.
It's like late night comics
were making jokes about her.
Yeah, like she made a joke of her.
She was completely taking
advantage of let's be real.
And it's a horrendous situation.
But even in that moment and
we were what in our 20s, right?
I didn't even realize how bad it was until
I got older because of the way society
treated it and treated her
like she was treated horrendous.
Got off. Well, yeah.
Yeah, he was boys being boys.
To be honest with you, I'm
really proud of her and how she's
handled it all now as an adult.
She's yeah,
kudos to her podcast, right? She does.
She does. And it's
about taking back her power.
And she attributes a lot of
that to these younger generations,
learning to speak up and to say, you can't
you can't do this to me and embracing her
and saying what was done to you is wrong.
And her feeling like she finally has a
group of women who understands and is
willing to support her because all the
women who are older
than her all shamed her.
Yeah, world shit on her.
And she was 18, 19
years old or she was young.
She was very totally taken advantage of.
The younger women are the
ones that are validating her.
Yeah, I love that.
That's the Gen Zers, right?
She's millennial, I think.
Yeah, no, that's awesome.
That's why I know she's
she's older than I am.
I think I think she's actually like 48.
Yeah, yeah. Because I was a teenager when
she was an intern at that.
I think she was in her in her 20s.
OK, early 20s.
So, yeah, she might be.
Yeah.
I was just about to ask if you
know how she matches up to your.
I always still think of her as that age.
I've received a very young kid.
I mean, it's my age.
But I love that.
OK, maybe like the millennial women and the
Gen Zers are are validating her
because she is so do that.
But that's what I'm saying, like you've
taken these modern concepts of
discussing this and validating
her experience, your
character's experience.
And but that's a modern concept from now
that you now implemented into the setting
of the 90s. Exactly.
That was putting that lens on it is is part
of building that bridge
between our generation and this generation.
Like it's not that different, even though
we didn't have the language for it.
Then that's the beauty of fiction.
Right. We can we can talk about it now in a
way that shows that without them
having they don't really use
the word consent in the book.
That's not that's right.
They're addressing it.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool.
Now, is this your first book?
It is. It was my dream way back when I
transferred colleges
and was a writing major.
It was my dream to publish a novel.
And it just took a long
time to come back to me.
It's amazing. And how hard
was it to get it published?
You know, it
it's an experience.
It was not my favorite experience.
And I I will say when you are an unknown
person out there with as many known people
and as many books are getting
published, it's really like pulling teeth
to get anybody to even pay attention to
you. So the fact that it is published and
on bookshelves and available through Barnes
and Noble and local bookstores and
in libraries and everything
is like a huge accomplishment.
But as I understand it, I've just got to
like I got to get the next one out and the
one after that, because that's when it
starts to really make a difference.
You have to write.
Yeah. Once you write it, how long?
So I wrote those first ten thousand words
in six weeks and then I I graduated in
October of twenty twenty two by the
by January of twenty twenty three.
I had ninety seven thousand words.
So I really just poured myself into it.
And then I spent the next year until
January of twenty twenty four
really like going back and revising and
honing in on things and tiny tying up
everything, everything into what it is now.
So that was a whole additional year.
But that first that first
pass was really four months.
Yeah. How long?
How many pages is ten thousand words?
Well, so a hundred thousand
words is about three hundred and
seventy five to four
hundred pages around there.
So it's about thirty five pages, I guess
would be ten thousand words.
Yeah. That's amazing.
Form pages.
I mean, not just that you wrote it, but
that you got it published is like you said,
that's a whole nother thing.
That's a whole nother published author.
You're a published author and my kids
watched me do it while they were in high
school and I was on the booster club of the
basketball team and I was helping with
all the other things
with my mom and her estate.
They watched it happen in real time and
they saw what it means to prioritize my
dreams and make them come true.
