My apologies for the weird clicking in the background!
Disclaimer: The Curiosity Chronicles are spoken by Taylor Cecelia Brook. That means you get her in her full form: Valley Girl who likes to cuss and talks at the speed of light :) I wont be offended it that’s not your jam :)
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good morning and welcome back to the chaos chronicles well you're on the curiosity
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chronicles my bad the chaos chronicles is my my sub stack i apologize for the
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gravelly voice and it may not even be morning wherever you are whenever you are
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listening to this but for me it is currently 7 54 a.m on a
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And I'm over here recording a podcast because everybody else in my house is asleep
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and it's quiet and amazing.
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And I'm putting off getting ready for work.
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Let's be honest, that's the real reason.
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But anyway, welcome back to the Curiosity Chronicles.
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Today, I'm curious and I wanted to talk to you guys about what you might want to hear.
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Now, here's what the worst part is when I do this.
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I ask and no one ever really answers me and I always really wondered that because
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like when someone that I listen to like regularly or read regularly if they want
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their input
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I try to provide it as much as I can,
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but I understand that makes other people uncomfortable or it's not their jam.
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I don't know, but I'm way too lazy to put together a survey.
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Maybe eventually I will,
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but what do you guys want to learn more about,
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about me or just about life in general?
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I'm really kind of a little unsure what to do with my portion of the
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curiosity chronicles it's super easy for me to interview people I'm really really
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enjoying all the interviews that I'm doing I've got like four lined up and it's
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just absolutely totally awesome um so and like next week which by the time you hear
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this it'll already be out
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I have the podcast with Gemma James coming out, and it's just so fun.
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I had so much fun interviewing her, and it's just been really such a joy.
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But yeah, I'm just curious.
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I think one of my favorite parts about Substack is...
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I think I have a lot of favorite parts,
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and I think I say that a lot.
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Anyway, one of the things I really like about Substack is...
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Like there's just so much,
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like there's so much,
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there's so many things and so many different types of people and genres and writing
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and storytelling and podcasts and vlogging and like literally all of it.
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And so I guess what I'm trying to see is like,
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what do you guys hope to get out of the Curiosity Chronicles?
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If it's just for listening pleasure, that's great too.
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Just let me know.
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Cause I'll just keep talking.
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But I know I had initially said I was going to do like a play by play of my life
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and it's really hard to remember everything.
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And so,
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I guess I will try to do my best with giving you a play-by-play for 10 through 20,
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which Jesus Christ,
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so much happened in there.
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It's really difficult because I literally said to...
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alexander porter yesterday yeah i think it was yesterday that so much i've packed
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an entire fucking lifetime into a decade but that wasn't 10 to 20 i packed a
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totally different lifetime into that decade um like a literally a whole different
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lifetime from who i was from 20 to 30 so and while most people think like oh 20 to
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30 must have been like
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the most awful portion like where all of the awful things happen not necessarily um
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while it was yeah lily was a big portion and getting diagnosed with a rare disease
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and getting divorced and meeting d and all that kind of stuff like yeah that
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happened from 20 to 30
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got married, all those kinds of things.
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But 10 to 20 was a lot because I went from pre-adolescent to full-grown adult in those 10 years.
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So from 10 to 13, that was fifth grade to middle school, I think.
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Because we left Kansas in 7th grade to move to California.
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Well, it was the summer after 7th grade.
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So that would have been 5th, 6th, and 7th.
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Yeah, so 5th grade.
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5th grade was the year I was finally allowed to start shaving my legs,
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which was amazing because I'm a hairy-ass motherfucker.
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And my poor daughter.
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Both my daughters.
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Poor Lily.
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Poor Lily.
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Her whole back was covered in black hair.
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Anyway, I finally got to start shaving my legs.
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And we had the fifth grade graduation ceremony,
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which was a huge,
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you know,
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whole big shebang graduation type thing that wasn't actually real.
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But it was fun and I have a lot of good memories from it.
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And then sixth grade came and I don't really remember a ton from sixth grade.
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It wasn't, you know, the worst year school that I had.
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That was when Hurricane Katrina happened.
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I do remember that.
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And that was pretty traumatic to watch.
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And I wasn't even there.
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So I can only imagine what it was like living there, especially after Jesus.
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So in my early 20s,
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I worked for a company that processed all of the insurance mortgage claims for a
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bunch of
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mortgage companies.
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Um, and my territory was primarily the Gulf South.
