K.M. West - TDP #88

Daniel TheWizard sits down with author K.M. West as they dive into life, creativity, trauma, healing, individual lenses, and the call to follow your dreams. K.M. West takes us through the ins and outs of her 460 page book: Wild Things Will Roam.
Join us in this edge of your seat episode.
Don't forget to follow our guest K.M. West on all social media platforms below!
@km_west_  for TikTok, Instagramm Ko-Fi, and Twitter
facebook/kmwestcreative
https://kmwestwrites.com

Transcript

Unknown Speaker   0:00  
Welcome to the driftwood Podcast. I'm Daniel the wizard, of course. And today we're gonna be talking about, well, actually, we're gonna be doing a little bit different. We're gonna be talking with Kay and west. Kay, how are you doing?

Unknown Speaker  0:15  
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker  0:18  
I will no problem. So just to get this all out of the way, just go ahead and formally introduce yourself, who you are and what you're here doing.

Unknown Speaker  0:25  
Perfect. Yeah. So my name is Kay and west. I am a IT professional and a gym owner. But I also write books. So I'm here in my official author capacity. And as a creative designer, and I'm here to talk about my book, which is called Wild Things will room. So I'm, yeah, I'm pumped to have this discussion with you and just chat work.

Unknown Speaker  0:49  
Well, awesome. Well, thank you for making the time honestly, the way that this all lined up was just a strike a strike of fate, I believe. Agreed. So you know, Facebook and social media, the demise of the thing that we all hate also, is valuable. We hate to admit it, but it is.

Unknown Speaker  1:09  
Great. I agree. There's a degree of connectivity that it fosters that did not exist before. So

Unknown Speaker  1:14  
yeah, it allows some of these things to to be expedited, as far as engaging and communication and a level that, you know, honestly, when you just had phones that you can call people on no internet connection like that. It was, it's quite hard to catch somebody.

Unknown Speaker  1:29  
Yeah, well, and I feel like it's done a lot for at least in the creative space, like you see people who like meet via tick tock, or whatever, and now are doing collaborations. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker  1:41  
actually have guests lined up as a collaborative thing with another guy that does a while he was doing podcasts, but now he's doing some other things. But it's still in the same realm of Yeah, we have something lined up to do another thing like that. So yeah, it's really cool. Seeing some of these, some of these things that, like you said, the creative space and allowing interaction. And then like things like Fiverr, like, you can just, you just put yourself on there to do work. I even thought about doing it just to get better at some of these things. Like even raising kids college papers, right? And just going over and checking punctuation and things like that. Just make a couple bucks. Yeah, cuz I used to actually work at a job doing security where I actually had to review everybody's report that they wrote, and then make it like, court or the like, if it went to court. Yeah. I had, I would have to rewrite, essentially, edit, rewrite their report with all of their stated facts and things like that, but make it so like, I thought about putting that to use and reading like college kids papers, and, you know, maybe $5 a pop

Unknown Speaker  2:45  
idea, you probably not even

Unknown Speaker  2:48  
Yeah, but look, I can't mark it that I'm good at it. I have to mark it that I'm cheap at it. Right? I have to go with what I know. Okay, well, okay. What's the accuracy is there once I can prove accuracy? I got the five star reviews, it's, you know, then I could get the, you know, so. So, let's talk about, let's talk about how you ended up writing in general, like you said, we had a phone call the other day, just let everybody know, we discussed some of these things a little bit. But you had a, you kind of you kind of had a call to writing is a way that I would have described it. So how did you How do you feel like you've gotten into this world of being an author?

Unknown Speaker  3:25  
Oh, my gosh, I feel like I stumbled into it just like headfirst? Absolutely. Um, so I started the way I think a lot of people do. And when you ask people who write books, that tends to be the case where it's like, oh, yeah, I've been writing since I was a child. And I did a lot of that through school, and you got the feedback, right? That people be like, oh, you know, this is really strong, you should write a book, you have a great voice, you should write a book. And I kind of always pride myself on that. But yeah, like, I'm a strong writer. But it didn't really go anywhere. I mean, college papers, basically. So then, somewhere in the early, probably 2010s, I had kind of this epiphany of like, if I were going to die, whatever would be the one thing that I would regret not having done. And I kind of landed on on writing a book and more. So it was like having something tangible. That was like an output of me, that would exist beyond me and outside of me. And obviously, I think anybody who has children knows what that's like, like, you're, you have a kid and then like, you're kind of like you and they live and they do whatever they will do. But you don't really pick your kids like they are their own people. And so a book is different than that. Yes. On its own, but you have a lot more say in house. So, so yeah, anyway, that was obviously I started on this long before I had children, but that was that was the idea. I wanted to have something that was just a piece of meat. that existed beyond me. So I started working on this particular series that we're talking about today, with some friends, just back and forth pitching ideas, just for fun.

