Know Ya Flow
Women in flow, share what they know. Hear women's stories of how they've grown, what they know, and how they are living in flow.
Know Ya Flow
Highest of Highs Lowest of Lows - Theresa Drexler’s Life Story
Theresa's life impacted me so much, I'm beyond grateful that we have this recorded. This is a story of perseverance, love, sorrow, grief joy, pain and peace. Theresa met the love of her life at 20 and ended up with 5 children. Suddenly her husband passes away, now what? She tells us all about how she got through that, how she moved to the other side after turning to alcohol and how to find peace at the end. She is wise, hilarious, and well, just the best.
Hi, so I wanted to give a little introduction before jumping into this episode. This episode is really special to me. I have kind of been holding it close for a while over a year now but yeah, it's really special to me. This episode is with my dear friend, teresa. If you listened to my solo podcast episode that I recorded last year, I talk a little bit about her in that. So if you listened, yeah, that's who this is with.
Speaker 1:So Teresa was my ex-boyfriend's mom, I met her when I was 17. And I just remember thinking that she was so cool. You know like she was so cool and you know she always had this amazing jewelry on beautiful turquoise lapis, beautiful pieces, and I thought that was like her style was so cool. And you know, she was the first person that I had ever heard about Sedona from and if you know me, you know that I love Sedona and she inspired me to want to check it out and go out to the desert. She loved Watermelon Park Festival, which is a festival that I went to all the time and loved, and you know her love for music, her love for beating. She was an Aquarius, like I am, so I kind of understood that energy and beating to your own drum and that sort of thing. And yeah, and I mean she really in a lot of ways shaped who I am today and she taught me a lot, you know, just by being herself. You know I had the pleasure of knowing her for the last 10 years of her life and what a gift that was to be able to absorb her wisdom. And you know something about being with her and for me I always felt like time, I don't know, like I could just sit and smoke cigarettes and chat forever. I mean, I don't smoke now, but then you know, it was just drinking coffee, french press coffee, smoking cigarettes and listening to her dive into whatever her latest am whether it was music or jewelry or, you know, native Americans, the desert, all of those types of things all resonated with me and she really taught me. One thing that I really take away is, you know, being able to live your life without needing somebody else. So you know, you're never guaranteed another person. You know, if you don't have anybody to go do the adventure with, still do the adventure. Still go and have fun, still do what you want to do. You know, and have the best times. And that was really something that I took from her and I'm grateful. I'm grateful to have gotten from her.
Speaker 1:So when I was going to create a podcast and I was thinking of the people that I would have on, she was absolutely top of the list. Yeah, I always knew I'm like dude, I'm going to get Teresa on here and we are going to chat about all the things I want to get her life. I want her to tell me about her life on a podcast episode, because I know it would, just that it would be a banger. Yeah, so you know she, she lived, not to dive too deep, but she lived in Tucson, near Tucson, for the last couple of years and when she would come in town she would stay with me. So you know we would I would probably talk to her a couple of times a year, you know.
Speaker 1:And so she called me last year and told me that you know she had been diagnosed with cancer and it just so happened to be that I was going to Sedona for my birthday, which is beginning of February, which was a week or two away from her calling me, and I knew that I was going to launch the podcast last year sometime and I had all my equipment and I said can I, um, can I come see you, number one, and also can I bring all my stuff and can I record you telling me your life story? And she said yes, and I'm so glad that she did, and I feel honored to have this recorded. And so this recording that you're about to hear it took about two days. She was pretty sick and so her speech was kind of slow, but luckily I have an amazing editor that was able to really tie it all in together. You know, a part of me wishes that she was well when we had talked, because I know that. I know that the nuggets would have. I know the conversation would have probably been like two hours, maybe two and a half hours.
Speaker 1:It was a lot to even get an hour for the recording, but at the same time, I feel like it's perfect and you know what needs to be shared was shared, like it's perfect, and you know what needs to be shared was shared. So I hope you'll enjoy it. She was an incredible person and so fun and so funny and such a hoot and, um, yeah, she makes me laugh. So thank you all, um, thank you to her family for letting me be a part of her life. So enjoy. Welcome to Know your Flow podcast, where women in flow share what they know. I'm your host, lauren Barton. Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know, how they've grown and living in flow. Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2:Niagara Falls, New York.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Near Buffalo.
Speaker 1:What was that like?
Speaker 2:It was great. We lived across from the Niagara River. It was fantastic. We used to swim in the Niagara River. It was actually dangerous, but I don't think my parents knew that and my brothers and I would have a blast out there with the tubes and probably did a lot of dangerous things.
Speaker 1:Did other kids in the neighborhood do that too?
Speaker 2:Or I don't recall any other. I have six brothers and a sister. She was hardly with us. Is she older or younger than you? I forget. She's, I believe, 11 years older, so I didn't really play with my sister. I don't remember, yeah, my sister, until much later on in life yeah, it's like that sometimes yeah, so then we moved to New Jersey. When I was 10 or 11, I lived in Port Morris, new Jersey, which was an offshoot of Sakasana, and we had a black. I had a fantastic middle school high school experience there.
Speaker 1:Did you always do art stuff?
Speaker 2:Always I used to, from the time I was like in probably seventh grade I'd stay up till two in the morning painting and then get to school by seven.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Did you just not go to sleep?
Speaker 2:So I didn't go to sleep. I didn't sleep, require much sleep. I slept on average and all my life up until this last week, but all my life probably five hours, six on average.
Speaker 1:So you were just like I. What kind of stuff were you painting? You remember Big cacti and and you had never seen that in person. Had you ever seen cacti?
Speaker 2:Only when I turned like 16, when we came out west for a trip or cross country. Took us about three weeks to do our trip, but family, with just a few of my brothers Tom, tim, matt and my mom, I believe, was who was on that trip. It was great because we had all sorts of adventures and I learned to fall in love with the Navajo, the Native American way.
Speaker 2:I got very in tune. That's when I started painting eagles and wolves and cacti predominantly, and I was an oil painter, so I didn't know how to do the acrylic. I didn't like acrylic back then. Now I do.
Speaker 1:Was anybody else in your family like artistic?
Speaker 2:My mother was for certain.
