Chasten Buttigieg, I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU - FOR YOUNG ADULTS: A Memoir

2023-05-16  ·  24:35  ·  Chasten Buttigieg  ·  Podcast Audio

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[1:03]Chastin Buttich's is the author of I Have Something to Tell You for Young Adults, a memoir.
[1:09]Chastin grew up in Traverse City, Michigan.
[1:12]He is a teacher, advocate, and husband of former presidential candidate, Pete Buttich's.
[1:17]Chastin currently lives with Pete, their two children gossip and LV and their two rescue
[1:21]dogs, Buddy and Truman and Northern Michigan.
[1:23]I have some to tell you for Young Adults, is his second book.
[1:26]Welcome Chastin.
[1:27]Thank you so much for coming on mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss.
[1:30]I have something to tell you for Young Adults, a memoir.
[1:33]Thanks for having me.
[1:34]Well, I read the tutorial in the book on how to pronounce your name and your whole
[1:37]song with your name.
[1:40]I have an odd name too, obviously, not that yours is odd, but unconventional, whatever.
[1:44]I don't know.
[1:45]So I've always had to spell and respell and I've gotten so many different things from
[1:49]my anyway.
[1:50]I relate.
[1:51]Oh, well, we're unique.
[1:53]Yes.
[1:54]Amazing.
[1:55]Yes, memorable.
[1:56]In fact.
[1:57]Yes.
[1:58]So can you tell listeners, please, why you wrote this memoir?
[2:01]Why share your story and what are some of the things about it that you really want to get
[2:05]across?
[2:06]Yeah.
[2:07]I've been working on this book for the last couple years and did not anticipate that this
[2:11]book would be coming out during such a tumultuous moment in American politics.
[2:15]I knew I wanted to write a book that I wish I would have had when I was younger, a book
[2:19]I wish someone could have handed me, you know, and told me that it was going to be okay.
[2:23]I had that in mind.
[2:24]Then I became a dad during the process of writing this book and so it sort of changed
[2:28]everything that I wanted to say, everything I wanted to hand down to my kids one day.
[2:33]But also just, you know, a generation of young chastens out there who are watching their
[2:39]government attack their dignity and their human rights and wondering whether or not people
[2:45]are going to show up for them and fight for them if we all truly belong in this country.
[2:49]And so I had a lot of things in mind as a parent, as a middle school teacher.
[2:53]I knew how important it was to have a resource like this.
[2:57]And then the meaning just kept building as I became a father and as our politics sort
[3:03]of ravined into the ridiculousness that it is right now with LGBTQ rights and book
[3:07]bands.
[3:08]And I knew that I really wanted to say something that would mean a lot to younger
[3:13]Justin.
[3:14]Amazing.
[3:15]Well, it's a great book and a great story.
[3:17]You have so many funny anecdotes in here about growing up.
[3:20]I think my favorite, I mean, the sentence mean.
[3:23]not favorite.
[3:24]It was obviously not good.
[3:25]But when you got whacked in the head during a theater, blacked out on stage.
[3:30]Oh my gosh.
[3:31]Yeah.
[3:32]Yeah.
[3:33]So, but it didn't deter you.
[3:34]Apparently you just kept at it for a while.
[3:37]It did not.
[3:38]It was important for me to have a lot of humor and a lot of lighthearted moments in the
[3:42]book because so much of my story is also heartbreaking.
[3:47]And there was a lot of pain that didn't need to be.
[3:50]There was a lot of unnecessary pain, I should say.
[3:53]You know, growing up when you think you're the only one and you think something's wrong
[3:56]with you and you're just trying to find your way, I didn't want the whole book to be depressing.
[4:01]You know, like this bad thing happened and then another bad thing happened and like eventually
[4:05]it was fine.
[4:06]There's a lot of funny stuff in there too.
[4:08]It's a good mix.
[4:09]And I'm sorry that your bicycle ride did not lead to a lifelong, you know, TV career, whatever.
[4:16]But that's still pretty cool.
[4:18]That's a fun video to bring out of the film.
[4:20]Oh man.
[4:21]I think it was that I should have Googled it or something, I only read about it.
[4:24]Is it up?
[4:25]It must be up somewhere for people to do it.
[4:26]I don't know if I found it on the internet, but it's like on a VHS tape, I don't
[4:30]think it's house.
