00:00This book, we cover my journey to motherhood, we cover race, we cover equality, adult dancers, we cover my fave, Janet Jackson.
00:10I give you so many different insights and avenues to my soul.
00:18You know, I have to say, starting off, I felt weird as a journalist reading a book because I feel like there have been so many instances where media has just overstepped, you know, its bounds with you.
00:28I think, you know, your body, your relationship, everything.
00:31And I wondered, you know, how do you prepare for a press run like this after sharing such personal stories and, you know, just knowing questions that might come?
00:42Therapy. Like with the first book, there were a lot of chapters I left out because I knew I wasn't ready to face the public and have meaningful, impactful conversations about those chapters.
00:56So with this book, I needed to be ready.
01:00If I was going to put it in there, if I'm going to, if I'm going to really stand in my truth, I need to be emotionally, spiritually, financially prepared for what may come and all of the possibilities.
01:11Some, you know, you can kind of anticipate, okay, that's, that's a pretty, that's pretty low hanging fruit.
01:18I know that's coming, but then it's, it's harder to prepare for when someone takes a part of the story and, and, you know, bastardizes it for clickbait.
01:30Say, but that, none of that is in the book that didn't happen.
01:33You made up a story that now I have, it's my responsibility to, to correct.
01:37Like, cause you don't have reading comprehension.
01:38I don't know what to do with that.
01:40Really sounds like a personal problem.
01:42But yes, there's, you can't prepare for the what if, but, you know, yeah, just a lot of therapy, a lot of healing and being okay.
01:52My truth is my truth.
01:53Like it's however you react to it is however you react to it.
01:56Um, and a lot of the reaction isn't my business and being okay with that.
02:04So that makes me think about the story you told, um, when you were on the way to the hospital, uh, for Kavya to be born.
02:10And you said a friend texts you about like a tabloid story.
02:13And that just made me cringe.
02:14I was like, that's like, you know, friends tell me about an ex on social media.
02:18Like, I don't want to know, you know, about that.
02:20And I wonder, you know, how often that happens.
02:21And have you told friends like, please don't send me, you know, these kinds of things.
02:27Well, depending on what it is and the impact of the lie.
02:32Um, I mean, I think my friends know now, you know, I don't need to know everybody's opinion.
02:37Like I don't go down the comments, you know, like once the names start being like ones I don't exactly recognize, you know, you see one bad thing.
02:45I'm like, that's enough.
02:45Yes.
02:46Why did you put, you know, it's okay.
02:48Like whatever you're not posting for the reaction, like posting, cause you want to share like, yeah.
02:53And that's okay.
02:54Don't go down the rabbit hole.
02:55Cause you, you keep looking, you're going to find something you don't want to see.
02:57The whole thing is just scary and, and, you know, a little nerve wracking, but also very liberating.
03:05Yeah.
03:06So it's all coming with embracing my vulnerability.
03:09Okay.
03:09Um, and I've loved, uh, the audacity of aging chapter, this story you tell, like I, it was
03:15way too relatable and hilarious.
03:17Um, and I wonder, you know, did you ever almost talk yourself out of being with Dwayne, you
03:22know, because of the age, like in the early days, I didn't really think of him as a real
03:28option.
03:29Um, back then I, you know, I was fresh off a divorce and thoroughly enjoying all of my options.
03:36Um, and he was an option.
03:39So when, you know, if I was like, uh, I feel old as hell, I'm just gonna call one of the
03:45older ones.
03:46Um, you know, so it wasn't really, I just wasn't taking him seriously in that kind of
03:50way.
03:51And once it became, you know, okay, maybe this is going to turn into something, you know,
03:56deeper or, you know, more meaningful.
03:57Um, he just always kind of has been presented to me as very wise beyond his years based on
04:07how he grew up in his life experience.
04:10Um, just kind of forced him to grow up and age like in dog years and in a certain, to a
04:17certain degree.
04:17Um, and, um, and so, yeah, so now it's like, it almost feels like we are about the same
04:25because of how his early years kind of leveled the playing field a bit.
04:31Um, and, and really kind of, he's very much his grandmother's child, him sitting at her
04:38feet, you know, you kind of develop old ways, you know what I mean?
04:41And old, you know, older references and, and interests and passions and, um, but it's like
04:48those moments where I'm like, okay, I get it.
04:50You liked, right.
04:50I get it.
04:51I get it.
04:53You liked, right.
04:53You know, all the lyrics.
04:54Okay.
04:55Okay.
04:56Um, you know, don't you want to listen to a little Olita Adams?
05:01What are you talking about?
05:05Um, yeah, there's those moments or like, you know, where my hip hurts, you know, or,
05:11or, or, you know, the chin story that I talk about in the book, it's like, so let me get
05:16that eyelash.
05:17And it's like, I was crying laughing with certain thing with the age thing.
05:23Like when it came to fertility, there were points where I was like, he deserves not what
05:31I deserve, but what he deserves is someone who can give him, you know, this without, you
05:40know, calling in, you know, the, the, the designated hitter.
