The Story Behind Bucket List from a Redneck Girl by Jessica Danel

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Welcome to the podcast ABCs of Parenting Adult Children. Please join us as we discuss parenting adult children and the unique struggles that it comes along with.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello and welcome to the ABCs of Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffat, and I'll be your host. Today my guest is Jessica Donnell, author of Bucket List from a Redneck Girl and host of the Just Saying Podcast. This episode is really about resilience, parenting through crisis, making hard choices for your family, and what life looks like when things don't go according to plan. I think this is going to be a really powerful conversation, so let's get started. Jessica, thank you for being on the show this evening. Please introduce yourself to the listening audience.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Thanks, James. Okay, so my name is Jessica Donnell, and I am the host of Just Same with Jessica Donnell. And I did write the book, The Bucket List from a Redneck Girl. And um, my I'm a wife of 28 years. I have three children. One is my stepdaughter. She is 30. Oh my gosh, her birthday is in like three days. She's gonna be 33. Oh my lord. I met her daddy when I was like three, so she's been in my life forever. And um I have a son who's 25 just turned, and a daughter who's 16. All three have comp are, you know, have had complex childhood. My stepdaughter, ADHD and uh depression. And um my son has Asperger's and depression, and my daughter has a learning disability. Um it's called it's a chromosomal disorder. Um I'm trying to remember 16p is what it's called. If you look it up, it's actually 16p.11.2.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Oh well.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

And then autism level one, and she has a whole slew of things. She's got aphrid. If you've ever heard of that, it's um uh a food aphrid. Oh gosh. It's a food intake disorder. So she doesn't put anything in her mouth that's has texture at all. So we're talking liquids and lots of anyways, we'll can go into that. And she has a speaking issue, she um disability, not disability, but you can't understand a thing she says because she leaves off the beginning and the end of the word. So conversation with her is a challenge, especially now that her vocabulary is like through the roof and she's talking about things that she's watching on YouTube or something, and I'm like, I have no clue what you're saying. Type it out for me, girl. I'm like, mom is not as smart as she used to be. And um she also was born with a heart condition and had open heart surgery at five months. So she will be going through it's called Tetrology of Fellow, and she will be going through surgeries her whole life as her heart outgrows uh her aorta, and she'll have it, she'll have to reconstruct it every time. She's actually due for another surgery quite coming up soon. She was she was cleared last year, but they said we're gonna keep an eye on her because it's coming. So goodness. That was a crazy introduction. My goodness, did anybody leave the show in that couple of minutes? That's a lot, huh? Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Well, you you have some special some special needs children and they're special children, you know. All our kids are special to us. Right. They're different. So so I try to I try to do some research on all of my guests, and sometimes some that sometimes are better than others. Sometimes I have enough time to do it, and sometimes I just have to skim, you know, and all of that. But I did listen to when I I saw your saw your profile on PodMatch, and I was like, holy cow, I have got to have this lady on the podcast, because I mean I could just tell right off the bat that you're a you're a live wire and you're authentic and you're funny. And uh like I told you before I hit the record, uh I know I know I can just put a quarter in you and turn the knob like a jukebox and just let you go. And uh as a podcast host, it's always nice to not have to pull words out of somebody. You know, you ask them a question and they give you like a six-word answer and then they start.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

I've actually, I swear, I've actually had to hold back a yawn one time, and I was just like, I was like, don't do it, Jessica. Don't do it. Oh my god. It's because I work so much during the day, and when by the time I'm in my third podcast for the day or something, I'm like, my God, I I'm on a yawn so bad. And it's like when you're trying not to, when you're trying to smile, and you're like, I can't even, but anyways, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

No, the trick is if it's an audio release, if it's only an audio episode, like on Buzzsprout or whatever, then you you mute your mic and lean back and just yawn your heart to your heart's consent, right? And get it out of your system.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

I'm always video, psh, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Oh, is that right?

SPEAKER_03 4:45

I hate, I hate the way I look. But I so I've I still do it though, because it's like, you know, pull off the band-aid, just do it, whatever. Nobody cares.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

There you go. And you know what? I this is not CNN. Oh, I know. This is not a polished, this is not a television production where you can't yawn. If you need to yawn, yawn. Who cares?

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Not gonna yawn on your show. It's gonna make me look like I I'm not engaged. That's the whole thing. I'm engaged on my podcast, but I'm so tired of it. That's I yawn loud. I'm like a yawner, like so loud of a yawner that people will be like, oh my gosh. Like, when are you gonna stop yawning? It's so loud.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

But that's authentic. That's that's part of being human. We get tired, we yawn, we burp, we fart, we carry on. Of course. Like, excuse me, ma'am, do you need to stop and get an energy drink real quick? Do you have a five five-hour energy drink in your desk drawer somewhere?

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Oh my gosh. It's like I need coffee all day, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

All right, let me read uh this takeaway from your book because I want the listening audience to hear what they're in for. A treat. So, Bucketlist from Redneck Girl isn't just a memoir, it's a testimony. I was raised Catholic, but not deeply rooted in scripture. Still, I've always had a connection to God, and through every challenge, from childhood trauma to building businesses to motherhood and grief, I felt I felt his hand guiding me. This book is a collection of real raw moments where I saw God show up, even when I didn't know how to ask, is for anyone who's felt too broken, too unsure, or too far gone, and still believes that maybe, just maybe, they were meant for more. So as as fate would have it, I I'm I'm kind of fond of the name Jessica, and I'll always be able to remember you. And that's because we had a we had a ten-year-old daughter that had cancer. Uh she passed away. She would have been years old September the eleventh when the World Trade Centers went down. And she lasted. Uh she had she had a brain tumor with two different types of cancers. One of them was very aggressive, and we moved from Bluffton, South Carolina to Charleston because of MUSC. It's a major hospital, Medical University of South Carolina. I had to think about it. They had a children's hospital, and so at like 10 o'clock at night, they rushed her via ambulance to the to the ER, and the surgeons did surgery, and about four hours later they came out and said, if she lasts 12 months, you'll be lucky. That gave us zero hope. Well, she lasted 14 months. So so Jessica is always going to be near and dear to our heart.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

And so Oh, I'm so sorry that your loss that's that's us.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, it it sucked. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy for sure.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

And my birthday's September 13th, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Oh, okay. Well, every time September the 11th rolls around, we have it has a dual meaning for us.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yeah. I'm so sorry that I know what it's like to have your well, in my story, I'm you know, we willingly gave our daughter to the surgeon, but they had to pluck her out of our kung fu grip because we were not gonna let her go. And it's it's something that not many parents really don't understand how to navigate through until you really they're pulling I mean, I have goosebumps just thinking about it. When they're pulling your child away and saying, All right, go wait in the waiting room. And like the fate of your daughter is like in somebody else's hands and they're gonna carve her open. You know, she's five months and they're gonna open up her chest, you know. And um it's uh it's a I mean, I was um my husband and I both just bald. I mean, just a puddle of tears when it happened. So um do talk about that in my book too. It's like uh we I called that chapter blue baby because what my daughter has, this tetrology of flow, it's um what they used to call blue baby because babies would turn blue basically and they just stopped breathing and turned blue. And so, uh but I in my story, um in my book, I go into some crazy things that happened. Like we met somebody when we were giving blood for my daughter's surgery. We met somebody with the same condition, which the condition is not common, it's kind of rare, but kids do have it, but it's rare. And so we m actually met somebody with the same condition, and she was having surgery, her their daughter was having surgery, her second surgery, the same day as our daughter. And so it was kind of crazy. And my husband, I there's a way there's a time in the book, and I'll tell I explain it where my husband and this guy meet up in the elevator um and they exchanged some words. And then when my daughter was brought up to the um recovery, their daughter came in like not so much after, and um, they were calling hysterically. So we knew that their surgery didn't go well, and it we just knew that like this was could be our daughter. This was her their daughter's second surgery, and that could have that could be our daughter. Like we just looked at each other and just turned pale. And it just was just one of those things where like we were very vulnerable in that moment, and it was just a sad thing. And in the story, it develops a lot better than how I'm explaining it right now, but it is actually a touching part of this of my book that I I really thought I needed to be open and explain how we're feeling through it all. And sure. So maybe other parents can that are because I I see a lot of Tetrology of Fellow people on Facebook and and they're scared. Like parents are just totally scared of what's gonna come next because this is they have to wait five months for the first surgery or they're about to have their second, or you know, and so I can at least tell my story, and hopefully this will be something people can relate to and and like, okay, this is how it went for them, and could kind of get an idea of how it might work for them. I don't know. Does it make sense?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And uh my wife and I, Katie, we've been married 35 plus years. I'm going on 36. We had four children. We lost two of them, Jessica and my son Jeremy, who was uh thirty-eight years old. We lost him in January of last year. And Jessica was she was three and a half months premature. That's a whole nother story. However, I'll say that we're we're no strangers to neonatal intensive care and all of that. Me too. And I I do not I don't like hospitals. We're doctors for that matter. It's not that it's it's the reason I don't like them is is because I just don't like the memories. You know, I just don't like walking the halls. I don't like the emotions, you know, the raw emotions that you have to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Did it bring back a lot of that for you? Like when your 38 years, you know, when you went back to the hospital for your 38-year-old? I mean, did that bring it all back? Like I hate the hospital.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