[4:32]And so I, you know, recorded the television on my phone so that I can show it to other people.
[4:37]It's pretty funny.
[4:38]That's great.
[4:39]Oh my goodness.
[4:41]Going back to not the funny parts, but some of the harder parts of growing up in where
[4:47]you grew up with your family and the community and, you know, feeling like what you felt
[4:52]inside was a sin and that it was wrong and not accepted.
[4:56]How do you get through something like that and not let it to permeate everything forever?
[5:02]Like how do you put it in a bucket and like even just to talk about it or write about
[5:06]it and like just how do you process it and all that?
[5:09]Well, in many different ways, some parts of the book were really hard to write their
[5:12]or dates when I didn't want to think about it or didn't want to, you know, even start to
[5:16]go down that road to think about what I wanted to say and come back to some of those feelings.
[5:21]My story certainly has a happier ending though, I, you know, after I ran away from home,
[5:25]I got to come back home and of all the feelings of guilt and shame.
[5:30]I did fall in love one day and I did to become a dad and I, I did, you know, start a career.
[5:36]All of these things I thought I never would have and so it certainly makes it easier to
[5:40]go back and think about what that young person was going through and, you know, there's
[5:44]that part in the book where I talk about what I wish I could go back and tell my younger
[5:48]self.
[5:49]And certainly a lot of that trauma is made lighter because I am loved because I do have
[5:54]a community because I do have people remind me that I am worthy of love and acceptance
[5:59]and, you know, those things certainly wouldn't be as easy to carry around with you if
[6:04]you, if you didn't have that.
[6:06]And so part of the privilege of being in this role is to be able to process those thoughts
[6:11]and those experiences and turn around and share them with another generation in hopes
[6:17]of inspiring them not to make things as, you know, heavier than they need to be, to believe
[6:22]in a brighter future, to believe in a more inclusive America and to see the goodness in
[6:28]all people.
[6:29]You know, I grew up thinking that I had to be one very specific way and I hate that
[6:34]young people still believe that they have to achieve the standards of other people or
[6:38]meet the opinions of other people or that they are defined by the opinions of their peers
[6:43]or their surroundings.
[6:44]And this book is a way to say, you are not, you know, even if you might think you're
[6:49]the only one that feels different or, you know, this book is a reminder that you don't
[6:55]have to care so much about what other people think.
[6:58]And then I wish I would have allowed myself to love myself much earlier and brace all
[7:03]the things that make me quirky or different or unique and creative and lean into all
[7:07]of those abilities because they wound up being talents.
[7:11]And I wish I wouldn't have been so ashamed of them or scared of them because other
[7:15]people didn't like them.
[7:16]Hey, you actually had dog-eared that passage of your book along with others because, and
[7:22]of course, you frame all of your advice with like a page of funny banter, which I love,
[7:30]but there were two parts that were particularly good.
[7:33]I thought it might seem impossible right now, but there will come a day when you will
[7:36]stop caring about what all these kids think about you and that secret you're doing
[7:40]your very best to hide will one day be the thing that helps you make a tremendous impact
[7:44]in the world.
[7:45]In fact, once you embrace that secret, you're going to fall in love both with yourself
[7:49]and with someone else.
[7:50]Oh, gross younger me says, I know I laugh a few times actually and you're going to get
[7:56]your heart broken into a million little pieces and that's just fine because you'll pick
[8:00]yourself up, glue your heart back together and be better for it.
[8:04]And then you'll go do impressive things that means so much to so many people and you really
[8:08]do meet a friends.
[8:09]Okay, now I know you're not real.
[8:11]Well, he's technically a mayor, but stick with me.
[8:14]Yeah.
[8:15]You're so funny.
[8:17]That's awesome.
[8:18]I always think about, people ask you that question, I like, what would you say if you
[8:23]you go back and tell your younger self something and I always laugh because I feel like
[8:27]young chess would, you know, that whole premise of that chapter is like, am I a ghost?
[8:32]You know, is it a premonition?
[8:33]Oh, I want to feel like young chess and would like not believe it at all.
[8:37]Yeah.
[8:38]Well, that's like the crazy thing about life, right?
[8:42]We never do get to go back and reassure ourselves that he ungraged and I'm sure there are
[8:45]things we would love to know now that our owners always would be able to tell us, but
[8:49]I won't.
[8:50]Yeah.
[8:51]It is what it is.
