That Adds Up
Helping people understand themselves through powerful stories and unforgettable questions. Translating chaos into clarity.
That Adds Up
She Found Her Voice When Her Daughter Needed It
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What happens when a child who was never heard grows up to become impossible to ignore? Meg Booth shares the painful roots of her advocacy, from a childhood shaped by divorce, coercive religion, and being silenced, to the moment she turned that pain into action for her daughter and her community. Kristina Richie talks with longtime friend Meg Booth about the control, confusion, and emotional survival tactics that defined her early years in Texas. Meg opens up about growing up in a high-control religious environment, navigating a family breakup, and learning how to mask, question, and protect the people she loved long before she had the language to name any of it.You'll discover how those experiences shaped the way Meg parents, communicates, and fights for change today. She shares the story of her daughter Brylee, whose autism, bullying, and school neglect pushed Meg to learn special education law, document everything, and take a fight all the way to the Texas Education Agency, the Office for Civil Rights, and the state Capitol.We break down the real-world advocacy behind Brylee's Law, Meg's push to bring the Blue Envelope Program to Kerrville, and how she translated one terrifying experience into a practical tool that could help autistic and disabled drivers across Texas. Along the way, she explains why she believes anger can be fuel, why precision matters when you're misunderstood, and why advocacy is often less about yelling and more about strategy, documentation, and persistence.This conversation is for parents, advocates, educators, and anyone who has ever felt dismissed, mislabeled, or left to figure it out alone. If you need a reminder that your voice can become someone else's protection, this episode will stay with you long after it ends.
Meg Booth is a Texas-based disability advocate known for fighting school systems, pushing for legislative change, and helping families navigate special education rights. She is the creator behind the Blue Envelope Program effort in Kerrville and the driving force behind Brylee's Law. Kristina Richie is the host of That Adds Up, guiding a deeply personal conversation that connects trauma, parenting, and advocacy into one powerful story.Perfect for anyone who cares about autism advocacy, disability rights, special education, and the power of refusing to stay quiet.
Welcome to that ad zap, where every story matters, every life has meaning, and every conversation brings us one step closer to understanding. Translating chaos into clarity, one moment, one story at a time.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to that ad zap. I'm Christina Richie, your host, and today we have Megan Booth. Hello. Megan is a really good friend of mine. We've been friends for what? Almost probably 10 years already. Oh gosh. Yeah. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. When I first moved to Kerrville, is when I first met you. Yeah. And Megan is an advocate. We're gonna go into a whole lot about everything that she has advocated for over the years and why. But I'm gonna start out with tell me where you grew up and what childhood and all that stuff looked like for you.
SPEAKER_02Woo! It's darn heavy. So y'all look at this makeup now, screenshot it because there will probably be mascara and like just pulling down my makeup tissues. It'll be okay. Goodness. Okay, so where I grew up. So born and raised in Texas, um, started out in East Texas. Um I have three siblings, three sisters. There's four girls. Um, we moved to Kerrville, Texas when I was about eight years old. And I've been in Kerrville ever since. My mom and dad divorced when I was about 12. Um, and that, you know, obviously brings on a lot of pain and you know, confusion, especially at that age. It's a very like formative time of your life, like pre-teen years, you know. Um, so that was, you know, probably a big part of my childhood that I can still look back on and and feel, you know, a lot of heartbreak. Um, it's something I think a lot of people that come from divorced homes know like that that's kind of the pain's always there. Um, everybody hopes and wishes that, you know, their parents and stay together and their family as whole. And um, you know, I I think I I scathed through that a little less hurt than I probably could have, thankfully. Can't really tell you why. Um, and then my mom met my stepdad, who's not my stepdad anymore. Um, and I think that's where things got probably darker. Darker. Darker's a good word for it. So my stepdad was a preacher. So all you preachers, kids out there, I think you probably know how that can shape your life for the good and the bad. Said preacher slash stepdad was a wolf in sheep's clothing. I think that's a good term for it. There was, you know, a little bit of that culty element that kind of came into play. So my mom, I'm not gonna get into like her story, but she was adopted and she had a really, really hard upbringing and a really hard life, and was dealt a lot of really difficult cards, and vulnerable people falls, you know, they're more susceptible to things like manipulation, especially when it comes to religion. I think people who have struggled in life are seeking peace and seeking acceptance and and all of these different things. And I think it was for him, it was easy to kind of manipulate her. And we all were tricked, is how I like to say it. I think there was a lot of years where I could not be a normal teenager.
SPEAKER_00How long was it between your parents' divorce and then your mom mating the stepdad and then you guys like cohabitating?
SPEAKER_02So I want to say, and you know, this kind of my rough memory, right? So, like I want to say about a year after is when they like met. And then when I was halfway through my freshman year in high school, they got married. And at that time, too, he kind of broke away from a bigger church that he was a part of to start his own. He'd felt like God told him to start his own church, and that's fine, I guess. There was kind of this like, I'm the one who hears from God. I'm the one who makes the decisions, the final say. That there was a lot of that to it. So I think, you know, there was some I I call it trickery, you know, tricked my mom into kind of selling her businesses. She's always been very successful. Everything she touches, like flourishes in business. She's like the business guru, right? I think I was also fully invested in whatever this was. And it felt like, oh, we're trusting God here with our finances. No, wait, hold on.
SPEAKER_00Was religion a part of y'all's lives growing up with your mom and dad?
SPEAKER_02It was, but not at this like extremist kind of way that it then developed into. You know, I was in that like evangelical world where it was like purity culture was, you know, we've all learned, I think, now that it can be very toxic. I couldn't even like paint my nails black. I could it was demonic. I couldn't have a bad day because were you reading your Bible enough? Were you praying enough? I mean, there was a lot of that. And as a teenager, I was trying so hard to just find out who I was, and I didn't really get a chance to do that. I was always the one that kind of parented everyone around me. I wanted to make sure my siblings were okay, and I just kind of always took that role of mothering everyone. Where in the lineup are you as far as your siblings? So in biological siblings, I'm the second oldest. So I have an older sister and then two below me. And then when step siblings were in the picture, there were seven of us, and I was still second, so older than all of them but one. I grew up like the gifted and talented kid. I was real smart. School to me came so easy, and that led me to ask a lot of questions. I've always been neurodivergent. I just didn't know it at the time. I didn't learn that about myself until I was in my 30s. And I asked a lot of questions, which when you're in a church that's a little more extremist or, you know, a little, it was a cult. I'll just miss just say it, like stop dancing around it. They don't like the ones that ask questions. They don't like the deep thinkers, they don't like the free thinkers. And so I had to really learn to pull back, not be myself, to mask. If I asked too many questions, it was a problem. I would say that I kind of butt heads with my stepdad at that time the most because of that. To me now, like with my children, you know, I want them to ask questions. I want them to learn for themselves. I want them to experience everything. And I want them to be able to come to me and ask questions. I think as millennials, we come from like parents who always said, because I said so.
SPEAKER_00Obey, you know, yeah, no excuses, don't ask, and because I said so. Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And now we have kids that we're parenting them differently, right? We just ask questions. Like I want them to say, but why do I have to do that? So I can give them a real reason. And if I don't have a reason, then why am I making such a big deal of it? So I just had a lot of questions. Things just didn't always add up to me. That was where, you know, I really, I think probably around 17 years old, it was a bigger struggle for me to keep believing in what I was taught to believe in.
SPEAKER_00It was because I said so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because I just wanted answers. My brain needs information. I've learned that about myself. I just, it's not that I was being rebellious asking questions or that I wanted to try to trick someone or do a gotcha moment or something. I just wanted to understand things. You needed to complete the circle. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I'm the same way. My brain works just like that. Yes.
SPEAKER_02I I just need information, you know, and I wasn't allowed to do that. I wasn't allowed to get information or ask questions. It was frowned upon. Um I mean, our thoughts, the things we wore, the things we read, listened to, everything was controlled. And, you know, there's a reason for that. I spent my young adult years still just really confused about religion and about Christianity and about life in general. I was so confused and in so much pain and had just wished that like somebody had noticed or spoken up for me or stood up for me. And that is, I think, the deep root of why I became the advocate that I am today. I learned what not to do and what to do just by how I was raised, right? I think we all do. All of us, when we become parents, we take the things that we enjoyed about our childhood and then we take the things that we did not enjoy and we do differently, right? I I want my kids to do differently. I want them, I mean, they've told me how I've messed up already. They and and they're safe to do that with me.
SPEAKER_00The fact that they can tell you says a lot about your relationship. Yes. Because if they were not safe to do that, they would not tell you.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I think one piece of advice I could give to parents is listen to your children and learn how to say sorry. I think there are some parents that think, oh, if I say sorry, I've, you know, admitted that I fucked up. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm the worst parent on the face of the planet.
SPEAKER_02Right. And that's that's not it. We're human. Yeah. I mean, that this is something that, you know, I've seen recently in like videos or reels or memes or whatever where people say, like, we're all experiencing life for the first time. Our moms, our dads, we're they're all at stages of life that they're doing it for the first time. I don't expect perfection from my parents, and I don't want my kids to expect perfection from me. But if I do something that hurts them or I do something that they have questions about, I'm gonna say I'm sorry. We're gonna talk through it. I think that's extremely important. I have teenagers, three of them, and then my little one, but all three of them, I think I tell people all the time, like they're like, oh, the teenage years, right? I'm like, I love the teenagers. I really do. And people always say, like, oh, you know, just wait, you know, teenagers. What is that? Is that a threat? Like, just wait.