Speaker 1:What kind of stuff did she do?
Speaker 2:Oh, everything from embroidery art to painting watercolor, anything she could get her hands on. Sculpture. Anything she wanted to try, she did.
Speaker 1:When you came out west, did you feel like home? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:feeling that at 16?. I don't know. I was immediately comfortable and didn't want to go home.
Speaker 1:I always wonder, when that stuff happens, like is that past life stuff? You know, maybe you lived here in a past life, or is it just, I guess, your soul's desires?
Speaker 2:There's just a place that I think we were all meant to be to call home. I just think there's a special place for everyone. It's different for every single person. That's where I live. Now is the place I I can call home and mean it through and through for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:I'm home in Sourita, Arizona yeah right, why didn't you pick Newxico over this?
Speaker 2:like, why did you feel home more homey, I love I love, lived in santa fe for two years and I loved santa fe and madrid and taos. But it was just bitter cold in the winter. My body cannot take the cold. Otherwise I'd be there half a year in the summer in santa fe if I could afford to. I'd be there half the year in the summer in Santa Fe If I could afford to. I'd be there half the year in the summer and half the year in Tucson, Salarita.
Speaker 1:So you were in high school. You said it was cool, you liked high school.
Speaker 2:I loved high school. Yeah, I was a cheerleader and did gymnastics and I took all college prep classes back then and all you know all those crazy honor classes. But I also took a lot of art classes and the teachers used to let me go out those periods of the day and independently and paint and draw outside or sculpt, or because I liked it all, I do it all the sculpt, from sculpture to oil painting to now jewelry.
Speaker 1:Were your parents. Did they really want everybody to go to college? Was that important to them?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it was important. I was at the end of the road of eight children I was seventh out of eight for them and I just think it was expected of us and I wanted to go to college and complete my degree. I never did. I tried many times but I never did, and I didn't need it. Different circumstances kept me from continuing on.
Speaker 1:So you went to college though.
Speaker 2:Oh, I went to William Patterson College in New Jersey.
Speaker 1:To study what.
Speaker 2:I was doing a double major, an accounting major and illustration and design major.
Speaker 1:Because you were like I'm good at math.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was great at math Just a whiz, yeah, whiz, and I loved math. Yeah, I was great at math just a whiz, yeah, whiz and I loved it. But I really wanted to get a degree in illustration and design. How long were you there? So I was there three semesters when I met Bill, so you were 19?
Speaker 1:So I was 19 in two months, because I met him on his birthday, which is April 9th.
Speaker 2:April 9th.
Speaker 1:What was your personality like as a 19-year-old?
Speaker 2:I jumped and skipped and bobbed everywhere Across campus. Every day I'd be going to art classes With carrying a huge portfolio Across the entire campus Every day. I had to do it From the academic wing to the art wing and I had to literally run in between classes to get to the next. Literally run because the schedule is so tight and I'd have books but like a backpack books thing on my left arm and my portfolio on my right. It was a big portfolio, it was like three by four portfolio and I would literally have to run across campus this big thing, and you're how tall yeah, I'm 4, 11.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 92 pounds were you like funny adventurous.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, I camped, I hiked, I fished. I used to love to fish, did a lot of boating, did a lot of skiing, as much as I could afford. Yeah, it's expensive. It was very expensive back then so I had to babysit to do that. Yeah, saved my every penny. Oh yeah, I loved to go to music venues and the big field parties. I worked at night. So eventually, like when I was 17 and could get a real job, I was started as a waitress. So I always worked nighttime shifts but and on the weekend, because that's where your money is. So I'd work three days a week, but you know it was hard to get to the parties a lot of most of the time. But I at least got the late edge, yeah, the last two hours of the party. If I could make it, I was there.
Speaker 1:So you met Bill two months after your birthday? No, a month after no, yeah, two months after your birthday.
Speaker 2:Because your birthday is. I met him April 9th.
Speaker 1:What was that experience?
Speaker 2:This was the day I met my late husband, in April 9th 1981. Hilarious. I was just leaving from my last class. I had a studio class and I was dog tired. I had been at school since like I don't know seven, because my days, my studio classes alone, my art classes, were six hour classes and I had had one of those or maybe even two that day. But so it's 10 o'clock at night. I'm so tired.
Speaker 2:Getting ready to go home and I'm walking out to my car with my portfolio, my big, my big book bag, and heading towards my car, and all of a sudden something is rumbling in the bushes and it gets louder and louder. And you know, brambling through the bushes was these two kids. You know, they were like 20-whatever in college, they were like 22 or whatever. And they appeared all of a sudden in front of me and were like hey, you have to go to a party. There's a great party on the hill. That's where everybody had the parties. They called it the hill where all the bachelor places were.
Speaker 2:And I'm like no, no, no, it's late, I'm going home, like no, you've got to go to the party, you've got to come to the party. They're like begging me to go to this party. So I get there and I go okay, I'll go for one beer. So I get there and I'm sitting down on a couch and I'm talking to one guy on the right of me he's like I'm a pilot and then another guy on the right of me he's like I'm a pilot and then another guy on the left of me trying to impress me, you know, trying to pick me up for the night. And I was just sitting there, you know, having my beer, laughing, whatever, and all of a sudden some guy comes up and he squats down like totally close to my face and he says hey, it's my birthday, I'm Bill, it's my birthday, I'm Bill, it's my birthday. You have to give me a kiss and I'm like what he's like it's my birthday, it's my birthday.
Speaker 2:And he was all drunk, but he was cute, he was funny and I'm like I'm not giving you a kiss, like you need to go away. I don't kiss on the first date. He, he is like persistent with this and I'm like, no, I'm not giving you a kiss. And he's looking at the other guys, like one of you guys can leave, and neither one one of the boys were budging. They were sitting there trying. They were trying to score, you know, make a score, as they said in back in the day. It was so funny because finally gave up. After like 40 seconds he gave up and he just sat down on the guy on my right lap. He just sat right on that guy until the guy got all embarrassed and left in the seat. He just sat on the man. It was hilarious. And so now he's got my whole right side cornered, you know, and he's like it's my birthday, look, and he starts getting out his wallet. He's trying to convince me it's my birthday, I just want one kiss. And so that's where all that began. I finally gave in and gave him a kiss on his cheek and we talked for hours and hours till like when the party ended, we went out to the parking lot and talked till like the lights started coming up I think it was like 5.30 in the morning or whatever and I never did this in my life. The first time I ever first and last time I've ever done it. But I took him home for the to my, because we weren't done talking, we weren't done that night yet, and so I took him back to my apartment, which was, you know, maybe 20 minutes from there, and we, of course, hit the sack. We're instantly in love and, before you knew it, one day led to another. We missed our job, our both of us missed our jobs, our our schools for three full days, and I mean I was totally in love. I was actually going out with a guy and broke up with him right away, and he was going out with a girl and broke up with her right away, but three days later he left only to go get his clothes and things from where he was living, his parents' house, and that was all she wrote like.
