Jayded Epiphany

In this episode of Jaded Dame, Athena sits down with Jayde for a chaotic, honest, and unexpectedly deep conversation about growing up, blue collar life, mental health, relationships, and figuring out who you are after surviving the versions of yourself that almost broke you.

What starts with stories about bartenders, company parties, and random useless facts quickly turns into a conversation about depression, emotional survival, childhood trauma, learning to love your life again, and what it means to finally feel peace for the first time in years.

The girls talk about:

• Surviving your early twenties
• Being “children raised by children”
• Blue collar relationships and independence
• Motherhood and generational cycles
• Identity after depression
• Why women connected to blue collar life are built differently
• Healing without becoming hardened
• Finding humor in chaos
• And the strange beauty of realizing you actually like your life

It’s funny, emotional, wildly unfiltered, and feels a lot like sitting in a garage drinking after a long week while everyone accidentally gets honest.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We were talking earlier because we are planning your wedding.

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

And um you had said that one of the bartenders that's that you had met, is that how you also like engaged her?

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Absolutely. But the other way that we engaged her was by noticing that she has like a bitchy attitude, and I have a bitchy attitude. And so we were just shooting the shit while we were ordering drinks. Okay. And at the end of the night, I put my phone number on the back of the receipt. And she texted you? She texted me. I think she thought I was trying to take her home.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

My name's Athena Manuma.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

And I'm Jade Decker.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

This is Jade's first first podcast. I can't even talk. I should have done vocal warm-ups, but this is Jade's first podcast ever. Yes. And she's very terrified. It's not even that bad, I promise. I know. It's just so intimidating. It does get intimidating a little bit when you're first starting out, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

It's my voice, it really is. Like that's the thing that I hear myself talk, and I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

It's not Bad. I promise it's not Bayon. Okay. This is Jade Dame Podcast, and today what I figured we'd talk about was learning to get to know Jade. Um I met Jade two years ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Um at uh Phillies at a bar in Phoenix.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

For the company Christmas party. For the company Christmas party.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

So give me three fun facts about you.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

Um I'm smart, surprisingly.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Uh I don't know, fun facts. I don't think I ever really paid attention to like what's like what a fun fact about me is. Oh, I have a ridiculous amount of useless, random, pointless knowledge that I love to tell people for any reason.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

They just pull you pull them out of your pocket for parties.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Yeah, that's like how I get people interested in talking to me. It's like, oh did you know? And then it's a 45-minute ramble on, and then I end up with phone numbers at the end of the night.

SPEAKER_05 2:33

Like you.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Well, when you said your name was Jade, I was like, oh, perfect. My name's Jade.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Yeah. It still took me what two years to actually like remember that your middle name.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, I just told you yesterday, and you're like, it is. Like it was the first time I ever told you. So um okay, random facts.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Yeah, random facts. Second is um I'm pretty good at coloring inside the lines on like coloring pages.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

That was like my major thing as a kid. Is if I colored outside of them, I'd have a complete meltdown.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Your OCD was showing.

SPEAKER_05 3:15

Very bad. Um, and then third fun fact is I put myself into the blue collar life after I turned 18 and did blue collar work myself.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 3:28

And then met someone in the blue-collar field, and now I stay at home.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Okay, so that's where I wanted to start was your random fun fact. So, from your memory, what was the wildest story of you giving a random fun fact and what happened? Like, how did that radiate out?

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Honestly, they happen so often that I don't even remember when they started. It probably started in high school because I wasn't good at school, but I was good at everything else. Okay. And I watched Animal Planet a lot. So it was probably like some stupid fact about some koala or something, and it turned into like a native animal somewhere else, and I'm like, oh, it originated from here and did this, and blah blah blah. So I have no idea where it came from or who I spoke to, but for whatever reason, that is what my brain loves to do.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Wait, we were talking earlier because we are planning your wedding.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

And um, you had said that one of the bartenders that's that you had met, is that how you also like engaged her?

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Absolutely. But the other way that we engaged her was by noticing that she has like a bitchy attitude, and I have a bitchy attitude. And so we were just shooting the shit while we were ordering drinks. Okay. And at the end of the night, I put my phone number on the back of the receipt. And she texted you? She texted me.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

I think she thought I was trying to take her home. Do you think that she thought it was Dylan? No, it was in your handwriting, so yeah, it was in my handwriting.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Yeah, and like it was actually him and her daring me to put like this waitress sucks ass on like the back of the receipt, and I was like, I think I'm gonna do one better. I'm gonna scare her and make her think that I'm trying to take her home, and it worked.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And now we're friends, and now we're friends.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So, um, and that you and you had also mentioned, too, that you got into the blue-collar world at 18. So, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_04 5:19

I went from working your customer service, fast food jobs. I learned very quickly when I started working that I was not meant for customer service. So I ended up going into like the fast food and working back of house because I didn't have to deal with customers. And I did that for a couple of years, and I was tired of getting a $300 paycheck for the month, basically. And we had Tesla that had just started a couple of years beforehand producing the battery modules out in Reno. So I decided to put an application in and I got it, and that was I felt rich. Oh my god, that first paycheck came in, and I was like, oh my god, I'm rich. I had no debt at the time. I was like, I'm rich, like I can't this is this is successful here. And I stuck with that for four years, kind of on and off here and there. And then I decided to move my knowledge from Tesla and apply to the other electric car companies, which brought me out to Arizona to work for Lucid. Okay, and I worked there for nine months before that blew up in my face, and then I started doing your odd jobs. I did um what is it called? Like restoration, like mold restoration and stuff. Um, I did that for a couple of months. I've unloaded trucks, uh out here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Really?