And that is probably the biggest thing
because for so long I was like,
thank God for Taylor Swift because they can
see that this woman can make her
dreams come true and she's a beautiful,
smart woman to look up to.
And now I'm like, actually, so am I.
Like I can make my dreams come true.
Yeah.
Smart, talented person to look up to, too.
Well, what are some things that you've
you've worked on with your daughters or
things you've tried to say or be an
example so that they do grow up to be these
empowered young women who have a
voice who have
that self confidence, that innate self
confidence, self respect and
know to go after their dreams?
Like, how did you approach because I have
one girl and that I mean,
I devoted a significant amount of time just
to try to make sure she left my house
with that because I didn't have that.
So I'm like, I'm going to
give you that before you leave.
And it's been a beautiful thing to watch it
happen through her 20s that it's
happening, what I was hoping to.
I mean, that's double that.
So how how did you take that on?
Well, we're still early in it at 16 and 18.
But I think what I have really done the
whole time is I've I've tried to
find that happy balance where they know
that they can come to me with anything.
We can talk about anything.
So I really try to be more curious than
judgmental and anything they come to me
with so so that they know that I will
help them by being a
listener and giving them guidance.
But it's their life to
live and make choices about.
So even though I talk about, you know, that
I did all of the application
process myself getting into college, well,
so did my older daughter.
I equipped her with tools
and I read through the essays,
but I was not choosing which
colleges she was applying to.
I was not looking at
dates that they were due.
If you want to go to college,
you've really got to own this.
And we will. And so she was the one who
decided the oldest one like that she really
wanted to go to New York.
And so she applied to like six colleges in
New York and she wrote the essays and got
them all in on time and she chose which of
those she decided she wanted to go to.
And I think that's that's my husband's
and my approach with both of them is we
will be your greatest champions,
but we will never be ahead of you on the
path that you're going down because it's
your path, your choosing
which path you're going.
And we're just there trying to equip you
and help you and support you along the way.
So he's a really great
partner in all of that.
I think his you know, his parents did a
really good job raising him and everything
because he was so much
younger than his siblings.
He kind of was a little bit like an only
child, but also as a third child,
you know what they say, like the first, you
know, you treat with kid gloves.
And then the third one, you
let them juggle knives. Right.
So he was very much that like,
yeah, you'll figure this out.
Like, you'll get it.
And and so he and I both kind of have that
attitude of like, I was capable.
We believe you're capable, too.
And that's kind of how we
treat everything with them.
Like, if you want it,
you'll make it happen.
And we'll just be here cheering you on and
supporting you how we can.
But we're not doing it for you
because it's not my life to live.
It's yours. Yeah.
And that'll that'll that's perfect.
It's honestly, Chef's Kiss.
And that will work great for you guys as
they go into their 20s
because that's a whole nother animal.
But you'll find that with that attitude,
they will still come to you for that
guidance and for that advice that they will
be living their life.
But you'll still have that connection and
it'll be in a healthy way
because your role changes.
But you guys have you completely have set
them up where not only are they going to
take off, but you're still going to have
that connection with them.
And it just sounds like you
guys have done an amazing job.
So especially considering you were doing
that, you did this through chaos.
You know, like this started back in that
move when they were little and then
everything that's been going on up until
now and still going on.
The fact that you were able to maintain
that way of raising them.
It's just it's really amazing.
20 years from now, they may be in therapy
and talking about their trauma going
through all of this, but I think I think
maybe some of it, you know,
it was also survival mode, right?
Like, I can't do all of this for you.
There's only so much I can do.
So you've got to own what you are capable
of owning right now because
I've got too much on my plate.
You know, I know him.
And so I think some of it
was just out of necessity.
But it really has made
them very independent and
self-motivated people
that were so proud of.
Yeah, like same thing when my friends are
like, how do you get your girls to get
their license? I'm like, they went online
and did the online classes themselves.
And then they scheduled and I just took
them to the DMV to get their permit.