Speaker 2:From that day on, he came back and we were together for 17, almost 18 years, until he died at 42 years old. The love of my life, you know. So we had a great marriage. We always had fun. He always was getting kisses from me and pinching my behind Up until like seriously, I mean, we made love always, always, even when I was pregnant, throughout the pregnancy and as soon as we could after the birth, and it never got to like those marriages that are like once a week or whatever. Never we enjoyed each other until the day he died, and up until the last time we made love was a week before he died and then I thought he died that day on the shower and so I would not allow that anymore.
Speaker 2:But he was still after me. He would run after me it's funny Just like kids. We would behave like children and just had a great day. He would pinch my buns and he did that up until, I think, the day he died he did it to me. So it was. He was just so cute and he was a man. He was he's a real man, but with me he was just everything a woman wants in a guy. I had every day of my life for I'd say 18 years, because I met him April 9th in 81 and he died in May of 99, so that is 18 full years because we were together from the day we met to the time he died.
Speaker 1:When did you guys get married after that?
Speaker 2:So good, catholic girl. So you know, catholics, we don't believe in birth control and honestly, I didn't even realize that doing that would that you could get pregnant. I really was not of understanding of that. I know it sounds naive.
Speaker 1:Well, I was, I mean if nobody talked about it.
Speaker 2:I was totally naive about it, totally so. I got pregnant, I believe, four months into our relationship and had my first child on April 12th, a year after I met him. A year and three days after I met him, I had Alyssa.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our little love child.
Speaker 1:Were you scared when you found out you're pregnant?
Speaker 2:I was in shock for months. I tell you, he was absolutely so excited. I remember the day when they told me that I was pregnant and when he got home he was working that day, when he got home, he lifted me up and twirled me around and danced around. He was so excited, so excited. He was a substantial amount older because he had been in the navy. He was older than me. Yeah, he had seen the world. You know, he was on a naval ship. Yeah, he was ready. Yeah, he was totally ready. But so I was like in shock, up, even when I was married I've got married I'm like is this really happening?
Speaker 1:because then you would have had to get married in what like June. When did you get married? When was your anniversary?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we got married. I was three and a half or four months pregnant.
Speaker 1:We got married in November did people know, like did your parents know?
Speaker 2:and stuff that I was getting married because of that.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess, yeah, or that you were pregnant already and like here we go, or like yeah, most people knew Like I didn't care anybody Right, I'm an open book, I'm a total open book. No, like I wasn't like embarrassed or anything. I was just afraid that it was going to affect my career and possibility of having one. Because what did you want your career to be? I wanted to be an artist, six months out of the year and out in the desert, and freelance, just paint and then make my money in New York with the accounting for the other six or five. It was my thought I was going to split it up. You know, have a place in both places. So that drastically changed my life. And for him it didn't Like nothing changed in his life, Like he had no dreams of something like that. He was going back to college trying to figure out who he wanted to be.
Speaker 1:now, yeah, Still I think what was his personality in comparison to like yours? Were you guys opposites that then balance each other out, or were you very similar?
Speaker 2:or I think we were entirely similar, so similar. The only difference, I believe, really was the way he could be so frivolous with money. I grew up with no money, you know. We didn't have any financial. We had all the love in the world, supposedly, that you can get, but no, we did, but we didn't have any financial means. Growing up, I wore a lot of boys' clothing. What are they called? Hammy Downs? Hammy Downs? Okay so he was frivolous, totally frivolous.
Speaker 1:He never looked at a price tag is that the only thing that you guys argued about?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, that used to drive me insane, yeah, and also the way he would just hand the teenage daughter's money to go to the mall. That bugged the hell out of me and how much he could spend on a vacation. I could spend a quarter of what, and we did it. After a while we learned that we had to do. This was he would choose one vacation and I wasn't allowed to look at the credit cards, and I would choose the next vacation and he wasn't allowed to look at the or complain about the credit card, which my vacations were a quarter, almost always, of what he would spend, and just as good, if not better, is what I tell my kids. So those few things. And then I got to have to accept it because he was an air traffic controller and he was actually making some really good money back then. So I just realized you know this is a stupid thing to fight about and like, just try to learn and accept it because he can afford it. Right, we can afford it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just your own mentality, right? We can't afford it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just your own mentality. Yeah, I think I've always been insecure about stability, like financial stability always To this day I am. So, yeah, I can't get over that. So I kind of hoard I for many things in my life have backups and I used to hide money in cookie jars and this is no joke In books, in boots. I literally would hide money in cookie jars and and this is no joke in books, in boots. I literally would hide money and still do. And I've got it now a new trouble in finding and locating all my money. People are going to be throwing it out like all over my house. Yeah, it's like eight thousand dollars in that one boot right now in cash, or ten for real yeah, yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 1:So then you guys got married, and then where did you move? So, basically, what it sounds like happened was you had this kind of idea for the way that you thought that your life would go, and then it completely got rocked in a good way, in a different direction.
Speaker 2:All my dreams that I had when I was a younger person and I had many goals all my dreams or goals, whatever you want to call it were totally shattered when I met him and got married and pregnant.
Speaker 1:But you didn't care, were you resentful at all.
Speaker 2:No, I absolutely didn't. I welcomed it because he was just that great of a man being here genuinely best man I'll ever know. He was just like me in the fact that we could go basic camping with a tent or no tent, just a few items, and go rough in the wild to. We could do that and be perfectly happy. Or we could go to a grand theater, to the opera, together and both enjoy the heck out of it Like we were very well-rounded and cultured Totally and that's one of my passions is live theater and live music.
