Ratchet vs Righteous: The Hallway Phase of Growth | Ep. 103

What happens when you outgrow your old life but haven’t fully stepped into the next version of yourself yet?

In this episode of Cup Of Conversation, T and Coco talk about what it feels like to live in the “hallway stage” of life — that in-between space where your old habits, friendships, and lifestyles don’t quite fit anymore, but the next chapter isn’t fully clear yet either.

From Texas rodeo culture and city-girl vs southern-belle identities to deeper conversations about faith, growth, detachment, relationships, and personal conviction, this episode dives into what it really looks like to learn yourself while evolving.

We talk about:
✨ Outgrowing the “ratchet” version of yourself
✨ The conviction that comes with personal and spiritual growth
✨ Why nostalgia can keep you stuck in the past
✨ Learning new hobbies and rediscovering who you are
✨ The fear of change, uncertainty, and being single long-term
✨ Letting go of friendships that no longer align
✨ Who we were performing for in our younger years vs. who we are today

If you’ve ever felt like you’re between doors in life, trying to figure out who you really are and what you truly want, this conversation is for you.

Sometimes growth isn’t a big leap — it’s a hallway.

🎙️ Cup Of Conversation Podcast — where we have conversations worth having.

Join the conversation in the comments:
• Have you ever felt like you were in a “hallway season” of life?
• What old version of yourself did you have to let go of to grow?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

What's up, y'all, and welcome back to another couple of conversations. Well, we have conversations worth having. I'm your girl T. And I'm your girl Coco. And welcome back to another amazing episode. We are in the month of March, so as y'all can see, the boots is on the ground, baby. No, I wish I told you off this uh about this off camera. I wish this was the life we really lived in Texas, y'all. I don't. She says she thinks it looks cosplay to her, but I like it. I don't know. I guess I'm a Texas girl, a Southern girl at heart. You don't feel yourself as a Southern Belle, you don't?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

No, I never associated with being a Southern Belle type of girl. I always nigga story you done heard of her. No, no. No, really, like I'm not sure. No, no, really. Like, just I really kind of always like seen myself as more like city. Like, I never seen myself as like Southern. Like really? No, like even though I'm from the South, and even growing up in like Louisiana and stuff like that, like I always seen like my persona or like my personality as being like boardroom city, like like that's all that's the kind of thing that-that's good that we're talking about this because we're gonna talk about finding like yourself and what you like.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

But um, so you feel like you're a like that's you like city fast paced, you rather walk to out your apartment or whatever and but not walking, but yeah, but like just pick a struggle then because like we don't we don't do both.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Well, I'm just saying a taxi. I don't know. Okay, okay. But like I just feel myself like Florida ceiling windows, like boardroom. Like I just always see myself as that, and that's kind of what stemmed the last conversation. Like, I don't want to be like homemaker, wifey, wash all your clothes.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Like, I mean, I don't know if you want to live like a uh business suit type of lifestyle, like like um very important, very always have something, not always have something to do, but you know, like just rich bitch energy thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, like mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Not me. Not me. I'm a Southern bell in in all the way through. Like I like I like simple things. I want a garden.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I like those things too, though. That's the weird part about it. I like those things too, but I think like early.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

You're gonna be like them people because I be watching that that little show where that dude, um, well, not even show, but the videos on um Facebook and TikTok and stuff where that dude be like, Can I see your apartment? What how much you pay for rent in New York? Oh, yeah. Let me see. You're gonna be like them people with a hot ass$50,000 apartment with some trying to grow some shit in the back porch where the shit ain't even got no real grass.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Like or I'm pick a screw up. I would be having a I would have a garden, but I'm not gonna be doing the physical labor of getting the garden started. I just want to see the benefit. You don't want a garden, then? No, I just want to. I want the garden for the fresh roots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not for the work of like So you want a plantation. Is that what it's so you want a plantation?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Yeah, that's what it's giving. That's what it's giving. Your daddy is trying to, he is coming through you with the 40 acres and the mule. Like he's telling you we're about to get it down.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Exactly. Somebody else, get somebody else to do it.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