Like and then, you know, they said, mom,
get me the driving lessons.
OK, I get you the drive.
And then they go do that.
And then when they're ready, they say, OK,
now I'm ready to take the test.
You know, I just I just equip them because
it's what they wanted to do.
And so I think it was out of necessity.
But it also ended up, thank God, like
working out the way that
he's setting them up very well for success.
I always say like the best thing you can do
for your kids is just
show them that you believe in them by
having them do I believe in you enough
that you can do this and when you do
everything for them, you're kind of saying,
I don't believe in you that
you can do this on your own.
So I need to help you.
So it's hard at first, but you're showing
them, I believe in you.
You can do this.
And it's kind of forcing
them to do certain things.
But it's with that that belief you have in
them and they know it, you know,
and they find that it's confidence, team
building, 100 percent.
So what's what's some advice you would give
to women who are hitting
their midlife and they have been grinding
and they have been putting their dreams
and passions aside for whatever reason,
family, marriage, friends, whatever job.
And they're getting to this point and
they're looking around and they're saying,
oh, my goodness, like they're
facing their mortality and they
they don't know who they
are and where do they start?
I think what I've really come to is, you
know, fear, anxiety, stress.
All of these experiences really force us to
draw inward to protect ourselves.
We really start to shut down and close off
and just put your head down and just
keep pushing forward, right,
because it is a self preservation.
And by finding a creative outlet, that it's
impossible to be inward and creative
because creative is an outward expression.
It is it is absolutely meant to be shared.
Any sort of creativity is meant to be
shared in some sort of outward fashion.
And so I for me, watercolor was the ticket
to drawing me out of myself and having
more of those joyful outward expressions
for some people, maybe it's photography
or dance class or my
husband, I kid you not.
He is the most talented spreadsheet
designer and he can make a spreadsheet
that does anything just to prove me wrong,
like he made a spreadsheet that solves
any pseudo puzzle because
I would do pseudo puzzles.
And he's like, well, I can
solve them faster than you.
And the way he did it was by making a
spreadsheet to do that.
Right. And that's a
very creative thing to do.
So I really encourage anybody
who's feeling that sense of like
overwhelmed, stressed or those those tidal
waves of grief and anxiety that just keep
hitting you over and over and over to
really find something creative, some sort
of something creative that you can do for
15 minutes a day, just 15 minutes.
Really say to yourself, like,
it has no deliverable to
anyone else in the world.
Those those first
watercolors were not for anyone else.
And I love the person that I learned from.
She says it all over and over again.
She's like, it's just a piece of paper.
You can throw it away because the the
product is not the purpose.
The process is the purpose.
Just sitting down and doing this creative
thing is the purpose.
That's why you do it.
So if if that is, you know, making little
rock statues while
you're on a walk at the beach
or something, whatever it is,
give yourself 15 minutes a day.
And I promise that when you really set
that time of a creative expression in your
day, you start to feed your soul
and start to pull out of those stress and
say, if I can get 15 minutes where I don't
feel this way every day, maybe I can get 30
minutes where I don't feel this way.
Maybe I can get an hour
where I don't feel this way.
And you'll start to really
put back into your priorities
how to recenter your life in a way that you
feel that that calm again
more often, how to set those boundaries.
I really am a big believer that it starts
with that creative experience,
whatever it is, whatever it needs to be for
each person, because you can't
you can't sit there and and
look at a beautiful sunset
that you're taking, that you're capturing
with a photograph or your painting or
your sketching and also be going, oh, my
gosh, the laundry is piling up.
Like it just you have to focus on this
thing for 15 minutes and it will help you
to say that stuff
doesn't matter quite as much.
My piece matters and it
needs to be prioritized.
That's amazing advice, because as a result,
you it's learning how to honor
yourself and find yourself again.
But I love that 15 minutes.
It's it's such a small step and it's doable
and it won't overwhelm someone.
Just try that and see where it leads you.