Speaker 1:So then you got married and then you, so I guess you got pregnant and then got out of college. So then, where did you live after that?
Speaker 2:So, oh my gosh, the day we we were married, he had taken the air traffic control exam, which is a public exam that anyone can take up until the they're 32.
Speaker 2:So he took that exam like three months before we got married. As soon as I found found out I was pregnant, he was taking the exam and on the day of our wedding the letter came in that morning he was taking the exam and on the day of our wedding the letter came in that morning that he was accepted into the air traffic control program, which was amazing, like such a great letter to receive, because he didn't really know what he wanted to do. And now he's going to have a wife and a child, like totally very. You know, he had me, me, but then the baby coming in April and then so we got that letter and then just a few months later, right before we had the baby, he received the results that were 92 and he was going to Oklahoma in May. So it was like he had like three weeks to get ready and go after the baby was born and, and then you were by yourself.
Speaker 2:I was by myself. Well, I had the baby and Alyssa was five weeks old when I moved out to Oklahoma City where he started his training, and we were in Oklahoma City for three or four months and then we're moved to Memphis, tennessee.
Speaker 1:And then did you have Elena there.
Speaker 2:So I had, I had Alyssa, baby Alyssa. We moved to Memphis, tennessee, and I had baby Alyssa there and by the time Asha was born, two months, two years later, we were in South Haven, mississippi, and the minute you walked into South Haven it was beautiful, beautiful place to be, and we lived there for nine years. So I had Ashley there and my daughter Elena there, and I had two miscarriages there.
Speaker 1:How far were you along in those?
Speaker 2:The first one, I believe about three months later. I mean, yeah, three months. The second one was just one of those don't you shouldn't have done it things where it was only like a three-week-old miscarriage.
Speaker 1:How did that feel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at first, both of those miscarriages I was like, oh well, it's God's will, Something must have been wrong with the baby. So it was a blessing in disguise and I truly felt like that. So I was totally at peace did you?
Speaker 1:did you only have Alyssa, or did you have Alyssa and or was it in between?
Speaker 2:I had Alyssa and Ashley okay. And then two miscarriages, and then Elena and then two miscarriages and then Elena in 86. So Ashley was born in 84 and in 86 was I had Elena. So I had two miscarriages in between those two babies.
Speaker 1:Did people not really talk about that then? Was that kind of a thing of like?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I didn't really talk to too many women. I kind of, in general, hung out with yeah. Yeah, I kind of spoke with men more than I did women. For sure, I had more male friends than I did female. All my life. I hung out with the boys yeah, I played football until I was in tag football or whatever it was called touch till.
Speaker 1:I was in eighth grade so then was that weird having girls.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, I didn't know what the heck, but I learned to love and, oh, I loved being a mother. That's the best thing in the world to be is a mom. Yeah, I loved it, I embraced it. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I used to sew almost all their clothes. I loved it. You know, I used to paint their sneakers to match their dresses, outfits and stuff.
Speaker 1:You had Elena and you guys are in Mississippi. Now you're where.
Speaker 2:So we moved to Tennessee as soon as we could afford our first home and it was only five minutes further out. We were on the line, state line, and that was in 1984, right after Ashley was born. We got the house and then I had the two miscarriages and then I was pregnant with Elena and had her in December in 86. First baby at that house.
Speaker 1:Were you trying to have all these babies?
Speaker 2:Because I had Alyssa so young, I never even thought about having children. It was not in my life plan at all. I wasn't opposed of it, but I definitely never thought about having a child. It wasn't really in my plan. But once I had Alyssa, I fell in love with babies all the way. I loved it, I embraced motherhood, and so I decided that I'll have as many babies. Since I started so young, I wanted to retire young so that I would have as many as God gave me until I was 32 years old, and that's exactly what I did when I had my last child, trevor, at 32, that was it. Bill went in, had a vasectomy. What all men should do, yeah, never the woman Right. Never the woman should get hissed or whatever they do, right, it should always be the man.
Speaker 1:Or be on birth control.
Speaker 2:Or birth control or whatever, but never should the woman worry about it ever again. When she's done, she's done, but she's done all the work, yeah, the other work of pregnancy and birth so when did you guys move to virginia? So I had el Elena in 86. Then I had two more miscarriages.
Speaker 1:So you had four miscarriages? No, yes, Wow.
Speaker 2:So I had two miscarriages before Elena had her beautiful, beautiful baby, and then I had two more miscarriages and then I had my first son, trey, and then my second son, trevor. We moved to Virginia when Trey was five weeks old, yeah, and then I had Trevor there and I birthed him in West Virginia.
Speaker 1:Why were you in West Virginia for that?
Speaker 2:Because I used a midwife only. Oh, and they had to be certified in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Did you always use a midwife?
Speaker 2:I always used them. I had my first baby, Alyssa. I did not have a nurse midwife, I had an OBGYN.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then that was not the greatest of experiences, my first birth. And so I switched and went to nurse midwives Nice, but they had to be certified so that they were always in the hospital, like, and I had to birth the baby in the hospital to ensure that if something were to go wrong, they had all the equipment to save the baby or me. Then I could go home after we were all good. But I would never have enough. I.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't even ever consider an OBGYN ever again, because certified nurse midwives are, yeah, the way to go, totally the best way to go but that was like not that popular.
Speaker 2:Then was it right when you were having babies very difficult to find a good one which is wild yeah, so, and I always had the best, and I can't remember their names, unfortunately right now, off the top of my head, but the one actually, I think her name was ruth. It's coming to me but she ended up writing books I'm really supposed supposedly good books later on in her career, but she was fantastic. All of them, all my nurse midwives were fantastic.
Speaker 1:Did you work when you had all your kids and were you doing art?
