The Drive to Austin - Episode 2

I’m hitting the road for Within Center and In this episode, I reflect on young love, my early Austin days, a marriage that’s seems to have run its course, and what I’m really hoping to find on the other side of this retreat. I talk about the theater of life — how we all play roles, and what happens when somebody changes their part. 

#Katabasis #KarriKennedy #KetamineTherapy #WithinCenter #WellnessJourney #MentalHealthPodcast #IntentionalLiving #PersonalGrowth #HealingJourney #SelfForgiveness #LifeTransformation #PodcastLife #AustinTexas #NewChapter #RealTalk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. So I'm headed to within. Uh, it's about 11 o'clock, and uh I got up at six. I didn't have very good sleep. I have a Fitbit and it told me I got fair sleep. I can't remember. I think it was like five and a half hours or something. Um, but I got up and I just all my cylinders were firing, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna come up with a name for this podcast. I'm gonna come up with an intro. I'm gonna figure it all out. And it just kind of just poured out of me, and I was like writing notes and doing that from uh well, I didn't even get going until almost nine o'clock because I was in through creative juices and having coffee and hanging out with the dogs and all that. So I got up and I started packing everything. My son, who is 19, took a picture of all the stuff I put in the trunk, which was quite a thorough list, I will say. Um I I packed two bottles of wine. Um, well no, I take that back. One was a bubbly, and one was this raspberry beer that I love that looks like it's in a wine bottle. Um, I got some aloe veras and sodas, and just thought I'm I want to have my drinks that um I'm used to having and don't want to have to go out and get it. Um, I got a bunch of uh different layers of clothes. I've got everything from t-shirts to sweaters, sweatshirts, jackets, because they say that the temperatures can change in the morning and at night a lot because you're kind of up in the mountains, hills, whatever. So um I yeah, I got everything, and I'm wearing this adorable outfit that I have. It's a belt buckle that's made out of a seat belt, and then all along the sides are little um soda pop cans that are popped in, and then I've got a necklace and bracelet, and I just I I wanted to wear what I wanted to be comfortable in. It's not getting dressed up for anybody else, but I like to do that. I like to feel the vibe and and enjoy my clothes, and I got a new pair of jeans, and I'm just I'm rocking my outfit. I just love it. Um, before I left, I I dyed my hair just in the front because it's gray up there. So I got rid of some of my grays, and yesterday I went and got a Manny Petty. So I'm I'm really feeling the vibe. Um, I just turned on to Highway 71 uh instead of um it's raining. I don't know if you can hear that. Um, but I I went from I-10 to 71 to Austin, and then it says I only have an hour and a half left to get there. So I'm I'm getting pretty excited and I'm thinking about my time in Austin. Um, I'm just throwing this in too. We'll see where it goes. You know, this is all an adventure for me, but as as I drive, um, my husband and I met at Texas AM. Actually, I was at Blyn, he was at AM, and uh actually he was he was done with AM. Um, but that's where we met in College Station, Texas. And after a while, we decided to move to Austin. And we lived at 183 and McNeil is where we lived. And I was a nanny for some really wealthy, wealthy people. And uh back in the day, one of the girls, well, a couple of the girls that I nanny'd for, they went to this school that uh Willie Nelson's daughter went to, and so I used to go drop her off or pick her up from Willie's place, and um so those were those were good times. I nanny for another family as well. Um, but yeah, I had four girls at one family and two boys in another, and uh really, you know, fun times, I guess. We had a a nice little house that was uh you know separated from everybody else, and we had a puppy, and it was the beginning of our dating relationship, whatever. Um, I feel I look back on it and feel like I feel like we were really too lazy, and um, we could have been thinking more like people do today. You know, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have uh social media like we do, we didn't have all the podcasts and all of that. I guess we did have podcasts way back. Well, that was like 30 years ago, but they were just coming out. Um, but it was it was a different time. We didn't have um the kids, it was just it was a lot more wild and fun and hanging out. At one point when we first moved to Austin, we lived with um his aunt and uncle off of Lake Travis, and they had a houseboat down there, and we used to go to some place called Carlos and Charlie's all the time. And uh we used to just hang out, we drank a lot, we did drugs, we we partied, we smoked, we um yeah, but we didn't have a lot of money. I remember eating macaroni and cheese, and um on special times we'd you know throw in tuna or hamburger. I mean, we we did not have a lot of money, and uh that was a little bit more challenging. Um, but we got along really well, which we're not doing now. Um, but it there was a lot of um young long young love at slash lust, really is what I think was going on. Um and we did not have a problem in that area, and um I'm passing Pine Cove uh retreat center right now. My kids have we've gone there in the past, um, anyways. So just just thinking about you know my whole life, really honestly, and where I've you know come from, where I'm going, what what life looks like, you know, and really, you know, what somebody said this to me recently when you go do these ketamine treatments. Actually, I don't who said this, I can't even remember. But basically, it was the idea that when you go do these treatments, you get in touch with who you really, really are and what's right with you, what's okay, and you are willing