[8:52]It's like, you know, I taught eighth grade.
[8:53]I kind of know my audience is here and I know that teenagers don't like to be BS, you
[8:59]know.
[9:00]Yeah.
[9:01]And I wanted to pepper in like the appropriate amount of humor, but also acknowledge
[9:04]that like nobody likes to be lectured, especially teenagers.
[9:07]Mm-hmm.
[9:08]And I also don't want to write like a self-help book that's like everything will work out
[9:12]just fine.
[9:13]Like I wanted to sit in some of that heartbreak too and process some of that trauma
[9:17]with young people and in hopes that they wouldn't, you know, have to go through some
[9:22]much of it themselves, but also to just acknowledge that like, yeah, you know, sometimes
[9:26]it sucks.
[9:27]And it's really hard, but we're better off for it.
[9:29]Well, you also have experiences that didn't exactly help your feeling other than by like
[9:34]living in Germany, for example, and being actually different in other ways from the majority
[9:41]of the population.
[9:42]For everybody you were sort of with at the time and taking me back more to that time
[9:48]of your life and how you through navigated all of that.
[9:52]Oh, going to Germany.
[9:53]Yeah.
[9:54]Uh, I mean, Germany was my escape, you know, this scholarship popped up.
[10:00]The Congressbundis Talk Youth Exchange Program,
[10:02]where it's a joint scholarship
[10:04]between the American and German governments
[10:05]and my high school German teacher one day,
[10:08]was telling everyone about this program
[10:10]is like all the kids are like shopping
[10:11]they're backpacks full on the bells
[10:13]reading and they're all like leaving the classroom.
[10:14]And I felt like I was the only one
[10:16]that heard what she was saying.
[10:17]It's like free ticket, free golden ticket,
[10:20]like come grab it, and everyone's like rushing out
[10:22]the door and I was like, hold up.
[10:24]So you're saying that I can go study
[10:26]in Germany for free, you know, I knew my family,
[10:29]we didn't have a ton of money
[10:31]and they definitely couldn't afford an exchange here
[10:33]and I knew that would be a big sell to them.
[10:36]So as I talked about in the book
[10:38]and I forged my dad's signature on the application,
[10:40]it was like my first big act of rebellion
[10:42]and then obviously I wound up getting it
[10:46]and got their permission to go.
[10:47]And it wasn't so much that I was interested
[10:50]in going to Germany, it was just like I needed to get out.
[10:52]I just needed to get out of Northern Michigan
[10:56]and this was the way.
[10:57]And so I was thrown into a different culture.
[11:01]I had host families who didn't really speak much English.
[11:04]I had four years of German in America
[11:07]but you know, nothing compared to ready
[11:10]to go conversational German on day one.
[11:13]But then I, you know, I picked up the language.
[11:15]And I host family who like sent went swimming naked.
[11:18]Yes, yeah.
[11:19]And what the, I would be like, okay, all right, amazing.
[11:22]Yeah, right from the beginning they're like,
[11:23]it's like fry a typical to like free body culture.
[11:26]There's like, you know, it's not a big deal.
[11:28]Like you just go swimming and you go about your day.
[11:30]And so there are all these funny little cultural anecdotes
[11:34]that I was shocked about but the best part about it
[11:36]was that I started to meet friends who didn't care
[11:38]that I was gay.
[11:40]I was able to come out to a friend and once I did,
[11:42]I felt like I was able to just live this double life.
[11:45]Like my family back home in America had no idea
[11:47]that I was, you know, coming out of the closet
[11:50]and feeling stronger and more confident
[11:52]and you know, more alive.
[11:54]And then as soon as all of those changes started happening,
[11:57]it was time to get back on an airplane
[11:59]and go back home and graduate high school.
[12:01]And then I basically went back into the closet
[12:04]and Germany, you know, I had I not had that year.
[12:07]I don't know what it would have been like for me.
[12:10]So, you know, the school was fine.
[12:13]The travel was incredible.
[12:14]I mean, you take this kid out of Northern Michigan
[12:16]who had never seen all of these beautiful, incredible things.
[12:20]And I was just amazed by everything.
[12:23]Just an entire world out there that showed me like,
[12:26]it can be a different way.
[12:27]And you can make friends and you can be yourself
[12:29]and you can, you know, you don't have to be defined
[12:31]by that little town back in Michigan.