Speaker 2:So in the very beginning, first couple children, I was still trying to finish my degree and I guess the last year I tried, so I would take a class here, like one class a month, maybe two, but studio classes were really long, they were always long, they were like six hours in school and then of course you had to produce a product you know painting or a sculpture on your other days and then bring it you know, present it the next class. So they were really long and I could do just one class a semester. I did that for many up until Elena was born and she was probably like three months old and Bill, my husband, started bringing her to the college for me to nurse her, and it was just it got to be way too much for me. You know I'm having to excuse myself to nurse my child in the middle of class, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you did that on purpose to get me to stop going to college or what, but it was certainly a deterrent and so I stopped doing that. So I stopped taking classes and so I stopped doing that. So I stopped taking classes. And the belief was then so I quit college. And our agreement was I was going to go and finish my degree full time when the last child went into kindergarten, which was my son, Trevor, my baby, and I never made it because he died. That was the year he died was when I was supposed to go back to college full time. So I never did finish my degree. I just only needed, I think, like two more semesters to finish a complete major, Two majors accounting and my art degree. Like I took 18 credits a semester.
Speaker 1:You guys are living your life. Five kids in Virginia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, having a blast every day of our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The kids were really active, you know, from soccer to swimming to ballet gymnastics, they loved to golf. We did tennis a bit. From soccer to swimming to ballet gymnastics, they loved to golf. We did tennis a bit. You name the sport, we did it. Perfect, yeah, it was, oh yeah, as perfect as you could have a life. We had it, and that's the real deal. It was a real picture. We belonged to a club always, so we always had swimming pools outside of our home and we could have afforded a pool, but I never wanted one there because I knew I'd be the sitter, babysitter all summer of the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:So I decided no, not into that I liked having other people's kids around. It was fun. I totally enjoyed that. But it was like I was a lot of people's babysitters for a long time and I didn't care, because those kids that were there weren't really enjoyable so at this point you're in Virginia living your life.
Speaker 1:Kids are playing sports, kids are good, everything's fine. Your oldest is probably what is she in high school at this point?
Speaker 2:So she was 16 and on the edge of 17. So he found out January 26th of 1999, and he passed away May 16th 1999. So he passed less than four months after.
Speaker 1:Do you think that that was good, that it was quick or bad?
Speaker 2:I too. It's a hard question. I'm not sure. I think that any which way he sliced it, it was going to be a shock and it was a lot of time of watching him suffer for the kids. I felt Unnecessarily. I mean his treatment did nothing good for him.
Speaker 1:What kind of like symptoms was he having?
Speaker 2:So he was having chest pains, like a few months prior, and three times during that time prior to diagnosis, he clutched his heart and said, oh well, I gotta sit down. And he said, wow, I'm so stressed out, my heart hurts. And I went all three times and got his coat, my my keys, started putting my coat on, grabbing my purse and saying let's go, let's go to the hospital, let's go to the ER, have him check you out. And he's like, no, no, it's just stress. I just got back picking Alyssa and Ashley up from Taekwondo you know it's just been a busy day and wouldn't refuse to go. And we did that scene three times.
Speaker 2:And then he went into work January 26th and he had to clutch his chest again at work and as an air traffic controller, as soon as they know you've got any kind of chest pain, boom, they pull you from the boards, so to speak. They, they pull you from the boards, so to speak. They pull you off the floor and you absolutely have to go in and get it checked out. So they send you an ambulance and that's what they did. They took him in and he was diagnosed stage four cancer and he died. Like I said, I guess it's less than four months, january 26th to May 16th after.
Speaker 1:Do you remember much about that time, or does it all seem blurry?
Speaker 2:I remember a lot of it and some of the things I don't. I don't remember who was at the funeral Other than my five children, so I remember who was there and my brother, tim and Beth.
Speaker 1:Did you tell the kids? Did you both tell the kids together? No, do you remember that?
Speaker 2:We both told them together all the kids. The girls understood more than the boys, right? The girls were 17, 15, 16, 14, and 12, something like that. They all turned a year older within the time span of diagnosis to death. Yeah, so Right, yeah, they were really. You know, they were in teeny bop stage, and then the boys were five and seven. Yeah, so that was. I thought they were going to be the difficult ones, and the irony of it all was I was so thankful that they were around because they kept some of the sanity very little sanity what types of things were going through your mind during that period of like, like, kind of like.
Speaker 1:What were your priorities at that time? Cause you're in survival mode, probably, I'm assuming and you're thinking yeah, just get food on the table.
Speaker 2:Like I had to go back to work full time.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:No, I worked two nights a week just because I wanted to like to have my own money, but my job was not essential. But all of a sudden it became essential for me to work and to just to put food on the table. I had to work most of the time. I worked two, two jobs. So it was really difficult because the kids still had all their, their sports. I actually had to tell them they could only do two things a semester. Yeah, and at points in time, depending what they were involved in that semester, they could maybe only do one activity and that they had to help coordinate rides and things, because I couldn't do it. You know, a lot of times I was at work and that was just like barrel of the bottom survival mode. We weren't having great vacations or anything anymore and the girls weren't getting the clothes and boots and things they wanted anymore. You know they really hated me because I had to be strict, really strict, on them there. There was no other way.
Speaker 1:Because every single person in that situation is going through something.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Their own inner feelings and grief and trauma, and while being a teenager and your life just got rocked and you're in a completely different situation, you know, and there's six people that are all going through something. So I can imagine that, as the person that's in charge of it all, while also dealing with losing literally the love of your life, that that must've been like the hardest thing, craziest.
Speaker 2:In my life. That was the hardest part time in my life and I got crazy. I started drinking heavily.
Speaker 1:How soon after?
Speaker 2:A few months after.
Speaker 1:Had you drank much before.
Speaker 2:And no, hardly at all. We'd share a bottle of wine or something you know at dinner every so often, or have some champagne, or I didn't really drink beer, but all of a sudden I'm drinking beer and vodka and pouring it in water glasses, pretending that it's water in a water bottle, walking all over town like that, yeah, yeah, and I started getting into a lot of trouble with DUIs and I lost my license and in that time and that was under a year's time five DUIs under a year wow. So was it like they were ready to? They were ready to put me in jail and keep me there.
Speaker 1:So was it like that? May he passed, and then by November you're full-blown drinking.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then, how many years did that go on? You said three and a half.