But I like that. I like it. I like, I guess, because I'm from the country, like, we always did like dirty shit. Like outside, like my grandma taught me how to skin a fish. Can't stand no crab it. Um, we outside with no shoes on. Like, if you come to my mama's house, you're gonna sweat. Don't come to my mama's house with no straight hair. We gonna sweat. Like, I mean, you're gonna sweat just off the rip that it ain't many trees around. Like, it's like very country, like hot. And we probably gonna be from in and outside. Like, it's just it always gives. I don't know why I always end up sweating and barefooted when I go over there. I don't know what's in the air or what with the country is. But I liked it. That's okay with me, you know. Cause that's how I play best.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

I be walking outside with my feet like uh-uh-uh, uh-uh.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

You wouldn't have survived in Michelle's house. But yeah, it's rodeo season, y'all. Um, so to our topic. We talked the other day about um like our audience and like really just the stage of life that people that would like to listen to us would be in. And I find myself in this, what I call like the hallway stage. I heard like a sermon where somebody was referring to it as a hallway, and I that kind of stuck with me because that makes sense. You you done walked out of one door and you ain't walked into the next one yet, but you, but you like in the hallway, like running back and forth to them. Like you, you in this party one day, next time you was with God on that day. Like, you know what I mean? Like you in that hallway. You spend most of your time running back and forth. And um, so we were kind of just talking about like the kind of crowd we would attract, knowing that I'm in my hallway. I I still dabble on ratchet and you more so uh righteous, and you in your lane, and you you on the you can knock into the other door a little bit. You're being the hallway a little bit. Yeah, you're being the hallway a little bit. You just don't be out, you know, you don't skip class as much as I do. You won't skip class how I be skipping class. So my first question, because I think um getting out of the hallway has to do with knowing yourself and like what you really want. So my first question would be like, when did you realize your old ways were not suiting you anymore? And you made it to the hallway, like when did you make it to the hallway? At least thinking that you want to go into another door, like you you weren't just staying behind this door of ratchet trauma, unbehaved and un you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

To be honest, like, oh, that's a hard question because I feel like I've been at that stage multiple times in my life. Okay, and the first time it happens like that. Yeah, the first time I feel like it was more so just me being who I am, and like I want, like I said, kind of just now, I wanted this level up for my life. Like I've always seen myself as being somewhere that I would deem successful, and and I felt like in order to get there, like I couldn't be that person that I was, and that it didn't look good on a person that's wants this but then doing this. Right, right. So I feel like probably when probably probably around like right before I got married, okay, I um I kind of went into the hallway like what age was this, like 20. Um like 26, 20, 25, 26, yeah. Okay, 25, 26. Okay. And I was like, it's just time for me to do something different, you know? But the second time and the most recent time would be when I feel like I got saved for real, for real.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Um I was at like 30. Yeah, 31. Yeah, like 30th.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

My 30th birthday, actually, because I got baptized.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yeah, I remember you telling me about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, so right before that, so 2930, I felt like when once I got saved for real, I um and I keep saying for real because I at a at a point in my life I thought I was saved and that I was good and I was good with the Lord and I was able to do what I wanted to do still and be good with the Lord. And like now I and I wasn't convicted by stuff that I used to do. Right. And so I think now, in that most recent time, is when I feel like I was in a in a hallway. Like either you gonna be this person for real, for real, or you're gonna just be this person and just go to church on Sunday and talk about being this person.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

And um, I feel like at that moment when I realized my the expectation expectation of myself, it was easier to walk into that next door because it was like I don't want to be no fake person. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like in nothing that I did before in my past rather life, I don't want to be no fake person then, so I definitely don't want to be no fake person now. And I think that's what kind of pushed me into that door because it's like not that you're a fake person in that hallway, but you can't live two lives, right? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 8:28