Unknown Speaker  5:12  
Yeah. So how did that start? Like the pitching ideas, we discussed that a little bit too, that we have a you and you we discuss a very similar, like, tossing of ideas. So what was it that you guys were doing, because I think this is like creative help ideas for people. So, um, some of these things.

Unknown Speaker  5:28  
So what I will say, from, from the advice side of things, is that it was excellent to get me off the ground, because I did not really have the confidence, or the wherewithal to start a story and finish it. I started lots of stories, and then, you know, just kind of fizzled out. But this one I started, it started as a dream that I had, and I was texting the dream that I had to my friends. And it kind of I mean, it was one of those like seven page text messages where I was like a nice, crazy, crazy dream. And we can talk about that if you want. I have some really insane dreams. And I'm narcoleptic, so I hallucinate, so I have a lot of things to work with when it comes to the sphere. Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, I'm telling them about it. And they're like, Oh, this is fantastic. You know, we should write this as a book. And so I took one of the old books that I had started and never finished, took a scene out of it. And it's the scene of this book actually opens with it's a scene where a woman was running through the woods. That was that was what I had. And I knew she was being good thing. Yeah, I mean, that was it. I knew she was running. I had no idea what she was running from, I had no idea what she was running toward. I just knew she was running through the woods. And then I had to, we had a pitch back and forth trying to build this whirled around it, that would justify why someone was running through the woods and kind of just went, it went off the rails a bit, it kind of went nuts. But then I started writing it for them to read. And, and before I knew it, it was like 125 page document. And then it was like a 210 page document. And then it was just like, I couldn't stop working on it. And so that's, that's how it started. And then it definitely has been revised.

Unknown Speaker  7:17  
Yeah. So you said you said that you have you in cave, like sort of in a dream not to be super mystical, but Oh, but hang on. But so it came to you. It came to you in a dream. But you said that you you have narcolepsy?

Unknown Speaker  7:34  
Yeah, yeah. So what I have is the experience of hypnopompic and hypnogogic. hallucination, so I hallucinate as I'm falling asleep, I hallucinate as I wake up, I have sleep paralysis regularly. And occasionally, like, I get auditory and visual hallucinations. And so So I say narcolepsy, because during the day, that makes the most sense to me. Now, if you were to ask me in the middle of the night, I would be like, 100%, I see ghosts. And I don't know how you feel about cursing on podcasts?

Unknown Speaker  8:10  
Go for it. No, no, yeah. My husband's

Unknown Speaker  8:13  
his working theme is he doesn't fuck with ghosts. And so he's,

Unknown Speaker  8:18  
like, look at the safe way to be

Unknown Speaker  8:21  
like, I don't know, I don't know if it's real. I just don't, I don't want to mess with it. I'm not I don't want to, like tempt it. And so. So I think he, he is prone to believe that I am perhaps more sensitive to whatever else is out there than the average bear. But you know, it kind of depends on we believe so. So the official, the official scientific terminology there is for narcolepsy diagnosis, I mean, three pillars. So that's, that's that, but yeah, so to your point about coming to you in a dream. I feel like that kind of goes down a rabbit hole on how I feel about creativity in general, which is like, I don't think anyone owns it. I think, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. And we tend to build upon ideas that we've heard. And I think that our job as people with any sort of idea, whether you're making art, or you're sharing a message, or whatever the case may be, your job is to take whatever it is that has spoken to you or landed upon you. You know, the Greeks called the genius whenever it sets upon you, you have to put it out there, even if it's terrible, because you might not be the end of the line for it. So like you might have to put it out there so someone else can pick it up and take it and make reach the masses, whatever, like you might not be the one who reaches the masses and that has to be okay. Like you have to be comfortable with but the