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Um,
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so I had New Orleans,
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South Texas,
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Louisiana,
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New Orleans is in Louisiana,
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Louisiana,
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Alabama,
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and Mississippi.
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I think those are my main States that I worked with.
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And
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just the constant devastation that these families were facing.
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It was just never ending for them.
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And I connected with a lot of people over the phone because of that.
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I remember so much from Katrina and just every, every single part of it, it was wild.
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The whole thing was wild.
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And I wish I could say it was the most wild thing we've experienced in our lifetimes,
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but any millennial knows that's not true.
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Um,
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And so, yeah, sixth grade was chill.
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I turned 12 that year.
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Um, at this point I was still a very highly competitive gymnast and that was sixth grade.
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Yeah, that was that summer, I think.
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Yeah.
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That summer was my first summer at, um, nationals for the junior Olympian trampoline and tumbling.
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Um,
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And that was the year that I got second.
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I think I got second that year.
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Um, so yeah, I was a, you know, huge, huge gymnast.
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I shouldn't say huge.
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I wasn't, I was very tiny.
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Actually, it was like five foot 90 pounds and skin and bones and abs.
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Um, clearly that changed.
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Um,
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But yeah, so seventh grade, seventh grade was a shitty year, a really shitty year.
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That was when we were I knew we were moving to California, but I couldn't tell anyone about it.
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Why?
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I don't know.
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My mom's always been super secretive and it's kind of annoying sometimes.
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But that was the year we found out we were moved to California and dad was gone all
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the time,
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which left my mom and I together in like one of the worst possible times,
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considering that I was still pre-puberty because I still hadn't started puberty at all.
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Like nothing, nothing had happened.
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I'm assuming it was because of gymnastics and my low body fat percentage,
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which is what all the other doctors said to me.
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But all doctors, not other.
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I'm not a doctor.
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But...
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Yeah, my mom and I did not get along at all that entire year.
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It was awful.
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We fought nonstop.
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We put both of each other's down.
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Like I would just say shit to her just to be mean.
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And she would say shit to me that I don't think she realized was putting me down.
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But,
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you know,
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and just feel the eating disorder type stuff and the feelings of not being worthy
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or not being wanted.
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And just like escalated all that to the point where I tried to run away from home.
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But it didn't work out so well because it didn't go very far.
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And my mom figured it out way too quickly.
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So, you know, that was just a really, really shitty year.
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I had a burn book written on me.
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That was terrible by people I thought that were my closest friends.
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I was very cautious with friendships after that point.
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I kind of isolated myself a little bit when I moved to California because I was
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very hesitant to have that happen again.
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And I had heard just horrific things about California.
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Turns out most of them were wrong.
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But...
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I also... This is really weird.
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But I had a stye on the bottom of my eyelid that went from one corner of my eye to
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the other corner of my eye.
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And it was so big I could literally flip it out of my eye.
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And it hurt so bad.
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Like, probably one of the worst things I've ever experienced.
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And it just made me look so silly looking because my whole eye was swollen.
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But you can't pop it.
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And my mom kept putting up taking me to my doctor because, well, she's my mom.
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And...
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There wasn't anything we could do except put,
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which I learned now,
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which also,
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hot tip if you get styes,
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don't use a warm washcloth.
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Boil an egg, because when you heat it up, it stays hot for a really long time.
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You wrap it in a towel,
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but you can also just stick it back in the microwave to warm it up,
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and it holds the heat a lot longer than a washcloth does.
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That was the only way I finally got rid of my stye, because you can't pop them, even though you want to.
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It was the worst.
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literally the worst.
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Um, but yeah, that year I also went to nationals.
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Um, I did okay.
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We went to Nashville that year, which was a lot of fun.
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I got to see the Peabody hotel and Graceland and all that kind of stuff.
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So I'm really, really happy.
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I got to experience that because Elvis has always been a big, big part of my life because I'm a grandpa.
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Um,
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But yeah, after that, we moved to California.
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And eighth grade, I didn't start my period until I was 14.
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And eighth grade was, you know, it was challenging.
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I was in a new school.
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Oh, I totally skipped the part about the bassoon.
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So in seventh grade, I started playing bassoon.
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Why?
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Because Taylor doesn't pay attention.
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On like the first or second day of school in seventh grade in band,
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My director is talking and talking about how they really need a bassoon player.
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And I'm in my own world, like usual, thinking about other things.
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And he had asked people if they wanted,
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if there was anyone interested in learning to play the bassoon or the oboe.