And I and I feel like the conviction gets louder in the hallway, it's probably waiting on you more. Like it starts to feel a little fake. Like if you stay to go into church and you know, you know you still shaking ass on Friday night, you know what I'm saying? Like it it becomes a little performative. So when if you don't have that conviction that speaks to you that say, hey, which one is gonna be? Well, what are we doing here? And I don't know if people ignore that or if they just don't have it at all. Because I have, like you said, um, just to answer the question, I've had a couple seasons of the same thing too. Like I it's been times where I thought I was all the way, I'm good, I'm safe. I remember one time my Amy, not not one time, but recently my Amy just sent me a picture of me. Uh oh, just thinking about the picture. No, no, about to be baptized. I'm gonna put it on the screen, bro. It's funny as fuck the picture is. I got a little head and everything. It's just so funny. I got big brows. It's like, I think it was like in 2018 or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Oh, wow. You didn't tell me about this.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Girl. And I'm thinking when she sent me that picture, I was thinking back to that time, and I'm like, what convinced me to try to go get baptized? Like, like, I was I really convinced that I was safe. I should have bought that water the way. The way I remember acting during that time. That water should have been sizzling when they dumped my ass up. And like, what is happening? Like, what would have convicted me to enough to want to do that? To want to do that, knowing what I was doing. Was it your grandma like TS? No, no. I didn't, I never, I didn't have that kind of my great-granny that was that person passed away when I was in um like middle school or something. So no, it wasn't none of that. Like me and my family was just going, we had found us a church home. We had been going consistently. Maybe it was the um the pressure of just going to church consistently. Like I'm sitting up in here. Um, I could have, I could have took the communion because I had gotten baptized when I was a kid. Like my grades. Yeah, you know, but you be a little confused. Like when they they steady about the passing out and they say, wait, don't take this. If you if you and I'm up in there, like, well, maybe I did get baptized, but I don't, not if if I remember, if I don't remember it, do it count. Like, so I guess that's that's probably what pumped prompted me to go want to get baptized. Because there was no, I'm telling you, thinking back to that time, I can't think of a godly thing I did. Like, I'm serious, besides going to church. Besides going to church, I'm telling you. Like, so I don't understand how some people don't be hearing that conviction while they like in that hallway when they really get the plan. Because I can I can confess that although I'm still in the hallway and I ain't made the cross all the way to the other door, I don't play like that. I don't play like I try not to do all like the back and forth too much because it starts to feel a little blasphemy and it starts to feel a little like is this the type of joke? Yeah, not even just that, but is this the type of person you want to be as a person? Like committing to one thing and not really lying about it on the back end, like you don't have no integrity. Like you don't, you're not really, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm telling Coco, oh, we on this weight loss journey together, and I'm up here eating fried pork chops. Right. You know what I'm saying? It's like you're lying. Like it doesn't, it don't matter who you're lying to. Like, you you do you want that on you? You want that letter on you?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Well, I think it it I don't think that people, it's not that people don't hear like certain convictions. I feel like you do, but sometimes it's easier to ignore something that you can't physically see.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Okay, yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

And if you're not deep off in that thing to where you really like, nah, I see them clear as that. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it's easy to like just what you know, out of sight, out of mind, type of thing. So it's not even that you don't hear it, it's just kind of like what you do see and hear is more vivid and more there than you know, the spirit is sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

I agree. Um, and so what they were talking about today, I heard somebody talking about um being too stuck on your past and like too dwelling on your past. Like the nostalgia is cool, but like living in that that keeps you from seeing your present or what you should be seeing to move to the future. So, do you ever miss the version of your carefree self, or do you feel like this is a better version just because you're more disciplined and you know, you might still have a lot of anxiety now because you think about stuff differently and you you got a different mindset and thought process, but do you ever miss that time where you wasn't convicted, where you was like, shit, I'm out there doing my thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

If I'm being honest, I can say yes and no, only because I feel like the parts of it that I might miss was just not having that conviction, that part. But then like the part that I don't miss is that I was so like not empty, but like empty, like lost, or like just didn't have no direction. Like, I don't I I like I kind of say about the type of person I am, I've always been kind of like driven and like you know, what's next, like what's next. And like I I remember like vividly being in a time of my life where I just didn't even know to think about what was next. Right. And then I just felt not myself, and I feel like I was unaccomplished, I was wasting time, and like now I feel like and I know this sounds so um cliche, spiritually cliche, I just feel like I have so much more direction now, like in those convictions, like it kind of it's kind of directions for me. Like if you feel convicted about this, this probably means you need to be doing this, right? But before it was like, what the hell am I supposed to be doing? Like you going outside, you having fun, bow, bow, bow, and then you get home and you like like what what am I doing?