SPEAKER_00Like, here, I want you to be like, I want you to be so worried about their teenage years that I'm gonna tell you, oh, you just wait. I waited, and guess what? My oldest is 21. My second oldest is married, lives with her husband. I'm telling you right now, the teenage years were great.
SPEAKER_02I love the good kids. Yeah, they really are.
SPEAKER_00Even the ones that are not. No, even the ones, and I don't want to say that are not good kids because they're also good kids. Right. Okay. I don't think there's such a thing as a bad kid. I think there's a lot of misunderstood kids out there. I was one of them. I was one of them. And so I think I've always seen that in other kids. And I think some kids are just so deeply misunderstood that they like take it to the next level and they're doing things and saying things that are just, you know, amplified because they've got so much pain and they don't know what to do with it. Yeah. Right. And so that for me was always a thing when people were trying to warn me about teenagers. I've always connected so well with teenagers because I feel like I was that misunderstood kid. Yeah. I was the invisible child. Yeah. You know, I was the one that, like, for the longest time, I was the good girl because that's kept me under the radar. Right. And then something I had a switch just kind of flip in me in seventh grade when I changed schools and I just like lost my footing and my identity and all the things. And I just became this like crazy kid, and I was doing everything I shouldn't have been doing. And there's the difference between sixth and seventh grade for me behaviorally was like, whoa. Whoa. So when people say stuff like that, I'm like, it's it's a threat.
SPEAKER_02Are you trying to get it? I mean, maybe my youngest will be the one that finally does what everyone says. I don't know. But I mean, three out of four, I think you got pretty good odds. I mean, I I I think I've just allowed myself to give myself some grace and give my kids some grace because I think for so long I was in this very high control religion where there wasn't room for many mistakes. I always felt, like you said, misunderstood. I think even to this day, I'm probably very misunderstood. I think people see the advocacy work that I do and think, oh, she's has something else to complain about, or whatever that might be. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00For the record, I've never thought that.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Never once. I'm like, go make it go, girl.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't know. I think I all of this really does stem from a lot of just how I was raised. And that is no jab at my mother. Like, I think I made it very clear in the beginning, like she was in a vulnerable place and she has her own story to tell. I hope maybe one day she'll come on here and tell her story. Come on, girl. Right? I know. We're talking about how people, their lives, shape them into who they are and how they're able to be influenced by different people and different groups of people, right? And I just felt like one, I also was just very, like I said, controlled.
SPEAKER_00And silenced, I think. Silenced. I think silenced is a huge part of it because if you weren't allowed to think for yourself, if you had to do everything and comply and you weren't allowed to be you, it would make perfect sense as to how that child who wasn't allowed to have a voice now has a big one.
SPEAKER_02A big one. And I kind of got this like tough exterior that I tried, you know, I I'm working on every day. I'm in therapy, I've been in therapy for 13 years now. Like I think I'm always trying to just do better and I'm trying to dig into why I do the things that I do. That's that's I mean constant. I'm such a weirdo when it comes to, I just want to know why people are the way they are. Me too. That's why this podcast exists, literally. And I think that makes me a huge impact because there are people that can be so shitty. I'm talking just terrible. And I'm like, there's a reason that's me, girl. They're that way. Yes. And at the same time, I can I can, if someone pushes a certain button and I don't always always know what that is. Like, I can cut you off and never talk to you again. Or I can give you a hundred thousand chances. There's like no in between with me. One day I'll figure that out, right? And I think start logging it.
SPEAKER_00Like, I'm serious. You gotta find the pattern. I know. I'm so obsessed with pattern recognition, you know this about me. And that's that's like literally what I started doing was like triggers, right? Something that bugs me, or or a particular kind of person where I can, and I know what you mean about just be able to cut them off. There are certain people that it's like, okay, I was like really vulnerable with you, really good to you, and then you did something that was like not okay. And that's usually like trying to destroy a really close relationship with of mine, like my children or like somebody that I really care about. If you go after one of those relationships with me, guess what? Wall's up. You will never get back in here. Yeah, I will be cordial to you, and that's about it. That's all you're ever gonna get from me. You will never get back in. I can't ever allow access. And that's like a switch, I guess, you know. So totally guess 100%.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I I think like, you know, again, being silenced, also just being afraid to share my opinion, be so controlled that I kind of develop this like, don't tell me what to do. I mean, you can ask my my poor husband. My poor husband, he God, he's a saint. Shout out, Micah. I love you so much. He puts up with so much with me. I mean, well, you guys have been together a long time now. Yeah. How long? 14 years married for 11. So, I mean, we've grown together, developed together. I mean, he himself comes from a very, you know, strict religious. Well, he was Jehovah's Witness, right? Yes, yeah. And uh that came with its own different types of struggles too. So I think we've, you know, bonded over high control religion, you know, upbringings. And he has just has a way of just softening me because not many people can do that. I think I've got like my core group of people that just know how to speak to me and how to exist around me and how to let me be me and unmask in ways that just your average person couldn't, wouldn't. And outside of that, like I've kind of always got this like these like walls up where I'm just like, are you here for bad or good? I can remember in elementary school just feeling like, I didn't mean that. Why does nobody understand what I'm saying or how I'm saying it?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, being misrepresented in that way or somebody assuming my intentions or motivations draws me more than anything else. Do not tell me why I'm doing something. Do not say I just did that for attention when I didn't. Don't say that I did that because of this, that, and the other when I didn't. That is not why I did it. So don't tell me what my intentions were. You do not get to dictate that.
SPEAKER_02No, and I'm and I'm very like, I think some people who don't know me very well might think like, oh, she's kind of intimidating, or she might be like, I've heard people say that, like, they thought I was a bitch. And I'm like, I hate that because I don't want people to think that. But then on the other end, there's people who experience me completely differently and they think they can walk all over me. And so I've got this kind of like tough exterior up where I'm like, I'm gonna either cut you off, never talk to you again, or I want you to like me. And now if you're walking all over me, I'm just gonna say goodbye. Like, I've kind of got this like push and pull with people. Like, I'm scared and I let people in. I'm scared and I'll I just do this, right? And so it's caused me to just be louder uh at times. It's caused me to kind of be hyper-independent because if someone else is doing it for me, they might not have my best interest. So I need to kind of be in control of what's going on in my life, and that can be good or bad, right? I think that's just like a part of control of self.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like nobody gets a dictate. I don't want anybody doing it for me, also because I don't want anybody to claim that it was done for the wrong reasons, right? Like, I think all of that is like controlling your own narrative over self, but I've never seen you as a person who likes to control your entire environment. That's never been you for me. No, no, you're just like if it's me and it's my choice and it's my decision, I want to say so. Everybody else can go, go do what you want to do. We can coexist, I'm good with it, but just don't tell me what to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think that comes from years and years and years of being told exactly what to do and how to think and how to feel. And now I'm like, I'm gonna feel this way, and everyone around me is gonna just be okay with that because I'm in my 30s, finally being like, I'm in control of my life, right? And I I teach my kids too. Like, if you don't like something, you're allowed to speak up and say you don't like it. If you're being mistreated, you don't have to continue to be mistreated. You don't have to be quiet and endure pain and endure heartache and endure being treated like shit. You don't have to. You're in control of your life, right? I mean, for the most part. For the most part. With some boundaries in place, even as an adult, I can't just go out screaming at everyone that pisses me off, right? I mean, there are times I'd love to, sure. Um, and I think one thing about advocacy and what I've learned is it's not always yelling and screaming. Sometimes we have to kind of just think of it as like a job. So my oldest daughter, as you know, and I'll let everyone else know, has autism. I learned very early on that if I were to walk into her school when she was being bullied, right? And I were to just start yelling and screaming, where's that gonna get me? Is anyone gonna stop and listen? Is anyone going to take me seriously? Probably not. So I had to learn to kind of reel myself in, right? I think when we're so controlled, never allowed to really say much, and then we kind of go all the way the other way, right? Absolutely. That can work for anything. Yeah. Then we have to also learn to kind of rein it in. Right. And that's something that I got really, really good at. Yeah, you have to find the balance. Yes, because balance is extremely important. Because if I just went around being a bitch and yelling at people, I wouldn't have gotten to even a fraction of where I've gotten today. No, because nobody's gonna listen to you, you know?
