The Audacity of Jenny Cresswell

For most of her life, Dr. Jenny Cresswell was focused on one question: How do I make this work? As a single mom, first-generation college student, opera performer, teacher, and relentless problem-solver, she always found a way forward. Then, at 45, everything changed. Jenny fell in love for the first time, discovered she was a lesbian, and began learning a lesson she'd never had time for before: how to slow down and experience joy. This episode is about audacity, authenticity, and the unexpected ways life can still surprise us—no matter our age. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Welcome to Later in Life. I'm Bob Bolin. My guest today spent most of her life in motion. Working, teaching, raising children as a single mother, driving for lift, delivering for Instacart, packing up and moving when a new opportunity appeared or disappeared, earning degree after degree until she eventually became Dr. Jenny Cresswell, completing her doctorate in opera in her 40s as a first generation college student. For years her life was defined by one question. How do I make this work? And somehow she always did. What amazes me about Jenny isn't just her talent, though she is truly a gifted performer. I mean, just listen. To keep moving forward even when the path ahead isn't entirely clear. That audacity carried her a long way. It helped her build a career, provide for her children, and accomplish things that might have seemed impossible from where she started. But after decades of always moving, always striving, always solving the next problem, Jenny found herself facing a very different challenge. What happens when you've spent your whole life surviving and suddenly you're given the chance to simply live? Because at 45, something unexpected happened. Jenny fell in love for the first time. And in falling in love, she discovered something else. That she was a lesbian. You can actually hear the shift in this conversation when we get to that part of her story. The pace change, the energy changes. This is a person who spent a lifetime pushing forward, and she's allowing herself to stop and experience joy. This episode is about courage, certainly, but not the kind of courage it takes to earn a doctorate, raise a family, or start over in a new city. It's about the courage to be surprised by your own life, to realize that even after everything you've accomplished, there may still be parts of yourself waiting to be discovered. This is my conversation with Dr. Jenny Cresswell. Jenny, I'm so excited to finally meet you after following your story on TikTok for so long. Tell us a little bit about who you are.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

If I had to describe myself to someone, I mean, there's the whole professional thing, you know. I I do have a doctorate in voice, and so Dr. Jenny, right? That's where that came from. I am a single mom. I mean, my kids do see their father, but they live with me. I have sole custody, and so that is part of my identity. And I think especially in the opera world and in the arts and in academia, like there are no single moms. You don't see us. It's not that single moms don't have the qualifications. Actually, like uh about two years ago, I did a whole statistics deep dive into this, and the fact that like 16% of American households now are run by single mothers with children under the age of 18.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

That is substantial and it is not reflected. It is not reflected in academia, it is not reflected in the workplace, it is not reflected in the performing arts, and it's it's not that that many don't have qualifications. I think we do. I know that after I after I did get my degree from University of Michigan, I did something like 82 job applications, and I was like the queen of semi-finals. I would get the Zoom interview.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Sometimes two or three rounds of Zoom interviews with the same institution. And the amount of times that I was blatantly asked, both by professional opera companies for administrative roles and in academia, well, what will you do if your kids get sick? Can you still come in? Oh God. Like, and it's not, and that is, you know, one of the I do love technology. I do love, I love the social aspect of social media. Um, I I'm not big on the branding, on the telling the young people they have to say who they are before they even know. But uh people do know things about you. My ability, first of all, to complete, you know, to complete something like a doctoral degree while being a single mom in the pandemic, and at the time my kids were still like elementary age.

SPEAKER_05 4:59

That's a lot. What support did you have?

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Well, I will say that during that time, if you do everything on what they say the timeline should be, it's two years of coursework, you pass a bunch of exams, then you're what they call ABD or all all but done or all but dissertation, and then you have a year to do your projects and to pass your or to defend your final. I don't, you know, the terminology escapes me. I learned it then, because I will also say I'm a first-generation college student. I actually became a single parent after my first year of coursework. My my divorce went final in October of 2019 and the pandemic hit in January or February of 2020, a couple months after that. Um, I did live near my parents. And so they did help. My mother definitely helped an enormous amount with my kids so that I could work and things like that when they were very little. And uh they went to school online though at the house. And I joked that they went from my children and they turned into roommates because I was teaching courses and also doing my own coursework and having rehearsals, and you know, a little nine-year-old would come downstairs and I would give them cold pizza on a paper plate and send them back up to the room so they could go to math class or whatever. It was a crazy time. And I joke, except it's not a joke. So for vocal performance, and it's different in every school, so I do have to specify it was the University of Michigan. We do a dissertation document. So it's three performances and then a document, like an academic document. It's it's not a full-length dissertation. Mine was 70 pages, which still feels like a lot, but I wrote it in seven days.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

