Liberation is Lit Podcast

Teaching Each Other How to Be There for Each Other (with Alisa Zipurksy)

• Tayler Simon • Episode 16

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Content warning- Child Sexual Abuse, explicit language

In this episode, we chat with Alisa Zipursky about her work with survivors of child sexual abuse and her platform, Healing Honestly. We discuss the journey of healing through storytelling, building supportive communities, and maintaining boundaries. Alisa shares insights from her book 'Healing Honestly', navigating personal trauma, and the impact of connecting deeply with community members. She also provides a glimpse into her personal life, embracing big feelings, gossip, and motherhood, while emphasizing the power of storytelling and community in the healing process.

Alisa’s Book:

Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame

Books Mentioned in This Episode:

Where to find Alisa

Thank you for being part of the Liberation is Lit podcast! If you have stories to share, want to suggest topics, or just want to connect, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @liberationislit or visit our website at liberationislit.com. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review! Remember, your voice matters, and together, through the lens of stories, we're making a difference in the world.

Tayler:

Hey y'all, welcome to the Liberation is Lit podcast where the power of storytelling meets the force of social change. I'm your host, Tayler Simon. And in this podcast, we believe in the profound impact of stories. And I am so happy to be joined today with Alisa Zipursky. And talking about her work, working with survivors of child sexual abuse and just building community around survivors. And, before we get started, quick story about how, like, I first encountered Alisa, I was working at the University of Georgia. And, she reached out and was like, Hey, like I am a public speaker and I would love to come to campus to talk about sexual assault prevention for sexual assault awareness month. And I was like, you sound really cool. Unfortunately, I don't have the power to pay you what you're worth. But she was super graceful and we chatted and she was super cool and I joined her newsletter and that was like. What, like, five years ago, maybe? So, yeah, just so excited to see, what she's built since then. So, Alisa, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work with your platform, Healing Honestly, and advocacy around, child sexual abuse? Absolutely,

Alisa:

so I'm super thrilled to be here and super thrilled to be in a space that is all about the power of storytelling and how we connect with each other over storytelling. Because I'm, I'm, I'm so jazzed about that. Just like a broadly, it's what's so important to me and like, totally motivates me because I come to this. conversation really, in my own experiences of sharing my story as a, at the time, now a little older, but a younger person, healing from childhood sexual abuse while trying to, you know, do everything that any other 20 something year old would have wanted, like. Have a good dating life, have a career, have meaningful friendships while all contending with the fact that like the trauma still impacts every aspect of my life. And I really came to sharing my story because I was looking for resources out there where I felt seen and heard and spoken to. And a lot of what I was finding on the internet was sort of one of two options. The first was, conventional memoir, which is like a really beautiful and powerful mode of art. But for me. It often left me feeling kind of re, traumatized and triggered because it often included, very. Specific descriptions of violence, and it just wasn't speaking to, what I was quite looking for. And then the other option that I kept finding was, resources or literature written by, clinicians and therapists and scientists that left me feeling kind of, like, a traumatized lab rat. I was something to be studied and pathologized, like, studied and found, kind of doomed. Like I was baited to this life of all these really terrible outcomes and neither of those felt like how I was making sense of my own trauma to myself. And so, in 2016, I launched my website, Healing Honestly, and I just started writing my own stories in my own language, cursing a bunch, making jokes, making golden girl references, just like being my damn self. In an effort to share with other people and see if there were other people out there who were hungry to, talk about these aspects of living with trauma and healing from abuse in a conversational tone and kind of using the same language you use to talk about any other aspect of our lives. And it turns out I super wasn't alone and there were, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world who were hungry for the same. Thing and, it seems you know, over the years when I've heard so much from other people, the things that I thought might be isolating are often the things that people most connect with, you know, they just want the same feeling of, talking to a friend and, Being allowed to be messy and imperfect and not actually feeling really approachable and accessible and the same things that I was worried about, people wouldn't connect with, because I didn't want to share, a lot of details about what I, you know. Had been through that actually is like, okay, with a lot of people, they're cool. I don't need that from you. You know, actually, what I'm looking for right now is a community where we don't focus on what happened, but we focus on, well, what now? So, yeah, I mean, I think that I've been so lucky that the Internet has provided a space for me to kind of find my people and for them to find me. And that has evolved to. A lot of public speaking and doing work on college campuses, which is , how our paths 1st cross as you as you shared and doing work with nonprofits and things like that. But also. you know, continuing to cultivate this online community and now with my book, Healing Honestly, the messy and magnificent path to overcoming self blame and self shame, which was published about a year ago.