That's perfect. Yeah, that's perfect.
Thank you. And you're
such a great example of that.
So now before I made all the difference,
obviously, before I ask my last question,
do you have any other questions?
I do.
Before I forget, I find
this to be very remarkable.
Thank you.
Just your insight into who
you are is super impressive.
So kudos to you.
It's I'm just blown
away, to be honest with you.
On a lighter note,
that seemed to touch you.
No, I appreciate it.
I think we all need to hear more of that.
So thank you for that.
What's your what's your music?
You guys, that was your jam, right?
And so what? Yeah, I got my no doubt.
I love it.
What's my name?
Gwen, Gwen Stefani.
So we growing up in Southern California,
the pop punk of Southern California,
the no doubt Blink 182, Green Day, Social
Distortion, all of these bands were just
peppers, chili pepper, a
little bit of the peppers.
Absolutely. Yes.
And so all of those were big influences.
But I did have the older siblings that
liked different kinds.
My brother was super into Nirvana.
So, of course, I love Nirvana and, you
know, Toad the wet sprocket.
And and then, yeah, I had the, you know,
the influence of the Prince and Michael
Jackson and all of that
that was a little older for me.
But like it was all there.
Now my husband and I are
we're House of Blues members.
So we go to concerts all the time.
We love connecting in our relationship that
way on a regular basis, but also with
our kids. So we have, you know, like bucket
list kind of concerts that we like
to go to. So a big one that we did this
summer was we went to Red Rocks and we saw
Mumford and Sons at Red Rocks, which was
just the perfect environment for that
music. Yeah.
We also had been big
Oasis fans back in the 90s.
And so we just went two weeks ago to see
Oasis at the Rose Bowl with our daughter
and her best friend. We we
wanted to take both of our girls.
But our older one had already
moved to New York at that point.
So, you know, you bought the tickets for a
full year ago for tickets and then you
find out, well, sorry, you don't get to go.
So, yeah, we we listened to all kinds of
music, but we really still he and I still
really connect over that
pop punk that we loved.
And that's why it plays such an important
part in the book that I wrote is them
going to shows and listening to that music,
the Warped Tour going to the Warped
Tour wearing Doc Martens and vans and
Converse and rip shorts and
having, you know, the pompadour hairstyle
with the ponytail and just like when
Stefani did. Yeah.
I mean, all of those things were just a big
part of our falling in love experience
that we that's part of how
we keep the spark alive now.
And we still are lucky
to the in South Florida.
Our music scene isn't great.
It's like you can go to the
Hard Rock, which is a stadium.
But you've got like the Hollywood Bowl
there, I think, right all over.
Oh, there's tons of good so
many venues, big and small.
All of them. Yeah.
That's very lucky.
You're in the almost any day of the week
here around, you could see live music.
And in fact, we do leave in that's even if
we're just going to a restaurant,
we almost always choose to go to a
restaurant where somebody is playing live
music that we can listen to. And it's
covers of our favorite songs.
You know, Van Morrison or Tom
Petty or whatever, you know.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we just we have we are very, very lucky
where we are located that we can do that
all the time. It's
relatable because we're dead heads.
So we in college, we
always went to dead shows.
But live music was a huge part of our life.
We were friends in college.
We weren't dating then.
But we've continued to have live music.
I call it our outlet.
And it's our reconnection.
When we're when we go to see live music
together and our children, we involve them.
They sometimes they
come, sometimes they don't.
But we're a music family.
If we're going to a
concert, we're buying five tickets.
It's too damn expensive.
That's like twenty four dollars.
I know.
It's like smaller venues are good.
And now it's like, but but we have that.
When because when you're there like that,
you're right back to when you were young.
Exactly.
Time hasn't passed and, you
know, him and I could walk around
a concert now together and it's like we're
twenty two doing it again.
And it's a great way to hold on to that.
Like you said, that connection, that spark.