My kids would go to bed, and then I wrote the document while I streamed episodes of the Golden Girls. I had my own, I have my own Pomodoro method, okay? I would sit in this old recliner and I would stream the Golden Girls, which I have seen a gazillion times because I'm old enough that I remember watching them when I was like five years old and not understanding it, but loving it. And I would give myself like an episode is 22 or 23 minutes, and I'd be like, all right, I have to write a page and a half by the by the time Blanche is done at the rusty anchor, right? So and and you know, I wrote it, and there were so many things that I didn't know how to do that I would just Google and be like, okay, how do I do this?

SPEAKER_05 7:28

Completing your doctorate while being a single mother during the pandemic, I mean, what was it that drove you? Was it the drive to succeed, or was it just the nativity of not knowing what you were not knowing what you were facing? And so you just kind of blindly pushed forward.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

No, I think that I was born with an enormous amount of audacity. And talk about that. And this is this is true, even like I as a voice teacher now, I have guided dozens of high school seniors through the college audition process.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

And sometimes, and it's very different now, and technology is a big has a lot to do with that. You know, the common app, and and they're encouraged now, they apply to like 10 schools or 12 schools. It's just insane. And I applied to two. So in February or March of my senior year of high school, I went out for my college auditions, and they were at Manis College of Music and Manhattan School of Music in New York. That was oblivion. Like it didn't occur to me. I'm like, no, I'm totally gonna go to one of those schools. Those are the only two I applied to. And I actually went out by myself. Um, I took a little garment bag with dresses, and that was the only suitcase I brought. It was carry-on. And I flew out and I stayed at a youth hostel with 11 strangers in the room at a little youth hostel called Jazz in the Park. And I I was, I think I had just turned 18, probably like two weeks earlier. And and that's where I went for my college auditions, and I did not visit them beforehand or like my, you know, I can't say my parents weren't supportive because they paid for the plane ticket. But I just kind of told them, like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, and this is what I need. And and I think about that now that my own children are approaching that age, and I'm like, what was I doing?

SPEAKER_05 9:21

This is maybe my read of it. You tell me if I'm wrong, but you probably always seem so headstrong and you had this audacity that you said, here's what's happening, here's what I'm doing. And your parents probably like, Great, I don't know what that means, go do it.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Well, I don't I think that they knew. I and my current relationship with my parents is the best it's been in a really, really long time. Um, but I think that they just knew that I was going to do what I was going to do no matter what.

SPEAKER_05 9:50

Yeah. So as you look at your life, how it's kind of shaped, and I know you've been through a lot like in your younger years, and now you're like in this new phase of your life. And you've been sharing a lot of it on TikTok. That's how a lot of people have gotten to know you. What has that been like for you? What what was the thing that made you say, Okay, I want to tell my story and just be my authentic self? Why did you do that? And what's been the reaction like? What have you learned from that?

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Well, I will say that it never occurred to me to be any other way.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Like it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to be vulnerable or I'm real and I'm going to be authentic. I I don't I'm not good at being fake. Um, which might attribute to a lack of a certain amount of commercial success in the arts and academia. But like I'm really not good at it. Um I remember, so I was at the Interlocken Arts Academy for one year on a guest contract, on a teaching contract. And after that, I was kind of like, again, I would make it to like the second to last round or the final round of interviews, and nothing panned out. Or I would get an offer to go work at a university or college, but the amount of money that they were offering really wasn't even enough for a single person to have a one bedroom, let alone, you know, just housing. Like, how would I possibly pay the bills? Knowing that they want you business hours, nights, and weekends. So we moved to Detroit, which was an adventure, and that's when I joined TikTok. So it's for me, it was about money initially as a voice teacher. I was like, okay, here's what I'm gonna do. And I created the Go Practice app. Um, I was like, I'm gonna create an app for singing, just like like a yoga app, except for singing technique. And I under it it was moderately successful considering there was, you know, only me doing everything and my budget was zero.

