Sharing wisdom and stories from 30 years of friendship with laughter, grace, and love

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We met in the 6th grade. She is my ride or die OG. We have been a part of our life's milestone moments in the decades we've been friends. She's my chosen sister, mentor, and the person I can count on to tell it to me straight. Do you have that type of friendship in your life? Then you need to pause and share this episode with your OG best friend. And stay tuned. There are some exciting changes coming to the show over the next couple of months, so be sure you tune in to future episodes. I'm really curious to know what's the last book that you read or are currently listening to?

I am in the process of, finishing the trauma stewardship. It is by Laura Van Der Neut Lipsky. And it's really an everyday guide for people to acknowledge that self-care is important and to understand that if you're working in the front lines of humanship, that you have an opportunity to, take some time to acknowledge that that has impacted your life. And then if it's impacted it in a negative way, being able to acknowledge that, and then trying to find new ways to kind of cope and deal with that.

I, at your recommendation last week, downloaded the book and started listening to it. And my goodness, it hit all the spots. And I find with books like that, I have to pause and take a break and then listen to brain candy or something that's not quite as heavy. Tell me a little bit about yourself and why learning about trauma and healing trauma as part of self-care, how that's working for you and why it's important.

I am a well, I was a probation officer for over 20 years, and my expertise was in juvenile probation. I have since transitioned, into an education specialist with the division of probation services through the state of Colorado. And so what I do is I train probation officers on how to be probation officers. And one of the things that I've noticed that in my 2 years of transitioning over to this new spot is that I didn't realize how sick I really was. And after 20 years of listening to people's lives at their worst, you know, the decisions that they've made and the impact it's had on them, as a probation officer, I really was invested in my juveniles. And so I would give everything I had to them. I'm very passionate about, you know, community and just trying to make sure that people get a fair shot and that they're seen as human beings, not by the choices that they made or the behaviors that they displayed, but really by who they are as characters. And so with that comes a lot of trauma and you hear a lot of crap and you hear a lot of sadness and insecurities and vulnerability and how marginalized communities are treated and maybe don't always have the fair shot that that they should as humans. And so that wears on you as a provider, as somebody who supports those people. And so I have a wonderful colleague who has been preaching self-care and probation for over 25 years and is just now starting to get traction. In that realm. And we'd had a conversation about, the trauma that I was feeling and how letting go of crisis management and dealing with that day-to-day trauma that I was seeing for over 20 years, how much it had impacted me, not only professionally, but personally. And so she recommended this book to try to help me kind of focus on that. And it's hit home professionally, but it's hit a lot of buttons for me personally as well.

I'm sure we talked about it last week. And the story you talk about in the book where she's standing at this beautiful cliff, and everyone's like, oh my gosh. This is so gorgeous. And she's like, I wonder how many people have fallen off this cliff. I wonder how many people have intentionally jumped off this cliff. Do they have a level one trauma center nearby? Do they and I hadn't heard the book, read anything about the book, but just the description of standing on the beautiful cliff. I thought the exact same thing. And I know as I've been doing a lot of trauma work myself, how much that does impact a lot of our personal lives.

And I wanna hear how it's impacted your personal life, kind of more along the lines of parenting. How does working with juveniles and probation and detention, you know, how impact how you've raised your children and parent so well that when it took me back when you're like, oh, trauma has impacted that, and maybe it's because we're both so affected by trauma that I think it's great. I understand the trauma informed decisions that you make for your kiddos.

Yeah. Well, I'll just start off by saying it made me a little crazy, made me over vigilant, I think, about things. I remember, several stories. One being when my oldest, who's now 22 years old, when he was in 6th grade, he was getting ready to go to outdoor ed. And I went, you know, just so you had a parent meeting, and they took us all down. And we're sitting in this big auditorium with, like, you know, 600 families, and they were asking for parent volunteers. And so right away, in my mind, I start thinking about like, oh, so you're asking, you know, how many people to volunteer in this open forum. What does that background check look like? Are you asking people that they can come? Like, are you gonna accept misdemeanors? Are you gonna expect felonies? Are you gonna, you know, are you just weeding out sex offenders? Like, what are we doing as far as our parent volunteers? And I remember going and asking, the teacher that was running the meeting afterwards and being like, oh, so are you gonna do background checks on all the people who volunteer? And she was like, oh, I'm sure.