But what's funny, it's also is a great way
for our kids as they went through their
teen years to stay connected,
say went to music festivals.
So now our older two, they bonded as
teenagers with music.
So then they continue to go see
live music festivals together.
And now they're going to
bring in the younger one.
So music also, my point is, is a huge
integral part of our home and our family.
And I think it's live music, especially.
It's such a great way for people to stay
connected with their relationships,
but also as a family with
their children, you know.
And it's like it is a creative experience,
even if you're not the one creating the
music being there, it
resonates through your whole body.
It releases different kinds of happy
endorphins to be present,
to feel the ground literally moving under
your feet because of the bass and and to
see people around you
filled with joy dancing.
I have a lot of friends
who are dead heads also,
but it doesn't matter what
the music is that moves you.
When you're in a concert
environment, you are a part of it.
And you're a part of this whole community
of people that is a part of that music as
well. And it's it's a very communal
experience that I think is an outward
expression of joy also.
So it's just another way that we get
creative in our family.
And it connects us again to
those things that really matter.
That's a great point because
you do feel the vibe of it.
You're all beating off everyone.
And I dance my ass up and I always
feel like I just went through what's it
called somatic healing kind of after
because I've been so much like I feel like
it's like somatic healing.
For me, it's my church, like
the Grateful Dead with my church.
I'm not a religious guy.
Now I'm on the Billy Strings.
He comes to SoCal every now and then.
But yeah, we're checking out.
We're going to go see him at Huntsville.
He got me into Billy Strings.
He's like a bluegrass jam band.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He's the kid. He's what
in his early 30s, mid 30s.
He just won bluegrass musician of the year.
He's a performer of the year or something.
Oh, wow.
Bluegrass, though, in my
mind, it's he does cover tunes.
He'll do like Floyd, Bob Dylan.
It's bluegrass.
So in a couple of weeks, we're going to
Alabama for three nights
so we're still making we're road trippers.
We're big road trippers.
We're still making our
trips to go see shows.
So it's awesome.
Like my point is that I completely relate
to what you're saying because I think
it's just so important.
It's cool that you guys do that.
Actually, Oasis is the band.
It's the British band that took time off.
And so my buddy is a big Oasis fan.
Him and his high school friends, they all
flew over to, I think it was
Scotland or the UK, maybe wherever their
first tour of the first night.
Glastonbury, I think was the first one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They so their brothers, the Gallagher's,
Lee Gallagher, and they have a very
contentious relationship.
And so they they actually fell out of
contact with the other.
And when they broke up
because they fought all the time.
And when they wanted to do this tour,
whoever they worked with to set up
the tour was really, really smart because
they had broken up so many times and
sometimes right on stage.
In fact, one concert that my husband and I
went to 20 more years ago,
they were supposed to be one of the
headline bands and they broke up that day
and didn't play because they so they used
to break up all the time.
So whoever set up this tour was really
smart because they said the only way you
make a penny off of this tour is if you
finish the entire tour, you
have to finish the whole thing.
And so they can't break
up until this tour is done.
So it's like I think they I'm not sure.
Something like 14 or 20
shows is what they agreed to.
And that's all anybody really expects them
to do because they probably will break up.
They really have that
contentious of a relationship.
Wow.
But it's been so huge.
Everybody.
I don't personally
love those kinds of shows.
The Rose Bowl had over 80,000 people at it.
And that is just wow.
That is like a very
overwhelming experience for me to be.
But that kind of energy with the number
of people who wanted to see them, who loved
them back in the day, it was like,
we need to be right back there with you.
That was amazing.
And I'm glad we went.
It's a bucket list, like I said.
But I don't know.
I definitely prefer like the Lumineers at
the Hollywood Bowl
where it's like, you know,
25,000 people outside with the stars above.
And it's just a different kind of thing.
Have we ever seen
anyone with 80,000 people?