SPEAKER_05 11:43

Because I think a lot of your story that you've shared on TikTok is like how and you talk about authenticity and how it's you're like incapable of being inauthentic or fake. A lot of that is like in the singing, like in the operatic world of like this two-facedness.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

I can't deal with it. I cannot.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

Yeah. And you and you are so like, and I I think that there, like you're like one of like a handful of voices I've seen. Like, I I'm not anywhere deep in opera TikTok, but like there's a handful of you that I that pop up though the same way. Like, it was so toxic. I'm trying to change what this is like. I'm trying to make it better for like up-and-coming singers. As you get later in life and you're kind of like helping kind of encourage the next generation of like artists and performers and humans, what is it? What is your technique? What is what are the things you're trying to teach them about how to be maybe more resilient, not even just like a better singer, but just be ready for what's different.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Well, what I if they're sure that that's what they want to do, and I at this point I have guided, you know, I don't know, half a dozen at least adult singers over the last year or two, as they have come to the realization that they no longer want to pursue it professionally for what the industry currently is. But if they if it is what they want to do, I am pretty relentless when it comes to technique. When it comes if if that's the reason somebody comes to study with me.

unknown 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

You know, they come to me because they have an issue and they want it fixed.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

And I'm I'm like, you know, I'm I'm like a little mechanic seeing it in my head, and I'm just like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

I try to impress upon them that while it is important to fix what you know you need to fix, and that is important, and it's important to be prepared, it's important to be all the things that we're told it is. At the end of the day, it really is not a meritocracy. It's just not. Because you will drive yourself crazy because something that you work so hard on and you fix because someone made a comment to you at a competition or something like that, whether it is the size of your voice or how it moves or your own, you know, the body-size comments that people are still making to young singers, you can fix it, but then you will see somebody that has all of those problems that you had times 10, but they'll end up being more commercially successful just because somebody liked them. You know, there's like a certain bar, but once you pass that bar, it's really not a meritocracy. Someone just has to choose you. But while I am very specific technically on what they can fix to make it better, they should not tie their ability to their commercial success.

SPEAKER_05 14:20

And I think you're a real great example of that because you've talked about how you've always kind of like hit the threshold of like getting to a certain point, but something is important, someone or some group has always held you back. How have you redefined success for yourself as you've uh matured in your career?

SPEAKER_03 14:36

I mean, first of all, you have to be proud of what you do. And your best will change from day to day. Did you do your best that day? And I feel like that's a pretty easy thing to meet. It has meant the world to me when colleagues from productions that I've been in, from produ professional productions, have come back later and sought me out as a voice teacher because they appreciated what I did in the rehearsal room. Whether it was academic stuff or whether it was as a voice teacher, that has meant the world to me. I do kind of have a reputation that I think is not fair or it is not deserved that I I don't like authority or I have a problem with authority. It could not be further from the truth. I love having someone to look up to, but I have been very often disappointed. I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_05 15:26

And I think there's nothing wrong with that. I think a lot of people are are are questioning authority these days.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

It's true, but in in the performing arts world, that is not generally I bet. You know.

SPEAKER_05 15:39

I I want to step back even further around from just your your professional career. What does success look like for you like as a person, especially over the past couple of years?

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Kindness. Was I kind was I kind today? I mean, first and foremost, it's my children.

SPEAKER_05 15:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Did I show up for them in the best way that I could?

SPEAKER_05 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

And I think as a parent, and I think I think most parents feel this way, like it's never enough. You're never really doing the right thing, but you keep trying. You know, ultimately, whether it is with music, whether it's with teaching, whether it was working for Instacart or Lyft or whatever capacity I show up in the world outside of my house, did I make someone's life better?

SPEAKER_05 16:19

Yeah. It's such a thing that people take for granted, right? That measuring stick of we're so busy just trying to get through it sometimes that we sometimes forget that kindness can go a long way. What uh what's something that you've learned like recently? Because I I'm kind of But I'm a lesbian.

unknown 16:38

You want to go there?

SPEAKER_05 16:40

Well, happy pride. Um, so you have, I think, recently in the past year, have met someone who has been a big part of your life and you're engaged. Talk about that. Talk about how you met this person.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I'd love to talk about that.