SPEAKER_00And I learned that the hard way too. I remember when I first got on TikTok and I started making videos, and my goal is to be able to like speak to adoptive parents, like, hey, don't lie to your kids, right? Like that was the goal. I wanted them to hear me with that. Yep. And I am going and through my comments, and I've got all these adopted parents attacking me in the comments. And it was my delivery. Yeah, I was poking at things for them that were tender and sensitive without meaning to, but that's exactly what was happening. And it was because something was activated in me. Right. And I didn't realize that. And so that was the same thing. Like, I'm like, I was a kid that my parents lied to me. They didn't tell me that they were in contact with my birth mom, and then I found out that was a betrayal trauma, and that really impacted my life. So then I'm coming at these parents, like, don't lie to your kids, it was a delivery issue.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's, I think, where like you advocate for adopting this the whole process, right? Like, you've learned that everyone's involved has a story too. They all have a background too. And if we want to make change for whatever it is that we're trying to make change in, we have to be one, willing to hear everyone out, right? We have to be willing to do really, really hard things. And sometimes we can advocate until we're blue in the face and we get nowhere, right? And that's out of our control. And I think that's one of the most painful parts of advocacy work is you.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know it was already gonna get emotional.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Is you can like have done everything right.
SPEAKER_02You can talk to everyone you possibly can. You can scream it from the mountaintops, right? And then if nothing happens, you kind of have to be okay with that. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop the work I'm doing, right? It just may be that sometimes there's really painful moments in advocacy work because you care so deeply about the task at hand. And I think the main thing that I advocate for is autism and disabilities. And that's kind of where my life trajectory like took me is in this type of advocacy work. But at the same time, you've seen I've gone and advocated for a million other things. Yeah. And some people see it as, oh, she's found another problem. I'm like, well, if you look back in history, the reason we have some of the laws that we have and things in place is because there was people who just didn't shut the fuck up. And I get so tired of people being like, what at some point you're gonna have to just stop being so angry. At some point you're gonna have to just forgive. I'm sorry, but the anger that I have felt from things that happened to my daughter has really driven me to do the things that I've done and has now landed me at the Texas Capitol working on legislation, right? So I call it passionate anger. And I think every emotion serves a purpose, right?
SPEAKER_00Totally.
SPEAKER_02If we just try to just, well, don't ever feel angry, don't ever feel angry. Okay, well, then why am I getting angry? There's a purpose for these emotions.
SPEAKER_00See, and that's the thing for me too. I think that that is coming from an older person because the older generations were taught all emotions pretty much are bad and you're supposed to rein them all in, right? And that's not healthy. These emotions, they are a response. It is not something that you just fabricated and decided to feel anger or decided to feel sadness. It's like I use this all the time when I'm talking about emotions, right? You're driving down the road, you got your kids in the car. This actually happened to my brother's wife just a couple weeks ago, and somebody swerves into your lane and it's one lane in the opposite direction, going 70 miles an hour. You feel scared. You feel fear. Did you decide to feel fear in that moment? No, it was an automatic response. Now, what you choose to do, whether you choose to swerve or stay still and walk up, that's a choice. Yeah. Right? But your actual emotional response is not a choice. Anger is not a choice. I will say this though: a lot of times with anger, your first emotion is actually fear, right? Like your kid runs out in the middle of the road or you can't find them and they're lost for a minute, you're freaking out, and then you finally find them, and you're like, Why did you run away? You know what I'm saying? Terrified. You were terrified. Yeah, but it comes out as anger. So I think like lots of times those two things happen. I want to take you back a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because I'm curious. I I know some of your story from things we've talked about, but uh we've never talked about this in particular. So who were you close to growing up? Were you equally close with mom and dad until 12 when they got a divorce?
SPEAKER_02Um I was much closer with my mom.
SPEAKER_00Because I know that something happened after the divorce. And I remember when I met you, you were in no contact with your dad.
SPEAKER_02My dad and I have actually spoken a lot about some of some of what happened and what went down. Um, and he has apologized for just giving up and abandoning us the way that he did. He, of course, like I think most parents, you think back about situations and you're like, fuck, I wish I would have done differently or would have done better. I agree with him in his apology that he did not he didn't stick around. He should have. So did he just like move? He did. So he has he was around for a little while, not very long, and then he moved back to East Texas to be with family because my grandparents were there and all of that.
SPEAKER_00So was this because your mom's new husband was trying to like control everything? And so he was just like, I just can't deal with it anymore.
SPEAKER_02I think a little of both. I think that ex-stepdad was pushing for some of that, but that just saying that lets my dad off the hook, right? Because he made choices too.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02So I think it was definitely both. I think that there was a lot of that. And I I also think that my mom was very hurt by the things that my dad did. And that is something back then that you know, us as parents now in this day and age, like there's this big push on co-parenting when you can, right? When it's safe, when I think everybody should try, obviously. Co-parenting is the the goal, okay? It doesn't always work out, right? We both know that. Yes. But but that's that's the goal, right? So I think there was a little bit of of just a lot of adults with a lot of different history and a lot of different pain and a lot of different things trying to navigate something they've never navigated before. And that then affects the children, whether they wanted it to or not, or tried to let it or not, or whatever. I mean, there's me gonna giving everyone their benefit of the doubt because that's just who I am. I think everybody has a past. I love my mom and dad so much. I think at the same time they know they've made mistakes. They know, just like I know as a parent, my kids are still in my home and I've made a million mistakes, right? I wished my dad would have fought a little harder, but I don't know, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes. I've never cared to ask too much. Really? The girl that's always wanted answers. That's interesting. When it came to the divorce and like the that messier side, like I kind of knew some of what was going on. I'm not like completely oblivious, but I think there was like parts of me that I was like, in a way, I'm glad I maybe wasn't asking because it's stuff I probably really shouldn't have known anyway. You know, I I think that's another thing is like some parents through divorce are telling their children way too much. When you do that, your child doesn't feel like they can love the other parent the same or create some loyalty issue. Yeah, and that can be a problem, right? So I think part of me was like, I was really angry at my dad, and and my perception at that time was just like, oh, he left us. I didn't know, I don't, you know, uh that's just how I thought for years. So I I was no contact with him for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00What was it that actually made you go no contact? Was there an argument? Was it just like he stopped calling?
SPEAKER_02I think I was just sick of him not reaching out, him not taking us on the weekends he was supposed to take us. And it was just kind of always felt like we were an afterthought. I just got sick of it. I just got sick of it. And I I thought if I just cling on to new stepdad, right, that maybe I'll have I'll fill in that hole of like not having my dad, right? I have this vivid memory of him leaving. And my mom and me and my I think another one of my sisters had like chased him out to the vehicle. And I don't know what the where how the fight starts. I know nothing. I was little. I mean, I kind of have these like glimpses of of memories where he was he was leaving, and I think some of that pain just never really fully truly went away.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember like what you were thinking when he's leaving?
SPEAKER_02I was worried about my mom, even at such a young age.
SPEAKER_01And I was worried about my little sisters, and what kind of worries do you think?
SPEAKER_02I don't even know. I was so little, I don't know. I think I just wanted everyone to be okay.
SPEAKER_00Was there like a big fight? Like, do you remember a big fight or anything like that?
SPEAKER_02I just remember him getting things together, and I don't remember this huge blow up. Again, I just kind of bits and pieces of it, and then him getting in his truck to leave, and and that's like this just memory that I have, this like core memory from early childhood. I think I was again like maybe nine, eight, or nine years old at that time. My baby sister was a baby. Um, and after that, my mom had decided, okay, well, I'm gonna have to figure this out on my own. She was putting my little sister in a little baby backpack and asking the apartment manager if she could wash windows. And then she ended up starting her cleaning business. My mom has made it through a lot of hard shit and figured out a way to turn it around and not complain. I think that was something that I saw her do a lot, even when her and my ex-stepdad got their divorce, but I was an adult at that time. Just kind of seeing her go through these really hard things and knowing a little bit about her past and and the stuff she'd already faced. Having me and my older sister in her teens and then having already been through what she'd been through is absolutely just crazy to me. Like I don't know that I could.
SPEAKER_00So your mom was a teen mom?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Yeah. Okay. So she was an adoptee and she was a teen mom. Yes. And then she goes through this marriage, which she it seems like she was married to your dad for a hot minute because you guys are, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12 by the time they got divorced. So they were together for a minute.
SPEAKER_02They were.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And then she's now life completely changes. Now she's washing windows and starts a cleaning company out of it. Just literally like lemons into lemonade. Oh, right. Literally. I've watched her do that for years. Like she'll take something and just create something out of nothing. She's really good at that. Yeah. Yeah. And I I see a lot of you in that with her because you definitely are like the spearhead. Like, we're not, we're not just staying right here, we're gonna go for it. I've seen so much of it.
SPEAKER_02And I think my mom too has learned that I'm that way, like her too, when things are kind of chaotic, you know, like with this recent flood here and and her losing one of her businesses and all of that. Like, I just kind of show up and just start, okay, you do this, you do that, here's how we're gonna organize. Like, that's just who I am, and that's how my mom has always been. And I think our trauma response is to just we we don't sit in sulk.
SPEAKER_01No, me and my mom do not do that.
SPEAKER_02We are just go-getters. We're like, let's get up. Now, I may have my crash out a few days later. Or a few hours later. Just depends. It just depends on what's happening. Um, yeah, and then I like I've seen her do that, and I think I am a lot like her in that way too. We are very much alike and different all at the same time. Like, I think you know. Oh, I know. Yeah, we're like total opposites and then exactly the same in so many ways. Yeah, for sure. And there were times in life that we've butted heads because of that, which I'd say me and Briley kind of do that too. We're so much alike and so different in so many ways. That yeah, that's the only thing. Like, but God, I love the teenage years. I do going back to that.