Tayler:

Yes. And. I love the book. I love that it's your voice throughout all of the pages. And like you said, with the cursing, the jokes, it's unlike any other book you'll read about healing because it, I feel like a lot of like memoirs and things you said, it's very serious because they don't want to take away from like the seriousness of the topic. But there is ways to Find joy in healing. And I love that is a tone of your book. And I love how you've built this community over the years. And, speaking of community in your book, you call the people, that are part of the community, your survivor friends. And I, something I. I will be, I will admit this is a selfish question because I feel like I've been struggling a lot with this lately of meeting people and, building, you know, this intimacy and sometimes people jumping steps for friendships. But how do you navigate caring for these relationships without burning out from caring for all of the relationships in your life? And how, and do you ever feel like some people almost try to trauma bond with you

Alisa:

Oh, yeah, I think that there's There's that's such a thoughtful and interesting question that nobody's asked me before. But 1 that, like, really hits on a very fundamental aspect of doing this work. I think, like, when I started putting my stuff online all those years ago, I expected the hearing from people, like, hearing from strangers. Because, like, that's the expectation you put something on the Internet, you're going to hear from people and actually the 1st person I heard from and, had, a real human connection with is, she lives in India and, and she and I kind of became. But he's over time, of course, we've never met in person, but, you know, we WhatsApp with each other. We keep tabs on each other. We check in with each other. And it was like this really beautiful bond. And I think, really powerful that the 1st person I ever in my life felt really seen by where I was like, oh, my God, there are so many similarities in our story was somebody who, seemingly had a complexity. Completely different life than me from a completely different culture, religion, community, so on and so forth. And yet the, the, the family dynamics, the, the rape culture of it all, the, shaming of the survivors, the victim blaming, all that shit was the same. And that was like, really eye opening for both of us. So I expected to a degree like the connection with strangers. What I didn't expect was in coming forward that. I would be bombarded with the knowledge that I actually been surrounded by survivors this whole time and I didn't know and that was really overwhelming and I had not prepared myself for that. And I would say, the 1st, 6 months to a year of, being very out in public. It was like a feeling like my now husband, Charlie would be like, you know, we'd be at a cocktail, you know, at a party or like a friend's place or like out at a bar. And he'd be like, I can feel it's coming. Like, the disclosure is coming and it's like hard because you've like been drinking and you're just trying to have a good time when you're trying to get that. And you know, and that was really, really humbling and overwhelming. And I think that, you know, in speaking with so many people, I'm sure you relate to this from your job when you are on campus when, you are known as a safe person, whether it's because you're open about your story or in your case, you literally have the job title. That's like, I do this work. You become the person everyone discloses to, you know, I do so much work on college campuses. I hear this from, peer educators all the time, you know, and they're just like out at a party and trying to have fun with their friends and do dumb shit. And trying to, just turn off that part of their brain, but people are like, you're a safe person. I'm coming to you and it's really. A constant evolution of, how to negotiate those boundaries, you know, and so I, I talked with, 20 year olds and I'm 36 about it. And it's like, we're all brainstorming together about, how do we navigate those moments? You know, it's like a constant evolution of that. And then I think there is, the inevitable thing that happens with the Internet, which is parasocial relationship of it all. And I relate to this so much on, both sides, because there are podcasts I have been listening to for so many years, the late great call your girlfriend podcast with Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, where I am, I feel such an intense parasocial relationship with those 2 women. And I would be such a stone cold weirdo if I ever met either of them in real life, you know, for me, it's really intense with podcasts because. Because there's so much content and it feels intimate because you're, they're like, following you around in your day, you know, in your ears. And so I. I know what that feels like to be like, no, no, no, I know this person and I've listened to so many hours of them and I've heard so many snippets of their story and this, that, and the other, and so, yeah, I have, had that experience of people approaching me in a way that is, sort of that parasocial thing where they feel like they were already friends and they know me and it's a fine line because, so much of the goal of my work is to create that feeling, right? Like that is, that is you know, as long as somebody like approaches me with, with just like regular shmagular, polite boundaries, it is dreamy when people are like, I feel like I know you, I feel like you're one of my friends, you know, when I read your book, because that's exactly what I was going for, you know, I had a big Best friend in college, and I mean, still she's amazing. Shout out Kate, who was trained in sexual assault, violence, response and prevention and how to support survivors. She's been doing this work since she was 18 years old and she's still at it. And when I was dealing with, the. A resurgence of my trauma and trying to navigate my understanding as a survivor. She was there every step of the way with me. And so much of why I started doing this work was because it was transformative for me to have my Kate. And how common is it that, you happen to have a bestie in your life who knows all the right things to say to support you and make you feel less stigmatized. And so I was like, I want my work to replicate that role that my best friend played for me. And the book is really an extension of that. It's like, I love when people who've known me my whole life are like, I was reading this book and I felt just like, it feels like when I'm talking to you, I'm like, yes, you know, that's totally mission accomplished goals that I set out. I want it to feel like me because to me, What's so critical and specific, I think. In particular, in centering childhood, sexual abuse survivors is that in order for us to get the support that we deserve overwhelmingly what is available to us requires us. To some extent disclose what happened to us, so it might require us to show up in a support group or to put words to our experiences, to put a face to our names. All of those things are tremendously difficult and may not be in alignment with our safety and healing needs. And so what I wanted to do in this book was say, you don't have to do any of that. I don't care if you have the language to describe what you've been through, it doesn't matter to me whether you want to tell somebody or tell everybody or tell nobody, wherever you are, I want this book to meet you where you are and provide you the same feeling of community and support and care and validation and survivor to survivor friendship. Wherever you are, without you having to worry about any of that. So, you know, it, it is tricky because it's the constant negotiation and boundaries. And also, you know, it's a lot of. Exactly what I set out to do.