Unknown Speaker  9:43  
obligation is still to share, you still have the obligation to share. So how I feel about creativity and things like that, I think that it's it's just science and expression. Look, it's an expression and it's just something that extends beyond what normalcy is. So creativity comes in all forms and fashions and no, like, I don't think anybody owns the creativity. I think that once the art form is expressed, that's what it is. And people take with it what they will, right. And so like, even like in making music or anything like that, I just the the art itself, just the expression of the art, I don't necessarily feel like I maybe need to be the one to take it beyond where it is. I just try to I want to encourage people to ignite whatever it is within them. So that that way, like maybe my little bit of guitar playing helps him realize like, oh, man, like, I really want to play guitar, or maybe my little, yeah, or maybe my little bit of podcasting. Maybe that'll inspire somebody to actually have a message and go after that everybody's voice is worth hearing. Right. So like, I just hope these things inspire. And, and look, I have no aspirations to be famous or anything like that. I just would like to pay my bills.

Unknown Speaker  11:00  
Right, right.

Unknown Speaker  11:01  
I just think that we don't want

Unknown Speaker  11:03  
to stress about and I like, it would be great. To make money doing that.

Unknown Speaker  11:08  
Yeah, I mean, that'd be the better way. Right, it would seem that way.

Unknown Speaker  11:12  
But you know, I think there's, there's some, there's beauty in this part of the process to right, where, where you're taking a side hustle, if you will, and trying to build something, I mean, the building, part of it is one of the more. So that's where you learn the most about yourself. And I feel like doing that, you know, while you have a stable job in the background, even if you're carving it out of you know, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, wherever you can get it, I feel like there's, there's benefits to that, you know, not necessarily being a starving artist. But you know, an artist that, because I feel like when you have the passion for something, it gives you energy, and it doesn't drain you. And so, you know, you could stay up all night, you could work on something and take, you know, three hours of sleep if you have to, because you care about it. So like there's a sweet spot in the beginning, where you have to kind of live in that space, I think. But yeah, and I think gambler, maybe some people like I know a lot of folks are like I'm all in. And if I don't believe in me, no one else will, which is absolutely true. But also, like, Well, I

Unknown Speaker  12:19  
think it's about it's about how one feels about themselves and, and what the likelihood of this versus that are. And I think if people have confidence in themselves and their abilities, whichever way they choose, it's going to work, right? Because essentially, the effectiveness is betting on yourself in the end. And so like, if you ever want to make it your main thing, you got to treat it like it's going to be a main thing. So it needs to be effort. And so you're not somebody used to tell me when I was when I was way younger, if you ever want to get paid $60 an hour, you better start working now, like you get paid $60 an hour, and and somebody will eventually pay you so like, and that that whole thing with like, expanding beyond, you have to have skill beyond where you currently are to be able to get yourself further beyond that. So even as an author, and you're starting to write books, and like I said, I'm starting I'm trying to write a book, too, it's very early on, it's not a story, it's me trying to recall accounts of my life. And it's difficult, actually, I didn't realize it would be so difficult to actually try and write some of those things down. So I've worked through some of them. But you know, writing them down is a little bit different. I think I'm much I'm a given to people to read.

Unknown Speaker  13:34  
Write. So I can I can actually speak to that a little and say that there's different ways, right? A lot of people write books to market they find, you know, like, this is the genre I want to write in. And I'm gonna write this story. And here are the elements of the genre. And I'm going to use those and it's going to be a real easy, minute easy sell. But like it's, it meets the expectation you have a plan,

Unknown Speaker  13:55  
you have execution plan makes sense. And you have reasons for why that makes sense,

Unknown Speaker  14:00  
right? I am not that person at all. I write stories because I become hyper fixated on them. And because I use them to process different aspects of my life that I cannot get close enough to any other way. So I write fiction. Because there are some things that I'm not comfortable just staring at in the face, but I could put it in a situation put someone else in a similar situation or put someone you know, play out a series of events, events, and with a small degree of control, right of the outcome. And that is very cathartic to mean and a very it's a good way for me to explore things that I am afraid of. It's a good way for me to explore things that I'm passionate about. And it's kind of a safer environment to do that then I think you know, living our regular life. So yeah, it's about processing now. And so I think there's there's value in all kinds of stories. I think if you're called to write a story, like you If you're if you're writing about your life, you need to get it out first, get out there, get on the page. And then if you decide you want to take it to market, that's when you give it other eyes. And the more eyes you have on it, the easier it is to put eyes on it. You have to get over that nerve of like, I'm going to give you a piece of my soul. Please be kind with it.