SPEAKER_00So, wait, hold on. So, back to teenage years of yours, the divorce happens, mom gets with pastor, and then now pastor becomes the stepdad, and you have three step brothers, right? Was it three step? No, two step brothers, one step sister. Yeah, I knew that. Okay, so then you got three step siblings, there's seven kids in the house. I'm sure that that had to be interesting on a pastor's salary. The memory of dad, dad leaving, right? You feeling, I'm guessing, did you feel left behind? Or did you just feel like just abandoned? Like, how would you describe that?
SPEAKER_02Abandoned.
SPEAKER_00Just abandoned.
SPEAKER_02And it it wasn't so much just me. I I was like, me and my sisters.
SPEAKER_00I was like, like, why are we not worth it to you? Yeah, yeah. I know that feeling. Yeah. So all right, so why are we not worth it to you? I want to know how that particular experience coupled with the next couple of years, shaped how your your relationships, your adult relationships. Because I know we have some similarities in that.
SPEAKER_02So at 18, I still was kind of under this like impression that I couldn't really like leave and go kind of be on my own and start life. There was a lot of things that ex-stepdad kind of said and did and and controlled that it didn't feel like I could leave. It felt like every decision I made was the wrong decision. It felt like it wasn't what God wanted for me or or whatever, what have you. And I would leave and like pack up all my things in the middle of the night and like go stay with a friend. And they would be, why what's going on? Why aren't you coming home? And I'm like, well, I'm an adult, right? And I would meet people that are like, you're 18, you're 19, whatever, like, why just leave if you want to leave? Right. But I don't think a lot of people in my life have understood the control in that church and in the home from him and how severe it was at times. And give me an example. I was in high school, public school, and then it was kind of like pushed on me to homeschool, which there were parts of me that was wanting to do that. I think I was, I was always a little bit of a weird kid. And so, like, homeschool wasn't like a totally off-the-table idea. But I think looking back, if I would have been able to have made more decisions for myself, I probably would have stayed in public school looking back. But so for instance, school, I homeschooled. Didn't really want to do that my last two years, barely made it through because undiagnosed ADHD, whatever else. And then I decided I was gonna go to cosmetology school. That was what I wanted to do. But there was a lot of, well, who are you hanging out with there, or just seeing the people there and like don't really like those people. They have tattoos, they stay away. Sure, all of the things, right? I didn't feel like there was anything that I chose to do where it was like, you're gonna be successful, you've got this.
SPEAKER_00It was like couldn't do anything right, couldn't make any decision. You're just highly, highly critical.
SPEAKER_02It felt like he just thought that everything I did was not godly enough. I mean, and that was everything. I felt like I could not make any fucking decision without it being ultra controlled. Everything. I mean, I was even going to my old church youth group, and that wasn't allowed at Because it wasn't his church. It wasn't his church. Every friend I made, it was like, let's get to know the friend. It was, well, where do they go to church? When are you gonna invite them to our church? I think sometimes maybe I don't even I don't even realize how controlled it was until I start talking out loud like this. But like I mean, I ended up quitting cosmetology school. Everything I I tried to do, it just wasn't enough, right? It wasn't what God wanted me to do. The the goal was for me to just work in the church, keep playing piano for the church, do all the things in the church, and there was like not much room for anything else. And if we wanted to do anything else, it was like, well, why? Who are you around? It was like this this interrogation of like what I was doing in my free time, you know? So I didn't get a lot of think-for-myself moments, and so that's a lot of why I don't like being told what to do now. I'm like, I'm gonna make my decision. So when I met my oldest child's father, um, I was just waiting tables at a restaurant. I'd moved in with a friend, and there was a lot of like prayer going on. Uh I was kind of like the prodigal son kind of story, like come back kind of thing. And I was like, okay, whatever. So I think the hardest thing was I was 20 years old at this point, right? And I'm still in fear of every decision I make, right? So having premarital sex is like the worst fucking thing you can do. Well, I did it. Sure did. Shame. Shame got pregnant. At 20. At 20. At 20. Wow. I wasn't 15 or 16 or 7. I was 20. So I, in a way, I was like, I remember finding out I was pregnant and being terrified. Oh yeah. Like, how am I gonna tell my parents? It felt like I was 16 years old having to tell my parents. I couldn't feel the excitement that I truly felt. And I don't know that I've ever really like talked about this, but there was a part of me that was so excited to be a mom.
SPEAKER_01And I knew that I was gonna love this little girl with everything inside of me and give her a life that she could grow up and feel like she didn't have to recover from it, right? Like, I just wanted to be a mom so bad.
SPEAKER_02And I think that like the excitement of that kind of got taken away, you know, in the beginning. When I was pregnant with her, I was writing a lot of letters to her. She still has them in a little baby box with all her little like onesies and all her little first things and sonogram photos. And I gave her this little baby box a couple years ago, and I'd written all these letters to her. And in one of the letters, like I I wrote that, you know, I promised her that I would always stick up for her, that I would always advocate for her, that I would always be here for her. And that's the promise that I made to her, and I have to this day made sure that I have followed through on those promises. And I remember when I when I had her and like holding her for the first time and just looking at her face, and like something deep in me just said, like, this little girl is so special, and she's going to change the world. Every room she walks in, people are just going to smile. And everyone that knows Braille now knows that is exactly who she is. It's always been that way. It was something me and my mom both said, like, my mom felt it. And at the same time, knowing that her biological father was not going to be in the picture. When did that happen? I had moved out of my friends and moved back home. And I while you were pregnant? I didn't know that I was pregnant just yet.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Whoa, hold on. So you found out that you were pregnant while you were living at home? Yes. Had you already like broken it off with this guy? Yes. Oh, was he a boyfriend or was he just like boyfriend? Just boyfriend. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. So you did you find out at your parents' house that you were pregnant?
SPEAKER_02Um, I I'm trying to remember if I took the test at home or I went somewhere else. But I was so scared for anyone to find the packaging or anything. Oh yeah. I was terrified.
SPEAKER_00How did you tell your parents and how did that conversation go?
SPEAKER_02I told a couple friends first. I didn't even really want my friends to know. I was so scared. I didn't know who I could trust, especially friends in the church. What were you scared of? I didn't want to let anyone down. I think when you're a pastor's kid too, there's this huge like reputation of you've got to be this family that everyone image the image. Yeah. And I didn't want to embarrass anybody. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to be excited and it looked down upon that I was excited. I didn't want anyone to be mad at me, truly. And I still kind of live life that way. Like I just don't want people to be mad at me. I don't like when people dislike me because I feel like, but why? Can we talk it through? Me too. And I've met so many people who are I've met so many people who are just horrible at communication. And I'm like, can we just talk it through? Like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I just like you would really like me if you just give me a chance.
SPEAKER_02Like if somebody would just sit and listen to to my story and just listen to why I am the way that I am, I I often feel like I would be more understood and I would have more people in my life that understood like why I am the way that I am, and and I would have all these friends, and I, you know, whatever. I'm so and I'll advocate for you. Like quite literally, I will go all the way to wherever I gotta go to make sure that you know you're getting what you need. Like, I just is who I am as a person, and it's because I think there were so many times in my life that I was not getting that. And I needed it, and I needed someone to speak up for me so many times. And that's why I do what I do today. I ended up telling my my stepdad at the time first. I don't know why, to be honest with you. I was gonna say that's wild. Don't know why. I I think he it was like kind of like an impulsive thing. Like he was outside cleaning his truck or something, and I went there and I said, I need to tell you something. And he looked at me and he goes, Are you pregnant? He just knew. I don't know how. It was very strange. Odd told him.
SPEAKER_03Sorry.
SPEAKER_02I didn't. Draker.
SPEAKER_03I'm just gonna, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02I did it. So I mean, he was like, Well, I'm gonna tell your mom. And I was like, Okay. And I remember him giving me this like big hug. And I was just like, This is going differently than I thought it would, right? And then he and my mom had a separate conversation. Couldn't tell you how that went. But then we all had a conversation. I think it was like later that evening or the next day. I'm trying to remember. And it just was so awkward because I was over here, like now, like, okay, we're this like church family, and your daughter leaves the house, comes back, now she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_00Did you also have no tattoos at this point?
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, when I was 18 and I left, I had gotten my first tattoo. There's your little like rebellious moment. Like, it was like a hidden one on my back. So I was like on my sh back of my shoulder, and I was like, a little secret rebellious thing I did, right? And now I have tattoos everywhere.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um and her husband is bird husband.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yes. It's so funny, full circle. Right. So I mean, I I that conversation was just like awkward because I was over here too, like, oh my god, my my parents are I mean, how do you get pregnant? Like now everybody knows I've had sex. There was so much shame around sex and that purity culture kind of thing, too. That like that was already hard enough for me. And then, you know, having been through situations too where the sexual abuse that I experienced, there was some of that. So I mean, I just have a very twisted view of all of that anyway. So I was always very uncomfortable having conversations with anyone about any of it. My first gynecology appointment was I was pregnant, so I was like terrified. I mean, terrified. At the same time, very excited.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I just wanted to be a mom. And finding out I was having a little girl. I mean, that was just at first I thought I really wanted a boy. That was me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I found out was a girl, and I was just like, it's gonna be me and you, little one.