And I'm like, well, are you doing national background checks? Are you doing state? Are you doing, you know, just a sex offender database? You're running NCs, ICs, or CCICs? Like, what are we doing? And she had this blank look on her face like, I don't really, I don't really know. I'll have to get back to you. Are you asking for you? And I was like, no. I'm asking because I'm gonna give you my son who's 11. You're telling me you're putting him in the backwoods for 3 days. I don't have any contact with him. He can't talk to me if he needs me, and you're gonna put him with people who volunteer for this position. Like, I wanna know who you're letting come through the gates.

And we got in the car afterwards. And my oldest, he tells me, he said, mom, if you don't get the results that you want or the questions answered, does that mean I can't go? And I was like, I don't know, Isaiah. We'll have to see. And then I went home, and I told my husband who is not in the field. He is a pipe fitter by trade, and he was like, Vic, you're being crazy. He's 11. He's not the only kid up there, you know, and he's definitely old enough to report and to self-protect. And so he went, and it was the worst three and a half days at that time, sitting on the edge, but he was fine.

And I will tell you that the teacher never got back to me on background checks. So, to this day, I have no idea, but I let him go anyways.

I I appreciate that. And I I think about that, you know, next year, little man's gonna be going to outdoor ed, and it's the same thing. Like, I always have the absolute worst-case scenario running through my mind. I'm curious to understand what got you into the probation field. Like, why what in your life what events happened to make you say, you know what? I wanna be in probation.

So I grew up in a neighborhood that was, predominantly Latino and poverty stricken.

We grew up in the same neighborhood just for everyone listening.

So yeah. That's how that's how we know each other. We're from the same hood. Yeah. So, I grew up. My mom was a single mom, and I was raised with my grandparents. My grandparents were really, like and they didn't read or write. They weren't educated people. And I think there wasn't a lot of opportunity in our neighborhoods.

So there was this idea of, like, you were gonna graduate high school, hopefully, and then you would go in and work into a trade of some sort. Because the idea of college or education just really wasn't something that was, I don't know, talked about or even seen as an opportunity for me. So coming from an uneducated family, when I was 13, my mom married a man who ended up adopting me. And this man really introduced me to a whole different, world of privilege. He was an educated man. He's an electrical engineer. He came from educated people. He had done really well for himself in his career and passed on a lot of privilege to me at a really early age and started thinking that giving me this idea that I could go and be more than working at a nursing home or

Mhmm.

You know, waiting tables or being a secretary or whatever. So I went to college. And while I was in college my freshman year, I did a volunteer program at a localized middle school in Fort Collins. And the counselor wanted me to work with some youth that were at risk of dropping out and having, you know, a lot of behavior problems and just really struggling in the education scene. And so she wanted me to go and start a program with them where we would volunteer in the community. Twice a week, I would go into the school, and we would go into a nursing home and volunteer with an Alzheimer's unit. There were about 15 kids. They were all kids of color, and they all came from similar neighborhoods that I grew up in.

So I felt very connected to them and could kind of speak the lingo, if you will, of, like, what they were feeling and how they were going through stuff. By dealing with that partnership and having to go twice a week to the Alzheimer's unit with this group, it really filled my cup. And it really made me feel like, you know, there are so many opportunities out there that these kids just don't know anything about because they haven't had exposure. They haven't had an opportunity to see beyond the neighborhood or beyond their current situation. That's really kinda what started fueling my fire for probation was just understanding that I wanted to do more. I wanted to be able to give back to the community that I came from. I wanted to be able to pass on the ideas of opportunity that you're not stuck in a block that is surrounded with the same kind of cyclical situations that there was more out there. And so that was really my hope was to be able to give back to to kind of the community that I was raised in.