I mean, I was the Dead shows at Giant
Stadium were pretty big.
Bruce Springsteen when we saw him.
Yeah, I see him holds 80,000.
And that was that was a lot.
That was our son's first concert.
He was fine.
Even the Chili Peppers
in Miami was not 80,000.
But it was.
Yeah.
Stadium shows.
80,000. No, that is that's a lot of energy.
Well, the Rose Bowl is more.
It's a bowl, but it's a long gated bowl.
So it's yes.
You're pretty if you're at the other end
of the stage, you're
pretty far away, I would assume.
Yeah.
So we my husband got us pretty good seats.
So we had we had a really good view.
He had he got the tickets and he took
the girls to see Taylor Swift
during the Airs Tour at SoFi.
And SoFi is another like
hundred thousand stadium.
And I was like, I just really do not want
to be around that many people.
Like I just I would really rather avoid it.
So I didn't go to that one actually,
because you didn't go.
Oh, you could have gone, but you didn't go.
Oh, I was like, let this
be a father daughter thing.
There were so many father
daughter groups that went though.
And I loved that they had that, you know,
that's a memory that they will always have
that their dad and he loves Taylor Swift.
He actually does.
He said, I saw a lot
of that on social media.
It was adorable.
And I think some of the
Airs Tour was filmed at SoFi.
Right. I was.
I think almost all of it.
I think most of it.
There was a girl that went to our high
school who is in the in the no way.
Oh, my God. That's so cool.
That is so cool.
I always thought that I would want to go to
a show at Madison Square Garden.
And it would take a very special band for
me to do something like that again.
Oasis was worth it experience.
But, yeah, anything more than 20,000.
And if I have a choice, I will go 2000 or
less venue like the House of Blues shows
are smaller shows, much smaller shows.
And we have seats.
I get to your mid 40s.
You want to see.
And you don't want to be.
Garden.
Well, yeah, no, we've seen the dead at the
garden, but we didn't know.
But now I'm all about seats.
I don't go anywhere unless I have a seat.
But I'm not a thing.
Christian is not my thing.
So, OK, do you have any more questions?
Are you good?
And I think you're I
think you're remarkable.
Congratulations on figuring shit out.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a great way to start.
I'll be in the best weekend.
No, I love the fact you've reclaimed
yourself and set up boundaries.
And, you know, it's it's awesome.
The timing is great because you're going to
approach a twilight and,
you know, you kind of got to
figure out how to the game.
So, you know, because a lot of us are this
is worth discovering this.
We turn 50.
So you're a little your head.
So it's it's awesome.
What was weirding me out?
I'm good now.
But is your Gen X but you you're.
Eight years younger than
us, I think that's weird.
That's like I don't know.
It's just weird.
It's like you have these
experiences, your Gen X
and but you're on that tail end.
So, you know, the fact that you had
Ethernet in college,
that wasn't a thing for us.
Yeah, we're still in that same generation.
Such a wide range.
And that's what I mean.
It's wild during those years that we,
those of us that are in different pockets
of it do have such different
differences, even though
we're all the same generation.
Yeah, it's cool.
It's very I love it.
Okay.
So my last question is always, where do you
see yourself in five years?
I hope in five years I'm doing a lot more
traveling because I will have both
kids out of the house and there will be
more time for that less day to day
commitment. I definitely hope I will have I
would like to have written at least one
more, if not two more books by then.
I'm starting my next one inspired in part
by my mom's romance scammer.
And like, so just kind of like, but I think
it might it might have a dual
timeline sort of thing
happening a little bit.
But and I, yeah, I really I would like to
say that I'm even further down the road of
setting those boundaries as my kids are
adults and and living their adults life.
My youngest will be close to the end of
college at that point and just really
like enjoying the, you know, the blessing
of having adult children that hopefully
will have spread their wings wide and I can
touch base with them on a regular
basis, but have my own life going with with
writing and traveling.