SPEAKER_00So how old was Briley when you met your son's dad?
SPEAKER_02Uh she was barely a year old. Okay. Barely a year old. I had started like some online school too. I was still doing the whole like, I don't know what I want to do with my life thing. And so there was a lot of that. And then like the second I would get male attention, it was like, okay, here we go. Like, you know, I just I kind of do know a little bit of the pattern. I mean, I had not great experiences with fathers in my life. And I, I mean, to be honest, I just wanted that attention. I did. I really did. I think you wanted to be seen. I wanted to be seen.
SPEAKER_00I don't think it was just attention. I think attention is such like a superficial word. It is. I've known you for a long time. I'm just gonna say, like, I don't look at you as an attention whore at all. No, I look at you as somebody that wants to be deeply seen and understood and hurt.
SPEAKER_02Seen and understood. Yeah. And that's one thing like my husband knows too. Like when I feel misunderstood, it's the most painful thing. You too.
SPEAKER_00Oh my.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it brings me such pain. I just want people to understand me. Same. I often feel like I'm maybe just difficult to understand. Like that's kind of the thought process that has like, oh girl. I know. I know. I know.
SPEAKER_00So that's why I guarantee you that we've all through the same thing now that you just said that, because that just like clocks for moving time. But like you know how like you already have like everything lined up in your head, ready to go, all of the evidence, like all of the all of the things, and you're like so careful how you say things. The accuracy matters so much because you're so scared that somebody's gonna misinterpret what you said and start to use it in front of the reason.
SPEAKER_02Me too. And then I can be so fucking careful and still somebody be like, I didn't, or why did you say it like this? Or I didn't mean it. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, that's not what I meant. That's not what I meant. That's not what I meant. That's not what I meant. Like, it drives me nuts if somebody doesn't understand. I like you said earlier, I don't like people to misrepresent my intention because I truly um here's the thing about me too. If somebody ever tells you, like, she's a bitch, your first thought shouldn't be like, oh my God, why is she? Your first thought should be, well, what did you do? Exactly what I was saying. My intentions are always so pure. And I think that is another like thing about advocating that's gotten me to where I can just like say what I mean, mean what I say, and I try to be as blunt as possible so nobody can misinterpret what I say. And in advocacy work, you gotta do that. You have to be like, you have to just say it, right? You have to be for it. Yes. And I feel like when I'm misunderstood, I just I feel like I'm losing control. Same. Oh my god, same. It makes me feel like I'm just like falling apart. Yeah, because it'll eat at me for days, like, oh my god, they thought I meant this. That's not what I meant. Right. That's not what I meant. It's not what I meant. I'm an over-explainer. Me too. Because I don't want anyone to Are you a dweller? Oh.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. The conversations just go and go and go in my head. All night long, I'm like, oh my God, I hope, oh, I sounded so stupid. I hope they didn't think, oh my gosh, you know, like I'm just a thousand percent.
SPEAKER_02I think I think about a social, a social situation for like weeks. Me too. Weeks. Yeah. Like, did I say something wrong? Yes, and I'm talking in a couple weeks. Like, did I do something wrong? Like, I mean, I my mind will just go crazy. I just want to be understood. Like, that's the biggest fucking thing. I think people who maybe didn't, who maybe know me, but just at a more a more surface level are probably like, you know what? She's not. It makes sense. She's not just out here being a Karen. No. I'm advocating for like real shit. Like real injustices. I hope it comes across that way. And I think for most people it does. Because anytime somebody else needs something, guess who they're calling or texting? Oh, of course. They're calling me. And that's fine. I want them to. I do. If somebody has an issue, I'm like, let me help. Yeah. Especially when it comes to your special needs children and disability rights and those things. I'm like, I live, eat, and breathe disability advocacy. I do. I mean, I want people to understand that I love what I'm doing and that I want people to come to me when they need an advocate because that's who I am and not be scared of me. I promise I'm not scary. Like I'm just passionate, very passionate.
SPEAKER_00So what's funny is like you come across as incredibly quiet, and then you see like your stuff online and you're like, hold on a second. This is not the same person.
SPEAKER_02When people get to know me and they're like someone I feel safe with, and I can like open up and unmask and kind of just be me. Like, shout out to my friends who know. When other people are like, oh, she's so quiet, they're like, what the fuck? Yeah, no. When? Where?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, I'm actually like really fucking weird and loud and annoying and goofy. And like, I've gotten really good with just how I was raised to read rooms. Oh, yeah. That's just, but I'm not shy. Not even a little bit. I'm really not. I'm not shy at all. I can handle a a room, a social situation better and as good as the rest of them, right? I just have to take my time, read the room. I can like pinpoint my safe people. You know what I mean? Like that person I can I can be myself with. That if I don't feel like I can be myself, I'm gonna shut down.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's what I do. And I'll be quiet and I'll be the one in the corner of the room. You won't even know that I'm there. And like I don't think anybody would probably describe me as a quiet person.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or like an introvert. Because that's just not me. But if I if I am in a room like that, and I'm the same way hypervigilant as Paul Get Out, right? And I scan that room, oh yeah, and I don't feel welcome here, or I feel like you know, somebody doesn't like me here, you won't know I'm there.
SPEAKER_02I like to say I'm the most extroverted introvert you'll ever meet. Girl, that could totally be me too. Yes. Because I am. I mean, I've I can go and speak at the at the state capitol in front of 3,000 people and then have to like talk in front of five people and want to like throw up. That's me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just depends on who I'm around and what I'm doing and how passionate I am about it. Yep. I mean, outside of that, like I'm just I can be like, oh my God, I don't even want to be in a Walmart right now. But you put me in front of like thousands of people with a microphone and something I'm passionate about, I'm still gonna cry and I'm still gonna be shaking. But one of the things I'd heard one time, a quote that said, speak your mind, even if your voice shakes. And I've kind of like held on to that. I think I even say it before a lot of my speeches because I want people to know like my voice is gonna shake. I'm going to cry. I'm going to get emotional. I'm going to be nervous as fuck.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I'm still speaking, right? And that's something that took me a while to do. Because I wasn't really allowed to say what was on my mind.
SPEAKER_00No, but you were taught how to push through fear.
SPEAKER_02Oh, sh sure was. You were. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so I think that that is something that you honed from childhood that was probably not a positive in childhood, but you turned it into a positive in adulthood, and that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Because you were literally told, like, hey, we're going to be terrified, but you're going to have to do it anyways. Oh, yeah. Right? Like that was that was your childhood. Telling your your stepdad that you were pregnant, you pushed through fear. Yeah. You just said it, right? Yeah. And it didn't work out as negatively as you thought that that was going to. And so that probably helped a little bit because it was shocking.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I was in a fear-based religion. It was like, if you're not going to be able to do that, I went to that church, I could say that. Yeah. I know. I'm like, you know, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it was years after like he was already out of my life, too, that I would still like call people. And if I didn't get a hold of them, like my mom or my sister or whoever, and I would they wouldn't answer the phone. I thought, well, the rapture happened, I've been left behind. Like, oh my gosh. Real fear about that. Wow. I mean, there's still a little bit of that, not so much. I've really come a long way, but people don't realize how controlling like some of these religions are. And I hope people aren't seeing this as like I'm just shit talking religion. I'm shit talking the church, like this church, to and in high control religions. Because it can be very damaging. I've had to do a lot of work to get to where I am today. I was constantly scared of like getting left behind. I was scared of going to hell. I was scared of getting struck by lightning. I was scared of this. I was, I mean, terrified. Go back. Okay.
SPEAKER_01First, the first one that came out of your mouth. You were scared of what? Being left behind? Yeah. Yeah. Still to this day. For a different reason.
SPEAKER_02Metaphorical reason.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When you say that, all I can think of is that little girl running after her dad's truck.
SPEAKER_02Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And oh the way that I would grab that little girl today and hug her so tight and tell her that everything was gonna be okay, that we were gonna find our voice, and we were going to be a voice for others, and we were going to be just fucking fine. When I think about little me, I look at my babies and I are not babies anymore. And I picture like I would talk to them and how I would hold them and how I would let them know that they're safe and secure and they have a safe place to fall. I think people can kind of probably see that there's a reason I've put walls up, but there's also a reason that I advocate the way that I do and that I go so hard the way that I do. I want it so badly. And you're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about. For my kids to not face trauma, heartbreak, like my whole goal in life was like it was an unrealistic expectation on myself, like make sure they never experience bad things, make sure they never experience trauma. And unfortunately, they have because that's life, and that's something I had to really, really work on in therapy. Things that would happen to them that were out of my control ate me alive. I hated it. I hated that my kids had to experience some of the things that they have too. I mean, I would say definitely nothing like I experienced, but still some heavy stuff. And that has been something that like I've had to kind of release that I could not control every aspect of their life, just like I was controlled in a certain way. I didn't want to do that to them. So they had to experience life, and things happened to them that were just, like I said, completely out of my control. And my biggest fear was them having to one day need therapy because they had a traumatic childhood. And when things happened to them, I felt like a failure. I felt like I didn't speak enough, like I didn't do this enough or that enough. And I felt like if they're having to experience traumas, then what did I do wrong? Right. That was like something I thought for a long time, and I still a little bit battle with that, even in doing the advocacy work that I do. There are times that I look back at like the things Briley went through and has gone through as you know, a person with autism. And I've thought, what could I have done differently? What could I have said, or what could I have done that would have changed some of what's happened to her? And knowing damn well there's nothing I could have really done differently.
