Jackie J. — Stories That Shaped Me

I used to listen to a voice that made me feel small. I lost myself to that voice. I’ve been trying to find the me I want to be ever since. As I get older, life isn’t magically demystifying itself for me, which really stinks. It gets more and more confusing and sometimes I wonder if any of us ever find who we want to be. But I’m a hopeful person. So…I’m not going to give up my search. 
 
Lucky for me, and now lucky for you, I know two courageous and tenacious people I want to be more like...They’re my mom (who I was named after) and her identical twin sister, Mollie, whom by the way, I will forever refer to as Aunt Mama. Trust me…it will make more sense when you get to know her.  
 
My name is Jackie and I’m going to put you in the shoes of these two fearless and fascinating women who escaped their tiny Illinois town only to enter a bigger town that was rife with even more injustice and unrest. They were caught in the crowds at the 1968 DNC riots, worked on Capitol Hill, and left their Midwest roots to move to Las Vegas and travel the world and eventually started families (obviously). 
 
In case you’re wondering, my mom and Aunt Mama support my twin sister Mollie and I producing this podcast. I’m thinking we’ll release 1 episode a week, the first with stories I’ll narrate and the next one chatting about the stories… like in a round table-open-dialogue type format. So every other episode will have questions and commentary that’ll come from sources like email and social media so you get to know all the Mollies’ and Jackies’ prospectives about how these moments shaped us into the women we are today. 
 
I believe that being immersed in their time period can help us navigate the tumultuous times we inevitably have ahead of ourselves. I mean…if we gain even a fraction of the grace and strength that my mom and aunt developed, we’ll be better for it…we’ll be wiser for it. 
And I don’t know about you, but this millennial could sure use more of that! 
 
We’re the last generation to write book reports in pencil and paper—the last ones who had nothing else to do before dinner except…play outside. 
 
I long to know more about a simpler time before we all started connecting over WIFI and stopped really connecting at all.   
 
You see, Mollie and I were adopted at birth, (if you’re keeping up, yes, we have two sets of twins in our family, and yes, my mom and aunt mama named us after themselves!) I guess that was a thing then, but you’ll hear about that later. We thank God for them every day. But Mollie and I have cousins, nieces and nephews, half siblings we’ve met and other adopted siblings we have yet to meet. So this podcast is a message to all of you, wherever you are, that we turned out ok. And I think my mom and aunt, along with the insight passed down to them…is exactly why. 
 
I recognize that the 60’s was a turbulent time. But avoidance, like silence, doesn’t accomplish anything. I believe—no, I know—that there’s as much good as there is bad to extract from any circumstance.  
 
We cannot forget or censor the good or the bad simply because its controversial and makes us uncomfortable. Life is uncomfortable! 

So you won’t hear me leaving that out in these episodes and forthcoming seasons. 
 
I’m here to figure out with you, how we went from a “we society to a “me” society. 

What if we could reverse that? 
It would be really cool if history could start repeating the best of itself instead of the worst of itself. 
 
Discovering this truth together will enable us to pay it forward…by the lives we live…the relationships we have…and the messages that we pass down. 

Now that’s a legacy. 

My present may be as broken as the past that my mom and aunt came from, but the future? The future doesn’t have