Unknown Speaker  15:19  
Well, that's kind of how it was with the podcast at first to like, when I was sharing it with people was like, like, you know, be careful with me. I'm gentle, be gentle. You know, it's Tinder, because I'm trying to I was trying to learn how to be honest, right? Because it was something that was kind of unfamiliar to me, like just being face to face with honesty I could use to just act however, I wanted to honesty wasn't necessarily the concern, it was just about whether I was able to achieve what I want to achieve. So, you know, in operating in different fashion, when I was starting to share this with people, it was difficult, because I was still very reserved as well, I didn't want to talk about things because I wasn't sure.

Unknown Speaker  15:57  
Right. So right, you didn't know how you felt about it for one. And for two, I think it's it's nerve racking until you put some distance between you and the process. So like when you first start creating your podcast, right, and you're talking about things that are really vulnerable. It's nerve racking to hear or put it out there for other people to listen to. But then you eventually reach a point where you are far enough away from the early episodes that it no longer hurts as much. And it's a lot easier to say, hey, go back and listen to that. Because I've I've like, it's I opened the you know, the wound for everyone. And now it's kind of desensitized a little. So it's okay, you can you can go pick it, it doesn't hurt the same way. And

Unknown Speaker  16:38  
that's it. That's a pretty good assessment, because I think that that's pretty accurate. I always kind of look at it, like, like, I've grown beyond that. So please go look at it. So you can now challenge where I've become, right. So I'll own everything that I've ever said. And I've got confidence in that it's also come down to me just saying, I've always made the decision that I had to make. So it's made me who I am today, and I'm very I like who I am. So having confidence going forward knowing that I should trust myself in learning how to do that with this podcast. So it's, it's been it's been a lot of fun. So the whole creative process, I think, is a healing thing for me. Yes. Like, that's why I can't give it up. I can't give up the creative process.

Unknown Speaker  17:19  
Right? Right. So like, I wouldn't be writing these books. Like they could go nowhere, like literally no one could ever read them. And they would still exist. Because I have I have to write them, they have to exist in the state that they are, which is a crazy thing to talk about. And so when I talk about like, you know, the muse or what the idea or whatever, there are things in this book. And again, shameless plug Wild Things will room for those who say, there are things in this book, that are not the direction that I wanted the book to go in, I wanted it to be more of a fun fantasy adventure. And then as I got into it, and as I started picking apart different ideas, and there was a very clear for me, tone of the book for the first part, and then a tone of the book for the second part. And I could not bridge that gap any way but the way that it has been bridged in here and it is we you and I talked about this like it's it's trauma informed it is. It focuses on some of the things that are really common common in the genres, so horror, or fantasy or thriller, that are just rife with violence, and then never really explore any of the repercussions. Or it's like it's a plot point, right, like, so it's like, oh, you know, your daughter got kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. And now you're gonna go and rescue her. Now you are going to take ownership of that. And like someone wrong, someone you care about. Now you need to go do the like, we don't ever talk about the daughter.

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
Yeah, yeah. Not the hero, like the hero does the hero thing, right? But what about the victim there?

Unknown Speaker  18:56  
Right. And so the story is kind of about that. So it's about two brothers Ander and lash, who are Romany American. And Ander is supposedly on the receiving end of this big prophecy. So he was supposed to fulfill this prophecy. He didn't and the world ended. So this story two years later, yeah, he's done a bad job.

Unknown Speaker  19:20  
Like maybe a little bit of guilt. Right? Right. Right,

Unknown Speaker  19:23  
right. And so he is you're like, he's the hero of this story, so to speak. But the story very much is about his brother lash. And then this woman lives that they meet by chance and how her fate kind of ties into theirs. Or at least ties into what might be real, or what might be a delusion might be a belief system that Andrew has picked up. You know, it's what Andrew believes to be real. But Andrew can always tell what's real. So that's, that's kind of the premise of the book who can

Unknown Speaker  19:53  
really ever tell what's really real and what's not. You know, that's a tough thing because we I've talked about things like like that on the podcast before, like, with like, what's actually reality and what's perceived reality? And so like, one of the conversations I like to have at the coffee shop in the morning is about like, like, we'll pick something up like, yeah, we clearly, we don't know if we actually see this, the same chairs arrive at the same things like that, but we have no clue whether it looks the same, right?