And there's a reason why he was uh he was actually in land uh in Michigan. I want to say Lansing, Michigan. He was in Michigan at Sparrow Hospital. He was there for five weeks. M excuse me, my nose itches. I don't know why. Mine too, which is probably because I'm on camera. I know. And uh so he uh he was in ICU for five five weeks, and we had hoped that he had RSV of the lungs, which turned into mo to pneumonia, and uh he was very heavy, like almost eight hundred pounds heavy. And that ultimately is what wound up killing him. He had uh a couple of heart attacks one night, about ten o'clock at night. And uh so I was on the phone with his his best friend's mother and his stepdad on and off almost every other day, you know, for probably five weeks. And I had hoped that, you know, he he was uh he was gay and he liked to cross-dress, and when he cross-dressed as a woman, he looked just like his mother, my first wife, which just was freaky beyond all belief. And and I I did not judge him for his gay lifestyle. I call it a choice. I know that the the alphabet kids would, you know, probably have a lot to differ with that, you know, to go, it's not a choice, that's the way we were born. And I'm like, who am I to debate that? I don't know. You know, it's one of life's giant mysteries that we may not find out until we were face to face with God anyway. But uh and I told my son, I said, I I said, I don't understand your life choices and all that, uh, but I love you, you're still my son, and I want you to be happy. I want you to be healthy and I want you to be happy. We had that conversation, I don't know, a couple years ago, two or three years ago. And I was hoping that he would, you know, get better and get out into a long-term uh care facility, and at some point I could drive up there and spend the weekend with him and you know, reconnect. Well, anyway, that that didn't happen. It wasn't meant to happen, I guess, and so he's no longer here. But I still hold him near and dear to my heart. And uh Yeah, that's real life, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:00

I mean, you've got a story. Did you ever write a book? Man, you got a you got a story in in all of this.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, I was I was interviewing a I interviewed a doctor uh on parenting adult children, and uh I get lazy and I don't want to say ABCs, so I'll just say parenting adult children. And uh after we did our epis episode and I turned off the record button, I was talking to her about Jessica and she was like, James, you ought to start a podcast. You have a story to tell. And I was like, Wow, that was like an epiphany. And twenty, twenty-one years ago, I had I wanted to start something called Father's Refuge. I wanted it to be an in-person thing, like a support group or whatever. I never could make it happen for whatever reason. And uh when she said that, it was about a year ago she said that, and I was like, now ne it never occurred to me to to turn that into a podcast. Well anyway, now Father's Refuge was born, and uh now I have fathers who have experienced loss, uh either they're in the treatment journey or they have lost loved ones, whether it be children, wives, whatever. You know, and I'm trying to broaden the scope of that podcast into just loss and grief. I don't want to forget the fathers, and I want that to be one of the major threads in that podcast. But I also know that loss and grief also includes losing a relationship, separation, divorce.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

I guess you call neurodivergent whatever. Whatever. Right? Neodiverse. I just call them complex. That's what they are to me. They're they're complex kids. Neither one of them, and even my stepdaughter, God lover, but none of them are gonna have children. She doesn't want kids. She's 33, she's uh does she says uh she probably won't. My son, never been with a woman, never been with a girl, and says he probably never will. He doesn't he he's like asexual, I guess you call it, where they don't care like to be with anybody. They don't care. And my daughter, who is very social and sweet and kind and loving, and I just love her to death, but she has anxiety through the roof. Like if she heard me talking, she'd come in here and she'd go, Are you talking to a doctor? Who are you talking to? Because she's afraid that I'm talking to another doctor because I'm always talking to a doctor for her. Right. Um, but she gets nervous, she's um, she just has anxiety. Like, I can't even explain to you. Like she's she saw something on the news and she goes, Oh my god, we're under attack. Iran's gonna bomb us. I'm like, Piper, no, it's not happening. We're good, okay? Don't listen to the whatever YouTube you were listening to, go flip, go to a different channel. Go back to your barbies, because that's what she watches. And um, anyhow, so but she I don't believe that she will ever have a relationship that would lead to marriage. I don't know if um she's intellectually able to have a relationship like that. I don't know. I don't want to limit her. But um what I'm trying to say is I'm not gonna be a grandma, so I have this feeling of like the loss of having normal children with a normal life. Have that thought of having, you know, my kids come home with their husbands or their loved ones or whatever they choose in life and with their kids. And then grandma's gonna spoil. No, that's not gonna happen to me. So I feel a sense of loss. Does that make sense? Like a normal type of I mean, what I would consider, what I grew up in the 80s, what it was a normal, you know, type of thing. It's not happening. But um, I've had a lot of time to sit on that for a while, so it it's not as devastating, you know what I mean? But it is a it is a loss where I'm not gonna get the things that I wanted. I don't know. I don't know. To me it's a loss. I guess I'm selfish in that way. I'm being selfish because I want the grandma experience and Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Take that. Yeah, we're not gonna have we're not gonna have the we're not gonna be grandparents either. My my son is he's just recently married a young lady, uh, that he's been they've been living together for ten years or pretty close to ten years. She can't have children. And my daughter, uh I won't say her name. Uh she is uh she's probably not gonna have any kids. I would like to say that at some point that she's going to uh catch a dream, a vision for her life, and that her living in conditions will be better and that maybe she could meet a decent young man, you know.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Uh we're gonna call this the nose itch episode.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

My nose too, and I'm I'm in California.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

It's it's catching. So the listening audience or those of you that are gonna watch this on YouTube.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

What that's it's just gonna, it's just it's happening and it's part of life, right? Anyway. I did it again. So yeah. So uh yeah, all the people that are gonna listen to the audio version are gonna go, we can't watch them scratch their noses on on live video.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

My little finger. Not up my nose, but scratching it.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Maybe, maybe it'll drive some some uh traffic from my audio podcast over to my my video podcast so they can actually see it in action. But anyhow. So yeah, I'm I'm hopeful that my daughter will will uh you know, we always we always as parents, we want the best for our children. We want our children to have it better than we had it, right? We want to be able to tell our children the stories of our, excuse me, colossal fuck-ups when we were younger. Like when I was and I very, very, very seldom dropped the F bomb, but I thought that that was a good place for it. But uh I I was a raging dumpster fire when I was between eighteen and about twenty six. And it's a miracle of God that I'm even sitting here. I mean, I I could have either, if it wasn't for the grace of God or the mercy of God, I would be in prison, dead, or a drug addict laying under a bridge somewhere with needle marks in my arm. But uh thankfully he loves me and thankfully, I paid attention to him when he reached out. I said, and he's good. God is good. Yes, he's awesome. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Very lucky. Let me tell you something. Okay, we were talking about parents wanting their kids to do better, have more, or succeed them. But I grew up with parents that always saw the worst in me. So here I am. Let me just break it down for you. And this will be I'm gonna now I'm diving into the book a little bit. Is that okay? Also, okay, so the back of my book says here's the front of my book. Oh, is it upside down?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

It's upside down. There we go. Bucket list from a redneck girl. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