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Right, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Like, what's next?

SPEAKER_03 14:18

And that's why I say uh this this episode was gonna be talking about learning yourself because while you in that hallway, to break that, that to fully get out of the hallway and break that attachment to your old life, you have to find things that you like to do now. New purpose. Like, yeah, new, like you, you might try to, because you stuck on that nostalgia. So you might say, hey, man, I just want to go to the club and have a, I want to be on top of my head like I used to. Like I ain't did that in so long. And you take the chance and go do it. And it ain't even whole time you go home, like, I should have stayed my ass. I done spent all the time. Be in the club looking crazy. Yeah, it's like just looking dumb. And like you you end up regretting it. So now I'm at the point where I'm like, okay, I've tried to turn into old Tia a thousand times over. I ain't going back. I ain't going back. She's done. You know what I'm saying? She is a good time. She's a ball of fun.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

But it ain't the same.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

It ain't the same. She ain't. Y'all can reminisce her on little highlights and pictures and reels of old shit that y'all see when y'all see it. Yeah. But when it's gone, it's gone. Like, and that's that's something that I have to accept. So I don't know if people that watch us or listen to us are going through that same hallway or if they have already committed to a side. They're gonna stay on this side or they're gonna stay on that side.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

But don't you think that's fun though? I mean, that's liberating to see that. Like, I had them same moments where I felt like when I went, when I felt like I just kind of miss just not caring. Like, you know what I'm saying? And then when you go back, it's like not even the same. It don't hit the same. Like I feel like you need those moments to keep going. Like those moments are necessary.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Oh, that showed me everything I needed to know. Right. That showed me I'm not like even with friendships. I I recently just stopped doing with friendships because I went back to them and I thought that they were gonna be something different. I thought we can make it something else. But when I noticed that it's not that, then I have to just realize and go keep going. Like it don't, we don't have to dwell on trying to make things like they were when you can just bite the bullet and do the tough part of learning something new, right? Finding new friends. You know, that that's gonna be that's just the tough part. That's why don't nobody want to do it. Nobody like I made that little bingo board of things, random things that I haven't done before, because I want to just go try and see what I like to do, you know. Right. And that's part of learning myself so I can cut off all the the even wants to to to do the ratchet, open that ratchet dough. I don't even want to open no more because I didn't start looking into pottery. I think I think I don't really enjoy pottery.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Oh yeah, it's fun.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

I I'm I'm gonna try that. Um, probably next time. It's working. I know, but I like to see results of building things up like that. Like, so um I'm gonna try pottery. I mean, it's just a bunch of things that I've been wanting to try, and I think that's just a part of like just finding me again, you know, but coming back to the individual.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

That I wanted to ask before it was it says what fears surface when you imagine um, because you're not married right now, and not saying that anything bad, but I'm just saying like what fears surfaced with the thought of like being single for a long time, for like long term.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Um, ooh, that's funny that you asked that because I just had this realize I never thought I never had that mindset or even that thought process until about two, maybe three weeks ago, like maybe a month ago, that um anything in life could happen, and I could possibly be a 50-year-old single woman, no kids, just living life like I had I had to possibly sit back and think that not your family ends with you, like you know what I'm saying, but you could be the last of an era, like you could be the last of something, yeah, uh a lineage. Um and I'll it didn't sit right the first thought, but as I thought about it, I was just like, I don't know what's in the plans that you know God has made for me. So as I'm thinking, I can control this and do that, and if I can just hold on, I'll probably be a wife, or if I can just do this, I'll probably be the perfect mother or the perfect this or that. But I'm just learning to be okay with whatever it is is gonna be or what it ain't. So I thought about that before, and like I said, it's just a recent thought, but it doesn't, I'm not gonna say it warrants for distress. Like it doesn't warrant for or fear. Yeah, or anxiety. It don't warrant for like, oh, what am I gonna do? You know what I'm saying? What am I gonna do? I'm gonna live in a nice high rise. I came up like after I got over the whole initial shock factor of it all, I was just like, all right, well, this might be the plans. I might have a nice ass high rise. I might end up being a surgeon by the time I'm like, who knows? Like, we don't, I don't know. I could be a lawyer or something by the time I'm 55. Like, who knows? You know, who knows? And I'm okay with whatever it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