SPEAKER_00Tell me, tell the audience, tell everybody that's listening about Riley's situation with the bullying. Because I know that bullying was like a really, really big deal with her and how you kind of like got into this. You were fighting the the school board and like everything, right? So give me like a short version of that because I think with what I'm hearing is like I find it kind of ironic that the little girl who grew up without an advocate feeling incredibly misunderstood had a child that in society is incredibly misunderstood.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think that that could be fueling so much of the heart behind it for you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, a hundred percent. We knew she had ADHD early on, right? There was always something else that I knew was different. I knew there were things about her development that were different. Everything from being able to fully read at three years old to just some of the behaviors she had that I was like, there's more going on than ADHD, but that's all we knew at the time. She didn't have at first the typical autism symptoms, right? I think for people who don't know much about autism, they think like, well, if they can talk, it's not autistic. They make eye contact, they're not autistic. There's so much misinformation out there. And for me as a mom, I had to almost be convinced at a certain point in time that she was she had autism because I was like, Well, I don't see all those things. And then I learned what autism actually is and how it affects girls differently than boys. And so she got teased a lot. I mean, kids called her annoying, they didn't want to be friends with her. She found it very hard to fit in. There would be time we'd go to like open house at the school and her desk is against the wall facing away while everyone else is in groups. I mean, things like that. As moms, we pick up on everything, right? And I remember a time my husband and I went to Riley's like Christmas party at school. And I noticed all the kids in class were Briley, stop doing that. Riley, you're supposed to be doing this. Riley, it felt like that had been modeled for that. Absolutely, it had. Like the teacher had been constantly on her case in front of everyone, and rather than let's try to meet and talk these things through, or let's try to find ways that help Briley rather than constantly on her case. So Briley kind of was constantly corrected, constantly being told micromanaged. Yes. And you know how much you have hate that. I hate that. Yes, yes. And and there were times, and I'll say it right here for the whole world to hear, I have not always been a perfect parent. Have not. Still am not, right? I would do the same thing at home sometimes. Like, yeah, wait, you need to stop doing that. Hey, you need and I wasn't trying to dim her light. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00You might not have even noticed you were doing it until you heard those kids doing it.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And then you were like, I remember leaving that Christmas party, as silly as it sounds, devastated. I thought, this poor baby, all she hears is stop doing this, don't do that, do it this way, sit still, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, man. My eyes were really opened. And I knew at that point, like, okay, things have got to start happening differently, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I mean the only thing that she's she's hearing, really, I think, is something's wrong with me. Yeah. Because if everybody's always getting on to me at home, at school, everything, like I'm obviously very different. Yeah. Right. And like that's really hard on any of that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, a lot of people in her life, and even I have said it at times, we always say that Riley's so resilient. And I I love that about her. And at the same time, I hate that she has to be. I hate that she's had to be. It's like people just wouldn't give her a break, you know? And so fifth grade kind of comes around, and everyone knows once you get into fifth, sixth, seventh, and middle school type, you know, it gets harder, especially with girls. It just gets harder, and she just got picked on even more. And there was a situation where one girl it it fell into harassment. We pulled Riley out of school, we had to contact police because it continued into the summer with Golly. I mean, it just got to be up uh to a point that we were like begging. I I mean, we even reached out to this person's parents. I would have too. And I was like, we're doing everything we can to make this stop. This now falls on you. And the conversation went well, but nothing ever really happened, right? And we pulled Wiley out of school and we homeschooled her the rest of that year. Well, sixth grade is when all the elementary schools came together, and she really wanted to go back to school. She knew a couple kids from other schools that she would now be with, and so we're like scared, right? Like, let's just put her back in school and see what happens. Sixth grade was one of the worst years. It was like every day. I mean, it was to a point the counselor had a binder in the office that had Riley's name on it. And because Riley had to report bullying so much, they made a binder so she wouldn't then get made fun of for going and and tattling or calling her a snitch or and she would write all the bullying things down, right? We had so many meetings with the school. They did not give two shits about working with us and and helping to fix this problem. I still to this day have every email, every documentation you could possibly imagine saved in a hard drive.
SPEAKER_00Like I But we're talking about the same exact school district that literally had the anti-bully gang show up at one of their elementary schools, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Exactly. Riley was then coming home and saying, please don't make me go back to school. Please don't make me go back to school. Please don't. And so I'd get mad and I'd show up in the morning and I wouldn't even give them a chance to set up a meeting with me. I was like, Y'all don't have time to prepare. We're meeting when I want to meet, and I would show up and we would meet. There weren't many weeks that would go by that at least once a week I was up at the school or emailing or or calling and learning that I just had to document every last little thing. She was being called the R word. Oh she was being called just horrible names, horrible names. She was being treated so terribly.
SPEAKER_01And I remember she came home one day and I she was like like sitting on the kitchen floor sobbing, and I'm asking her what I can do, and she said she said, I can't please just please don't take me back. I don't want to live anymore.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01And I I had to take my baby to the hospital.
SPEAKER_02She didn't want to live anymore. And I said, You don't ever have to go back to that school again. You're not going back. And I withdrew her the next day and I homeschooled her again. But this time I knew I couldn't just take her out and let it let it be, right? So I posted just a little snippet of what had happened, right? And I I remember that post. It went viral. The superintendent at the time, they have a different superintendent now, but the superintendent at the time had reached out to me and was just deeply saddened to hear this story. And you know, things don't get back to a superintendent unless you kind of get it there, right? And I had people from the school board reaching out to me, incredible people that didn't want any of this happening either. And the superintendent at the time had asked, like, how can we work together? I don't want this to be, I don't want this to happen to anyone else in our schools. And he was genuine, I'm telling you, genuine. We talked, he he had everybody in the district get some anti-bully like training and additional things kind of started and in place. And I thought, okay, they're working with us, right? Riley can go back to school in seventh grade, and and and we'll see. I was terrified, obviously. She'd already been through so much. As all of this is happening, too, we're trying to figure out. I like I said earlier, there was something I knew was different. And I was talking with her doctor, and he was the first one to kind of sit me down and say, I think she needs to be evaluated for autism.
SPEAKER_00Whoa, she didn't even get an evaluation until she was in middle school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow. She because she presents like a high functioning girl, which they present very differently. She had these social deficits, like they're kind of on this trajectory of like, we're all improving together, and then Riley just kind of plateaued. And that's like kind of common in girls with autism, especially. And so her doctor having a daughter with autism, it was like Like you kind of see the writing on the wall. And I was like, no, there's no way. Like it took me time to kind of learn about it and come back to the table and say, okay, let's let's get her an autism evaluation. It took me a while. I mean, I also was I was grieving a little bit. I I knew how hard and how cruel the world had already been to her, and I didn't want things to get worse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then I had to remember like her getting a diagnosis doesn't change who she is. One day she was there and no autism diagnosis. The next day we left with an autism diagnosis, but she did not change. She was still the same. She's still Briley. Still Briley. I had to grieve a little because I learned so much all in a very short period of time. I had to sit with that diagnosis for a little bit and soak it in and learn very quickly that this is not a death sentence. This doesn't mean that her life will be any harder or any easier than it already is. It just is. And that this didn't change who that bright, beautiful little girl was. Not even a little bit. It's actually, in fact, exactly why she is the way that she is and why she's so loved. If all these bullies could see her now, I mean, they put her through hell. And I spent so much time at the school, so much time on the phone, so much time emailing it. It it it took time time away. Oh, it sure did. On top of, now we're we're in seventh grade, right? And she's got her autism diagnosis. I request an evaluation with the school. So they have their own educational evaluation they do in order to put kids on an individualized education plan, right?
SPEAKER_04Let me guess. They say she doesn't have it.