Tayler:

Definitely finding that fine line and respecting boundaries is like super important for any relationship, especially how you outline it in the book. And, I. I really enjoyed this book, too, because it reminded me a lot of kind of my start and even the work that I'm doing now with Liberation is Lit. I was inspired by storytelling because of the work I was doing with survivors and, just how you weave your, your experience without graphic detail. Other people's experiences. And more so the stories of their healing journeys rather than what they went through was really amazing in this book. And my next question for you is, how do you take care of yourself as a survivor doing this work?

Alisa:

I only giggle because I was like, Definitely crying, less than an hour ago. I'm also like, okay, so I've only ever written 1 book and I've only ever survived 1 global pandemic. So I don't have anything to compare to, but I have to say that, doing both of those things at the same time, I'm sure both would have been extraordinarily hard without the other, but doing it at the same time was way too much, you know, experiencing a collective trauma, collective ongoing trauma, and trying to write about my trauma. Was really, really, really hard and I think that prior to writing the book, I had figured out through trial and error, a lot of different strategies that worked well for me and how to care for myself and writing the book really challenged a lot of that because. Well, I like to say the book is way funnier than you would ever think. And I like to call, you know, it says on the cover, the least retraumatizing read on childhood sexual abuse. And I firmly, firmly stand by that and believe that, it was really, really traumatizing for me because I had to travel back to the most vulnerable moments of my life to know what I needed to hear, you know, I had to go back to, for me, the, golden age of, 27, that was, like, the magical age of, a lot of things falling apart for me, right before my Saturn return. But, And yeah, it's a return. It's very, very real for me. I'm going through

Tayler:

it

Alisa:

right now. Oh, my God. Are

Tayler:

you

Alisa:

really? Yes. Who are you? How are you doing?

Tayler:

I'm on the tail end. I'm ending the second half and I'm just. Wait,

Alisa:

that's magic because that's in alignment with you creating liberation is led. Yes. Okay, so I launched healing, honestly, during my Saturn return. So, I, I, the shit is real.

Tayler:

Yes, it is. It is. And creating something like, what do you mean? This isn't a real job.

Alisa:

Oh, my God. Yes. And you having to believe in the vision, even if nobody around you gets it at all. But you being like, if I don't try this now, I won't feel fed, you know, I won't, I have to give, I have to bet on me. Right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God. What a messy time.