SPEAKER_05 16:53

What was that like between that moment where you were identifying, I guess, as a straight woman at one point, and then you said there might be something else here.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

I think other people suspected that I might be queer before I ever did. I divorced my ex-husband about uh seven years ago, something like that. I told my kids they were little, and and you know, they were scared, and I said, I'm not going to bring anybody around you. And I I will never give you a stepfather, like while you're still in school, like I won't do that. And they, you know, they were totally happy with that. And so, and I was busy, like I had things to do. So I just kind of honed in and was raising my kids, and last summer I met Jill, and she's a singer, she sings all over the world, and I was moving out of Indianola, Iowa. Uh, she was singing at Des Moines Metro Opera, which is this little opera festival. I don't know how it ended up in Indianola, but it's there. And we had known each other on social media for five or six years, and we had you know a lot of mutual friends and everything. And I saw she posted one day that she was there with her little dog in at this park that I walked in a million times that year. And I just I commented and I was like, Oh my gosh, you're here. Like, we should have lunch, we should have dinner, we should have ice cream, like whatever. And so we did. There are like two little restaurants in the whole little town, I think. Um, we had tacos, and it was just kind of like cool. All right, bye. And then I went to New York for a week to teach in person, and she was there doing her show, and I got back and we met for dinner again. And she's like, Well, who's helping you move? And I was like, Don't you know who I am? Like, I help me move. No, you saw it.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

You're like, I'm moving this pouch by myself, watch me do it. And you're filming a TikTok.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

I was like, filming a TikTok. Um, and so I was like, I this will be my fourth move in four years. Like, I am. I said, I have to move all these boxes, and it was like a hundred degrees in the Midwest in the summer. It's like so miserable.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

And she's like, Oh, I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help you move your boxes. And I was like, You don't need to do that. And she looked at me and she's like, please. And these were her words, not mine. She's like, Please, butch lesbian, I'm helping you move your boxes.

SPEAKER_05 19:08

And I was like, Okay, all right, all right, well, you know, there's a joke here somewhere about lesbians in U-Halls that are.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

I know it, I know it. And I was like, Well, I was like, okay, then let me cook you dinner because I love to cook. And it is not unusual at all for me to cook somebody dinner, like when they're in town, just because I love to cook. So a few weeks later, she helped me move my boxes. It took like 10 minutes, and then a few days later, I had her over for dinner. And we were we just we walked that line, we were just kind of friends, and then we stayed in touch. And that's an unusual thing, you know, for performers who travel a lot, like you meet people all the time. You generally do not stay in touch with the people that you cross paths with. And I had taken a job um out here in Illinois at a Catholic school. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. It was my second stint as a Catholic music teacher. Oops. And sh I one night, a few weeks after I got here, and we were just barely texting each other like once a day. I went to work for the first time and met all of my colleagues, and she sent me a text. She's like, How did it go? And I just called her. And I am one of those people, I will call you. I will call you on the phone. I know it's not popular, but also I was driving. And and I was surprised that she answered because people don't answer the phone either. And we talked just for like 10 or 15 minutes about basics, and I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna go inside now. And without thinking, she was like, Okay, love, talk to you later. Right? That was my reaction as well. And there was like this like very brief but very awkward pause. Like, wait, did she mean something? Did she not mean something? I don't know. And so then this is actually kind of funny. A couple nights later, I decided that I needed to tell her that I was attracted to her. Okay. And so, and she saved the video. But we were supposed to be FaceTiming. She she has a son as well. Um, he he is just a little bit older than my two kids. Okay, but she was out visiting him, and I had sent her a message earlier in the day. We were just texting briefly back and forth, and I was like, Hey, can we FaceTime later tonight? And she's like, You want to FaceTime? I was like, Is that weird? And she's like, No, it's not weird. And I was like, Okay. And so we set a time, and then and then she's like, Well, I'm gonna go to the movies with my son, and I was like, Okay, well, we can do it after that. And then she texted me, she's like, Girl, he wants to go out for ice cream, and I was like, Okay. She's like, it's gonna be way too late, because also different time zone. And I was like, Okay, all right. I was she's like, Well, she's like, I'll talk to you tomorrow. And I was like, Well, I'm gonna send you something, and if you still want to talk to me tomorrow, then we can. Um, and you know, of course I made sure. I like take took a shower and I was all like fresh and clean and oh yes of course I'd like that like that's going to make a difference.