And I designed the cover, it's just pictures of me growing up. I love it. But the back of the book it says, and I wrote this, it says, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. If you understand what that means, then you'll appreciate this book. And so basically, yeah, I had that middle child syndrome, but it's it's a thing. You know, I can't help it. You know, I had an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister. And I was the middle girl out of the three girls. And my brother could do no wrong. He was like the golden child, you know, like like anointed. He was just, you know, always shining. And um, so you know, my parents always saw which I thought they saw was the worst in me, no matter what. I in high school was like a track star, cross country star, basketball. I went wasn't a star, I was short, but I did, I was the point guard. I wasn't the star though. But I was a star in cross country and track. I was like the best runner in our high school, and I would win first place every time I'd run. So I mean, I was good. I had trophies. I was the school photographer, I was in journalism and wrote for the newspaper, and also wrote for our town newspaper for journalism through our school. And what else did I do? I was a rally commissioner, so I was like an officer for the school. I was on the yearbook and uh took pictures for the school and the band. So I did a lot. And I got a C grade average, right? My parents, my senior year, I was 16 years old, said, Hey, we need to go see counselings because my mom and I would fight over little things, just every little thing. And I'm like, okay, I'll go to counseling because they were supposed to take me to school. And uh instead they passed the school and I'm like, Well, what's up? You're passing the school. And I guess my mom said, Hey, we're going to Sacramento, we're gonna go see a counselor so that we can discuss family counseling because for um, you know, and I was like, I'm okay, I'm cool. No, they bring me to a drug rehab, okay, and drop me off. And I was in a drug rehab for four days um until the results came back and said, Oh yeah, she's not on drugs. I still to this day have not done drugs, okay? Everybody out there, at this point when my parents dropped me in a drug rehab, I had gone to two parties my whole high school existence out of the four years. And yes, two times I did drink and one time I did come home drunk. But my dad was like, You got everybody's gonna try it one time, you know. Like, I don't think they thought alcohol was my drug of choice. I think they thought I was on like something else.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Right, of course.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Because I wasn't a drinker. I was a girl, I was in shape. I wasn't you could tell. I didn't go to house parties and take pictures. I didn't have like um, you know, I wasn't in black with black fingernails. I just wasn't, I was like the all-American girl. I went to proms, you know. Anyways, so they put me in a drink. That's where my story starts off. And I did use the F word on my very first page because I told my mother to F off. And I even said in my book, and I go, I can't believe it. I never even cussed my mom ever, and this is the first time. But when she dropped me out, they put me in this room. I told my mom to get the F out of the room because if this is my new home, she wasn't F and she wasn't F and welcome. And I told I was screaming and I'm like, get out. Right. And so uh that's kind of where my story begins. Now my I I progressed to talk about w I grew up with a lazy eye. Like, you know how Forrest Whitaker, if you look at him, he's kinda like a slinty little eye, you know? Like you you could tell when you look at him, he's he doesn't look his eyes normal, but that's how I looked. And so um I always didn't feel pretty and I was teased a lot and they called me Popeye in school. And so I talk about that in my book. I call myself the Popeye girl. I lean into it a little bit because I had eye surgery. And this is where I talk about how I believe God put me through certain things through life, you know, all kinds of ups and downs and trials and things that are like hard to go through because I felt like he's like, well, she's one of my warriors. I she can handle it. And also I believe that uh what I went through growing up and the things that I've had to endure would help my children. Like my I went through surgeries, my daughter has going through surgeries. My mom fed me ice chips through a styrofoam cup, but I'm gonna do the same for my daughter when she needs I'm gonna be there in the same same way. I'm gonna show up for my kids. But I mean, I I had two eye surgeries when I was younger and I they were traumatizing and I knew everything was around me was happening, and so I remember all of it. And um that's what I put in my book, and I and I it's weird because I I talk in the way in the book, you kind of get how my five-year-old was feeling at the time. You it's kind of juvenile in a way, the way I write it. It's like I was thinking in the moment, I'm telling you what I'm thinking about. And so you kind of see the young Jessica, and then I grow and I grow, and you see me grow into high school and then adult life, and then I start, you know, I had no self-esteem growing up. I did not feel loved by my parents or my sist siblings. And then I start to f branch out in the world, and then you see me become an a pretty girl. Like I feel like I became pretty, you know. And um, of course, now I'm like a skinny, I'm a skinny girl in a fat girl body, but I was a pretty hot little thing when I was younger. I'm just saying. So I I, you know, it's a coming of age story, but it talks, it shows you like how you're feeling when you're young and you feel awkward and unloved, and you feel all these things, and then you start to find love, you start to find your beauty, and you start making piss-poor decisions as an adult. And adulting can be hard for many people. And I too struggled making proper choices and, you know, you know, I got a fake ID and things I probably shouldn't shouldn't have done, you know. So that's kind of that part of the story that I kind of wanted to address. But other things that I talk about in the story are like how important my community was to us, to me and to everybody. I say us because I'm thinking of my community as I say it. But where I grew up, we it was called Park Circle. And um, that's the neighborhood, Park Circle, but we lived in a very small farming town, and that's why it's called Redneck bucket list from a redneck girl, because I grew up in a small community of farmers, and we all knew each other, we all borrowed each other's clothes, we all just wore each other's prom dresses, and and we were very, very close. So when in 1992 we had a um, we had okay, so I had just gotten out of work. I I just graduated in 91. And in 92, I was working 30 minutes away, and the radio said there's an active shooter at my high school. Actually, active shooter wasn't even a coined phrase back then. It was a gunman. Right, right. So gunman. And um the first thing I did was I I just got in my car. I mean, I just put it in drive and went straight to the school. I drove as fast as my little VW bug would go, as fast as it would go. And um I got outside the school and I I was able to pull up pretty close. And I had a lot of parents, a lot of kids were out front and all crying. And I said, Where's my sister? Like I was I was asking everybody, and uh finally someone came up. She goes, Jessica, your sister went to the hospital. And I'm I'm like, Oh my gosh, what happened to her? She goes, I don't think she's hurt though. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna go home and find out what's going on first. And so then I asked, like, okay, well, what's going on? Do you what do you know so far? And they go, We know some people have died. And um, and he's holding them hostage right now, a lot of people hostage, and that's all I knew at the time. Come to find out, uh, he had I knew the gentleman, I knew him. His name was Eric Houston, and uh it happened May 1st, 1991. Um, he graduated two years before this happened, and he went into the school and he wanted to kill the civics teacher, Mr. Briends, and he did, and then he proceeded to shoot three more people or killed three more people, and then he shot nine others. I mean, brutally shot. We're talking blown off shoulders brutally, uh-uh. And then held like 80 students hostage upstairs in this. It was the C building that he went into. And he would send students downstairs to try to find other students and said, if you don't come back up, I'm gonna shoot a friend. And so they had these 14, 15, 16-year-olds had to decide to go downstairs and either drag somebody upstairs or tell that person, run, he can't see you from here, or to come upstairs with nobody, or to take off to go to safety. You know what I mean? For themselves. And so a lot of them did go back and say, I couldn't find anybody, you know, and then those kids would would get out, those ones. And um, they made a movie out of this this whole thing. Now, mind you, the news cycle was nothing like it is now. Like back then, you know, news is like 24 hours, something new is happening, right? Well, back then, you know, there wasn't I don't even there wasn't even Fox News on like cable. Like it was just 92. And so the Rodney King verdict happened on April 29th, and then and then there was the rioting, and then the next day continued rioting, and then the next day was our shooting. And so it just kind of held back the you know, didn't really get the news coverage. And we always say, you know, had they really dissected what happened, maybe Columbine in 2000 would not have happened, or they would have had a better idea, you know, maybe how to go about this. They did make a movie about it. It's called Target of Rage. You can find it on Amazon Prime. I've actually only seen the movie once. I can't watch it because Right. There's a scene in there, I'm not sure I think there's it's in the movie, but what happened in real life was um Mr. Houston had a gun in front of this young lady and was about to shoot her in the face. And Beeman pushed her out of the way and said, no, like pushed her and saved her and took the full brunt of the blast and just laid dying on the floor for 30 minutes in front of his friends. And my mother was actually sitting with Beaman's mom when she got the news of her son's death. That was one thing. When I when I went home to find my sister okay, we all decided to run into the community to see what we could do to help. My mom went to the Yuba Garden school and was sitting with my sister and her friend. And then her friend was her aunt, which was Beaman's mom. So they're all sitting together. I who went to KFC and picked up 10 buckets of chicken and like 10 different blankets around the neighborhood. I didn't know. I mean, here I am, I'm only like 18 years old. Or seven 17? I think it was 17. And I so I'm um I'm I went back to the school and was handing out chicken and blankets because in May in Northern California it's a little chilly at night. You know, when the sun goes down, it's pretty, pretty cold. So I was handing out black blankets and chicken, and when I got there is when they told me that who had passed, who was confirmed dead, and we all just started crying and it was just really hard. And our community, you know, we always commemorate the day and we always say, you know, and we're coming up to the day. We s always say never again. We commemorate them, we we talk about them and we show pictures, and I even uh created a little slideshow with music that I I just did a recently though. So this year I'm gonna definitely post it so everybody can see it. But it's a slideshow of all the pictures of the people that were affected and put to music a song that I created on Suno, which if you've never done, it's actually really cool. Suno S U N O.com. You you can put take um um a song that you got off Chat GPT that you could create the lyrics to and then put it into Suno and it creates a song. It's actually the coolest thing ever. That's how I made my theme song. I have a theme song to my podcast. I I put it in when I for my podcast I do an intro script, and then behind that I'll play my my theme song, and then at the very end of my podcast, I play my theme song. So it's actually kind of cool. I think it's cool. Yeah, S-U-N-O. And as long as you create it and you come up with the words, and the words can be from Chat GPT or whatever, it's your it's your song. So you don't you don't actually have to keep your membership with them because it costs like 30 bucks, $32 or whatever to have the software to be online. It's very, very easy. You just go online, you create it. It's so simple. They actually give you some samples, I think. It's funny because I'm I'm plugging them, but I don't it's not that I'm getting paid to plug them. I just love them. But you can stop paying your little membership once you get the song you want. But I like to put it, I like videography, so I like putting things to music. And so I've done one for my my daughter called Heart of Gold. I've done one for my 25th wedding anniversary for my husband, and I um it's uh it's kind of special. It's just like songs you can put your own words into, and I think it's neat. So yeah, I'm You're so creative. I also use Canva a lot for my social posts. If you ever look on my like TikTok page, you'll see I have all these weird little videos, right? Well, the beginning, the intro to these social posts, I create on Canva, and then I put like an interaction that I have. Like you and I are having an interaction, I would put this, you know, on the post and then I'd have something in the end, and I maybe put my music to the beginning and the end of it. And so that I have a lot of social posts for my podcast. And so that's what I if you look at my it's instead of having two pictures like you and me all over with just headshots everywhere. It's an intro, so it has like a maybe an affirmation or the funny quote or something cute, you know, like I'd rather be fishing, just saying, you know, something like that. Um, but uh yeah, so my story, there's a lot to it. I talk about a fight that I had in high school where it's it was like one of those three o'clock high movies, you know, or that after school special where the girl's getting picked on. It happened to me, and it's uh it was a story, but it's one of my favorite chapters. It's the funniest one, I think. It's called I Just Had to Do It, and it's so true. And it's maybe it doesn't make me look so great, but I don't care. It was one of those funny little chapters. Uh you'll find a lot of humor in all of my chapters because I think everything that's happened to me is freaking hilarious. That's what I think. Like we were robbed by our babysitter. Like, who does that? You know? So just a lot of little things. I do have a God story uh that I want to I want to talk about a little. So okay, can we yeah. Can we backtrack just a little bit? Oh yeah, I'm I'm cool to backtrack.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