I thought to ask you that just because you were mentioning, like, sometimes you you get so stuck on what it used to be that you don't move forward into that next door. Like, and I just wanted to know, like, okay, if your story was to end, not end, but if it was to end and start, where it is with like either you leaving your relationship or you not being married, or whatever that start of is. Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

New town, new job, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah, whatever the new is, what would that like what fears are what happened, what what surfaces, you know, what comes to the surface for you.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Yeah. But I think it I think the same, I'm not gonna say the same for everybody, but most people just fear the tough part of change. That that one, you know, to six months of uncertainty of what's gonna be next. But once you get into the a new, like just like you got into the rhythm that you're in right now, it was a new rhythm at one point. Exactly. So once you get into a new rhythm of, all right, if I'm staying in Washington, D.C., I gotta commute 25 minutes to my new job. And these are they walk to work now, or they take buses to work now. I'm not a driving, I'm not in a driving city, or whatever the case may be. I just have to adjust, and I've always been good. I feel like at adjusting, and I can say early on, um, I didn't think I was because I was one of them kids, because like I ain't gonna lie, you scared me uh when I first started knowing you about just Corey going to all them different schools. Cause as me as a young kid, I was like, baby mama, you please I need to graduate with the same people I know, bro. Please don't take me out of this school. Like, I was scared of change, like just scared of how that adjustment was gonna be. And I was always, uh always, always like mom, that's probably why my mama never really like moved us to Boma and nothing. Because she worked in Boma and we stayed in Orange, like we could have easily gone to better schools in Boma or easily moved to Baytown or Houston or whatever, because her job would have allotted that. But I I was the type of kid, I can tell you my I don't think my sister was like that. She don't really have attachments to things like that. And I know my brother was. So as long as me and him are like, nah, we want to stay here, like I feel like that was what the family was good, that was what she thought was best for the family. But now in hindsight, what the fuck with orange? Yeah, like what could I have not done in orange that I could have done in each of them?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

I used to, I used to tell my parents the same thing when I got of a certain age, especially when we moved to Louisville.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

I think it's like a kid thing, just like a a young adult thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I I thought that too, but I think about even with my daughter now, like with her moving schools and just being here, there. And whatever my new thought is. I just feel like I look at the positive side of what my mama and my daddy did. When they did, when we did move a lot and we did like change schools and stuff like that, or whatever the case may be, I look at it as like what benefited me from that situation. And like I and I can find really more benefits than I mean, I don't know the other side would have happened, but I find I find more benefits in nothing.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Because I mean, like I was hanging on to like, oh, I want this to be like a lifetime friendship, or what if I married my high school sweetheart? None of that shit happened. Right. None of it. Yeah, none of it. Half of, I mean, like, I ain't gonna say I ain't got none of my old friends, but like I'm talking about hanging, we hanging on for one of these threads, baby. It's barely there. Like, it wasn't nothing reward to risk your whole childhood and you know, things you could have possibly learned for. You know what I mean? It wasn't nothing to have stayed in to just be just a certain thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

I think that's why I'm like the person that I am. I feel like that's why I'm okay with change.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Like, yeah, you're not attached to certain things.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