to not only forgive other people and circumstances and situations, but you're also willing to forgive yourself and make peace with yourself. And I that just I mean, that sounds so amazing to me. Gosh, I I think I've been so hard on myself and so against myself and so frustrated with myself. I just regrets and frustrations with choices I've made, just all of it, instead of just embracing that that's part of life, you know. But anyways, where I'm going with this is they were saying think of this as it's not just a change for you, because we're all playing this game of life. But if you think of it as a as like a play on a stage, a theater act, whatever, we all have our different parts, our different roles, and especially within a family or relationships, right? Um, you know, if you if you're you know the middle sister, for example, out of a family of four or whatever, three, I guess, just make it easier. If you're the middle sister and you know, you have an alcoholic dad, or you have, you know, whatever the circumstance or situation, you figure out your part in that family in that relationship, whether it's to be the jokester or to be the silent one or to be the caregiver or whatever the situation is. Maybe you go silent, whatever. You become kind of what you needed to become in the play, in the theater, in the game called life, if you will, the act you're playing, you became who you were because of your life, your circumstances, your situations. Like that's how you became your acting part. And when something major changes in the theater, whether it be like a move or a job change or a new baby or a divorce or any kind of life change, or something else that's not an actual like an actual person that changes. Maybe somebody comes back from war and they're upset and have CPTSD, or maybe it's somebody who gets Alzheimer's or starts a drug addiction, whatever. We as humans, we change, we you know, evolve or you know, spiral down, whatever. And when that happens, all the other actors on the on the stage, they have to um amend and adjust to carry out their roles and figure out what that looks like. So they were saying that if you do ketamine and all this time, you know, you're angry or you're resentful or you're what hostile or regretful or whatever, let's just take me on that. Let's say I drop all that. Let's say I'm nice to myself and I'm kind to myself and forgiving to myself, and I think about myself more than everybody else all the time. Like I have more balance. I'm not saying I want to become some narcissist, and you know, we all have those tendencies, obviously, but I don't want to be totally belly button gazing and thinking about myself all the time. But I definitely did not do that with raising the kids. I I put everybody in the house and the kids and everything first, and I didn't know what I didn't know. Um, but I didn't take care of me or my nervous system. I didn't process, you know, stress, trauma, issues. I just kept going. I I didn't know any better, right? So let's say I change at this, you know, retreat and I'm a different person when I come back. Well, then that means all the other people in my family are gonna have to act different or react different or respond differently to how I am. And um, so I think that's a very interesting dynamic that I've been thinking about as well. Not just, you know, me and and my past and where I'm coming from, but also what that could mean and what that could look like. I don't think it could be bad. I I I guess I'm thinking positively. I I feel like if anything, I have more anger and frustration and tension and all the negative thoughts. And I feel like I'm going to get more of the positive thoughts. I think um somebody once said, you know, be better, not bitter. And it's that's what I've been trying to do. But I think somewhere along the way, there's a country western song that says something like, don't blame her, life made her that way. I'm not saying, you know, we don't carry any responsibilities and you know, it's everybody else's fault, and blame, blame, blame. But I do think that our circumstances definitely have to do with how we feel, how we see, how we perceive. And I've I've always struggled with that. I mean, really, when people say, oh, well, you know, just it's it's not your circumstances, it's just, you know, how you feel and and think about it. I'm like, yeah, I always went back to um Schindler's list, this movie, and I thought about there's the scene. If you haven't seen the movie, it'll it'll change you. I mean, it's very, very stressful and it upset me for weeks after seeing it. It was very um, it's a harsh movie. It's about World War II and uh the concentration camps and people surviving, and it's just a really rough, rough uh show in that situation. I'm trying to drive drive and talk. It's been raining really hard this whole trip. Uh it's been almost an hour and it's been raining a lot. Um the thing is in that movie, there's this kid, and he's he's trying to escape the Nazis. He's just trying to survive. And he's like looking anywhere he can find for a hiding place because the the Gestapo, they're after him, right? And um he ends up going into the uh, I guess, you know, the shit house basically. And um, they're just like little bathrooms with, you know, you sit on, there's no plumbing or anything. And they're holes in the ground where, you know, and he realizes if they could come in there, they're gonna find him. But if he jumps down into the hole, he'll be okay. So this poor kid who's just, you know, trying to make his life better, jumps into the shit to find safety, and then he gets down there, and there's another kid who is mad and angry at him and tells him to get out of there and says that's his hiding spot. Don't have the exact words, but trust me, if you see this part in the movie, you'll know. And you're just like, you just feel so it's it's it's a horrible, horrible situation. But you can't. My point is in saying this, you can't say that somebody