I'm gonna I'm gonna put a pen in that right there. We'll come back to it. So I listened to podcast Life's Essential Ingredients, episode 24, that you were on, and you talked about your book as you have been here. And I thought it was interesting that that uh the first chapter of the book, you you basically cursed your mother out and and basically unloaded on her and told her how you felt about your about being driven to a drug rehab program when you in fact had never had any drugs. Right. And then as a teenager, I can just I can I can just only imagine how livid you would have been. And and I thought it was interesting that you put that in print and then shared it with your mother. How did all how did all that go down?

SPEAKER_03 36:56

And let me just tell you a quick little s uh side story. Okay. So when you write a book and you feel like it's ready for somebody to read, and this was just like I had given it to a publisher, Christian Faith Publishing, and they said, We're good for it, right? We want this. And so I said, Okay, this should be I since I gave it to them and it's still in draft, it still needs to be edited, but it might be good enough for people to read. So I took it to like a Kinkos, or really it was called Postnet, which is a place here in California. And I went over and I said, Okay, I need four copies for my girlfriends, my mom, and somebody else. And I had to come back like in two days to come pick it up because it's a lot of pages. And so I come in to pick it up, and it the the P they look around, they're like, Do you mind? We downloaded your book. And I said, What? And they go, Yeah, all of us. Everybody here, all three of us. There were three people there. And she goes, Are you gonna share this with your mom? And I said, Yeah, that one of these is for my mother. Oh my god. I go, one of these is for my mom, and she goes, and they're like, Oh my god, the all the there was a boy, I think he was I'm quite certain he was gay, young man. And then there was an older girl and like a 20-something girl. And all three of them, I mean, all different demographics, if you think about it, they were the the young man was like, I'm on chapter three. And the girl goes, I'm on chapter four. And the girl, the other one says, I'm not even done with chapter two yet. But they they said they downloaded it and took it home to read it. And I said, I'm not even done editing. There's like misspelled words, probably. Like I'm embarrassed, you know? And they go, No, no, no, it's so good, it's so good. I can't wait for the ending. And then the one 20-something said, I really, really thought you were talking about me, is what she said. She goes, I felt like you were talking about me, all the all the things you're talking about. Because I I talk about like, you know, the things that I was feeling at that time. And I think a lot of kids grow up feeling the same way. And that's why I feel like everybody will find a little piece of themselves in my words. But yeah, they thought, how crazy are you gonna tell your mom? And I I'm like, yeah, you know, she knows about the book because I consulted with her on a couple stories to make sure I was getting it right, you know. Yeah. And so my mother has read the book, and in fact, she read it and let her friends read it, and they all loved it. And uh, yeah, my mom really likes the book. She actually does. So what she tells me is, I don't actually remember everything, Jessica, that you said happened like this. She goes, but I understand this, that this is what you think it was. And I'm I'm like, Mom, you have a hard time remembering like last week. I'm telling you right now, like, this is what happened. And then she even even said, she goes, because one of the chapters in my book is called The Belt, the hand, or the hanger. And she said to me, She's like, because this is how my dad would ask me how I wanted it. Okay. He would say, The belt, the hand, or the hanger. And I would always say, Um, I would say, I would take the belt because the hand, my dad was a like 6'3 big dude, you know, 250 or whatever. And the hanger would leave welts. Now, my dad, when he smacked me with his hands, he would hit me hard and hard until my butt reached the right shade of red. And so I liked, I didn't like the hanger because it left welts and it hurts. And so the belt, sometimes my dad would hit it and it would flop over me and wouldn't really hurt, but I'd cry like it did, oh, that hurt. And so he then he would only give me a couple, and I was like, that was easy. So I felt like I was winning, you know, in those moments. But so my mom would tell me, she even said, she goes, I don't remember ever disciplining the other kids like that. And I go, I know, I was the only one. And she goes, I don't know why. She goes, Maybe they just saw you get in trouble and that they just decided they didn't want that. Like, I don't know. But there was nothing I could do. You know, I think they were trying to break my spirit, and there was nothing I could do to change the person that I am. I probably was ADHD. Who knows? I probably had a whole bunch of isms. Who, you know, I just probably had a whole bunch going on, and they did not diagnose this back in the days, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Right. And so I was a hard pill to swallow. They didn't diagnose anything, they just beat you half to death. Right. Parents took you home, and now if a kid acts out in school, they get him diagnosed with ADHD, and now all of a sudden there's a there's a label, and then the kid is, oh, he's ADHD, he's he'll be fine. He can just, you know, he can act like a demon from hell and torture, you know, tear up my wife's a school teacher, so you know, she tells me horror stories about what kids do in class, and then she tells me horror stories about her parent-teacher PTA meetings with the parents, and the parents, you know why the kids act like little hellions? Because the parents because the parents have no self-control and they're they're ridiculous. And she's like, it's no wonder this child is so screwed up. Right. But anyway, oh I agree.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

My sister's a teacher, so and I taught one of the things in my story I have not gotten to. It's so crazy. We're like 45 minutes in, and I have not gotten to the juicy stuff yet.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Okay. Let's get to the juicy stuff.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