And it's really scary though. That's really scary. Because lately I've been thinking about going to therapy for this one part of my life that I have an issue with. Like, I'm starting to have an issue that businesses? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Oh, you'll throw them up and chop them down.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Yeah, yeah, I will. But I'm I'm thinking about relationships, my attachment, my detachments to relationships. Like, I will not care in a minute.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Like, not be You ain't gotta tell me. You don't gotta tell. But give yourself a little grace because I have seen a little bit of growth with you with that.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Like, yeah, just caring about what other people want instead of the point to where I've been thinking about if certain people die, my mind tells me you don't care. Oh, and that's really sad.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

I think you might need to check in with the doctor about really need to go like that. You need to check your your emotion, your imp, your, your, your impact empathy. Yeah. Like, why don't you care if that person dies?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Like, why why are you not even that you don't care, why are you trying to train your mind to believe that so when it does happen, it doesn't impact you. Like, yeah, you don't want those type of things to impact you that much that you're trying to train yourself for somebody, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Like, it's very yeah, yeah. You already trying to make yourself be okay with it.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Right, and that ain't even the conversation right now.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yeah, but I guess that's I mean, it makes sense because I guess that's kind of better than the opposed breaking down and being, you know, can't saying somebody's name.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

I don't want to be that detached from my emotions that that's who I am. Like, I don't, as much as I am this gold driven, all these things that people talk about, I don't want to be that detached. Like as a mother, as a wife, as a friend, like I don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

That's a good perspective to live look at because I I'm a crier. I'm so detached. I mean, I'm so attached to a lot of things that I be thinking, like, damn, I want a little bit of detachment in my sister. I want a little bit of detail.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Well, my husband told me, and oh my god, I can't believe I'm repeating this. But my husband told me that his um, I think one of his family members, I'm not gonna even say who it is, I know, but I'm not gonna say one of his family members had died, but he hadn't seen him in like years. And I was like, and he was uh he was telling me that he was going to go to the funeral and that I was like, and that he wouldn't be back until the second day or something like that. And I was like, well, you can just go and come right back because we had something to do. And he was like, Well, no, I'm gonna stay and be with the family. I was like, You don't even you didn't even fucking go see her for years. Like, why do you like I was like I had to stop yourself? I had to take my no, he had to say something. He was like, Chris, like you really hurt my feelings. Like, I know I hadn't seen her in so long, but like, like she played a big part of my childhood. And I'm thinking, like, out of say that of mind for me, like, if I ain't seen you since my childhood, I mean, it's something wrong with me, of course. It's too big.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

That's a two-sided thing. Cause like once on one side, you keep up with who you love or who you care about. And on the other side, I get what he's saying too, because yeah, I mean, certain you can't keep up with everybody throughout all the seasons. Right. So certain seasons that that person might have been a big part of that. So I guess it's a 50-50 thing, but I felt really bad though.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

He was like, he he was like, I probably wouldn't have said that. You always like minimize things that hurt me, and I just be like, get over it.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Like I probably wouldn't have said that now.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah, I was wrong.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Yeah, that was so my last question was gonna be um about grieving, but we're not even gonna go there. You you pretty much just answered that one. Like it was just what was it? What is it? Let me see what it said. I do. How do you grieve friendships that no longer align? But baby, you don't grieve people that ain't gone for real. So you damn sure ain't grieving nobody who's still here.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Well, no, let me answer that though. Well, no, I we can go fast. I really don't grieve. Like, once I feel like you don't serve, are you not really Yeah? I don't. Okay. So last Unless, wait, I do have something to say. Unless children are involved. So I have, I don't know, I think I have a soft spot in my heart for children. Because like friendships that I do, that I did have that were linked by not linked by this, but had children that might have become like something to me, or like, you know, we develop a close relationship or whatever. I still sometimes sit and think about like, dang, like what would I say to that child when they be like, well, why you never did come back and get back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why you never did? So I do feel like that. I feel like almost kind of like a dead be dad or something.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't like when I'm not gonna lie, I don't like when people are involved. I don't really like getting involved. Like, what would you say to Cari if we just exactly like that's that's very weird. That's very weird.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Because even like when we was having our little, she was like, Mama, you and T still friends? I wanna say, bitch, fuck that bitch. Don't ask about the bitch again.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