Speaker 2:That went on until I moved out to Santa Fe, new Mexico, to save my life. That was in 2004. Saved my life, that was in 2004. So four years, four full years. And then it took me another probably nine months out there to completely just wake up one day and fall on my knees by the will of God, the grace of God, and then when I in sobbing, sobbing one night to getting up off my knees and pouring every bit of alcohol out of my house, and then I didn't touch it for another seven and a half years at all, not one drop. And I've had a couple little things here and there, but nothing like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was every single day. Like what were you feeling in those four years that you were drinking? Like how, what were you feeling within?
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't think I was feeling much of anything, I was just I was overwhelmed with just everyday life. Yeah, like I literally was just trying to survive five minutes at a time. Yeah, because it was just. I felt like that Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in the big windstorm and her whole body's like just flying, you know, kind of going around and around with the wind. That's how I felt literally.
Speaker 2:I felt like I was walking through a damn blizzard every day and that I was Eeyore with the rain cloud always on top of his head, the gray cloud at Eeyore, and so I really I had no time to think, to do any kind of recovery of it, reflection, I had no time. I was sleeping like one hour a day in between shifts and drinking, and you know what's funny is I never missed one mortgage payment or any payment. I actually missed one water payment when I moved to Santa Fe and my bills got confused, but at all that time I was paying my mortgage, the cable, everything. Like I was a high functioning drunk Right, like I knew when I could drink and I knew when I couldn't.
Speaker 1:So what made you move out to Santa Fe?
Speaker 2:So I knew my mind was starting to slip Like I. I was truly starting to lose my entire mind, like the core of my being. And by the grace of God and I mean that it was put in my head to start going to visit a couple different places where I could maybe move to and try to work on not drinking and getting getting well because were people coming at you being like, hey, you're an alcoholic, you need to stop yeah, my, my siblings, even some of my friends, but more of my siblings were on me.
Speaker 1:Did your kids know?
Speaker 2:They sent me actually to Father Martin's Ashley. They did an intervention on me In like 2001 or something like that and I was really mad. I was mad because when I was ready, then I was ready, I was ready. You know, you can't force somebody to be ready no you can't. But they thought I was gonna kill myself and maybe the boys or the girls in the car yeah and they were right.
Speaker 2:I mean, they were right, yeah, but I was still mad and I still am. But so, yeah, I did several rehab stints and that one was through an intervention. But I put myself in rehab two other times in a cheap town's one, a little rinky-dink rehab, but I hadn't become involved with people that if I were ever to be interested in drugs I could get and have anything I wanted for free, like cocaine and like any of it. But luckily I never did it, I never was into drugs, and alcohol is actually to me almost the worst drug. Alcohol is the one drug that should absolutely be banned from the face of this earth. I know, because that's where all the pain and sorrow comes from alcohol People, when they're using to resolve mental anguish, they turn towards alcohol. And it's free, I mean it's legal everywhere you go, it's on every like movie, it's flaunted everywhere and it's a really dangerous, dangerous drug.
Speaker 1:Beer, you know so simple, but yet yeah, and you can die.
Speaker 2:It's one of the few that you can die from so you went to santa fe oh, so I got to get some space.
Speaker 2:So I start flying around. The first place I wanted to visit was santa fe. And I show up and it's the biggest gathering of nations. That like week, that weekend in Albuquerque, an hour away. And I went to the powwow, the gathering of nations, and it was amazing Over 3,000 dancers, like just a show beyond words, and all different tribes, different costume. You know they had jewelry. They had fine silver jewelry, gold jewelry, but they sold leather and laces and belts, some sculptures. Out there, all sorts of artists would join the powwow to sell their wares and it was so fun and I was convinced that's where I'm moving to. So I came back and within I think it was probably a month or so, I packed up everything in my house, I rented out my house in Virginia and I rented a condo in Santa Fe.
Speaker 1:What was going on with your kids?
Speaker 2:So I called my sister and brother-in-law and I knew they were real straight-laced. They were both teachers and they had two children only. And I knew if there was any help from family members at that point, that it would be them to take the boys. And I thought, oh yeah, they'd probably be glad to do it, and sure enough they were. So they came and got the kids, the two babies, and I took the 13 year old and, uh, ashley was going to be off to college at that point and Alyssa was, you know, out of the house at that point.
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, because at that point you're just like dude, I'm losing my mind, Like I cannot do this and I need some space and I need to get out of here I'm losing it.
Speaker 2:I was sleeping in the same bed where I held Bill as he died, right, I mean, I held him, I sat behind him and was holding him up so he could breathe, and as I held him, that was where he died, in our bed. And I'll tell you. You know, I couldn't get any sleep for five years. Yeah, I slept maybe an hour or two a day, so literally I was killing myself with sleep, deprivation, everything.
Speaker 1:Exhaustion yeah stress.
Speaker 2:It messes up your brain Right, it does. And so I had to go for my health. I knew, I knew somehow that I had to go for my health to save myself, and then I'll come back for the kids later. And that's exactly precisely what I did.
Speaker 1:Did you? How did you feel during that time about your decision? How?
Speaker 2:did you feel during that time about your decision? Yeah, it was the only decision that I could possibly make. It was either that or go off the deep end and they'd get taken away permanently from me for certain, and I probably would be dead. So I knew that it was either that or death and I chose the right one for certain, totally because, walking around and in, I walked around in Santa Fe for months and months on the top of these mountains that have these pignon bushes with a shaman and I was doing tricolor stucco out there with some painters.
Speaker 2:I got in with a painter group, so initially I was still drinking because all those painters were drinkers. And then I just one day woke up and I was always praying to quit drinking. And then, sure enough, that morning I fell to my knees, sobbing, just out of nowhere, just sobbing. And then I got up and immediately, immediately, went to the freezer and threw out all my vodka bottles, because I used to put all my vodka in the freezer and I had a great stash going, buzzed all that down the drain and then I had like six bottles of wine on the countertop. I opened it all and threw it out and I didn't touch it for another seven and a half years. I never thought about it. That whole seven and a half years I never thought about drinking ever Like even a sip, which was interesting to me. Thankfully, that was the way it was, because what I understand is it's really hard for some people.
Speaker 1:What do you think that it was you?
Speaker 2:said God, I think the grace of God. Yeah, I used to say the serenity prayer all day long. When I was feeling anxious, I would say the serenity prayer in my head to calm me down, and it always did got to be where. It was just something that automatically had started in my head, like when I was experiencing stress.