[12:33]Yeah, that and Will and Grace.
[12:35]There you go.
[12:36]Yeah.
[12:37]Yeah.
[12:38]It was everything you needed.
[12:39]Exactly.
[12:40]Will and Grace, it was like trauma and therapy
[12:42]at the same time.
[12:43]It's like, I loved it.
[12:45]I was so afraid that if I laughed, my family would like,
[12:49]no, but I was gay.
[12:52]And it certainly felt like, you know,
[12:53]you could be gay in New York, but you couldn't be gay
[12:56]in Michigan or like, you know, something
[12:58]that people on TV could have, but not this like farm kid
[13:02]in Northern Michigan, so.
[13:04]I appreciated all the photos of farm animals in the back.
[13:07]I'm not expecting this.
[13:09]I'm like, OK, I'm done.
[13:10]Oh, look at this.
[13:12]I feel like people who've gotten to know me
[13:14]do not expect to see little chest and go in some cows.
[13:20]Oh, it's good.
[13:21]Oh, it's nice to have unexpected things popping up.
[13:24]And then, of course, you end up on the presidential campaign
[13:27]trail, which is not necessarily how conversations
[13:30]like this typically go, because what is that?
[13:33]How was that?
[13:34]What was the most surprising or what was something
[13:36]that, you know, do you shake your head and laugh at even now
[13:40]or something that cracks you up for the whole experience?
[13:43]I mean, obviously, yeah.
[13:45]I mean, I still struggle with impostered syndrome every now
[13:48]and then, like, am I truly worthy of this platform?
[13:50]Why is it me?
[13:51]Like, how did it become me?
[13:53]And the presidential campaign trail was a whirlwind.
[13:57]And at the beginning of it, I thought,
[13:59]there's no way that I can fill these shoes.
[14:02]And you know, you look at people like Jackie Kennedy
[14:05]and, you know, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton,
[14:07]and you think about all of these powerful political spouses.
[14:10]And at that time of my life, I was like,
[14:12]I feel like I just started my career, you know,
[14:14]saddled with student debt, like really, really rocky
[14:17]start through college, had, you know, come into my being
[14:21]as a gay man and got there with, like, all this baggage
[14:25]and trauma, you know, and felt like my life was just
[14:28]beginning with Peter.
[14:29]And then we're out there.
[14:31]And I'm so embarrassed by all these things.
[14:33]Because like, if you're successful,
[14:35]then you wouldn't have, you know,
[14:36]been a victim of sexual assault.
[14:38]If you're successful, you wouldn't have, you know,
[14:40]amount of student debt.
[14:41]If you're, you know, a successful person,
[14:44]these are obviously air quotes,
[14:46]then you wouldn't have this, you know, rocky past
[14:50]of having your heart broken and, you know,
[14:52]keeping three jobs to stay afloat.
[14:55]And I quickly realized the more I talked about those things,
[14:58]the more people resonated, you know,
[15:00]the more the campaign resonated,
[15:01]the more people felt a connection with you.
[15:04]And so I just opened up about it all
[15:06]because I think at the end of the day,
[15:07]we all just want to be seen and understood
[15:09]and feel like we actually belong and someone gets us.
[15:13]And so I started having these incredible round tables
[15:16]of teachers and LGBTQ youth and their parents
[15:19]and just talking with people.
[15:21]And of course you come in and you're, you know,
[15:23]the spouse of the presidential candidate
[15:25]and they're a little intimidated
[15:26]and I'm a little intimidated because I'm there, you know,
[15:29]and I'm trying to figure out what to do
[15:31]and who to be and there's no playbook for that.
[15:33]And it helped me see that, you know,
[15:35]maybe I'm not in the classroom now,
[15:37]but I'm sort of in the national classroom,
[15:39]I get to be a teacher for a lot more people.
[15:42]I had inspiring conversations with parents
[15:44]who were still struggling
[15:45]to figure out how to support their kid
[15:47]and, you know, teachers who are trying to figure it all out.
[15:50]And I realized like, I don't have to go out there
[15:51]and pretend to be anybody.
[15:52]I can just go be myself, you know,
[15:55]I can just go talk to people normally.
[15:59]And I don't have to be this like prints or princess figure.
[16:02]And that was the best part about it.
[16:04]It was just bringing the visibility to issues
[16:06]and to communities.
[16:08]Pete and I basically spent the year,
[16:10]year and a half apart.