So my mom, yeah, my mom says, I don't understand why we did. She actually apologizes. She, my mom and I are actually super duper close. Like I we call every other day. Um, I'm I'm the only sibling sending her money every month. It's funny because I don't I don't have a good relationship with my siblings because they actually are very snooty and I'm not, and I guess I'm not good enough for them. I don't really know why. Um, but they live in San Diego and they don't want anything to do with me. I live in the middle of California and Bakersfield, and I guess it's not a great place to live to them, but whatever. Oh my god, deuces to you. Um, I have a God story that I was gonna get to. So one of the things that I just I did not make great choices, mind you, my mom and dad went to camping. We did that a lot. Every summer we camped for two weeks. It was crazy. The summer before we end up going uh to my right before I graduated high school and before my senior year, we went to my great grandma and grandpa's house and my grand, uh we went to Colorado, went to Idaho, we went, we went around everywhere. And uh we went to Montana. We got to see the um, oh gosh, Mount Rushmore. That's what we saw. So we did a lot. We do a lot of stuff like that when growing up and um two weeks in a van, it's like crazy. And so this was after I graduated high school, I was gonna move out. I was 17 years old. It was just before a turn, it was June, just after high graduating. And I, of course, my birthday's in September, so right before my 18th birthday, yeah. So then uh my parents go camping. My brother, who's still at home going to college, is not 21 yet, is having a party and lots of kids over, and I'm not allowed to come out of my room. And I can't, of course, have a drink because I'm way too young. And but I couldn't come out of my room, and every time I'd come out for water, he'd cuss me out. So my friend's like, just come over to my house and stay the night. I was like, okay. So I go and she's like, let's go see my boyfriend in Utah with your new car. My mom and dad gave me not a new car, it was a repossessed car. But it was good enough for me. And um, it was a Chevy citation, 1981, Chevy citation. I graduated in 91. It was a 10-year-old car, but my dad uh made sure it was in good running condition, had air conditioning, and new seats. So it was new to me. And so my friend's like, let's go to Utah to my my boyfriend. He's a cowboy, he has a ranch. I was like, okay. So we'd drive out there. Um, I didn't tell my brother, you know, I just took off. And then that morning, the next morning, I slept on the couch. That morning I called my brother to check in and he's like, Mom and dad are calling the police. You ran away. I'm like, I didn't run away. I'm I'm telling you where I'm at right now. I'm I'm I'm coming home. And they're so apparently I'm a runaway now. I'm gonna move out in three months. My parents know. I already packed all my stuff, it was literally packed, you know, my room already, because they they did not like me. I did not like them. I did not want to stay one second in this house. And we were having fights. Everybody knows, like, Jessica's moving out when she's 18. I don't care if I'm sleeping in my car, but I'm moving out, you know? And so my I said, we have to get back. We can't stay long. I gotta get back home. So we get in the car and my girlfriend climbs in the back and falls asleep. And this is in the morning, we just woke up. Little did we know she was pregnant. So she slept because she was pregnant. We didn't know this. She's 18, she's pregnant, and I she goes, just get on the 80 one the 80 and go home. I was like, okay, no. I got it went 80 the wrong way, and I ended up in Idaho. Yeah, the set mine was white. That's exactly what I was like.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yours was white, okay. Yeah. I had to look it up and see what it looked like.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

Yeah, Chevy citation. Oh my gosh, that's so the that is such the car. And he it had a bench seat. Um, like I thought it, yeah, like a it went all the way across, like in the front. I don't know if it came that way, but my dad put one there, so it was weird. Oh, okay. It was 1981 Chevy citation. And so, um, and so I went the wrong way. I get I can even to this day, I can get lost in my own flipping neighborhood. So of course I got lost. And so we're driving and driving and driving and driving. We had no money. Back then, gas was a dollar eighty, dollar nine, a dollar nine. And before we left, we had asked our boyfriend for money, but the bank wasn't open because it was a Sunday. And back then, you know, he couldn't write me a, you know, you just didn't have access to money. I don't even know if the UTM, I guess at a bank maybe he could have done that, but I don't even know if they had the cards. It was like a check, you know, he had and and and so he had no money. And he says, You should get home on that, what we had. So I filled up the car and I thought, okay, I should get home on this. No. We were running out of gas. We were on low, we were like clink clink clink clink, you know, the little how you're making that sound like you're you're low enough to where your car's making noise. And I was starved. We were hungry. We had been driving for like, I think close to almost nine hours. And um, it was deserty, and I was like freaking out, and I was like sweating. I was so hot. I was like, oh my God, oh my god, oh my god, where we are, where are we? And so I pull off into the gas station, and it's one of those old timey gas stations, like just super old. Even the gas pumps are like super old, you know, like the kind that you actually buy to put in your house because they're so cool. That's what they were totally cool and old. And I I pull out my my pockets and I've got like three dollars in change or something. And I start, I go inside, I open, it was like a screen door. I open the screen door and I start to cry. And the lady. He's like, what's the matter? And I go, I lost, and I'm supposed to be going to California and I don't know where I am. I'm I go when they go, she asked me where we were coming from, and I said, Utah. And she's like, Well, honey, you went the wrong way. We're like, you went the opposite direction, the absolute wrong way. And I started to cry. She goes, Oh, don't worry, don't worry. And um, I go, Well, where are we? And she says, You're in Eden, Idaho. And I'm like, I go, I think my grandma and grandpa went, because I had just the summer before went to Eden, Idaho to see my grandma-grandpa. And um, and she goes, Well, honey, what's your grandma and grandpa's name? Because I didn't know Eden wasn't like everybody knew everybody, you know what I mean? And I said, Vineyard. Now my grandma and grandpa have a 300-acre farm and it's um historical landmark because it's made out of, it's it's built like 110 years ago, made out of lava rock. Very cool, you know? And um, she looked at me and she comes over, she gives me a side hug, and she takes me over to the side door and it opens up this creaky door, and she walks me through and she said, You see that dirt road right there? That there is your grandma's road. That's vineyard road. That is your grandma's road. You go down that street and you're gonna find your grandma's house, and she can give you money for gas.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

In the middle of nowhere, that's awesome. How could I end up on my grandma's farm? Like, honestly, anybody out there tell me it's not just a coincidence. It's it I was guided by God to land right there. I was at loss of the lamb, and he put me exactly where I needed to be so that I I was a 17-year-old, you know what I mean? Can you imagine? That's my God story. It's crazy, huh? It's so true too. I'm not, I'm not even kidding. This is the absolute uh God's honest truth. This happened this way. I get to my grandma's house, and of course, there's a lot that, you know, then the story goes on. But this is this is one of those things that um things like this happen to me all the time. And um, like when I started adulting, you know, and I made poor choices, I got a my friend gave me um a fake ID and I was 20, I think. And uh we're on our way to go to a place we shouldn't I shouldn't have been going to. And um we stopped at a stoplight and I got hit by a drunk driver. Go he was going 80, and it was like a five-car collision, squished my car like a pancake. And I oh man, I was I bare I couldn't believe I was still alive, to put be honest with you. And uh my car started on fire with me in it, and uh some good Samaritan came came over and scooped me up as if he was gonna like carry me across the threshold. Scoops me up, and like, because I couldn't walk, I had glass, I was in a daze too, because I I had hit the head, my head on this side. And it was a brand new Toyota to sell, 1992. And it the airbag, well, this was like oh, the big on the airbag, it just started putting airbags in their car and it did not deploy. Like, I hit my head this way and that way, and I mean I was I was pretty messed up. So I was in a haze, and I could hear somebody go, get her out of there, it's gonna blow. So the guy scoops me up, and as we're walking across the street, he sets me down on the curb and my car blows up like a mushroom. And it was crazy. Then helicopters you know, come over and all the smoke's going everywhere. This guy comes out, he's before the guy scoops me out of the car, the drunk driver came out and said, What? What? I didn't do anything. And the guy goes, Bro, he goes, You just like you just caused this accident. Whatever. There's a lot of dialogue that goes along with this. So it's kind of funny. And the guy wafted of whiskey, like he was he was he was pretty lit. But his damn car, his GMC, Chevy GMC, had not a scratch on it. I was like, dang, that car's built good. It was like a cherry, oh no, it wasn't not cherry, it was a green, like a green apple. It was like a green apple color. Lime green. Yeah, Chevy, Chevy truck, one or something. I don't know what it was, but I think I looked it up and that I put the right urine model in the book because I had looked up what it was because I remember what it looked like. Um anyways, my car was totally, totally demolished, burnt to a crisp. But um, so those are some things that I had to go through. Um my gosh. So my mom and dad, my dad was I talk about this in the book. My dad was a complete douchebag to my mother. And I I would always thought it was my mom that wasn't, you know, it wasn't until I was older that I realized that my dad was the one not nice to my mother. One thing that I I talk about in the book, one thing when I was younger, this happened, I totally remember. And it's a God's honest truth. No one's gonna believe me when I tell you. But we were at the Sacramento Airport, and my little sister was two and a half, I was like uh four and a half, and my brother was like eight, my sister was like ten or something. And we were waiting for my dad to come home from a a trip, and we were doing hopscotching on the tile saying, step on a crack, break your mama's back, you know, how you do when you're like when you're younger. I am not lying. My mother bent down to pick up my little sister off the f off the tile, and she bent over and broke her back just in that moment. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_00 51:57