Tayler:

But look at you. We're coming out on the other side. Yes you are. That's

Alisa:

amazing. So yeah, so I had to go back to right before this Saturn return. Everything was a mess and I didn't have a vision yet of how to move forward. It just felt like everything was crumbling around me and within me. and remember What felt so tender and vulnerable about that time in order to be able to speak to that and, like, because that's the person, no matter what age they are that I, I really want to meet them where they are and and be for them what, like, I needed so doing that while, you know, In our, in our apartment during the pandemic was really difficult because I was traveling sort of back in time and then didn't have the world around me to help recenter me in the present. You know, I say, sometimes trauma is, is, like, the worst time traveling experience ever that you don't get to decide when you travel and you only get to go to the worst time in your life. A really terrible party trick. And so not having, the world around me to rebalance me was, and recenter me in the present was, like, a really, it was really awful and, and I think I just went into, survival mode for that, and I recommended it to exactly no one. And I knew it wasn't okay to me in the, in. In the moment, and was just trying to take it 1 day at a time and I think that that's what's so important. But I also think, I had prepared my support system for that time in that for years. We've been teaching each other how to be there for 1 another. And for years, we've learned how to communicate with 1 another, you know, just for me to be able to say to my absolute closest, like, hey, I'm not okay right now. For them to also know that they can communicate with each other with my consent to, help support me, you know, like, we have safety plans and chat, you know, in this family, right? You know, and so when she hits the fan, my bestie can be like, okay, have you taken your meds? Have you, you know, I can't call you right now, but I can text you. Can I text you through this moment? You know, and this, that and the other. And so I think relationships and meaningful relationships is what. Is the key thing for me and caring for myself and learning how to be vulnerable and communicate to figure out 1st, what my needs are and to then push back on any feelings of. Misplaced shame about communicating those needs in order to reach out and feel connection because trauma when it's when it's rearing, it's ugly head tells us the slide that we're supposed to isolate. And that we're supposed to be alone, and yet I find the only thing that helps me is the exact opposite of that and human connection. And so it's really about just the honest to God practice of being like, no, I feel that lie coming on. I can hear that lie in my head. I have to push back against that lie in a way that feels. Okay, enough to me to find connection in this moment, because that is what is going to ground me, and bring me back to myself.

Tayler:

Yes, and it's so healing to find that community, especially when something like sexual abuse. Drives us farther apart. So it's so beautiful to be able to be vulnerable and lean on those relationships. And I have been thinking a lot lately about how I've been doing this podcast. And I always start off with well, tell us about yourself with your work. So I want to ask you, who are you outside of your work with survivors?

Alisa:

Oh, my gosh. Thank you for asking that. It's. It's interesting. I'm sure you can relate intensely to this when you build work around your passion and the specific way you see and experience the world, but sometimes those lines bleed. And so I really appreciate you letting me know. Pulling that back for me. So who am I? I am somebody who feels big feelings all the time. I used to think my feelings were a liability and made me too sensitive. And now I'm like, no, this is a superpower. So I'm the feelings person. I am the, like the friend who, who loves, who just wants to hear everything about how you're feeling. And then the friend who takes it personally, if you're not telling me your feelings, I want all the feelings and I want them all the time and all. Also, I love to gossip and this is very separate from my work because a lot of people share things and confidence with me and my work. And so these are completely separate hats of me. But outside of my work, I love gossip from, I love listening to the podcast, normal gossip. I love listening to celebrity gossip podcasts. I love the Real Housewives. I am a devoted fan of the Bravo Cinematic Universe. And I love listening to podcasts about real housewives gossip. I, I want all the gossip and I don't really want it to be about anybody I care about. I will watch so much reality television and not want any drama in my own personal life. I think I live a very, my, my relationships are very calm. When there's conflict, I like it to be addressed immediately and resolve quickly, but that part of me that, like, chaos monkey that lives inside of me that agent of chaos is, fueled and fulfilled by, that. Again, it's parasocial relationships with, like, reality stars, and, celebrity. And so I really am, a pop culture devotee, and I love engaging in, collective moments of culture when, everybody's watching the same show and we're all talking about it. I also am a new mom. I am the mother to a six month old baby, and so this is, a completely new part of my life as well. That is really beautiful and exciting and challenging and. Feels different every single day and so I'm still learning, who am I as a mom and. But I like it, and I like it faster than I thought I would. I hated being pregnant. I was sick the entire time and I really, really hated being pregnant. And I've been really delighted to find that my experience being pregnant and my experience being a mom had nothing to do with each other. and so that is what's really important to me, but, often I'm not happier than when I am like on a couch with my favorite people and my dog with good snacks watching our stories and talking shit.