Focus on the fact that not everyone gets a fair shot, and not all of the circumstances are aligned for people to have a lot of privilege.

I haven't really talked about how I was raised and where I was raised. And to backtrack to 6th grade in 19, I don't know, 80 something. I first met you when I thought you stole my boyfriend. It was in 6th grade. I did not. For everyone out there, I did not steal her boyfriend. And I remember, obvious, 6th grade stinks. It's horrible.

We were raised in the same neighborhood, but I spent the first 4 years of my, elementary school in a Catholic school. When I transferred to the public school that fed into our middle school, it was really eye opening to me. I was teased and bullied a lot. And when we got into 6th grade, it was still really awkward, but I was like, oh, it's a fresh start. You know, it's a new start. And I remember you have these long braids and, like, tall and long legs, and I'm like, great. And this is how it starts. And she steals my boyfriend.

But then, you know, you went to after your dad adopted you, you moved and got out of the hood and went to a different middle school, and then we reconnected in high school. And I think, you know, what was so impactful for me is I didn't realize what a rough neighborhood it was for all the reasons you just said. It's just what I knew. I knew that for me, I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood. You know, my parents were blue collar. They worked all the time, and I was pretty lonely and left out, and like I said, picked on. It wasn't until really you and your family. And, you know, I can think of, like, Renee's family and Lina's family that really took me in and made me feel what it was like to feel family.

The big get togethers and the incredible food, and, like, coming from a small family, like, that changed my life and really gave me a foundational goal of what I wanted my family to look like. And just that embracing of difference. And when you talk about blue collar and trade, so many people that we graduated with became firefighters and police officers, and, you know, or work for the unions or in a trade like Joe did because that's all we knew. And, you know, I was accepted to go to college far away. And then when my grandmother got really sick, I stayed back because I just couldn't leave her. And in some ways, that was a really great gift. Maybe the last gift she gave me because there is no way I was prepared to go away to a big college, regardless of how smart I thought I was or what I knew, because I just didn't have those skills. I appreciate how it impacted what you chose to do, because I think it did the same for me.

And really one of the when we talk about privilege, because I know that can be a dicey topic. One of the first times I remember us being different and viewed different from the outside world was our senior year in high school, when we went to Cherry Creek Mall, which is a pretty bougie mall to go shopping for prom dresses. And Victoria had this really cool car. We would take the t tops off, and we would blast to peche mode because that's what we you know, how we were. And we go down to Cherry Creek, and I'm like, oh my gosh. I've never been to Cherry Creek Mall. And there, we're in the store, and it was like a pretty woman moment. This woman comes up to us, and she starts talking to me like, what are you looking for? I'm like, I ain't looking for anything.

It's you know, my friend is, and she looks at you and was like, there's probably nothing here for you. And I was just shocked by it. It rocked me to my core, and I'll never forget that moment 30 years ago at how, wow, she had no idea, and it was truly just based off our skin.

Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, we have stories like that over and over again throughout our life based on the way that we look or how we show up or being a female or the color of our skin or being chubby or too skinny or whatever. Right?

Mhmm.

And you talk a little bit about, like, leaving the neighborhood. That was a really, really awful transition for me. I went into a neighborhood after my dad married my mom and I was adopted. We moved out of my grandmother's house. I was 14 at that time, and that was, you know, you're 14. Everything is terrible at 14. Like, you know, I mean and so now you moved me out of the only house that I knew, the only neighborhood that I'd ever known, the people, my friends. You know, when you talk about community in a Hispanic community, yeah, everyone is part everyone is grandmas and, you know, tios and uncles and, you know, it's an embracing neighborhood.

And when I moved, I went to a different neighborhood that that wasn't the case. They were predominantly white families, you know, upper class. There was money they had. I I remember moving in, and we lived, like, 3 houses down from the community pool. And everyone got a key, and you got, like, a little photo ID card or whatever, and that you would go in. And if you lived in the neighborhood, you could have access to the to the neighborhood pool. And I remember my mom and I would go every summer, and there were women there that didn't work, which was something that was new for me. Right? My mom worked 3 jobs when I was growing up.