That is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

Isn't that crazy? It's so true. It's 100% happened, God's honest truth. And so she was like, Oh, she didn't know what she did. She thought she just tweaked her back or did something wrong. We didn't know. So she we go over to, you know, we're all, yay, daddy's home, you know, and we hug him and we're telling him how much we love him. And my mom's like, I don't know what I did, but I I think I hurt my back really bad. And he flung over his um duffel bag over her shoulder while my mom's holding her two-year-old and her back is broken at this point. We didn't know, but her back was broken. And he goes, Stop embarrassing me in front of my co-workers because his co-workers were coming off the plane. That is a type of that is how like uh is indicative of how my dad treated my mother. And so my mom had to walk with the duffel bag and my sister downstairs and out to the parking lot to the car until we got to the blue station wagon and to put the duffel bag and put the kids in the car. She ended up breaking her back, and there's a whole story that's behind that. But this is how my dad treated my mom throughout my whole life. And um, it wasn't good. And my dad had problems that we did not know. Like, and I don't talk about this in the book. This is something that's not in the book that I'm gonna tell your listeners. That's a it's a little juicy thing. It's a little embarrassing, but I'm just saying it anyways. My dad passed away um like 10, 11 years, I don't know, a while ago. And my mom went into his office and there was some young Asian girl, I don't, I think she was Filipino, yeah. And uh, she wanted to know where Bobby, which is my dad's Robert, where Bobby was. And my mom's like, he died. Who's this? You know, and she's like, Well, where's my I need my rent money? My dad was giving this chick rent, all kinds of stuff. I don't know what they were doing. I mean, you can only speculate what they were doing online. My dad never went out there, but whatever they were doing, they were doing online, and he gave all of my mom's money that my mom was actually still working. He was retired, but my mom had to come out and work because they needed money. And um, he was spending all their money, all their savings on this lady. And so my mom had like no money when my dad passed away. It was crazy. And then there's something that happened to me when I was nine twenty-two, I think, right before I moved out. Well, like I said, I had a hard time adulting, so I found my way back home a few times. Like I would come home, I would lose roommates a lot. And what happened when you lose a roommate, you can't afford rent. And if you can't find another roommate, what are you gonna do? So my parents were gracious, they let me come back home. But usually, like, I'd have to sleep in the garage, like in a camper, like in a tent or something. Like they wouldn't let me in the house. They just didn't like me. And so, whatever. I made I'm always like, this is cool. I've got my own bedding, I have a TV out here. This is great, you know. Like I always find the highlights in in everything, even though, you know, I'm I'm sleeping with the oil rags and oil, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't matter. It's all good to me. You know what I'm saying? But there were some things that happened to me in the book that I I I tell and it's the first time I tell anybody. So there's like little secrets in the book. And I it's some things that I tell uh and first time my mom heard them too. So it was uh, you know, my dad had passed, so it was time to it was time to start talking. And uh so you'll find some things like that in the book. All right.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Those are those are uh you are a storyteller. There's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

I know, and there's so much.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

So let's circle back around to the parenting aspect of this. Okay. So you've been open about the challenges of parenting children with special needs, and I'm sure that there are some parents listening to this episode that have neurodivergent children, whether it be autism or whatever. How did that shape you as a person and as a writer?

SPEAKER_03 55:38

Well, you know, I never, like we talked about before, I didn't know anybody that had these type of issues growing up. So when you start, it's like you're you felt like, why is God putting me through all this, all these things, you know, like and you have to learn to navigate through it, you know, as you're each thing is something new, is something different. Like, you know, my son was so smart, and but he had so many problems. I was getting a call every day from the school, and there was just a lot that went in with my son, and then here comes my cute little girl, you know, and all these other problems. And I'm still learning. We just found out about her intellectual disability last year because I had decided that even though she was tested when she was younger, that technology kind of got better. So maybe I should test her again, which was mommy's intuition. And yes, she came back with a positive reading for this 16p.11.2. And so I'm just and I so I think you you learn on the fly, you know, and you keep adapting, and there's you're gonna be saddled with something different every time. And you just gotta keep, you know, this is what uh God's given me, and it's for a reason. And I don't know what that is exactly, but you know, I do see things that he does for me every day that is amazing. Like, I don't care if it's like the stupid um the road got cleared and I can go around this guy who's so slow. I just little things, and I'm like, oh thank you. Like I thank him for just every little thing because I I can see every little thing. If you open your eyes, he's doing things for you all the time. Just not always bad. They're sometimes they're good. Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Right. So what's one mistake or redneck girl moment you can laugh about now, but felt like it was disaster back then?

SPEAKER_03 57:23

Well, I never told anybody this until the book, one of the things. My mom read it in the book. It was a little embarrassing, but I was just turned 18 years old. I had been it was out on my own. It was like two two weeks after my birthday, and my neighbor asked me to go to Macy's, and I was like, okay. And he wanted me to help him pick out his Doc Martins, what color? And I was like, okay, black, of course, duh. And so um we I pick out a shirt and then um I'm behind him, and he's like, Oh, can you sign this? Because it's my mom's credit card, and she you're a girl, so it would be better if you signed it. And I was like, Okay, so I signed it. And the lady goes, Where I need to see your ID, so I give her my ID. And I'm like, Here's my ID, you know. I didn't know. And she's like, You can't be signing that card. And I said, But he I go, but he told me to sign it. And so she's 40. He goes, Wait right here. And so then she gets the security card and he's literally dragging me, manhandling me, and throws me into a folding chair. And my friend goes, Oh no, no, I told her to sign it, it's not her fault, it's my fault. Apparently he stole the credit card, it was not his mother's. Oh no. And they arrested me. And he bailed me out, obviously, but and I didn't even really know this guy that well. He was just my neighbor that I would drink with his buddies once in a while. We'd play cards, and because I didn't have any friends, I didn't like I left my town as soon as I could, and this was in a town like a half an hour away, and I didn't know anybody. So I was like, okay, so of course I went to court with my most church-like dress, and I was a preschool teacher at the time, and I told I told him what had happened, and the and the judge goes, This is never gonna happen again, right? And I go, Never. And it never did, obviously. But he he said, This is a felony, but I'm gonna put it to a misdemeanor and um just don't get into trouble again. And I said, I will never, and I never did, until my 21st birthday when I was on a date with a police officer, and uh I went out with his buddies drinking on my 21st birthday, and I get in my car too drunk to drive and to know better. And um he says, make that you e and I'll follow you. Of course, this is probably gonna end up with him at my house. Um I got pulled over by a police officer, another police officer, a black and white, and he puts the he makes me do the the oh the um sobriety thing and sobriety test. Yeah, and I failed it like with flying colors. And so then he handcuffs me, throws me in the back seat, and I hear, I can hear, and it was I was waiting for like a minute. I was thinking, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, how embarrassing. Like I was so embarrassed. And so I can hear some talking in the back, and and then uh the door opens up and he goes, This is your lucky day. And he goes, and he admonished his the person, you know, the other police officer, and he says, Don't ever do that again. And she he goes, You should have known she shouldn't have been able to drive home. So then they pulled my car off to the side, and then I got to ride home and got got in my car the next day. But um, this was a police officer that had arrested was that he asked me out on a date because he was there's a whole part of the story in the book, but he once uh the guy that I was dating uh wouldn't let me leave. I was trying to leave this gentleman. I wanted to leave the house and he wouldn't let me. So I called the police, and this police officer was the guy that showed up. And it was only three days, it was only three days before uh before my birthday. And he goes, I noticed your birthday's in a couple days. He goes, You want to go because you want to go on? I'm like, this guy was really cute too. And I was like, okay. And we actually dated, me and this guy dated for like six months. So it did turn out to be like funny. It did turn out, but I found I I got arrested. I almost got arrested a second time. These are some bad choices that I was making. Thank goodness it didn't turn me in that direction. I I never still didn't ever do drugs because I never wanted to prove my parents right, you know what I mean? And I I never became even though I worked in a nightclub, I never it's funny, I worked in a nightclub, that's where I met my husband. He's uh was a bartender and I was a cocktail server. That's where we met in the bar. But it's not like we were at the bar, we were just working in the bar. But I'm just saying that like I didn't I was making bad choices, I but I wasn't making them so bad that I couldn't come back from them, you know. But I was embarrassed, that was the one thing that I can say my whole life, that I was embarrassed that I was arrested, and it's followed me forever. It's just the most embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

So you share some deeply personal and sometimes painful stories in your book. Was there a chapter or moment that was particularly hard for you to write?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

Yeah, I think the one I'll give you the chapter name and maybe that will explain. But it's called Pretend You're Asleep. And if that doesn't say it all, if that does not say it all, I'm telling you. Yeah, it was very hard. My dad's passed away now, so I can talk about it. But there's my sister and brothers have stories that I cannot share, and so there's stories that I cannot reveal in the book, but I share my encounters and and that's all I'll say about that. You gotta read the book if you wanna you wanna hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Well, I actually I th I think I'm going to uh can you download it online?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

Yes, is there is there like a ebook or yeah, there's you can get it via ebook and also audio, although I am not the one that talks on it. Uh I wanted to, but Christian Faith Publishing said no. And so I tried to get somebody that had a lot of inflection in their voice so that it kind of sounded like I would be the one talking. But yeah, you can also get an audio book as well. Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