SPEAKER_05 22:08

The lighting was perfect.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Oh always like the best lighting. And I was like, I just need you to know because it looks like we're gonna be real friends that I'm attracted to you, and we never have to talk about this again. Um but you should know because you know I'm all about transparency.

SPEAKER_05 22:27

Good for you.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

And I knew that she watched it that night, but she didn't respond. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 22:31

You saw the read. You saw the read.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yeah. And then the next day I I waited and I didn't hear from her for like four or five hours after I got up.

unknown 22:41

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

And I sent her a text that was like, hey, did I freak you out? And and she's like, um, yes, but not in a bad way. Um I will I will call you when I'm on the road because she had to drive somewhere. Um like road trip-wise. And so then we talked. And then, you know, from there, from there things grew.

unknown 23:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

And we went we went on our first date a couple months after that.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

About four months after our first date, I proposed. And she said yes. That's amazing. But I had to come, I had to come out to my parents too, and they're very conservative.

SPEAKER_05 23:20

Yeah, and you mentioned that they were very so tell me it talk to me about that. But first, before we go there, yeah, did J did Jill tell you what her response was when she saw that video? Was she anticipating what it was gonna be?

SPEAKER_03 23:31

She didn't, she wasn't she wasn't really sure. She wasn't really sure. She thought maybe something was up with the fact that I wanted to FaceTime.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Um, but that is also not a really unusual thing for people that are constantly traveling to do, right? Like that's how you stay in touch. You see each other's face, you're like, hey, I think she was surprised at the bluntness, which is kind of a track record for my whole life, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:57

So you you're like, here I am, here's how I feel about you.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Yeah. And that comes from being uh I I think I think the thing I like about that story is that you came out, sure you're a late bloomer, but you fully knew who you were as a human being. You just didn't know who your sexuality was. So you had to like figure that out, but you also knew this is if I'm gonna embody this, I have to embody it the way I know how, which is completely me.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

And I just completely me. And and I wouldn't Yeah, I I will say that over the years, there have been there have been women who have, you know, who have expressed feelings for me or or come on to me or things like that. And I I was always flattered, but I wasn't into it. And I thought that that meant that I wasn't into women, when in truth, it's just that the people who were communicating with me were not the right person for me, you know?

SPEAKER_05 24:53

And you both have J's in your names. The monograms are gonna be so adorable.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

We both have J's, we both have kids.

SPEAKER_05 25:01

Um so much synchronicity going on.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

It's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 25:06

Okay, so what was it like coming out to your parents?

SPEAKER_03 25:08

We had our first date, you know, in true lesbian fashion. It was a three-day-long first date. A few weeks later, I flew to Dallas for our second date, because that's where she was at the time for her birthday, and it was right after that that I decided I needed to come out to my parents. I was never going to date anybody in secret. That's not me. If I was going to date her, then I respected her so much that I I would never tell someone, and she's been out for for decades, right? I would I would never be like, should we have to keep this a secret? I'm only 45.

SPEAKER_05 25:46

Um There's no time for that, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Knowing in years past that my mom might do better if she had a moment to sort of absorb it before we jumped into discussion, I went with the classic Facebook Messenger. And good for you. And I wrote her this very heartfelt Facebook message where I explained that I was telling her because Yeah, this is after the second date. I told her that I loved Jill very much and I thought it was serious, and that I was telling her because I knew that she wanted to see me happy.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

And I sent it at like seven o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

And I didn't hear anything all day. I did she saw it like an hour after I sent it. Again, Facebook Messenger, right? You can clock that.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

And my kids came home from school because they're they're in high school now, and and they walk in the door and my daughter goes, Did you tell grandma about Jill? And I was like, Yeah, I did. She's like, What? She would like say it every day. And she's like, What did you do? Tell me everything. So she sat down on the couch with me and she's like, I want to see the message. I open up my phone, and I am not a parent who has ever let my children hold my phone. Right. That's not me. I know some people like hand their little kids their phone. No, but I handed her my phone and she reads it, and then she would get a response while she's reading it. Oh no, she did better than that. She video called my mother. She hit video call on messenger video and took off running down the hall and threw the phone in my lap. So then I spoke with both of my parents.