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My dumbass was needing to ask a question about something else.
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What did I do?
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Raised my hand.
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Raised my hand and he was like, oh my gosh, Taylor, great.
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You would be perfect for the bassoon.
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And inside my eyes went wide, super wide.
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And I was like, oh my God, what the fuck did I just get myself into?
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But guess what?
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It turned out to be the best thing to happen for me because I ended up playing
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bassoon for the rest of my life.
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My educational career,
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I went on a music scholarship in college,
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and I was in all-state bands,
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and I ended up really,
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really loving the bassoon,
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and now it's paying off because I can read bassline while I'm learning piano.
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But I was in music since elementary school.
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My whole family, both sides are musicians, so...
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It was kind of expected, but thankfully I loved it.
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But yeah, I stumbled into learning how to play the bassoon on accident.
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So that was a fun one.
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Taught myself, had a few lessons, but I taught myself how to play it.
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And then that was seventh that we moved to California.
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That was eighth grade.
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I was in music there.
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That was my first year doing an all state band and I just absolutely loved it.
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It was so much fun.
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Um, so I was, you know, first bassoon chair for all state California.
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Um, and yeah, that was eighth grade.
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Eighth grade was interesting because I was in an outdoor school.
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Never seen that before.
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I had all these new friends and all these new classes.
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There were certain parts where I was smarter and certain parts where I was dumber
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and the whole thing was just chaos.
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I had like 12 boyfriends that year.
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It was also a year I dated this guy.
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Um,
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where I broke up with him over the phone and he didn't know it.
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And I mainly broke up with him because of his bad breath.
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I didn't want to kiss him.
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So terrible.
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I'm such a crazy person sometimes, but.
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Anyway, yeah.
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So after that, you know, I moved to ninth grade and that was freshman year.
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And where I went to school, the freshmen had their own campus, which was awesome.
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Absolutely awesome.
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And I was in marching band because for whatever reason, that's what I thought I needed to be doing.
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Newsflash, I hated it.
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But had I not joined marching band, I would not have met my girl's dad.
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So my now ex-husband, Joey, and I met in high school.
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I was a freshman.
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I was 14 years old.
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He was 15, and we met in marching band.
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And he was a drummer.
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I was a flute player.
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We started chatting on MySpace, and we started dating.
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And then we didn't stop until 2023.
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Yeah, 2023.
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So we started dating in 2008.
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I guess we didn't date until 2023 because we started dating ourselves probably a year into our marriage.
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But so I met Joey.
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And after that point, most of my life revolved around him.
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I definitely isolated myself from a lot of my friends.
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Um,
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so,
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you know,
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there was that,
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but I made a lot of good friends that I had for years,
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but unfortunately I don't talk to many of them anymore.
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Um, so my freshman year was pretty basic.
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Met Joey, fell in love.
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And then, you know, we spent every day together.
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Once I moved to the big high school campus, it was even worse.
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You know, every 10 seconds we were with each other if we weren't in class.
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But the rest of high school was pretty uneventful until my senior year.
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When Joey went off to college, he went to UCLA.
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And I was still senior.
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That was when...
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I met the guy who would end up really screwing with my head for a very long time.
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We worked together at the gymnastics place that I worked at because I was a
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tumbling coach and a preschool coach.
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And my boyfriend was gone and I was desperate for attention because I wasn't getting it from him.
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And so I sought out any attention I could get and this guy gave it to me.
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And eventually it led to a lot of really terrible things and I could not back away for some reason.
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I just couldn't get myself to do it.
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And a lot of horrible things happened to me by him.
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that I don't think I should discuss over a podcast that definitely deserves its own whole post.
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I mean, I didn't even tell anyone until two years ago.
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Like, no one knew about it.
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So, but it definitely changed a lot of things about my life.
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So this was 17, 18, and I think it changed the trajectory of, you know,
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a lot of why I was so emotionally reclusive, um, because I was quite ashamed of what I was doing.
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Um, even though it was being done to me for the most part, but I did keep going back.
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Um, and because of it, I tried to break up with Joey, but it didn't work.
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He ultimated me and said, I'm never going to talk to you again, or we can get back together.
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And I couldn't
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handled never talking to him again.
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So we got back together.
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Um, and that was that.
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And I kept going to this guy's house secretly.
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No one knew, no one knew anything.
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My parents, no one, um, not even my best friends.
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They didn't know anything.
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I was just kept it all to myself.
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Um, and so that was that year.