Speaker 1:I think that it helped that you were able to be like dude, I gotta take a second, I gotta get away from this. I've, you know, I've had this traumatic thing happen to me. This isn't working. I can't do this. I gotta do something hard. I gotta, like you know, let my boys live with somebody else and I got to go back. You went all the way back to what you knew worked, what 25 years before that or whatever it was like when you were 16 and went out to the desert and felt that feeling and painted the cactus and that all got. You took a different life journey but then you were like all right, I got to go back and I feel like it healed you. You know, god healed you and that whole thing and you got some space. And because that wasn't you, like you said, like the, the being an alcoholic and drinking, all that, that wasn't you. That was a reaction from a traumatic thing and and not having any time to like process, what happened that?
Speaker 2:was the only time, like then, I could begin to start going through the grief process, because I hadn't gone through any of those stages, I don't believe when I was there with the kids those initial first couple of years. So it took that to just and being live among peace, peaceful setting, where I and I definitely was out Santa Fe in a peaceful setting so you wake up one morning, you're done drinking, then what it's operation.
Speaker 1:I'm going back to the east coast getting my kids back.
Speaker 2:Yes, here we go and, yeah, I drive my U-Haul back ended up staying with my brother Tom. He offered a place for me to stay there because my house was still getting rented out and I did not want to move back in. I wanted it sold. But so I moved back to Pennsylvania and I start a truck back and forth from Pennsylvania because they were staying at my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's home and they live in New Jersey, about 45 minutes into New Jersey, and so I had to go back and forth to prove that I was in good shape, to prove I was sober, to prove I can handle these kids, because they were not going to give custody over. They wanted to go through lawyers in court to give the kids back to me. So that was one little battle, which actually. So I got there.
Speaker 2:I went back and forth from Tom, my brother's place to New Jersey to see the boys, and then I was going back to Virginia as well to fix my house up here and there. Little things here, little things there for the market to sell it, and so I was just exhausting myself going back and forth those three places. But you know that's what I had to do to get the boys back. So finally, about seven months later, we went to court and the deal was already made before we even went into the courtroom. Nobody had to. The judge had signed papers to sign him back over before Lynn and Kevin or I even showed up.
Speaker 2:They had already between my lawyer and possibly the Moore's lawyer. They had it fixed. So bing-a-bang-a-boom, I walked out with the boys. They had it fixed. So bingo, banga, boom.
Speaker 2:I walked out with the boys and we rented a big condo like a month later in Bryanicksville in a really nice subdivision of Lehigh County. They had great high school and middle school where Trey and Trevor would both be in. So we started that and then I had this expensive place in Bryaningsville, pennsylvania, paying for the condo. I also had my expensive home in Virginia that I'm paying for. So the rentals moved out of the house in Virginia and that's how I was able to go back and forth to do some maintenance things. But I finally decided I had to go. We had to go back to Virginia in that same house because I had to add a second job to buy groceries, have groceries on the table. So we had to go back and we did.
Speaker 2:Back to Virginia. The boys were elated because all their friends were there. They were really happy and I'm not sure if they were in high school. I think Trey was in high school, trevor maybe going into his freshman year when we moved back. So that's all she wrote there. Found ourselves back in Virginia. A full circle, yeah, from virginia to santa fe, new mexico, down to pennsylvania and around back up to virginia. So I ended where I started, which I was not the happiest camper about, because I in the winters are just so bitter cold in virginia for me yeah and it really aches my arthritis and you wanted to probably get out of that house and start something fresh.
Speaker 2:I'm still in the same house where Bill died and in my arms the whole rigmarole, but I actually could handle it then.
Speaker 1:I know because, yeah, you came back to where you started, but you were different. Yes, absolutely, because you came back sober, you had had some space, you like made decisions of like kind of like reowning what your life was, what yeah, I reowned my life and I started living life instead of just trudging through it.
Speaker 1:So then you were there until now. What's the timeline? How did you feel from let's say that point, until like today? Like what type of growth do you feel like you've had? Or like, do you feel from let's say that point, until like today? Like what type of growth do you feel like you've had? Or like, do you feel like a different Teresa than you were? What did?
Speaker 2:those, I'm a better version of Teresa than I ever was. Right now. Today, I handle things in a much better way. I've got a lot of wisdom about a lot of topics. I've been through so many hard times and joyous times. I've been to all the extremes joy and extreme of sorrow and everything in between. So I definitely live a different life. I don't stress things the way I used to by any means. I pretty much don't stress anything. Really, there's not much I can think of Other than my kids getting crazy for some unknown reasons. Kids just want to mess with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's being a mom, yeah. Do you have any like peace about Bill dying or any of that, or do you still? How do you feel about that? To this day? I never, you know. I tried. You feel about that. To this day it's been.
Speaker 2:I never, you know, I tried to understand it, but I never could, to this day, understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 20 years later.
Speaker 2:Why he was taken at such a young age, at 42 years, but I then I always snap it back to reality is I had 18 years of a beautiful life every day, day in, day out. It was the most fulfilling life anyone could lead, and so I'm grateful. I'm grateful for that time that I've had.
Speaker 1:If you could tell your younger self anything, what would you tell yourself?
Speaker 2:anything. What would you tell yourself? Chill out, sleep, sleep whenever you can, and, uh, relax and enjoy life, no matter where you're at, no matter what's happening. You might as well embrace it and make the most of it and learn and grow from it what's your favorite memory from your life?
Speaker 2:or at least, let's do top three my favorite day would be when I was maybe when I met bill I think that's it and him sitting on that pilot. It was hilarious on that pilot's lap and made him move so comical. And that was bill. He was very witty. No matter what was going on, he was definitely having a good time. Very witty, very manipulative man.
Speaker 1:Do you have an in conclusion?
Speaker 2:In conclusion.
Speaker 1:To everything you know, to like your whole journey.
Speaker 2:So, despite my deepest of sorrows when Bill died in 1999 and really being miserable for five years, six years Despite that, I've actually lived a beautiful life, a very fulfilling life.
Speaker 1:What are some of the things that you did after you got back to Virginia that you enjoyed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I used to kayak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that yellow kayak.