And yeah, that's that's what I have.
Yeah, absolutely lovely.
Absolutely lovely.
And I think you and your husband can
already see it are going to have such an
amazing transition into
parenting adult children.
And I think you're going to love that.
I can tell you it's awesome.
We love it. It's cool.
It's so cool.
And you can't describe it to
someone until you go through it.
But just the way you've tackled raising
them, you guys, when they say you get to
reap your rewards or whatever, the time you
put in, you're going to really be like,
OK, now this is awesome.
This is when we really
get to enjoy all that.
Everything we put in,
you finally are really
getting it all back when
they're adult children.
And so I'm excited for you guys because
that's like a whole
other aspect of your future.
So, you know, so it's going to be awesome.
And I can't wait to
watch out for more books.
No, but these aren't sequels, right?
It's going to be now.
As of right now, I'm not planning a sequel.
I have had people ask it.
I think it would be fun to follow along.
That's the next couple of years in the 90s
and her college experience or whatever.
But right now, that's not where my
inspiration is taking me.
I'm really I'm more really
diving into the psyche of somebody
who would choose to be a scammer,
basically, to make money off of that.
And also the psyche of somebody who's so
broken that they're so susceptible to
what the rest of the world sees is
obviously a scam, you know,
and to really dive into
those personalities and
kind of play in that world a little bit
like that predator victim type of duality.
So what I do have one.
Well, no, no, this is more more business.
OK, how do people buy your book?
So Barnes and Noble, I assume Amazon.
Yeah, it's it's in all the places you can
buy books or get books on Libby and
Kobo, Kobo and all those things.
I'm a big advocate for every main street in
America, having a library
and a privately owned business
bookstore like a local store.
So you can absolutely just go and request
it at your library or request it at your
local bookstore and they will order it for
you if it's not there.
And that supports them and supports me.
So I encourage people.
It does touch on some tricky subjects.
And I know that a lot of states in our
country are kind of pushing
some censorship with books.
And I say, please go
get it at your library.
Go get it because we need more of these
books out there that cover these topics
because they're really important.
And too many of them are
getting pulled off of shelves.
So let's just keep putting
more of them on the shelves.
Let's let people really understand the
world that they live in and the experiences
that people around them are having. Yeah.
Or you can always just go to my website.
It's also on my website,
Jamie Townsend dot com.
And if you if you happen to order it there,
you can get a signed copy sent to you.
I don't know.
And every any any way you can get in touch
with Jamie is going to be in the notes of
the description. So every link, anything.
And listeners, if you have any questions
that you have for Jamie,
please leave them.
We will make sure that she sees them.
And again, any way to get in
touch with her to buy her book.
What about the watercolors?
Is that on my website?
Well, if you want to look at
it, check out her watercolors.
Again, we can't thank you enough for
sharing, honestly, your journey,
your story, your wisdom and your
inspiration, your creative inspiration,
which I think is something people
desperately need now more than ever.
And especially as you suggested as a guide
to lead them on their new
path, their new journey.
It's such a great tool that's overlooked.
So thank you for sharing that.
I know there's going to be a lot of
listeners that will be able to relate to
that or never have even thought of using
that as a tool before.
And it could change the
whole trajectory of their life.
So we really appreciate you sharing your
insight into that and for coming on.
And we hope to maybe have you back when
your next book is published.
If you would like to come back and talk
about your next book.
I would love that.
Thank you so much to
both of you for having me.
I've loved our conversation.
I really appreciate what
you're doing with this show.
And it's just been a
pleasure to to share this.
And I do hope that, yes, to have another
conversation and a short time when the
next book is coming out. Absolutely.
The doors you have a
recurring guest spot here.
Whenever you want to come on and talk about
your next project, you're welcome.
You just let us know.
And again, any listeners,
please leave any questions, comments.
And we will make sure that Jamie sees them.
Or if you have them for
Brian and I, we will get.