Tayler:

Yes, we love it. We love it. Sidebar, do you happen to be a Cancer? No, I'm an Aries. Interesting. Did that explain something? Well, because you were talking about big feelings. And I was like, Oh, that's me, that's me, and I'm a cancer, so.

Alisa:

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, I, I only know about my own sign, which I've been told is very Aries of me. But I know we are like natural leaders, but also because we don't respect authority and like want to burn it all down and love being the center of attention. And I'm like, if that's all I ever know about my sign, that is a hundred percent correct. I

Tayler:

think it's the visionary parts, the visionary part.

Alisa:

So

Tayler:

what are some of your upcoming projects or things you want to share with listeners? Absolutely. So I,

Alisa:

I'm still sort of on a sort of forever book tour with Healing Honestly, the book, which is so awesome and really working to get it into everybody's hands and into the hands of anybody who would find it helpful and useful to me. It's so important that, you know, we ourselves may not be survivors, but we certainly love a survivor in our life. And whether or not they, whether or not, you know, navigate thing that feels. Not navigating something and experience and feelings where they might not know what to call it, but that they know that it's worthy of healing. It's so important to me that everybody knows about this book and knows that it's available to hand to a friend whenever they're going through a vulnerable or tender time in their lives. So that's the big. The big, exciting 1 and, bringing this book to conferences and helping therapists learn about it so that they can get it into their hands of clients of theirs and, and, really just continuing to get the word out there about it and, and doing more writing, for the last week was the 1st time I have felt since maybe halfway through writing the book where I'm like, I'm ready to write again and that was a really exciting feeling. And I don't know what that will look like, but my life looks so different and, and my relationship to my healing looks so different. So I think, you know, going back to my bread and butter of writing on the internet, is really going to be a big thing for me now, especially as I'm navigating new questions about survivorship and healing in this new chapter of my life.

Tayler:

Oh, yes. So exciting. And I'm definitely linking how to get the book online in the notes. So you can find a link to get the book there. I just have two questions left for you. What have you been reading lately? Or just what's a book that's had a huge impact on you recently? And what advice would you offer listeners who want to make a positive impact in their communities? Absolutely.

Alisa:

So, okay. So I laughed when you mentioned that you were going to ask me about what I've been reading lately because I was like, I haven't read a book in so long, but that's not true. I've read a bunch of books lately. I just haven't thought about it like that. Because I've been reading them with my baby, and so I brought some of my favorite books to read with my baby to share. Yes, we love children's books here. This first one I thrifted, and I never heard of before, and it's called Dog's First Baby by Natalie Nelson. And, I have a dog. I call him my firstborn. Franklin And then I have my baby and so, and they're becoming like a little dynamic duo of my chaos Muppets. And so I love these books that talk about dogs and babies hanging out together and being buddies. So that is high contender. And then this one calm down time by Elizabeth verdict. And this is from a friend of mine who is a social worker in a school who helps children who are elementary school age with their big feelings and to support them in their big feelings and feeling their big feelings. And she bought me this book. About big feelings and feeling big feelings and that's been really wonderful and I'm excited to like, continue to have that as he gets older. Then we have soccer legends alphabet, women's edition by back finer. So, we are major women's soccer fans in this household. It is the only sports we watch in our house. And so this is like an alphabet book, but each letter of the alphabet is a woman's soccer player, which is so awesome. The last one that I picked to highlight, that we read a lot in this house is called, somebody gave this to us. Love Makes a Family by Sophie Baer, and it's just about love and family and all the different ways love can look and all the different ways family can look. Outside this, really limited, heteronormative, nuclear family notion. And I love that because I'm raising my child to have so many people that love and support him, outside of, you know, a conventional nuclear family. And so I just love, having that to help tell the story of, you know, of his family, too. So, yeah, so these, I have been reading just not the novels and things like that that I'm used to, but a book that I want to shout out that really was like, I read it. During the, Saturn return time during, the, like, everything is burning down around me and I don't know what to do time. I, I, I actually did the audio book, Janet Mock's 1st memoir. Redefining realness, and so I think that would have been, like, in the winter of 2015, maybe, like, 2014, 2015. And, I remember, walking, I lived in D. C. at the time and just, walking around the whole city and, the dead of January, listening to that book and listening to, if anybody wants an example of, transformative storytelling, that, that memoir is extraordinary storytelling. And I think it. Reminded me and in a way, like, taught me all a new, the power of beautiful storytelling and how she tells the very specific story of her life, you know, growing up in Hawaii, being mixed race, you know, the experiences she has had in New York, working in like media, you know, all these very, specific to her experiences, but in that specificity, she found these, really deep, Truths that I desperately needed and didn't know I needed, and were so poignant and moving to me. And it was just this, like, aha moment of. Oh, maybe I need to be engaging in, this art form of storytelling, because what it is giving me right now is it was just that, that really critical, didn't know I needed it when I needed it and I needed it so badly form of storytelling, you know, right book, the right moment kind of magic.