I I definitely plan on on uh reading the book and then having you on again because I'll have some I'll have some really good questions for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

I mean, I went into labor while I was in court for my stepdaughter. Like we spent a lot of money. I I'm a stepmom and so BioMom was really bad. For my first kid, I literally was in court the court, like in labor. There's just so many stories. I had a Jerry Springer wedding. There's so much more.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Okay, let's let's talk about BioMom. That kind of piques my interest.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

Okay, so my husband Who is BioMom? Okay, I is that she is my stepdaughter's mother. Okay. I don't call her by name because I don't like her. So I think BioMom is as nice as I can get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

She just was terrible. She would always tell my husband, like, oh, I know you still love me, all this stuff. She was a crazy lady. They never married, but um, they split when Jordan was like one and a half, and Doug and I met when she was like three and a half. We Doug and I dated for three years before we married. And but from the very beginning, you know, he was a bartender, she was a bartender. She made and she lived in Long Beach and we lived in Palm Springs. But she made us drive all like we'd go to meet her, she would be three hours late. I mean, it was just passive aggressive, one thing after another. She was not nice. We'd be in court for every little thing, and we'd always most of the time win our argument. And but after about $50,000, we had to um fire our attorney and I had to do all of the pleading paperwork myself and all the filings. I'd write out the story. Um, and there was a lot of emails back and forth with mom. And so I had binders and binders of emails with mother. And it wasn't until 10 years later that I just decided to shed that weight off my shoulders and I ditched it in the in the trash can. And it filled up an entire green, you know, recycling trash can. But uh I I rid myself of all of that, and she now no longer lives rent-free in my head. I don't allow her to like, like, I don't know. If she wants to stalk me, go ahead. You can find all you want. I'm I'm all over online, so good, good on you, girl. But she wasn't very nice. We she knew of my due date, and she said, I'm sure she's not gonna give birth on a due date. Well, I'm a Virgo, bitch. I'm always on time. And so I went into labor. The labor story is very funny. It's in the book, it's hilarious. But I did go in on the labor, and my husband's like, when I had my first real huge contraction, it was when I was getting out of the out of the Montero. We had a uh SUV Montero back then, like one of the first ones. And I don't even think they still make those anymore. Anyways, I was stepping out of it and all of a sudden I have my first real contraction. I didn't know I was in labor the night before, but I guess I was. But this one was like a real big one. And my husband's like, Are you is that a contraction? I'm like, pregnant? Like, this is my first pregnancy. How would I know? And so we left. But yeah, I was I started like major after that it was like every five minutes. And I I had to drive four hours to get home because I wanted my husband's sister to deliver our child because she was a birthing nurse. And so my husband made it in time for Parker's delivery. He was three, it was like 20 minutes before Parker was born, but he made it there. And and then I don't know, I'm like you. I don't know what it's like not to have my son and I don't know what it's like to have a child come home with you after delivery. Both my kids were in the NIC unit for a week after they were born. My son, he ended up having sleep apnea and had to wear a heart monitor for six months, and that's how he started life. And then my daughter, of course, she she was pale, couldn't keep her oxygen uh above 90, and so she and she had tetrology of philosoph. And at the time it was, you know, can't leave. So we spent a week both times. So that's how that story went. But yeah, my bio mom is just and then uh when my daughter, my step I call her my daughter, but she's my kid, but she's my stepdaughter. But when she graduated high school, my husband turned to bio mom and said, lose my number. Like, don't ever call me. I don't care if it's an emergency, do not call me. That is how it's been.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

It was hard. So so your podcast, just saying, that's just J-E-S-S, just saying, often dives into parenting, business, and life struggles. How does podcasting compare to writing for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

Well, writing is actually uh easy. It just flows out well, you know, here I am, you know, you can see words just flow out of my mouth. Like I vomit words easily. And it's the same with writing. Like I wrote my book, Bucket List from a Redneck Girl, took me two months. Yep, two months, but the rewrites took about a year.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

You read it, you you read through it, you you you know, you fix it and you fix it again, you fix it again, then you fix it again, and it's like after the sixth time, you're like you're almost verbatim reciting the words. I also used something that in case anybody out there wants to know, I used autocrit, it's called all one word, A-U-T-O-C-R-I-T. And you can put your book into this autocrit and it'll tell you how many times you're saying the word always, you know, and it says, oh, you said always like 85 times, now take out 65. And you're like, damn it, I always do that. You know what I mean? And so and it helps you kind of with your writing after you've written it. And I think that's the kind of AI that is appropriate for when you write a book, you know. Not every, not every word should be AI, but I mean, if someone's giving you an option, instead of using all always use this other word. And so I think that was okay. So that's what I did when I wrote my book. But um, I like writing, but I love podcasting because I meet so many crazy and neat people with unique and crazy stories, and um I feel akin to them. You know, I will also, when I see their social posts online, I try to like all the time and like, oh, you know, and I feel like we're building a community of like-minded people. And I do have parenting. I don't know if I do tips, but I just like writers that have a parenting story, is has a parenting story, and that is the basis of their book. Or their parent who had a lot of trials and trauma and tribulations, and they wrote a book about that while trying to raise a family and keep a relationship going. So we dive into relationships. Relationships and and everything in between. You know, a mom a preneur. That's kind of like what I am. We didn't even touch on the fact that I built a million dollar business from my living room. Like, hello, that's also something crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

That'll be another podcast episode. Yeah. When you said vomiting words onto a page, I've been writing for, I don't know, 20 years now. And I write on I've never published a book, but I've written a lot of short stories. I wrote like four or five stories about Jessica and uh online. I write on medium.com. And uh there's obviously on a writing platform, there's gonna be editors and people that are quote unquote writing experts, and they talk about writer's block. One of the ladies, uh one of the editors said, just vomit the words out onto the page and go back and clean it up. And it and that stuck with me for so many years because you do get writer's block sometimes. You're like, what am I gonna write about? What am I gonna write about? And then you all of a sudden you're like, well, I'll just start typing, and you just start typing all this gar garbledy gook onto the page. You know, you're vomiting words onto the page, and many of them may not make a whole lot of sense, they may not be conducive, they might, you know, who knows? And you just you write two or three paragraphs and you go back and you go, okay, what am I gonna write about? You know, and you you find your your introduction introductory sentence and your, you know, your all that. The body of the body of the article and the summary, and you summarize it and draw it all to a close, blah, blah, blah. So, so yeah, when you said vomiting words onto a page, I'm like, I've heard that somewhere before.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

Yeah, you know, I just got done. I'm not done, but I've written three novels, about a hundred I heard that. A hundred and six thousand words each. And I'm on my last one. I've got like two chapters left, but I've actually put it aside the last four months because I'm trying to catch up on a lot of other things like my housework and you know, my work. We're coming into a political season, it's really tough. And also trying to catch up on my podcast, you know, social posts are no joke, they take a long time to edit, and I do all my own producing, and I give all my clients, or clients, my guests, I give them seven social posts per episode so that they have one per day that they can use. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

Or try to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:08

Yeah. It's just a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

So, so do you prefer being a podcast host or a guest?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:15

I I do have imposter syndrome a little bit about like when I'm a gu when I'm a host, like maybe not feeling like I uh I don't know, like anybody's gonna want to listen to what I have to say. So I guess I would say if I had to break it down, I really like being a guest because I could just tell my story and have fun with it and it's fun for me. And I do I am a little nervous when I do my especially my very first, I would say, 20 episodes. I was very nervous. But I'm now that I've I've actually I'm on like a hundred my hundredth episode or more than that now, like 107. Even though I've not posted them to Spotify yet, they are scheduled to air, but I'm only on 41. And but they're all getting better. I'm doing so much better as a host, and I'm not as scared. And that's a wonderful thing. Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

There you go. Yeah, there's there's uh putting together a podcast episode is more work than you would imagine.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:07

Yeah, and then the producing of it and then like keeping track of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

Editing, producing, keeping track of it and all that.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:13

And then, you know, you have to come up with questions and thank goodness for chat GPT and all that. But then you also I use my questions that I get online that I I try to I use Chat GPT to outline, actually it's Claude. I use Claude to outline my show, and but I don't always use those questions. I just use them in case I have a blonde moment and I can't think of a question. That's when I use those questions. But generally, you know, that helps me and takes a lot of the time out of it. So if I had to create my own questions, I probably would want to shoot myself. Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