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And every year Joey had some kind of military training for ROTC cause he was going
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to be Marine Corps officer.
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So he was gone.
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And that was when that August I left for band camp,
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essentially,
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because I was on a vocal and instrumental scholarship at,
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um,
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California Baptist university,
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which was awful.
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Um, I don't regret going there, but it still sucked a lot, a lot of times, not all the time though.
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But so this is 18 and go to college and the freedom was amazing.
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Um,
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but I also learned that freedom comes with consequence,
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um,
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because I was now free to eat and drink whatever I wanted.
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And that was not necessarily a good thing.
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Um,
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this is how I ended up drinking two giant coffee mugs full of coffee and just then
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subsequently not being able to drink coffee for the next year.
(00:19:24):
Um,
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Oh, I'm sorry.
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I have to interrupt our podcast to let you know that one of my boys,
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his tail is wrapped up over his neck.
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It's so cute.
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Anyway, anyway, um,
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So yeah, freshman year.
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Freshman year was intense.
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I lived with, I dormed with a girl I went to high school with who were really good friends.
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But unfortunately, living together ruined our friendship.
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It really did.
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I learned that when it is my own very, very own space.
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I
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It is my responsibility for every single part of it.
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I don't like it messy,
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which was a huge shock to everybody who knew me in high school or really any part
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of my life before then because my rooms were always disgustingly messy.
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It's so funny because now I organize for a living and can be a little bit of a clean freak sometimes.
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But that was 18 to 19.
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And then I think Joey went on another...
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another trip, but maybe not.
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No, that was the year we went to Kansas and somewhere else.
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I don't remember where else we went together,
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but yeah,
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we did a lot of traveling that summer and it was a lot of fun.
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Um, and then that was Joey's junior year.
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My
(00:20:52):
sophomore and junior year.
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Cause I graduated college in three years.
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Um, and that was 19 and we got engaged that Christmas.
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Um, so at 19, I was engaged to be married and I was over the moon.
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That was all I wanted.
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Um, I, all I wanted in life was to get married and have children.
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Um, it's so funny how life plays out, but yeah,
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That was also the year that my eating disorder,
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my anxiety,
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my depression,
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my OCD all just came to a really bad head and ended up causing me to be very ill
(00:21:36):
for a very long time.
(00:21:37):
And you know why?
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Why?
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Because I didn't talk to anybody.
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I didn't tell anybody what was going on.
(00:21:44):
I didn't tell anybody how bad my phobias were.
(00:21:46):
I didn't tell anybody how bad my anxiety was.
(00:21:49):
I didn't tell anybody how obsessive my brain was.
(00:21:52):
I didn't do any of that.
(00:21:53):
And so what does that mean?
(00:21:54):
It means I was alone and it just built,
(00:21:57):
built,
(00:21:58):
built,
(00:21:58):
and ended up causing me a ton of physical health problems.
(00:22:03):
I was skipping classes,
(00:22:04):
lying to people,
(00:22:06):
just,
(00:22:07):
I mean,
(00:22:07):
all that kind of stuff,
(00:22:09):
barely eating,
(00:22:10):
overexercising.
(00:22:12):
Um, it was just not, not a good, not a good time for me.
(00:22:17):
Um, and this was also what I became a group exercise instructor and a personal trainer.
(00:22:23):
Toast forgot about that.
(00:22:24):
That was the beginning of that.
(00:22:25):
And which was probably one of the few amazing things that happened during college.
(00:22:30):
But yeah, that year, that year was rough.
(00:22:36):
That
(00:22:44):
The year I turned 20, so that would have been 2014.
(00:22:49):
And I got married the very next year.
(00:22:54):
So that'll be the beginning of 20 to 30.
(00:22:59):
I have no idea if I managed to get everything in here.
(00:23:05):
but hopefully I did.
(00:23:07):
And if you found this interesting, can you let me know?
(00:23:10):
Or if you really want to hear me talk about something or an experience, you know, let me know.
(00:23:16):
I've done a lot.
(00:23:19):
clearly.
(00:23:20):
And I feel like I'm constantly forgetting things like, Oh yeah, that happened too.
(00:23:23):
Huh?
(00:23:24):
Okay.
(00:23:26):
So yeah, but that has been a singular singleton Taylor only episode of the curiosity chronicles.
(00:23:33):
And I hope you enjoy, and I can't wait to talk to you guys next time.
(00:23:36):
Bye for now.
WTF Happened to Taylor - Age 10-20