You don't see her. Look, no, but that that I would have had to probably just have to sneak her number or something to tell mama, hey, tell Corey, text me because that that would have just been too awkward. Like, I don't think I've ever had to go through that. But I'm glad I haven't because I'm really attached to kids too. Um, but my last question, who are you performing for in your younger years? And who do you think that would be listening to? Like, who would you think your audience, if you were like putting on a show today for your life, who would be your audience today? So that's a two-part question. You could tell me about that. So my younger years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Um, now T, I know y'all hate this about me probably. And T be like, bitch, you had to. I kind of always been this. I'm not lying though. I don't know. I don't want to make up this lie. Yeah, no life let her take a look at it. No, no, no. I did have fun. I did have fun. I had like a stage of where I was out there like that or whatever, but like that that wasn't true to my who I was. Even then, when I was doing it, I was coming back. I was performing.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Okay, then so you perform that's a word.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Okay, so I don't know, the the few the years between I had a high school boyfriend and we broke up with my like my sophomore year of college. And up until I met Carrie, my husband, um probably like that was about a three year period. 2013, yeah, like yeah, uh, it's like a yeah, about a three-year period, like a two to three year period. During that period, I felt like I was performing to the I'm outside type of bitch. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I was um I'm for I'm anything goes type of thing. Like oh, one night stand, like what's up? Like, but that really wasn't true to who I was. Like, I really was yeah I that wasn't really true to who I was, so I guess I would be performing, I was performing in because even like my friend Bree from New Orleans, mother breeze, like she was she like she was like my friend that being a grown bitch from the time we was in eighth grade when I first met her. This bitch been fine, been the nigga's toys. Yeah, and like so she was all about like, oh yeah, when the nigga come, you do this. Oh, when a nigga do this, you do this, you do this. Like, so like I love them homegirls. My favorite ones, bruh. And so she moved in to my apartment with me after my boyfriend left. So she was like, bitch, we off that nigga. You right, we off that nigga.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Do this my favorite homegirls. Cause they they really do like, if they okay, some of them they can get you some shit. Yeah. Okay, but someone really need them to just like want to walk and like finesse a nigga out of it. Like I'm talking about just they just know the right posture a woman supposed to have to get the response they gonna they want. Like she always been. I'm talking about, ooh, I love them. Hey, you got them friends? Hold on, Tob. Correct them when they wrong, because sometimes they they go too far.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

But them is some good friends, baby.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

But yeah, so that would be my performance age. And then now I feel like who I really was even then and now like is more of a um a woman woman. Like everything that a woman is, like just standing up for yourself. Um that would be your desire, strong woman, like vibes. Yeah, yeah. Getting it out the getting it out, whatever, getting out whatever you want in life for real, for real. Like doing what you want to do, whether it's your goals, whether it's your men, whether it's your your health, like just doing what you standing up for yourself. Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

I like that. So for me, my younger years, I would say I was I was performing not to fit in, but the people that I was hanging around, I thought that was what was this is what we supposed to be doing. Like this is when you get to this age, this is what you're supposed to be, like you supposed to uh get it out the mud yo yo all through college, but you, you know, I still got the the mind enough to be in college and stay in college, but I'm knowing girls who stripping to put themselves through college. So I'm like, oh, this is what you gotta do. Yeah, you gotta shake that ass to, you know what I'm saying? You gotta shake that ass for the tuition cash. Like, I gotta get it done. Right. So that's what I thought. And then um, so I can say at that time, because I had no fucking reason to be stripping. My mama was paying for my damn tuition. I only did it for like three days, y'all. Don't don't take me to some kind of expert. I was in there scared. Nah, nah. I'm talking about a shot with the thong on in the corner. Open somebody, don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me because I don't even know what to do. Now with the thing about a girl. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And you live the life, bro. You're gonna have a whole bunch of stuff. I'm talking about a red kid.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