There were women there that were there with our kids during the day, and my mom and I would be at the pool, and they would go make the lifeguard check our IDs to make sure that we belonged, at the pool because we didn't look like everybody else. I will tell you to this day, I've never been back to that pool.

Mhmm.

And it's been, you know, 30 32 years. It was a really difficult transition for me. And at the time, all I wanted to do was go back to the neighborhood. All I wanted to do was go back to be with my grandma and lived in the same house that I grew up in. Now looking back, my dad actually was the one that changed my perspective in my life. And he was the one that, like I said, instilled privilege that I didn't appreciate at the time.

Mhmm.

But man, did it change the course of my life.

Mhmm. Well, and you choosing to take that privilege and your experiences and give back to the community because you were a probation officer in the county that we grew up in. We grew up in an unincorporated county. So even though we had, like, a Denver ZIP code, it was not Denver. It was unincorporated. It was lower socioeconomic. And, you know, even my mom still lives in the hood that we grew up in. And when I go visit, it is.

It's home. It's so many foundational memories in my life, but what I see now is very different. I see the gas prices are, like, sometimes a dollar higher. I see that it takes forever for law enforcement to serve the community. The school districts really changed. You know, our high school doesn't even exist anymore. Our middle school was torn down for houses, but you decided to give back. So you never lost sight of the value of having those opportunities.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that was like a driving force for me. Right? Its not only to work with the youth that reminded me of ourselves, but to go back to the community that we grew up in, and to be able to say like, yeah, I'm coming back, and I'm going to try to pass some wisdom and some opportunities your way.

Mhmm. When you finally got out of the probation part of it and into the training that, obviously, that's influenced how you train and the passion behind it. I remember when you were going through the interview process and just feeling so inspired when you would practice with me, like, man, you should be running the world right now. Your voice and your message, the passion behind it is so important. What I admire most, and maybe it's different from your perspective, but my perspective is you've always remained true to who you are. And as opposite as we are from the outside, as far as, like, you're always put together and you always have makeup on, and I'm always envious of that because most of the time, I roll out of bed, and if I'm lucky, if I shower. But you've always just been true to who you are, and you've known that from you know, for as long as I've known you, there's just been this strong presence of who you are. And I just really respect and value that.

And I guess my question is, how do you how do you maintain that? How do you work through all that and always show up just knowing who you are?

It's a process. Right? I mean, I I'd be lying to you if I told you that I didn't have imposter syndrome, where I stand and what I do. Back in the day when I started probation, I was one of the only brown people in the room. 1 of the only that came from uneducated people, and didn't come from you know, didn't start with privilege in their life. And so it was hard for me to try to find this balance of, like, fitting in and wanting to be somebody who looks the same and talks the same and is treated the same as opposed to somebody who maybe adds to. I think that's how I've come to know it now in my forties of, like, no, I I don't belong in the culture. I add to the culture. I think by embracing this that, yes, I do look different.

Right? I show up and I have hair and eyelashes and eyeliner and makeup and hoop earrings. And if they let me train in my Jordans, I would totally be training in my Jordans. Evidently, it's frowned upon, so I don't do that. But I try really hard to be authentic and to true to who I am. When I was interviewing for this job, I had a colleague that was like, oh, are you gonna tone it down when you show up to all of the chief probation officers in the state? And I was like, what is what does that mean tone it down? And she's like, were you gonna let go of the eyelashes and the eyeliner and the hoop earrings? And I was like, yeah. No. Because I don't wanna do that every day. I find strength in my eyelashes and hoop earrings.

Absolutely. It's part of who you are, and you know, in all the years we've known each other, I think I've seen you without makeup maybe three times. That's it. And Wow. You've taught me. So I was a couple years ago, I was like, I feel like I need to learn how to put the fake eyelashes on. So you're like, let's go. And we went over, and we bought the eyelashes, and you taught me how to do it.