Unknown Speaker  20:23  
We have learned that this is called a curve. And what we identify to be a curve maybe to vacillate colors or that way, right? Like, who knows if we're seeing the same color spectrum? I mean, I know.

Unknown Speaker  20:34  
So it's very interesting. It's interesting to me that, that even though like even in like, the times, like of the book, like, post, post disaster post, whatever happens, you know, you really find yourself like, what is the right thing? And I think at that point, it really is, and people that call a faith, like, what is it that you truly believe in? And what are you drawn to do? And I mean, look, but there has to be people of reason. There has to be people around. Oh, hang on. Look, man, you're slaving over this whole thing?

Unknown Speaker  21:11  
Wait. Yeah, absolutely. So So live is live, as you're in that case, the resident skeptic here? Because I tried to take a very serious approach to how would I feel if someone showed up in my life, and was like, I am destined to fulfill a prophecy? And I think you're a part of it. Like, what? What would be my natural response to that situation? Or any of that? And so so there's a lot of a lot of skepticism there. And even I feel like the book doesn't really clarify. I mean, we know we know what Andrew believes. And we know what each character believes. And it's kind of left to the reader what they believe. And

Unknown Speaker  21:55  
look, I'm just can't wait to get further into the book. I've spent a little time reading it. And my short time reading it, I will say just the for I'm a I like funny things like to me, that's a pill that's the appeal. And so like, I'm like a couple of pages in, and then like boom, it's kind of a dark humor joke off the RIP about suicide a little bit and not to not to diminish it not no, no. But in the situation. It's the type of joke I would have said, I did something I would have said amongst people I'm around, right. And so it felt very personal to me. And that's what I'm saying is like I laughed really hard. Because if I was around somebody that said that I would laugh, right? Because that's, that's, that's familiar to me in a setting because I think that people have to, I think people deal with things that way.

Unknown Speaker  22:44  
Yes. And actually, that's kind of a tenant. So I've done a lot of research. And I like to read research papers, which is not a cool thing. It's not I do that,

Unknown Speaker  22:56  
too, by the way, but I don't remember the sources. So like, I have a bunch of information that gets mixed up, so I have to be careful.

Unknown Speaker  23:04  
I'm like, Hey, so this is what happened. Don't ask me why I know that or where it came from? I read it in a research paper. So it's probably peer reviewed. But other than that, I couldn't tell you, right, yeah. But one of the things that is a very common indicator of recovery and mental health, following a disaster situation. So you know, massive hurricanes or any sort of major disaster, right, is a sense of humor, and hope. Those are like the two things. And so humor is kind of integral to the story. One of the early reviews I received was that this you know, it was a woman from London, so she spokes humor with a you and it was very classy. Um, but her point was that this book was filled with humor wrapped ruthlessness. And I really appreciated that that came through that the humor aspect came through. Because it was very important to me, that it'd be kind of funny. I mean, there's a point where it just becomes like, a bunch of dick jokes, but it's not all dick jokes there. There is actual elevated,

Unknown Speaker  24:06  
there's substance there. But yeah, yeah, that but the thing to me is, it makes it seem more real, because I think that if you are in a group of people that are really trying to survive, some of them will be trying to look at let's look, you can't, it is this is reality, right? You can't change the reality. You have to accept certain things. And there has to be somebody there to help highlight that. But there also has to be somebody to see me rationally. Dealing with things with the balance of things. So it's, I like the humor part of it, because I like you said, I think it's something that misses. And I think that people will tell the jokes, but a lot of people don't want to hear it, because they're close minded to hearing it. And so I think if people are comfortable,

Unknown Speaker  24:52  
we're not comfortable with death, or even mental illness or trauma or anything. We don't talk about those things. So it's not a comfortable thing to talk about. And especially when somebody makes a joke. I mean, like, that's huh, somebody comes in and they're like, Well, you know, my dad laughs so whatever and you're like, oh,

Unknown Speaker  25:11  
look, I used to look this is. So my mother passed, and I was very okay. And so like, people will always make these jokes, but I'm okay with it. Like, I'm not like, it doesn't affect me in any way. If I say it, or anybody says or whatever. So like, just to mess with people. I will throw my, my the traumatic experience in their lap, like, Oh, your mom this like, bro, my mom died. And they're like, oh, man, I'm so sorry. I'm like, oh, yeah, no, it's cool, though. Like, is that joke was funny,

Unknown Speaker  25:38  
as fine as it can be.