Speaker 2:My big yellow yeah, my little yellow kayak, and I used to always do my workout upstream a good mile or so, paddle up and then float down, which is also a full circle moment all the way back from the Niagara Falls river, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting, but, um, but. And then I went to a lot of my joy is live theater and live music. So I love all those little country festivals the Watermelon Festival in Berryville, virginia, delfest, all Good. I love all those big festivals, but I also love, I live for the theater, from anything from Cats, you know, broadway, to Off-Broadway, to musicals like Vivaldi and the Four Seasons. I love that and the opera. So that's what I've, you know, that's what I kind of focus on is a live theater. In my life right now I was dabbling in making jewelry.
Speaker 1:Yes, good jewelry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some really fun jewelry. I learned how to cut my own stone, went mining a few times for some rock, but I fabricated it from flat silver wire and round wire. I used to fabricate that into a ring or a pendant or earrings and have a blast with making jewelry. And then I enjoy, like you know, water, aerobics and yoga out here, and I was getting ready to go into taekwondo again but I was just diagnosed yeah, I was just diagnosed with stage four cancer. So I don't think I'm gonna be working out hard anytime soon. So you know hope and prayers for all of that, but I'm really satisfied with the way my life turned out. And you know, when you're given, like truly when you're given lemons, it's much better to try to make lemonade and enjoy it like. Embrace every different emotion you're about to feel and you have to walk through it. You can't walk around it under it. You know, to the left, to the right, you've got to walk through it. You can't walk around it under it. You know, to the left, to the right, you've got to walk straight through these painful and joyous times. So, and just embrace it as much as you can and learn something from it. That's one thing.
Speaker 2:I traveled extensively and I didn't do any elaborate crazy great trips Well, some were to Italy and Haiti and things but my little trips just around. The United States is amazing country. My favorite thing was to meet all the interesting people out there. Like I traveled a lot alone and God would always bring the right people to me. I feel Like, before you knew it, I had a friend in Cimarron, just out of the blue. God would bring the right people in my life and that's what I totally enjoyed was learning about their ways, their customs, their cultures, the way the townspeople work.
Speaker 1:I've heard you say before you know, that you wouldn't have had all these experiences that you've had if everything hadn't happened the way that it did oh, absolutely traveling alone, yeah and just doing whatever kind of you wanted and your soul self wanted, and moving towards that. I mean even selling your house and moving to Arizona, where you really wanted to be, instead of just like staying there just because everybody wanted me to stay, there was not a reason to stay.
Speaker 2:You know, I had to take care of myself. Finally, right In life, you know, parents have to start taking care of themselves and I did because the arthritis was so bad. The reaction out east with that bitter, frigid cold five months out of the year yeah, shenandoah Valley, but it's so beautiful out here every day in Arizona I feel like I wake up in a spa, like I feel like I wake up and I'm on vacation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every day I go out on my patio. It's a little cool these days, so I don't go out until about typically like 1 or 2. But when the sun's beaming down, I'm, I'm out there, but I go out there and I watch the sunrise and the sunset. It's fantastic with my coffee and my cat yeah, I watch the cardinals.
Speaker 2:I have a set of cardinals that come every day and and just my uh little hummingbirds and the eagles fly and the coyotes run in the field with the roadrunners and all the lizards around. It's a blast.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm blessed, so very blessed, to have been able to come out here. Yeah, and God brought me to this house to look at. Right, instantaneously, it was my house for certain. It's a beautiful life everybody.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Embrace it. It doesn't take money to explore. It doesn't take a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Some of my best vacations I've spent like 600 bucks for a week and slept in my car and had some of the best vacations ever, met some of the best people ever. Never be afraid to be alone. If you can have fun alone, I think that's like a some sort of test, and I do. I. I don't always have to be with somebody, that's for sure. You know I like it when I'm around other people, but I'm not. I go out to dinner by myself. I go everywhere by myself, to the opera. If I can't get somebody to go theater, doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it feels good to do what you want. I mean, would you say also that you I've never really thought about this, but would you say that you are pretty present in your everyday life, that you have the power of being very present?
Speaker 2:Yeah, living that moment, I think you are.
Speaker 1:I've never thought about it really, but I think that you really are like that. You are very here. Wherever you are, you're very much there. You're not thinking of the future or what you're going to do next.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean I like to make some plans and goals, but so many times that all changes. You know I have a basic guideline of what I want to do in the next, say, year. So a lot of that changes and I'm absolutely flexible to that. These days Years ago, when Bill passed all our dreams together, all our dreams were together at that point like as a couple dreams. Every dream got shattered. That was devastating, every dream.
Speaker 1:Everything that you ever thought in like four months was done.
Speaker 2:But like I feel totally at peace with the dying part, I've got Bill waiting for me and my little miscarriages, my four angels in heaven to me, so that's kind of exciting to me. I mean I'm sad to have to leave everybody, but you know you can't stop it, you can't change it, so just make the most of what we've got left.
Speaker 1:Definitely had to learn non-attachment in your life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because nothing's forever, nothing's ours, we don't own anything, yeah, so it's been quite the life. I think it has, and I don't want to give.
Speaker 2:I mean I wouldn't trade my life for anybody else's. So like Siri and I really feel that way, yeah, like my life was the best of anybody I've known and the richest and I am the richest person I feel like just rich, with love all around, all around me, really got a lot of family, but friends and rich in that type of way not not monetarily Right by any means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that you've attracted all of those things and I think that, yeah, like you said, your your life has been extremes.
Speaker 2:Like of anybody I know. Oh my gosh, just insane. 10 days ago I felt like I was going back into my big black belt workout again and work towards finishing that second degree. 10 days ago, I fell on the floor and couldn't get back up for three days and got this diagnosis and I've got broken bones all inside me and cancer throughout Throughout my organs right now. So you never know it's going to happen. I mean, I felt that healthy. It's wild. I felt 20 years younger since I've moved out here For certain, so it was a little shocking, but I'm working through it and I'm through it.
Speaker 1:Actually, One day at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:Why? Thank you.
Speaker 1:It was an honor.
Speaker 2:An honor and a pleasure. Thank you for asking, of course, thank you.