And I've successfully done it a few different times, since then. And I just I mean, that I guess that's the best thing is you're authentic to who you are, and I've always appreciated that. And, you know, even through our relationship and our friendship, when we had those few years where we didn't speak, it was really hard. And I think we were at a point in our lives where it was what we say it was too much. Like, we just we needed that break. And what I realized was how much I missed you and thought about you all the time. And, like, I need Vic's wisdom. I need I need her guidance, and I need because when I see you being authentic, it empowers me to be more of myself, and you remind me of who I am.

And I just think that's really important when we talk about community and, you know, who you have at your table and who you spend your most the most of your time with because I haven't always made the greatest decisions. And, you know, we know why looking back retrospectively, but you have always been the friend that's, like, offers the wise advice and never made me feel judged for the decisions I was going. Even if you were shaking your head, I mean, like, oh, man. This is not gonna end well. You are always there to have my back, and I think giving that safe space just has allowed me to grow, to become more authentic and really embrace who I am. Uh-huh. And I'm very grateful for that.

Yeah. Well, me too. Alright. It's just reciprocal, and it's who do we let into our world and who do we authentically share with. Right? And, you know, I I always joke that I try to be the friend that's the one that could tell you, like, girl, you can't wear that. I love you, but no. And I hope you'd be the friend for me. Right? That's like, girl, when we talk about authenticity, like, that's I wanna be that that person to you, and I want you to be that person to me.

Because I think everyone is we have this society kind of norm where it's like, oh, I'm gonna tell you what you wanna hear, or I'm gonna say things that I don't actually believe because that's what's socially acceptable. And I try really hard to live my life in a brave space, not a safe space. Right? Because when we're safe, things don't always change the way we need it to or we don't always get the feedback that we need in order to grow. And so my hope is that, by living in a brave space, I have an opportunity to grow and to move this needle, maybe that's stuck in the middle. Right? And we kinda push it over to the other side, whatever situation we're in.

I admire that, and I see that in you. And I see that in how you live your life, the choices that you make, the work that you do, how you raise your children, the way that we're friends. You know, our friendship is very much based on that, on courageous conversations and brave conversations, and maybe not always, you know, sunshine and unicorns and rainbows. We've had some pretty hard conversations, and we've been, you know, we've always been there for each other. I think back to when your mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, I'll never forget where I was. And she had her surgery, and we were there in the waiting room. And then, you know, a couple years later, when my dad is having quadruple bypass, there you are in the waiting room. It's not just about being the friend for the easy stuff.

It's the friends, you know, that are there for all the things. The ride or die friendship. And you can say that about people, like, oh, I'm a ride or die friend. But do your actions match up with that? And I think it's really important that, you know, you have those people in your life, and you don't need many. I mean, just a couple, quality over quantity, for sure. Yeah. I've been reflecting a lot. I talked to a friend of mine that I've made in the last 7 years, but there was a time in my life where I didn't make any new friends.

For a couple decades, I was really, like, I had my OG friend group that I've known, you know, since I was a kid, and then I have friends now that I've met as an adult. There's a really awkward phase in my life where I just I didn't connect with friends or women. You know, I think partly because of my job and just other things going on in my life, but I just it's always nice to make sure you have those people that you can rely on.

I look back at our friendship, and I can tell you that, like, all of those big life moments, we've been there for each other, and the good and the bad. You know? I can I I can go back to to high school when you got your license and you got your blazer, or the first time that that we got arrested?

Oh, I bet. Well, you got arrested. I didn't.

Yeah. You left me then. I remember.

That was so we're back in our senior year in high school. We had a thing where the senior girls woke the senior boys up. We're gonna take them to breakfast. So here we are cruising around, you know, midnight and driving around all the neighborhoods, and we were really not inconspicuous at all because there was a train of, like, 10 cars. Well, the cops catch on to us, and the car you're in gets pulled over. Well, I follow right behind and pull in behind the cop car, and the people in my car, like, what the hell are you doing? Go. Go. Go.