SPEAKER_05 27:40

You know. Yeah. Yeah. It's it seemed from what you've shared publicly that they're.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Yeah, it was so much better than I thought it would be. And Jill came with the kids and I to Thanksgiving and to Christmas, to the to my parents' house. So it's all good. Yeah. I will I will say I will say two things. Number one, my mom's biggest concern was that she wanted to know if Jill was good to the kids.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

Oh, that's very sweet.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Yeah, that was her first question.

SPEAKER_05 28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

And uh and and she is. I mean, my my kids adore her, and especially my daughter is very close with her. That was question number one. And the other thing is that you know, Jill is so charming. She is so likable and so charming. Everybody likes her.

SPEAKER_05 28:31

Yeah. That so your parents knew Jill before you told them that you were with Jill. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

They didn't, but when they met her, they didn't really have a choice. Like my mom likes her very, very much and gets along with her so well because I'm just like, but how do you not like Jill? And she does.

SPEAKER_05 28:46

And this is a unique situation because you also have two young kids. What was that like telling them about your new relationship?

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Well, I have raised my children to be very inclusive, uh at pointedly so. And my oldest uh is non-binary. And we have known that since they were, you know, about six or seven years old. That's wonderful. Yeah, and so that was already a thing. And I told them before I went on my first date. I was like, guys, and I you know, I say I call everybody guys, it's a Midwestern thing. I'm like, guys, I'm gonna go. Guys is the gender neutral in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

And I was like, I'm gonna go on this date, and it's with a woman, and they were like, Great. It was a non-issue.

SPEAKER_05 29:37

Is this the first relationship where you've felt maybe true love with of someone? Yes. Partner. Yes. And what's what's that like finding that connection?

SPEAKER_03 29:47

I I didn't know that it was an option. I didn't know that other I didn't know that this was what other people had or some other people have. Like I just wasn't aware of that. I mean, it's incredible. I'm glad I get to experience it.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

What is what how has it changed you?

SPEAKER_03 30:05

I wear colors.

SPEAKER_05 30:09

Yeah, you did wear a lot of black.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

I always know. I used to say my uniform was a black v-neck. I wore a black v-neck every day of my life. I called it my uniform. Um and even my kids teach me.

SPEAKER_05 30:22

You can't see right now because it's a it's a podcast audio. She's wearing a lovely lavender pink uh v-neck shirt. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

And my hair is also pink. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yeah, I wear a lot of color. You I mean, I don't know. We're not supposed to say, like, oh, when you're with another person, it's not supposed to change you, but but it does. Like being loved changes you. Who says that? I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Um people who hate love. That's people who hate love.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

And yeah, and I never hated it.

SPEAKER_05 30:52

It doesn't have to change you in a bad way or make you become like subservient or something, it just makes you open to the possibility. And it changes your brain chemistry, I think, in a little bit too.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Oh, a thousand percent. And I always loved love for other people. You know, that wasn't the imprint that I had in my head, was that like I'm not the kind of person that people love.

unknown 31:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

That's just not me. Like, I love I love that for you. That's over there. That's amazing you guys found each other. But I didn't know what it felt like.

SPEAKER_05 31:24

I'm not the kind of people that people love. That's a really Yeah. That's a really powerful thing to say, but it's not true. Apparently not.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

Apparently not. I mean, you asked at the beginning of this of this interview, what is that drive in me?

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Part of it is the way that I was raised. I I I very much take after my father in that regard. Just like do it. Just figure it out. Do it. No matter what it is. Um, he he can fix anything, build anything, will physically just work himself to the point of exhaustion every day of his life. So that I I it's not that he made me do that, but I definitely did get that from him.

SPEAKER_05 32:10

It seems like you've been constantly like going, going, going, going, going. Yeah. But now that you have a partner, and I think you I you mentioned a little bit about this of having like someone that you can like delegate that takes things off your plate.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

To have even one thing taken off of your plate when you have just been going in fight or flight mode for years.

SPEAKER_04 32:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Changes your whole body chemistry.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

It's like, oh, okay. I'm just like, well, what if I I have to go do this, I have to figure this out? And she's like, honey, other there are people who do that for a living. Like we could have them do it.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

You're like, wait, what? No, I think it's and I it's such an interesting thing to talk about because you mentioned being in this fight or flight mode and having someone who can like who can bring you back down. And it probably is like retraining yourself of being vulnerable to let someone else take up the slack because you've always been the one having a fix all the time, you know.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Yes, and it honestly my body was very tired because it's like when you're finally given that kind of permission to just slow down.