SPEAKER_02Well, so I made that request on November 13th. And for all you IEP people out there, you'll know they've got so much time to respond and then so much time to evaluate. Right. They didn't even start the evaluation until end of February. Whoa. We ended up having to hire a special education advocate. And I didn't even know at the time, like I was just learning that these existed, right? Yeah. And I was like, this is what she's been through since elementary school. This is where things went wrong here. She had a 504 plan in place that actually we signed off on at the end of her sixth grade going into seventh grade year. No, seventh going into eighth grade year, and they didn't implement it. So we had all these things just they're not doing right. They're not, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. And so I'm like learning that when you have a child with special needs and they need to be in special education services or anything, you better quickly learn how to fucking advocate, or you are gonna be left in the dust. I it, like you said, consumed me. I began studying and learning and diving so deep. I know more about special education law than I ever fucking needed to. And I became so well versed in it and never thought that that's that was gonna be my life. Like I thought, yeah, I'd have to speak up and I'd have to. It became a fight for her life. I think at the end of that year, I had just seen so many things happen that went directly against the law, right? She started her ABA therapy. They told us that she could not do ABA therapy and graduate. They were marking them as unexcused absences, even though Texas Education says that ABA must be an excused absence. I have every little bit of proof. If I got on the phone with somebody, right, say they called me to talk about some kind of bullying situation. You know what Megan Booth was doing immediately? Emailing afterwards saying, thank you for our phone call today. Here's a brief synopsis of everything we discussed. Please respond so I know you received this email because I wanted there to be a paper trail. I didn't want anyone to ever question me, question her, nobody to misunderstand me, to not believe me. I was so careful and I was at times obsessive. It almost ruined me. I was like, my baby has been, she's being bullied so badly. She was assaulted at school twice. It was on camera. Like, there are so many stories I could get into, but just everyone should know. My baby was bullied relentlessly. And there were a lot of administrators and teachers and adults around her that could have stepped in and did not. And that is half the fucking problem. So I'd had all these years of just saved information and how bad it had gone. And speaking with my special education advocate who also worked for a special education attorney. So it was kind of one of those things like we work with our advocate, and then if the attorney has to step in at some point, they will, which was kind of nice to kind of always have that like safety net, right? And make sure we're doing things the right way and all of that. And my advocate had said, I think the next step is for you to go ahead and meet with the superintendent, send an email. Her goal in advocacy work, especially with schools, is not to burn a bridge, right? We want to sit down and come together and do what's best for the child, just like in co-parenting. You kind of look at it that way, right? The goal is to try to come together so that way her education is saved and that everyone can get along for the sake of her. Um, we set up a time to meet, and I remember going in and the superintendent actually didn't show up to the meeting. What? It was the assistant superintendent, which, okay, okay, I get it. They're busy, right? They said, you know, we read your email and um we we see your concerns, and we have some concerns of our own. Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
SPEAKER_00Now here goes the flipping of the script, and guess what they're doing? They are triggering your deepest wound, which is you are telling me what my intentions are. Yep.
SPEAKER_02And I said, okay. What what would those be? And they immediately brought up her absences. I said, I mean, you can you can say all of this until you're blue in the face, but I know legally what her excused absences are and what they're not. I don't think you guys have understood at all what I've been saying this whole time. The papers I brought you, the information from my advocate. Like, I'm over here just like, okay, well, I'm here because my daughter has been hospitalized twice for wanting to end her life because of the bullying. And not one time has one person stepped in and helped my baby. Not one. And you want to sit here after reading the email where I put details, right? Details of how horribly this whole thing is on, how it was May, and she's still her evaluation, still not completed. Wow. Although I'd requested in November. And so I said, I don't want to sit here and talk absences with you. At the end of the school year. Absences. Also, at one point, Briley had brought home a perfect attendance award, and then I received a truancy letter in the mail. So make that make sense. Still have all of that, too, by the way. Good for you. I looked her in the eyes and I said, You're acting like I don't care about my daughter's education. If you would read the email thoroughly and go and read all the emails I've sent to all her teachers, I was paying for Briley to go to tutoring because I knew she was going to miss some school for ABA. I was communicating with her teachers. I was trying and nobody would work with me. I have so many emails that went unanswered or got responses that were very vague. I mean, I had really, really gotten so good at documentation that there wasn't much anyone could try to convince me of at that point. I said, I've got so much proof that things have been so mishandled. And she said, Does Riley ever talk about what she wants to do when she's when she's done with high school? And I said, Of course she does. She may have autism, but she's still a teenage girl. Of course she does. And she said, Well, and and if she continues ABA, how is she going to get you know credits in high school? And I said, Well, that's going to be for all of us to figure out when the evaluation finally is done. Because without an evaluation completed, Riley's not getting services. You're worried about me taking her out for ABA, where she's learning life skills, social skills, things that have turned her life around. She's still an ABA. And oh my gosh, this girl has learned an abundance of things, right? Like I'm talking, she's a different kid. I swear on ABA, you know, ethical ABA. Well, that's just for all of you out there who disagree with some ABA. There is still some bad ABA out there. Ethical ABA. So she said, you know, if she continues ABA, she'll never graduate high school.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_02That is that is one thing I still remember to this day. And maybe she'll be listening to this. Maybe the assistant superintendent's listening to this. I want you to know Briley is in about two weeks starting her senior yearly and graduating a year early. And I've said to this day that I'm going to send the assistant superintendent an invitation to her graduation because I want her to see. Can she sit next to me? Yes. Yes. So she tells me she's never going to graduate. When I brought up the bullying and she said, Well, keep working with the school admin on that. Even though the process is, if you're not getting where you need to be, you go up the ladder. Are you serious? And she said, Well, you keep working with the admin on that. And then as far as the evaluation, she said, Well, we are well within our timeline to evaluate because of all her absences. Okay. And I said, Okay, we'll see about that. That meeting lasted, I think, almost two hours, to be honest with you. And I felt like she sat there ready to just be defensive and not hear me out, not work together when I was trying so desperately. I left that meeting and I held it together. My husband was on duty. So for those who don't know, he was a firefighter. He's retired now, but he was on duty and I was like, I'll handle the meeting. I've got this. I got to my car the second the door shut. I've never cried so hard in my life. I thought. I went into that meeting thinking that we were going to come up with a solution, that my baby would just be allowed to be in public school and like learn and have friends and have a normal chance at life. And I'm being told that it's me that's doing it all wrong and that ABA is going to keep her from graduating and all these horrible, terrible things. And to look me in my eyes and tell me that my baby's never gonna graduate high school as long as she continues ABA therapy. The one thing that's helping her. The one thing, too, that the Texas Education Agency says is an excused absence for autism spectrum disorder. And I'm like, this is insane. So that day, I cry, I call my husband, I drive to the fire station, he just grabs me and I'm sobbing. I'm like, I'm exhausted. I've been fighting since she was in third grade just for her to have some normalcy, to exist in school. And I mean, I'll just say this too: if your kids are out there bullying kids with disabilities, fuck you. You're doing a terrible fucking job as a parent. You're doing a terrible job. Yeah. A terrible job. And I will stand 10 toes down on that for the rest of my life. So I leave that meeting, I call my advocate, and I give him the update on how the meeting went, and I'm crying. And he says, Okay, it's time to take this the next step. We're gonna make a report to the Texas Education Agency, and we're gonna make a report to the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education. TEA will cover the timeline for her evaluation, not evaluating in a timely manner. And the OCR one will cover disability harassment. When my attorney got involved, he asked me to like send him anything I could and maybe write up a little narrative. I already had it ready. I've been saving, right? I sent it to him when we had our virtual meeting. My advocate introduced me to the attorney on the virtual meeting because you can't find a special education attorney just anywhere. Like we had to go to like we had to find one in Austin. Those are very specialized. And um, he said, So we got your documentation, um, Aaron Brockovich. Oh yes, that's a huge compliment. I was like, thanks. And he was like, very detailed. This is insane how wrong the school is. This is crazy. That had to feel so good. It was very validating to have an attorney tell me, like, you're not crazy. You have proof to back it up. So one thing my advocate had told me, when you make your reports to EA, they act quick. They did. Before the summer was up, so it was May 10th. I had that meeting, I made the complaint on May 10th that night because I wasn't, I wasn't fucking around. I made that complaint. Before the summer was over, they came back with their findings after investigating and said that the school was out of compliance. And I was like, that superintendent sat there and told she gaslit you. Oh, a hundred percent. She told me that they were well within the time. They weren't, they were out of compliance. So then they did say the OCR takes longer. It's a federal, you know, agency. So of course it does, it takes longer. I started working with an attorney through the Office of Civil Rights. They're not representing you, they're just an attorney who takes in the information, they do a screening process, and then they move your case on to like investigation if it makes it through the screening process. So the last meeting he and I had, he had told me that he was recommending my case be moved to investigation, which is a really good sign. Well, then some things happened, and the Dallas Office of Civil Rights was closed. That's because the government shut down stuff. It was because Trump did something. I remember that. Trump started making cuts to the Department of Education. So our case was then moved to Kansas City, and I have been told the case is still there. They just have such an insane caseload that how sad is that that they have such a huge caseload. And it they had already, and then all the Dallas cases. So the lady had emailed me back to the Department of Education and said, we have your case, you know, and I still from time to time ask for updates. This is something I'm still doing, and Briley's graduating.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's how long this has taken.
SPEAKER_00It's about justice, right?
SPEAKER_02Justice for your baby. I have such a strong sense of justice. Like I'm talking, if something's not right or against the rules, I am like a bulldog. I can't stand injustices. I just can't do it.
SPEAKER_01Why? I mean, everything that's happened to me.
SPEAKER_02Everything, not feeling heard, not feeling seen, feeling like things that happened to me that weren't noticed or weren't so I I just kind of made this promise to myself and to my kids that I was going to be loud about everything. I just I don't really know where that truly comes from, other than my whole life, just everything that's happened to me. I think I just knew that if there's rules in place, there's laws in place, there's procedure in place, and we're not following it, and someone's hurt because of that, somebody's accountable. And still to this day, the school not being held accountable eats at me. And I've decided to, right, to take this anger. And instead of only advocating for this situation that's just at this point a time thing, we're just waiting, right? We're just sitting around waiting for OCR.