who's living in first-world country, like, you know, let's just take somebody living in Alabama, for example, or California, wherever in the United States, who has a car, who has a job, who has a house, or even an apartment, who has food in the refrigerator, you know, just has all these things, is living the same kind of life as a child in India who's, you know, scavenging for their food. I mean, I think circumstances do matter. I I think they do affect you. I mean, the whole, what is it? Zin, um, there's a decorating thing. I can't remember it, but it's um, what is it called? But it's basically feng shui, feng shui, that's it. Um, it's it's all about, you know, I think it's Japanese, but they talk about, well, if you place the bed here, or if you have this color on the wall, or if you have the sounds of water, you know, just how how you live and how you perceive and how you do in that environment, right? And I can definitely sit here and go back through my past and my life, and I can go, oh my gosh, I remember when I was dating Mark and we didn't have kids, and nothing really life was really easy. It was not too difficult at all compared to where it is now in my life. Um, all we had to worry about was, you know, making our our bills and and having fun, really. Um, there's so many great stories I have of of when we met and the things we did and you know, all these great things. It was a different situation and circumstance. And even though we didn't have hardly any money, I mean, I remember we actually dumpster dived a couch. Um, it was by the dumpsters, and that became my couch in my front room, and I made it a floral motif. You know, this is the early 90s. I made it a floral motif, and it looked so pretty. It was a big, big flowers all over that couch. I mean, now we would all think it's hideous, but back in the day I thought it was awesome. We just made the best of everything we had, and we were doing great, and that's all that mattered, you know? And now I look at it and I look at all the stress and all the frustrations and all the arguments and how we got to where we are talking about divorce now, which I never thought that would happen. Obviously, nobody gets married thinking that's gonna happen. But now I look back at it and I'm like, well, of course we're getting a divorce because we weren't on the same page with what we wanted for the future. We didn't have conversations about that, we didn't talk about values and morals and how we were gonna raise the kids. I mean, we were just we were doing the best we could at the time, but the best I could do at age 24 is very different from what I can do at 54. And I feel like um I'm willing to grow and develop and and change and do differently. And I don't think he wants to. I think he just is totally fine with status quo. And that's fine. He can be that way. That's that's fine. I just don't think that we have grown together. If anything, having the four kids estranged from us over the last three and a half years, it has really put such a stress and such a burden and such frustrations, and we weren't doing counseling. And I suggested we do a whole, you know, like let's go, kind of doing what I'm doing now, 10 days away myself, but that we do something. And he said, quote, I don't want to spend the time or money. So, you know, he gets to make his choices, I get to make my choices. I just think that our choices are not gonna align anymore, and it makes me sad. Um, but at the same time, I guess it kind of gives me relief because I think he's been wanting me to be somebody I'm not gonna be, and I've been wanting him to be somebody he's not gonna be. And I think when I married him, I thought he would grow up and change and be different, and that we would grow together, but I don't think that was ever his plan or purpose. And I don't think you can change people, and I think I should have realized that if I'm marrying him, this is who I'm marrying, and all of him the good, the bad, how he is, all that, and vice versa. He's that's what he's marrying with me. So I don't know if going to this thing would change me and our marriage so much. I I really I've said to a friend, it would have to be a miracle because right now we're yeah, he's sleeping upstairs, I'm sleeping downstairs. It's just, and I'm not going on this retreat to figure out how to stay married or how to have a work it out. I am not in the slightest. That is not my intention. Um, but if if it happens for some reason, then I'm not I'm open, is where I'm at. I'm open to whatever God has in store for this, you know, and whatever it is. I am just like extremely open with okay, is this gonna help my relationships with my kids? Is this gonna help my relationship with my husband? Is this going to solidify my feelings of we need the divorce and we've got to move on? I mean, I think there's so many thoughts and feelings about what that looks like, but going back to the analogy of the actors on the stage, I think that's it. At the end of the day, hopefully I come back and we figure out what the parts and positions and lines we want on stage, you know, of life. And and what that looks like, I have no idea. But you think about it too, anybody within the listening voice, you know, that you're hearing, we've all gone through ups and downs and struggles and sacrifices and problems and scenarios and health issues and deaths, and I mean that's just life. It's we all go through it, and this is just another step in mine. But the way my friends and other people have talked about it, it's like the opening and of a new chapter, if you will, a new script, a new start. And um, I think that's really cool. Anyways, that's where I'm at now. This is gonna be, I guess, the second episode, and I'm about an hour away, and the rain looks like it might clear up, maybe. I don't know. Um, but yeah, I'm headed there now, and I'll probably do another episode when I get there and view the room and all that, and uh, we'll go from there. All right, take care.