[16:11]I mean, we were like ping pong,
[16:12]calling all over the, you know, or pin pong,
[16:14]pin pong, all over the country.
[16:16]And I got to go to some really cool communities
[16:18]and meet some really great people
[16:20]and learned a lot about myself too,
[16:22]especially, you know, that in order to tell this story,
[16:25]I had to embrace it, which is, you know,
[16:27]what led me to writing the YA book set.
[16:30]All of these things don't define you.
[16:33]They've just helped shape you into who you are today.
[16:36]How's that?
[16:38]And then you also had the introduction of kids.
[16:43]Talk about, is it somebody awake?
[16:47]Buddy, buddy, the puggle is awake
[16:49]and it's probably barking at a meal man or something.
[16:52]How, you know, you said you thought
[16:54]you would never end up being a dad.
[16:56]And now of course you are.
[16:57]And what is that?
[16:58]Like, I have four kids.
[17:00]I can relate to new parenting very well and all of that.
[17:05]It's chaos.
[17:06]And it's everything I've wanted it to be.
[17:08]And more, it's messy.
[17:10]It's sticky.
[17:11]I cry every time.
[17:12]I feel like I cry every time I talk about my kids.
[17:13]Like, I love them so much.
[17:15]I miss them every day when they're in daycare.
[17:17]I feel like I finally reached the thing in life
[17:19]that I knew I was meant to do.
[17:21]Like, I wanted to be a teacher and I was a really good teacher.
[17:25]But it never felt like it was like the thing I was like,
[17:28]put on this earth to do, you know,
[17:30]writing a book, helping my husband run for president.
[17:33]They were all things that I did and appreciated
[17:36]and succeeded at.
[17:37]And then I became a dad and I was like,
[17:39]oh my God, this is what I meant to do.
[17:41]And all of these other things prepared me for this, you know,
[17:44]teaching middle school definitely prepared me
[17:46]for being a father of twin toddlers.
[17:48]Every time I get lost in the chaos of life
[17:51]and the silliness of politics,
[17:54]I try to be really present with my kids
[17:57]because they remind me of what I'm here for.
[18:00]And they are such good reminders of what matters in this world.
[18:04]You know, some mean spirited homophobic thing on Fox News
[18:09]doesn't get to come to the dinner table, you know,
[18:12]because you put your, you turn your phone off
[18:13]and you look around and your kids are just sitting there
[18:15]trying to eat their mac and cheese and drink their milk
[18:18]and you focus on that, like this is the good thing.
[18:21]This is why you're here.
[18:22]And this is all that matters.
[18:24]The opinions of the, you know,
[18:26]those other people don't matter.
[18:27]It's showing up for your kids every single day.
[18:31]and I just, I love it so much.
[18:34]They also have an incredible way.
[18:37]I know I'm preaching to the choir,
[18:38]but they have such an incredible way
[18:42]of showing you all of the tiny, beautiful things
[18:45]in the world that you stopped noticing like birds,
[18:49]gusses obsessed with birds.
[18:52]And you start to realize how many birds are around you
[18:54]because he points out all of them in the magic of a bus
[18:58]or a truck, you know, guss waves at everybody.
[19:02]It's incredible.
[19:03]It's like guss on parade every time.
[19:04]We're like walking to the neighborhood.
[19:05]He says hi, hi, hi.
[19:08]We walk past the firehouse and he says hi truck, you know,
[19:11]and it's like, look at how happy he is
[19:14]just like taking in the world.
[19:16]You know, hi bird, hi bird, hi truck.
[19:18]And when I start, I just like sit in that
[19:21]and stop thinking so much about like, you know,
[19:24]the world being on fire.
[19:25]We have to tackle that too.
[19:26]And we're taking that on too.
[19:28]But I try to be so present with them
[19:30]because they just have a way of reminding me of all
[19:33]that is good.
[19:34]And there's nothing like reading a book with Penelope.
[19:37]It's just a cute little thing.
[19:38]Gers ever do this where they like go pick a book
[19:40]and then they like back up into your lap.
[19:42]Yes.
[19:43]That's the best thing in the world.
[19:46]It gets the book back up into my lap, plop.
[19:49]We look at two pages and then she like rolls off my lap,
[19:51]takes it back to the bookshelf, gets another one.
[19:53]And it's like, this is the best thing.