SPEAKER_05 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Like just slow down a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 33:21

Yeah. Yeah. I see videos of yourself like I'm in a car with no air conditioning driving in the car, and I've done 65 deliveries today, and then I have to teach, and then I have to go do my actual job, and then I also have to be a mom, by the way. And like it's just it's it I'm so happy for you that you have a partner that bring you what you deserve, which is happy.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

You didn't have that before, but like No, but it's a different kind. It's just it's just life-changing. A couple of years ago, Christmas Eve in Detroit of let's see, 20 of 2023. You know, my kids and I were living in this house, the first floor of a house, and I sang four services that Christmas Eve. I always I always would sing on Christmas Eve and Easter because that's when the churches are willing to pay singers more.

SPEAKER_05 34:13

Yeah, that's the gig time as a singer. The house. Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

So I sang at two different churches. I was running back and forth from 4 p.m. to midnight.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

And still, with all of that, I could only spend like $50 on each of my kids for Christmas.

unknown 34:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

And they and they were great about it. I mean, they were teenagers and and they knew how hard I was working. Um and I made like jokes out of it, right? Like I went to five below and like wrapped stuff up. And you know, it was what it was. And I knew that my grandparents would get them plenty. And then I thought about this year, um, I didn't have to sing anywhere. And and people think like, oh, big deal singing, but you know, when you're a mom, you're a single mom, and you sing Christmas Eve and you get home at one or two o'clock in the morning from work in the snow, and then like your Christmas, like that is your Christmas day, is just like being zonked and exhausted. Um, and and this Christmas, you know, a couple days before Christmas, there's my incredible fiance putting together a bicycle for my daughter in our bedroom so she doesn't see.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

I have a few concluding questions for you. So if someone were to say, not just coming out, but just something in general, if they say it's too late in life for me, what is some advice you give them?

SPEAKER_03 35:32

We live a lot longer now.

SPEAKER_05 35:35

So you gotta use up that time.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

I mean No, but but seriously, uh we always look at the differences like like I talked about the Golden Girls earlier. Those women were in their late 40s and early 50s. And they were retired living together in Miami. They, you know, most of them didn't work anymore. And now you look at people in their late 40s and early 50s, and it's like go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Like you're just getting started. And part of that, you know, is true. You have a long time. At the same time, life is too short to be like 85 years old and think, I wish I would have done that.

SPEAKER_05 36:16

No regrets.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

No regrets, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 36:20

So if you were to give a title to the chapter of this phase of your life, what would that title be?

SPEAKER_03 36:26

It's about damn time.

SPEAKER_05 36:30

Elizo classic.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

That's right. Elizoclassic. I love it. I said I said something in a TikTok earlier. I was out in California last week, um, getting to see Jill perform. And I and I was like, you know, it's like all of the bad things. I got front loaded. My life got front-loaded with bad things. And it feels like it feels like it feels like the storm has blown through, yeah, and everything bad that was going to happen happened. And look what's look what is happening now.

SPEAKER_05 37:09

Are you and Jill gonna sing at your wedding like a duet?

SPEAKER_03 37:12

No, I hope not.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

You know what we flower duet or whatever. No, is she what what vocal type is she? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

She is a dramatic mezzo.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

Ooh, and you're a dramatic soprano, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Well, I'm not really a dramatic so I'm dramatic and I'm a soprano.

SPEAKER_05 37:31

I love that. All right, so any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Audacity will get you a really long way. And that if you're ever too afraid to try anything, you need to think of all of the people who are not as smart as you and who are less talented, who are out there enjoying doing that very thing.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

So beautifully said, Jenny, it has been a distinct honor getting to speak with you.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care.

SPEAKER_05 37:58

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Jenny Crestwell. Later in Life was hosted, edited, and produced by me, Bob Bullen. The cover arts by Rachel Joyce, and our theme music is by Rocky Patera. I'd love to hear from you if you have a story about trying something new later in life. Reach out to me at thebroadwaybob at gmail.com. And if you like this episode, please consider giving it a review and a rating in Apple Podcasts. It helps people find a new show. Thank you. And remember, it's never too late.