We started it out in 2015 when our last two teenagers were living at home, and I told my wife, I said, I'm desperately trying to stay out of prison here. And she's like, What are you talking about? I said, I just want to kill the kids at least once or twice a day. And I said, I don't want a boyfriend. I don't want to go to prison. So I said, Let's let's uh I don't like my husband. Let's let's let's uh start a a a Facebook group to see if there's other parents out there having the same struggles. Because sometimes you get kind of isolated, you know, and you you think you're you know, you think you're alone, you think you're like, why why are why are my kids on crack and driving me out of my mind? And so we started the the Facebook uh group and we started out with 10 members. Now we've got 1.6,000 members. And uh so I started the I started the podcast in support of that support group. And it's just blown up. It's just gone crazy. And I don't even know why I told you all of that. There was a point I was trying to make.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:38

You'll come back to it. See, you had a blonde moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

So anyway, well, I I'm a storyteller and I also chase rabbits. And so we just went down a gopher hole and I don't I don't know where we're even going with it. So I'm just gonna drop it right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

Speaking of so funny, um, I had a clinical psychologist on and or psych I forget psychologist, whatever. And um, we were talking about ADHD, and I go, Do you think I have ADHD? She goes, uh yeah. Maybe I should go maybe I should go see a doctor. Because I was all over the place. I'm like, squirrel. And I'm like, what? Huh? My dogs are around me, what's going on? And I'm not paying attention. But she's like, Yeah, dude, you hello. I think that's probably what I had growing up, but I'm surprised I survived with all this. The way they're gonna be able to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:17

Fun lovingly call my wife Squirrel Brain. It's because because I'll ask her something. I'll say, Honey, would you get me a drink or what's for supper? Just a simple run-of-the-mill question about what's going on in our life at that moment. And she'll take off, she'll get out of the recliner, she'll take off into the kitchen, and I'll sit there and I'll watch. I'll be watching TV, but I'll watch her out of the corner of my eye. And she'll she starts out with that thought in her head, and then all of a sudden something catches her something catches her attention and she'll go do that. She'll do five or six things, and I'll finally go, honey, that sounds like what? Like, what are you doing? I said, What about that drink? Or what are what were you were you gonna stir the hamburger helper or is this just gonna burn up on the stove or Oh, I just got distracted. Anyway, sh she hates it when I call her squirrel brain, but it it happens. And sadly enough, I have that too.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:06

We're juggling like fifty million effing things, and it's like crap, I forgot I have to also da da da da. And if I don't put this in there, like I always say, I got up in the middle of the night to put a spoon in my son's lunchbox so that because he was gonna have or a fork because he was gonna have spaghetti, and I had forgot to put a fork in there. My son's 25 years old. And then like I had to remember to put a fork in his lunchbox because I was afraid he wouldn't have one at work, and how was he gonna eat a spaghetti that uh that I put together for him? My son just got a job. Love it. Uh failure to launch is a thing. I think he just walked in the door. But he he got a job at Nestle in the warehouse, and um, he's doing good. I I didn't think he was gonna last like a week, and it's been a week and a day, so so far so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

But I'm helping out the boundaries, boundaries and failure to launch, or actually a child psychologist told me that that was too negative to say failure to launch is uh whatever. It's uh lost in place.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:01

Whatever. Yeah, whatever, exactly. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:03

Call it whatever you want to call it. If it if it quacks and it looks like a duck, it's a flipping duck, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Yeah, the thing is is like my husband, he's nine and a half, he's nine and a half years older than me. And so it's weird. He's a boomer, I'm a Gen Xer, my son is um uh my daughter is a millennial, my stepdaughter's a millennial, my son is a Gen Zer, and my daughter is that alpha, I guess that low, whatever. Right. I've got one of each age, and we all just don't understand each other. It's like, you know, like my husband is like, you know, you're 25 years old, you should have been out of the house when 18, you should be working, you should be this, you should be that. And my son, who is a Gen Zer, is like, that's not the case anymore. No one's leaving the house at that age. You can't get a house, you can't get apartments, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, it's true. My son is true, and he what he says is actually true, but what my husband says is actually true too. And so it's and then I'm trying to referee them. So when you said like you want to kill your kids, and yeah, it's true. My husband and my son are like, I mean, they fight over the littlest things because my husband doesn't think he's doing enough. My son thinks she's harping on him, and I'm just like, I have a headache just thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

Yeah, family and family and parenting is messy at on a even on a good day.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:17

So I want to give you, I I'm gonna throw you a curveball and I want to say, I want to give you like a five-minute elevator speech, and it's five minutes you can't go over by 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:27

So I'm gonna give you a five-minute elevator speech, and I want you to talk to the parents that are listening. What would you tell them? Crap. I told you it was a curveball.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:35

So I do this on my podcast, I talk like this a lot. I feel like I'm failing at everything. I'm failing at uh my two jobs because I can't do both of them at the same time generally because I gotta answer one and go to the next. I'm failing because it's almost dinner time and I haven't decided what I'm actually gonna make tonight. I failing because my daughter just came home from school at like four, and I have not greeted her yet because I've been on this podcast. I constantly am failing at life. And so I feel like it's okay. And here comes my dog. I've fine. Um we like dogs. This is a French French Bulldog. They're all brats, though. All three of my French Bulldogs are just dicks sometimes. But I'm I just feel like I'm failing at everything, and it is okay. It is okay to fail. Your kids are gonna my mom and my mom could get this. My mom and dad treated me like shit. Okay. I did not feel loved. My dad kicked me out when I was nine years old one time. I mean, it was just a lot going on. And and my mom and I now are like best friends. Your kids will forgive you for you doing the best that you can. My parents did the best they could. They didn't have internet and peer groups and podcasts to listen to, you know, like what you're offering is is awesome. But my parents didn't have that. And I'm an adult, I can understand that my parents did the best that they could. So I have forgiven my mother, my dad, I don't have to, because he's dead, thank God. But my mother, um, I have forgiven her for everything and know that she loves me and did the best that she could and loved me as best as she could. And I know that my kids are gonna also say when I'm gone, and that's one of the reasons why I did my podcast, is so that they can hear mommy's words. They can come back and listen to me, be on other people's podcasts, but then listen to my words in all of my podcasts where I talk about them incessantly. But they're gonna know that mommy did the best that she could and that she loved us, and that I told them every day that I love you. I tell them every day, still to this day, I love you. And as long as you do that, then you're doing good. Regardless of how you feel as a failure as a parent, you're not failing, believe it or not. You're doing the best that you can, and your kids are gonna understand that and love you regardless.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:35

But I talk about By the time they're what, 30, 35?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Yeah, well, my mom says that kids really grow up by the time they're 27 is when their brain starts to be more like an adult and they realize that they were the dicks.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:51

It's not you, it's just them. And they then they get so you get a little ashamed and you feel kind of a little bad, you know. You're like at 27. It's the it's 28. 27 is the age. Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:00

Right. So, Jessica, I I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for being authentic and just being yourself, and thank you for the stories that you've told me. And I'm sure I'll have you back on the podcast again at some point, and you can we can talk about other parts of your book. As a matter of fact, I like I told you, I'm gonna read your book, and then when you do come back on the to it for a second episode, I'll have some pointed questions for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:23

Yeah, it's a it's an easy read. It's funny in parts and it's sad in others, and it's I'm telling secrets that I never told anybody before. So, and it's funny because my friends from high school are like, I never even knew that you had problems at home. And that's because I hid it well. I was just all the time. I'm happy all the time. They always thought I was just happy go lucky, and I came from a really good family, and it looked like that on the outside, but not on the inside. It was like a nougat, you know, that gross stuff on the inside. Chocolatey is good, but all that other stuff on the inside, blah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:57

Just saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:58

So so to the listening audience, I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time. Thank you for listening to this podcast or watching it on YouTube. Thank you for listening to the episode. This episode of ABC's The Parenting Adult Children podcast, Jessica's story is a reminder that parenting is often unpredictable, sometimes overwhelming, and almost never goes according to their original plan. And it can get kind of messy. But it's also a story about resilience, family, and making decisions based on what matters most. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who might need to hear the story. And if you're parenting adult children, teenagers or young kids, and life hasn't gone the way you expected, you're definitely not alone. Jessica, how would people uh get a hold of you? Where would they find you online?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:39

So easy peasy, go to jesssaying.net. That's J-E-S-S-S-A-Y-I-N-G dot n-t. And everything you'll need is on that website. You can go there, find my book, which is you can get it on Amazon too. But you can find my book information, my website, uh, you'll find a little bit of my social post on there. You'll find podcast episodes, and I try to list all my podcast episodes on there so you can click on the person's name and go directly to their website and find out more information. And yeah, you find out a little bit about me too. So go there. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:12

So thanks again for listening. Jessica, thank you for being here. And we'll see you next time on the ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:20

Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Please tune in next week for another episode of our podcast on parenting adult children.