Tayler:

I love that memoir, too, and her other book, I can't remember what it's called, but the other book was good, too. And what advice would you offer listeners who wanna make a positive impact in their communities?

Alisa:

My advice would be to remember that you don't have to be everything to everyone. And that you get to, I mean, I feel like you are embodying this. So, beautifully, and what you're creating and cultivating, do what you want to do, build with the people who it feels good to build with. I think when I started doing this work, I thought, oh, because I don't want to work with children, or I don't want to share these aspects of my story. Or I don't have answers to these questions. there's no space for me and I don't, I shouldn't, I shouldn't do this work or I shouldn't speak on this. And I think learning that it's like, no, I mean, this is a huge jigsaw puzzle. The movement to end sexual violence, specifically is an enormous jigsaw puzzle. I have just a small piece of it where I talk about things in my own style, in my own way and the people who love it, love it. And the people who it's not for, it's not for, and that's totally cool because there are so many other pieces of the puzzle. And so just figure out what you want your piece of the puzzle to be, let it be specific. Let it be nuance. Let it be reflective of you and find other people who. You want to build with who might have their own pieces of the puzzle and learn how you can support and encourage them and uplift them too. And to that, too, is like, do your research about who is in the space about who's been doing this where, you know, there's no new idea under the sun. It's just that. We've never existed before, you know, so, doing it, our style might be new, but, the shit I've been seeing people say, certainly since the Old Testament, I'm sure before then too, but, you know, learn, learn in your movement, learn who, who your elders are, who the leader, and honor that leadership and learn from that leadership and, and build in, in conversation with all of that, do cool things together.

Tayler:

I will say your, shape of the puzzle piece is definitely giving golden girls puzzle piece.

Alisa:

Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. I, my husband, Charlie, he just calls them my ladies and he'll be like, Oh, my God. You know, I'll be like, getting ready for better, whatever it is, would you like me to turn your ladies on? And I was like, yes, please. I turn on my ladies. But, yes, thank you so much. That is, if if I could find myself. In Miami, hanging out on the line with my greatest gal pals, gossiping the night away. That is. A beautiful future.

Tayler:

We love to shape the future we want to see manifest. Yes. Where can

Alisa:

people find you and your work? So you can find me at healinghonestly. com. And you can find me on social media at Alisa Healing Honestly. A L I S A Healing Honestly. And shoot me a message. And come see all the cool, fun, silly things I put out on the Internet and you can sign up for my Friday emails that are, every Friday, move my website, healing honestly dot com.

Tayler:

And they're very cute. They have memes and pictures of dogs and shows that you'll enjoy. It's it's such a ray of sunshine type of email on Fridays. Thank you so much, Alisa. And thank y'all so much for being a part of the podcast today. If you have stories that you want to share, if you want to share any topics, or you just want to connect with us, find us on Instagram, Facebook, Tik TOK at Liberation is Lit, or you can visit our website at Liberation is Lit. com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and remember your voice matters and together through the lens of. Stories were going to make a difference in the world until next time.