SPEAKER_00She'll be like a mom of three by the time it's just like.
SPEAKER_02She'll be she'll be 40 years old and I will be old and I will be sitting there going through this process because I'm gonna see it through. And it's not because I'm like miserable and thinking about it all the time. I actually am at a healthy place with it now. I'll go weeks without thinking about it. I mean, it's always there, and what Riley has been through has always been there. I mean, she was just so mistreated. Of course, I'm never gonna forget it, but I don't let it consume or control me. But one thing I decided to start doing too in in advocacy is helping other families who have kids in special education or have IEPs or 504s and empowering them, teaching them, giving them advice. Um, I think a lot of the times the schools kind of maybe just hope that we don't understand all of special education law. So my goal has been to just empower people and teach them about it. And then I decided, okay, there's there's gotta be more things that I can do that are proactive and that that don't feel like I'm advocating because some horrible things have happened. Like, let's think of things that are like where I can advocate and feel really good about it, right? And so Riley's now been at this micro school and and she started driver's education, and there was times where we weren't sure if she was gonna do certain things or when she was gonna do certain things, and that girl just continues to like shock and surprise us, and I just ugh, I just love her so much. And she she had brought up doing driver's ed, and I was like, Oh, oh god, we're there. Like, it's time for driver Zed. Like, what are we doing? Like, I mean, and and that and she's at the time 15, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. Like, 15-year-olds do driver's education, like, okay. And then, you know, as I think anybody has, you see videos online about people with autism or certain communication challenges get pulled over and the interactions with police.
SPEAKER_00It's scary for anybody that doesn't have that, you know what I'm saying? So, like, you see blue lights, I'm automatically like anxious.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's it's already a very overwhelming thing, right? And so I thought my biggest fear was that she was going to lock up or rock back and forth or look really nervous or get, you know, overwhelmed. And one thing about autism that I think people need to understand is Briley can process everything. She just does it step by step. She needs things broken down for her. And so I thought if if officers could just understand that, and so how can we let them know, right? So I start doing some digging and I find Massachusetts State Police has this program called the Blue Envelope Program. And I'm like, what is this? I start digging deeper. And it was something they started for drivers with autism and other communication challenges. It's just a blue envelope. Think of it like a medical alert bracelet or it's just a cue for officers, right? And I started doing some digging, found other states and municipalities had adopted this program. It's not like you call the blue envelope program, like it's just kind of you create it, right? Everyone just kind of started making their own version of blue envelope. And so I thought, how can I bring that at least here to Kerrville? The first thing I do is I email Massachusetts State Police, talk to them, and I say, this is what I want to do here in my little town in Texas. How did you guys get it started? Can you give me any pointers, tips, information, anything? They were amazing. Emailed me back, gave me a lot of good info, and I'm researching, I'm looking up statistics. I knew if I'm gonna present this to my city, right? And I don't even know at this point who to present it to. I'm like, there's gonna be no question left unanswered by the time they read this proposal I'm creating. And being the graphic designer that I am, it looks nice, you know, there's like all these things. And so I'd I'd included statistics, I'd included um training modules for the police, and and really all it is is just uh some additional training for police officers to recognize, to slow down, give one step at a time, to just do things differently so those interactions will go smoother. And so I created all of it, right? And then I'm I'm thinking, okay, I don't know who to email this to. So I emailed it to the mayor, I emailed it to the city manager, I emailed it to I think every city council member I could find, the police chief, the fire chief, like everyone you could think of. And I was like, it'll stick, right? It will stick somewhere. And I started getting some responses back of like, oh, I love this, we're forwarding it to this person, so it finally gets to the right person, and it's you know gonna be under the police department. And me and Officer Lamb, shout out to Officer Lamb for helping me with this whole program. But he loved the idea. We we sat, we met, and he said, You did not just bring us like an idea. You this is like plug and play. He said, The only thing we're gonna have to do is is find funding for the envelopes and the printing. And I said, Well, I'll design them, first of all, and give me give me a little bit and I'll figure out how to get this funded. So we leave our meeting. I emailed him probably two hours later because I had found funding. Of course you did. So I was like, hey, I've got it. So he was excited, we were excited, and of course, the July 4th flood happened. That that put some time in between us actually getting it out there. But um, at the time, Briley still had our permit, and so we finally got to the finish line back in April because my goal was to at least get it launched by Autism Awareness Month, which was April of this year. And the city council meeting, the last city council meeting of the month, we introduced it to Kerrville. It's now an official program in the city of Kerrville.
SPEAKER_00So proud of you.
SPEAKER_02And you know me, I make videos and I want to get the word out there. And then somebody from Rep Vicki Goodwin's office um had reached out to me seeing my videos and said. You're in Texas. Can we talk? I'm like, yeah, let's do this. So um her name is Pooja Sethy, and she's running for House District, I want to say 47. Um, and we talk and she's like, I love this. What do you think about bringing it statewide? And I said, I that that was something I told my husband I wanted to do. I said, I don't know how to Texas is huge. I don't know how to do this. I'm not, but I didn't know how to do any of the things I did and had already accomplished. I just figure it out. I'm a go-getter. I don't wait for anyone to tell me how to do things, I just do them.
SPEAKER_00I think your biggest asset is the fact that you were never scared to ask questions.
SPEAKER_01Why'd you say that?
SPEAKER_00Because it is true. And I also think that Riley could not have been luckier to have anybody but you as her mom. Because look how hard you fought for that little girl and to have it had it not been your own history. And here's another thing. I think that kind of you being that little girl that wanted so bad to have your dad fight for you and fight to be in your life, that turned into a mom that has fought so hard for her baby because you know what it's like to not be fought for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02I like what you've done. A hundred percent. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So proud of you.
SPEAKER_02So we um we had a meeting in Austin at the Capitol and sat down with lots of really cool people. And I'm like learning how laws are started and made, and there the bill is actually in drafting now, so we're waiting. We're talking with other stakeholders, Autism Society of Texas, and lots of other really cool people. I'm meeting along the way. And at that first meeting, they said, you know, we can think of what we want to call this bill. And I was like, okay, I'll I'll think of some things. And then I left there, and we were on our way home from Austin. And I look at my husband and I'm like, duh, Riley's law.
SPEAKER_01Why not? You did say that she was going to change the world. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And she's, I think sometimes doesn't even know like how fucking cool it is to like, you're gonna have a law named after you. Dude, it's so cool. And so she'll be like, Yeah, I'm gonna have a law named after me. Like, my mom's getting a law passed, you know, it's it's named after me. And like, like, there's the excitement, but like, I don't think she 100% gets like how how insane that is. And so we're working on it. It will be ready for the next Texas legislative session, which is in January. So, anyone listening to this in Texas, get ready to start calling your reps and telling them to pass Biley's law. It's either going to have a very low to no fiscal note, which is good for people who are more conservative when it comes to the financial side of things. Like bipartisan support is extremely important when getting a bill passed. And we've got so much support. We've been talking to so many police organizations and really refining the wording of things and just doing a lot of work to get this ready. And I'm really excited. And all it's done now is just fuel me to come up with more things for just our community, but also change things statewide, change things at the federal level. Like my fight is not over. I'm not done advocating when blue envelope and Briley's law passes in Texas, because it's gonna pass. I'm not done. Like, I have so many more ideas, and my advocacy work is not over. I still have so much I want to do and so much I want to be a part of. And Briley, uh, there's one thing that she has said a few times too. I think this last year for Mother's Day, she wrote in my card that she said, I would still be getting bullied if it weren't for you. And she tells people all the time that she's learned to advocate for herself because she's watched her mom advocate for her. And I think that's the biggest compliment I could ever receive as a mom.
SPEAKER_01Is that my kids see how hard I have fought for them.
SPEAKER_02And despite everything that Briley's been through, she is still just the happiest, sweetest, most energetic, crazy little self that she is with all her fun ideas and just just everything about her is just love and light. And anyone that's around her knows that. I mean, she's she's always been that way. She's incredible. She's incredible, and she's right. I mean, if it wasn't for me sticking up for her, she I don't know where she would be right now. And I'm just happy that maybe some things happened to me in my life, transformed me into who I am today and prepared me for this life that I'm living now. And I'm just gonna continue to do the work that I do and expand on that. And I've made so many connections with so many people, and I just can't wait to keep going. And you know, maybe I'll be sitting in this chair a year from now and working on something else. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Well, she's incredible, but you are incredible too. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about how to get the blue envelope program in their state?
SPEAKER_02Um, on TikTok, I make a lot of videos, and I actually have a proposal template that kind of already has fillable spots for you if you want to introduce it to your city, your state, whatever. I'm I've already been helping so many people do that. But on TikTok at Meg underscore is underscore magic and on Instagram, Meg B underscore is underscore magic. And that's probably the two places I put the most information out about what I'm doing and my advocacy work and blue envelope.
SPEAKER_00So well, thanks for hanging out today. Yes, thanks for having me. So proud of you. Thank you. Proud to know you. Thanks. All right, thanks for listening, guys. We will catch you next time.