So we end up driving into this random driveway, turned the lights off, and just laid on the floorboard until I thought we were ready. So I do always feel bad about that.

Yeah. And I think everyone should know too is that I had lied to my mother who is, like, 5 foot nothing and fierce. Right? I mean, my mom is like, you wanna talk about a dramatic Hispanic mother? I was never allowed to do anything. I could never go anywhere. I could never sleep at people's houses, you know, because she just was just, you know, the earth was always falling. So we had lied to my mom.

I know.

And it was like the first time I could spend the night at somebody's house, and then we weren't even there. We had snuck out. It was like 2 o'clock in the morning. And, yeah, I get pulled over in this car and the cop was not happy with us because they have better things to do than chase a bunch of 17-year-old girls around. And, yeah, I ended up having to sit on the curb, and they called my mom, and I got a curfew ticket, and I had to tell her that I lied. It was a lot.

Yeah. It was a lot. Yeah. We've, we definitely have been through we've been through the stuff together. There's without a doubt. Yeah. So how do you now that you've transitioned into this job and you're healing your trauma as a form of self-care, what other things do you do to fill your cup and take care of yourself?

Well, I'd be lying to you if I told you I was good at it. I'm not. Right? I think that's why I read this trauma stewardship book to begin with. It's to just try to give me some ideas on how can I see things differently? These last few years have been an adjustment for me. Left working the main stay of probation on a daily basis, and I went into a different job, right, where there's not a lot of crisis management going on, which is good. But then it's also like this weird identity shift for me of, like, I'm not a probation officer anymore. I am teaching people. So that's been a transition.

And then, you know, I'm in I'm in this weird phase of parenting now where I'm empty nesting, you know. So I have a 22-year-old, I have a 19-year-old, and then I have my daughter who is getting ready to be 16 in 2 weeks. Like, all of the things that I identified with, they are changing. Things look different for me. And so the last 2 years is had been really hard to kind of find a new space of where I belong. My kids don't need me the way that they did before. I'm still a taxi service for my 15-year-old. There's still that piece of it.

Right? But the emotional support, things just look differently when you have adult children. And so there's that. So really it's just trying to find things that I like to spend my time with. You talked about not having friends for a certain period of time, like that was really my life. My life was about my kids, my family, and my job. And so I'm just starting to explore some different things now. I'm thinking about joining Orangetheory, that's up the street. And can I dedicate 2 or 3 times a week to really focus on myself and my health? I'd like to take a a flower arrangement class.

I love flowers. They make me really happy, and I love the way that they look when they're put together. I'm sure there's a rhyme or reason to that. Can I learn how to do that for myself? So just trying to find different activities and things that I like to do that fills my cup and, you know, gets me thinking in a different way. What does my life look like the next 25 years as opposed to what it looked like the first in my marriage?

Is it scary? So I'm curious to hear how does that feel, like, in your core and in your body?

It's terrifying. Right? And it's like this really weird mix of feelings. There's lots of sadness for me, closing a chapter in, you know, my kids leaving home and doing their own lives and not needing me the way that they did before. There's a lot of reminiscing that I do that I wish that I would have taken the time to appreciate some moments back when they were little, you know, like instead of being overwhelmed by there's more water on the floor after I give them a bath than there is in the tub kind of thing, and taking a moment to be like, this isn't gonna last forever. And there's gonna be a day where I'm not gonna have to clean up the floor in the bathroom and listen to my boys have a wonderful time in in the tub together. You know? So there's a lot of, I don't wanna say regret because that's such a huge word, but, like, this missed opportunities that I think when I was doing crisis management with my kids and having 3 kids under the age of 6 at the same time and trying to just keep everyone fed and alive, there wasn't a lot of time to sit back and be like, oh, I'm gonna miss this. You know? I miss it. And I wish I would have had an opportunity to instead of being like, damn, I have to read a book to, opportunity to instead of being like, damn, I have to read a book to every single one of them before they go to bed, sitting there and being like, I get to read a book to them because there will be a day where that's gone. Then on the flip side, there's this sense of accomplishment, right, and proudness. Like, I've I have 3 wonderful children who have really shown me that they are what the universe intended them to be. Yes. Good people. They're caring. They're loving. And that their dad and I did a good job.