Unknown Speaker  25:41  
Yeah, and then like, and not leave them on the fence of like, whether or not they should have said that because like, I'll say one thing, and they're always okay. And I'm like, but I'll say something else. Like, oh, but he's not okay. That's just like, I'm playing games with them. Right? Probably not fair. But I do it.

Unknown Speaker  25:57  
It's not fair. But I think it's like it's a, it's your right to do that, right is your life experience. And so back to my thought on creativity, I think that every person has their own independent lens. And we, as a society will behave absolutely on trend, right we are, when you put a bunch of people in Nast, we will decide things in a way that is predictable. But each has the each one of us has like a very individual, individual experience. And so I think part of the beauty of this whole, like you receive an idea, you form it based on your lens, because you can tell your story your way based on whatever experience you have had, or people you've known who shared with you, and then you get to put it out there and someone else with a totally different lens is going to take it and either be inspired by it or jump off from there, or maybe build on it and get better. So there's there's the lenses important that that experience, right?

Unknown Speaker  26:53  
If you're speaking of the lens, that lens would be looking at the objective reality, right? So the the objective, the thing that exists, regardless whether anybody sees it or not type of thing. And so like then their lens that they use to see it. And so like we've talked about this on earlier episodes of the podcast, where lens versus lever where people are operating through life with things as a lens, or whether it's a transactional thing, like a lever, like a slot machine. And so like your reference of lens made me think of that, because if you, you are viewing a situation, from your perspective, that is a lens, but the situation is still a situation. Right? They know. And so everybody does view a different and I think that with the book, I think that you bring in different perspectives to tell a singular story. And, and I think that it's a really cool approach, because what I first noticed is like when you first start reading, you're reading it through one character, and then it goes to another character. And then it just kind of gives you a setting and where their minds are. Yeah, and the way that they're gonna operate, it's really playing, it's a good seed in my mind, for a character development, because it leaves it makes you want to ask some questions like, Okay, why are they doing that like, but it's like, you know, there's things to uncover, and you're really hoping that the author, you explore some of those things, right? And so like, it's really cool. And it seems that, that I don't know, I'm really excited to finish or to get further into reading. I

Unknown Speaker  28:22  
can't wait to hear what you honestly,

Unknown Speaker  28:25  
I've talked to you. Like, we had like our phone call the other day talking about when I'm talking about the book, and I got like, super stoked to read it. I was like, Daniel, let's meet your expectations. You don't like reading? Yeah. And it's like, maybe I have to be honest in a way that I'm not comfortable with. Right? So like, you know, that's a reality, I have the thing because I pride myself on being honest. But so far, I can say that I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued by how the situation exists. Because I've read, like, I've went to your website and all of that stuff. And I clicked on some links and tried to do my thing. I wanted to read the book a little bit. So I went and bought a copy, it might show up today, it might not. But anyway, so in going through all of these things, I really felt like I was getting to know you as the author and in trying to better understand this. So now, when I'm reading the book, I feel like I'm taking in a little bit of about, like, where you may have been coming from in regards to the perspective in which you're writing. And so like now I feel like I've gained an additional perspective in the approach into into reading it. And so I think that that's super cool, because I've never had the opportunity to do that. Sure, sure. So my whole game is to gain perspective. That's my thing. That's kind of my moves. So same

Unknown Speaker  29:43  
saying I'm one of my, one of my strong suits. If you ever take like a personality test right and I like your fingers are good at one of mine is mediation. That's my like, my interpersonal skill. I am a good mediator. I'm very good at seeing things from different people's perspectives. which is really wonderful. And I'm trying this year so my husband's the one who doesn't fuck with ghosts. He, he is, has kind of unintentionally set a goal for me this year where he was like, you just need to be unapologetically you and unapologetic about the things that you are good at. Because I struggle with that I struggle with being like, oh, yeah, like I like it's all right. Like, I'm going to downplay everything at every junction, I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, like, it's like, it's

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