I really am. But I thought that's how I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing. Like, I'm a young bitch, especially from the the examples I have. Like, I was working at Denny's, my homegirl was working at Denny's, bitch. Look at you. What the fuck is you talking about? Like, we're gonna get this money. I'm like, go get this money then. Yeah. Let's get this money, bitch. How much you made? I made a little, I made a little something. I ain't making a not more than I made in nightlife, shaking them bottles. Oh, okay. So shit, I could have had the clothes on, obviously. So it didn't, I mean, again, I didn't put my best foot forward either. I was I was one of them shaw strippers. They said shaw strippers don't never make no money. You gotta be the ones that's whispering in a nigga ear and licking it at the same time. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do all that. I'm not I'm not that talented, and I don't know what niggas want like that. But in this age, I would say I'm just trying to talk to them people who like are living that fast life, but they still haven't, they're getting them convictions every now and then, like, nah, bruh, you know you just doing shit to do shit. Like, I want to talk to those people that that would be my audience right now, the people that that need to be told to learn they self, or the people that need to be told, um, you know, take control. You know, you you letting your body and your life or your circumstances control you. You you're not even doing the stuff that you really want to do. You said last week, I ain't finna talk to him no more. But he texts you and you couldn't resist, you couldn't resist the earth. So you know you out of control. Like you're out of your own control. You said you wasn't gonna smoke no more, but when as soon as they say, huh, girl, you said she, come on. Like, you know what I'm saying? You're out of your control. And when you start feeling like you out of control from your own body, like your hands moving, your your mind, your legs moving, and your body moving before you even made the choice for real, then you have to stop. You have to stop and think. Like, I need to gain some control. I need to gain so that I feel like that would be my audience today. If I was to ever speak to somebody, it's the people who just now realizing they out of control. You know what I'm saying? And where that control is gonna come from, it's gonna come from watching us. It's gonna come from watching us because we're gonna drop them gems in every now and then, you know. We're gonna give y'all example. We're gonna give y'all what what they say, uh, we'll give y'all example, then we're gonna give you what? Come on, come on. We've been watching Jerry Flowers all week, but we're gonna give you Bible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We're gonna give you Bible. Come on, it was going. I didn't know it was going like. Damn, we in a church house in here. I thought I had some. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

You're right.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Participation on my pew.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

I ain't got no participation on my, but yeah. We're gonna give you an example and then we're gonna give you Bible. Like, I feel like this would be the perfect place to get it. Like, I don't know. I don't I just think this would be the place for, and then even if you are a woman, like you said, of you already got your mind made up, you figuring stuff out. I think that Coco is still the person to get to get the questions. Like, not even just you. I feel like I ask, we both ask questions because we're just curious out of curiosity, you might not have somebody in your corner or in your your friendship group or in your orbit asking the right questions. So those questions are important for you to figure out what you want to do your next step.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

And let me say this, I'm not like this super guru on nothing, like at all. But I just I'm always gonna type in Google in Chat GPT, I'm gonna be like, what would Jesus do? Like I'm literally the you know how we used to have embraces. Like, I like when I get ready to make my decision, I I always go back to that. Like it don't it don't be my decision on my own. So it's not like I'm just this perfect person. Just like once I now that I know to do that, and now that when and once I do it, it's like you can't go backwards now.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And I already asked what he would do, and nothing told you now.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

Right, right. Like now you can't act like you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't use ignorance as a a reason.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

No, I ain't trying to put you on the pedestal like a perfect example, but I do want people to kind of see the value in what we bring in here. You know what I'm saying? I want them to see that hey, we ain't just slap up some mics just because that's how we feel. I mean, it was that's kind of how it started, but with intention and I feel like finding value and centering ourselves and what we know and believe. It's more than that. It's it's way more than that. So we ain't just sitting down here blah blah in for y'all. We actually trying to, you know, stare y'all somewhere, get in the right lane, you know what I'm saying? So you got anything you want to leave the people with?

SPEAKER_00 37:06

That's a bit big then. Yeah. I don't know why I don't know why that was in my head. Please. But yeah, y'all, until next time. Bye.