We're proud of of the humans that we raised and the way that they're gonna start their journey to contribute back to their own community, makes me really happy and proud. So it's it's a weird space.

Yeah. Well, and we're young. You know, we're so young. I think, you know, back 30 years.

We're middle aged. I don't know if I'd say we're young.

Oh, I mean, I think we're young middle age.

Okay. We should tell ourselves that.

I think previously, when I think of people in their mid forties, I was like, oh, man. They're, you know, 1 foot in the grave. What are how are they gonna live? And now I I'm like, I feel pretty good. Like, I'm looking forward to what happens next and where the world takes me. Not being like, oh god. Retirement equals, you know, but that movement forward. And we're still young enough to do what we wanna do and love what we do, and I think that's really admirable, and it is it does sound scary. I can't wait to see what happens next.

We we later found out was lactose intolerant, so that's why he screamed all the time.

You live and learn. Well, again, it's those moments. Right? Not only did you help me through paramedic school, through promotional processes, through, you know, horrible calls that I've been on, because there's not a lot of people that I ever felt comfortable sharing with. When I did my TEDx talk, you know, a year and a half ago, every day, 2 or 3 times a week, you would listen to me and you would give me that feedback. And I'll never forget when you were like, you just need to own who you are and be proud of who you are and where you came from. And, you know, that that constant, you know, ride or die support is just I'll forever be grateful. And I look forward to seeing what happens when we have our grandbabies, and we get to, you know, be the crazy old ladies that do wild and fun things as we continue to grow older together.

Yeah. I hope so. I I tease my kids all the time that I had 3 of them, so at least one of them will make me a grandma.

I want to ask you one more question as we kinda bring this to a close. What does it mean to you to be part of a community, and why is it important to you?

We all need people. We all need a tribe. We all need to have those ride or die people that you that you talk about. Right? And so when I think of community, you know, I start off with a smaller community. I small off I start off with my people that I know I can lean on, that we reciprocate back and forth. Can't be on an island. Right? I know that about me. I am somebody who appreciates, having lots and lots of of people, probably because I was raised in a huge Hispanic family, right, where my grandma used to host Saturday breakfasts.

And if whoever could come could come, right, and there's 50 of us, so she would throw down food for all 50 of us on on Saturday. So that's when I think of community, that's what I think of. I think of sharing. I think of food. I think of, you know, the people that have your back that are are support. When I think of larger community, even like in a professional setting, right, it still has the same values. It still has the support. It still has the, you know, reciprocation of, like, I'm giving and you're receiving, and then you're gonna give and I'm gonna receive kind of mentality.

In a probation setting for community, I think of, you know, resources. I think of support. I think of, financial situation. I think of how do we help the marginalized, that don't always get the same opportunity, and how can we be there for each other? It's such a big word and it's such a broad kind of thing. Right? So, I think it just boils down to values for me. Mhmm. You know, what what do we value and what can we reciprocate in those?

Thank you for sharing. I agree, and that's really beautifully said. It's, you know, it's community and you can't do it alone. You can't be a community of 1.

I can't be on an island. We need each other. People need connection. Right? We know that. It's the first stage of of psychological safety in any aspect is being able to connect with each other and having this opportunity to to share.

I I agree and know that you're not alone. Even if geography separates people or time might separate people, you're still you're not alone, and that connection is important. I really appreciate that. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to having me back so we can talk about other experiences that we've gone through in life.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was awesome. And I, I wish you the best with all of this because it's awesome. You're doing the good work, and I am very, very proud of you.

I appreciate that. Thank you for joining us. I am grateful you are here. If you're curious about how speaking to ourselves is a form of self-care, head over to the fire inside her dot com forward slash audio for a free recording on self-care. Until next time. Be safe, be kind, and be authentically you.