05:43Like I, you know, that, that, those messy, complicated, um, feelings played a role, you
05:50know, when you talk about aging and the age difference that that's the more serious side
05:54of that.
05:55Yeah.
05:56And you talk about, um, I believe it was with the first ultrasound for caveat, your tears
06:01and like, you know, what those tears really meant.
06:03Um, in that moment, we also said that was your first, uh, competitive kind of motherhood
06:09moment.
06:09And like, I was a good mom.
06:11How have you kind of, um, broken out of that?
06:14I feel like, or, or is it ongoing, you know, of trying, right.
06:17Trying not to fall into that.
06:20Yeah.
06:20You, you try not to, you know, you, you know, you try not to read all the way down in the
06:25comments where you're going to get to some like nasty ones or whatever.
06:28Um, you see, like, you know, for me, it's like half the time, it's like the picture quality,
06:33you know, like I'm like my camera with my camera, you know, was dirty.
06:37So it's like, not really, it's like kind of blurry, you know, her outfit wasn't like
06:41perfectly, you know, put on or her hair is like a mess.
06:44And, and, uh, you know, you see, might see a comment here or there and you're like, I'm
06:48failing.
06:49Look how perfect such and such as child looks, look how like advanced that child is.
06:54And Oh, body training went that well.
06:56Okay.
06:56Okay.
06:56Yeah.
06:57You know, Cobb had no problems, all kinds of problems, um, that kind of stuff.
07:04You don't want to, you know, you don't want your kid to seem like they're behind.
07:07You don't want to be behind, you know, that kind of thing.
07:09I think that's a lifelong, you know, challenge, you know?
07:13Yeah.
07:14Um, and then thinking, you know, in the beginning where you talked about, um, you know, Dwayne
07:18having another child and, you know, you said the me I am today would not have stayed.
07:22And that would be your advice, you know, today, what is it about the woman that you are
07:26the day that, that made you say that or write that?
07:28It's the truth.
07:30Like who I am, the healing that I've fought for, the peace that I have fought for.
07:36Um, I, I wouldn't, I, I just wouldn't, um, that's not what happened.
07:44Yeah.
07:45Yeah.
07:46But there is, um, there is wisdom from perspective and time and therapy and personal evolution
07:55and accountability that changes things, you know?
08:00And, uh, one of the things I learned about giving advice is don't take advice from anyone
08:06doing something that, that, you know, about anything that they haven't succeeded at.
08:11Yeah.
08:12So if you're going to ask me, uh, a divorced woman who's had a gang of, you know, relationship
08:18challenges about what you should do in a relationship, you've already faced, um, you know, I could
08:25give you my coulda, woulda, shoulda, but at the end of the day, I didn't.
08:28So be careful when you ask when and who you ask for advice, uh, about, you know, what to
08:35do in the moment.
08:37You know what I'm saying?
08:38Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:40Well, lastly, I want to, cause I feel like this goes into this, cause I did love the
08:45wisdom, um, that you shared with those bullet points and the one of be your own.
08:48Yes.
08:49Um, and just like being that first, yes.
08:50And telling yourself things are okay.
08:52When did that become your reality?
08:54When did you start to be your own?
08:56Yes.
08:57When I was waiting so desperately for outside validation that never came.
09:02And I felt like a joke and a loser.
09:05And I felt like this public failure at everything.
09:11Um, and you're just waiting, just waiting for someone to come along and be like, no,
09:14you're amazing.
09:15You girl, you are it.
09:17You, yes.
09:19Every audition.
09:20Oh yeah, no, we're going to go another direction, another rejection, another rejection, another
09:26no, another no.
09:27And you're just waiting, waiting, waiting to be seen and get your number called and you
09:32don't have to wait to be great.
09:35You know, and it started with how I talk to myself when I'm, when I have social anxiety,
09:39you're going to be okay.
09:41You're okay.
09:42It's fine.
09:43It's fine.
09:43It's good.
09:44It's okay.
09:45You're early.
09:46You have a parking space.
09:47It's, it's, you know, um, and then just kind of carrying that over to what if I say yes
09:56to myself, what if I validate my own existence and accomplishments?
10:03What if I big up myself, you know, um, what is, what is that like, you know?
10:09And then it's like, you're like, am I, does that make me like odd?
10:12And then it's funny.
10:13Cause I, I saw, um, when it was like the first season of insecure where she's like
10:18talking to herself and she's talking to herself and I was like, Oh my God, clearly if a bunch
10:24of people in a writer's room came together to, to write that scene, I'm not the only
10:28one doing this.
10:29And it's a thing and you can be your own.
10:31Yes.
10:32I encourage more of us instead of being the pick me girl, uh, the choose me and all the
10:39things that we do to be the choose me and all the things that we put up with to be the
10:42choose me, um, choose your damn self.
10:45Yes.
10:46Period.
10:47Period.
10:47That is a perfect note to end on.
10:50Thank you so much for your time.
10:53No, thank you.
10:54I appreciate it.
10:55Take care.
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