[19:55]It's the best thing ever.
[19:56]Yeah, now my kids are.
[20:00]So big. They're like, you know, squashing me some of them, but I did survive having to
[20:05]win toddlers as well. And, you know, it does get easier. I know everybody says that, but
[20:10]um, yeah, I was complaining about how busy I was or something or I was thinking about
[20:15]how I thought I was so crazed when I had kids and they were like, oh, imagine that, but now
[20:20]you're really busy. And I'm like, no, I was way, it's like, I was way busier and more stressed
[20:26]and crazy, because when you're chasing people down and to worried someone's going to
[20:30]like, there's always like the fear of all times, like this staircase, like everything is
[20:33]all through a threat. It's like someone high alert, like oh, my gosh, now at least them.
[20:39]You know, it's manageable. I don't, it's not just, you're really doing your heart on like the
[20:43]outside of your chest all the time. Yeah. Like so in love and just absolutely terrified all the time.
[20:48]Yeah. What can go wrong? You know, now my fear is like, I can't let anything happen to me,
[20:54]not because I care about me. You know what I mean? Like I can't let them not have me around.
[20:58]Yes. So that's like my other thing, because I'm always like, I'm on a plane and I'm like,
[21:02]you can't do this to that. Right? Yeah. Like I never thought about that stuff ever. And I'm like,
[21:08]it's terrible. Yeah. Well, anyway. So are you going to do more books? What do you think?
[21:16]How, how was you going to continue? There's nurturing your platform, helping people. You've
[21:19]done so much already. What's in the cards for you next in this? Yeah, I started working on a
[21:24]kids book. Good. I'll focus on this one for now, but it is a very fun little noodle in the
[21:30]back of my head that I've slowly been working on these characters. And because it's also the
[21:35]book I want to read with my kids, you know, a book that features two dads and the book's not
[21:39]about having two dads. It's just a family doing their thing. The kids get into trouble. And
[21:44]there's great lessons. And you know, just like playing around with all these storylines,
[21:47]but I have tons of books so grateful for all these books that our friends and our family,
[21:52]you know, give us and very few of them look like my family. So that's really important to me. And
[21:59]and I'm thinking about all of the things that I want them to see right now because I can't
[22:03]read this book for, you know, another 10 years or so. So I want to develop that a little further.
[22:08]I've got, I'm sure, you know, my publicist listening to this, but like, oh my god, focus on this one.
[22:13]But it's really fun. It's really fun. I like to, you know, I was a theater kid and I love noodling
[22:18]when stories and that's a fun daydream. Like, what book would I want Penelope to go get off the shelf
[22:24]and back up into my lab with. So yeah, we'll see. Well, if all those fails, you have a fabulous
[22:31]voice. So you should be like, you should do like a side hustle is like a voiceover actor,
[22:36]just like sneak in. And I don't know if you think you have like the best voice. I feel like
[22:41]it's so calming too. So I bet your kids like eat that up, which is great. Oh, thank you. Yeah,
[22:45]I did the audio book for this one. It was important for me that it'd be my voice, but it's also like,
[22:51]what a demanding job. It's very annoying. Yeah, I'll just stop me and starting. Yeah, stop,
[22:56]start, stop, start. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. I've done a couple audio books after the first one.
[23:01]I was like, wait a minute, maybe this should be my job. Maybe I should just do this. Like,
[23:06]just read all day, read great books. Like, this is pretty great that you can pay for this. So,
[23:11]I don't know. It's also incredibly invasive. And they're like, oh, you guys start over,
[23:15]heard your stomach growl. Like, yeah. Like, every time you're like, then you feel like you're like,
[23:21]did they hear that one? You know, you're very intimate. I was totally like crying like through
[23:28]something. And they're like, okay, can you just take that from like, I'm like, I'm like,
[23:33]okay, I'll do it again. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was crying to that whole part about coming
[23:40]out to my grandma. And I had to keep starting over. And eventually I feel like they're like,
[23:44]okay, get over yourself. Take 50. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on
[23:53]and chatting with me today. Thanks for helping so many people with all the things you do and your
[23:58]book. I have something to tell you. So thank you so much. It was great. Thanks for having me. I
[24:02]appreciate it. My pleasure. All right. Take care. Bye bye. See ya.
[24:07]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:11]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:16]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[24:21]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound
[24:25]for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[24:30]and now trim music.