SPEAKER_04 6:42

Yeah, I was fixing it.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I didn't think that Arizona would have a mold problem.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

You'd be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I am very surprised.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

There's a lot more than you think.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

It's so dry.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

It is so dry, but when it gets wet, it gets humid and damp and just spreads.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

What?

SPEAKER_04 6:57

But it's typically from people's like water heaters, uh you know, leaking or something. So it's all the stuff that leaks, or like a bathtub. Yeah. It's leaking in between the floors.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

And you really don't know.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Exactly. So you have to take the entire floor apart. I demolished an entire bathroom on a second floor one time.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Oh my gosh. Yeah, there was so you got to see down into the first floor.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

I got to stand on the framing for the floors. Like I had to stand on those to remove the bathtub. Oh my goodness. It was bad. Uh, but I did that. I did um construction for lucid ex like expansion um down in Casa Grand, and then I got into the uh vacuum pump and abatement world. Okay. I did that for a while. So I was in the semiconductor industry for about a year, and then I got a job as an electric motor mechanic, and that was terrible. It was so bad because I was the only chick. So I was in and I was the youngest, one of the youngest people there. And so it was hard to mesh with everyone else there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Everybody's set in their ways.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

Yeah, everyone is set in their ways, and I'm just not fast enough, I'm not strong enough, and they made it apparent, they made it very, very apparent that they did not like me. So after some hiccups in that road, I decided, you know what? I think it's time for me to just step away from work right now because my mental health is taking a complete and utter toll. And my partner and now husband actually allowed me to take that step away, and I had the epiphany today that I actually love my life.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Do you want to talk about your epiphany? Oh my god, my epiphany. Guys, listen to this.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

My epiphany.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Hear this. That's what Ava says. Hear this.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Hear this. Open your ears. Listen, Linda. I had the epiphany today out of all of the crap that one I've put myself into, and two, the stuff that I have just managed to stumble upon in life. I am at a point where my Grinch-like heart has felt a heartbeat, and I can breathe, and I am happy, and I have nothing to complain about. And I don't think I've been that way since I was probably like eight years old.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Oh. Yeah. Well, you didn't give me an age time before I don't when we had talked about it before. Yeah. I just hadn't felt it in a long time, is what I think you said.

SPEAKER_04 9:12

It's been years, but I couldn't even like eight I think eight's still even too soon. Like it was probably it was probably when we moved out to Reno, so I was like seven, maybe eight.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Where did you come from originally before you went to Reno?

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Colorado. Okay. I was Colorado Springs, stayed out there for eight years, then was in Reno, Nevada for 15, roughly, and then came out here and then been out here for three.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I have never done a states move, so I'm gonna ask you about that.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

What is that like?

SPEAKER_04 9:37

As a child, it was a blast. Like it was a blast getting up to the point of no longer knowing like when you're driving out to your new state. It's that moment where you look at it and go, Oh, I'm about to leave everything I know and start all over.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

And so it was like as an eight-year-old, I was stoked to be moving. I was like, cool, we're gonna be living a better life. This is amazing, blah, blah. I get to see new stuff, and then halfway through the drive, I was like, wait a second, I have no friends now, I have no idea where I'm at, blah, blah, blah. And then just life started getting in the way of things when we moved. Dad was traveling all the time, mom was enjoying what her 20s should have been, but decided to make her 30s. Um I have uh it take me, it took me years to get to the point of understanding that my parents were children raising children. Yeah, and so there's no resentment behind it. It's just at the time I didn't understand it, and so that threw me for a loop for years. Yeah, and it took me a lot of self-intern work to get to that point of going, I can't be mad at my parents for starting young. Yeah, you know, I can't be upset about that. That was their choice, it is what it is, but I am who I am, and I'm freaking dope. So your confidence is off the charts.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Oh, yeah, it didn't help that I bought you like a mafia coat.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

Oh, the mafia coat is really what sent it off. I'm telling you, when we were at the cut the company party, yeah, oh, I felt like the baddest bitch out there. I was like, oh man, all these chicks hate me right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

You look so good without the fur. You took your fur off. I did take the fur off. And it looked really good. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

So I feel like the fur honestly probably would have made me melt.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

I think so too. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

It would have been useful late, late night.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

If it was when it's windy. I didn't feel like the first time we went to that spot, it was really windy. But then the next year it was hot.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

And then this year it was fucking freezing.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

Well, that first year that you went, I was not involved in that. That was around the first time Dylan and I started talking, and he went and stayed with his friends. But I was knowledgeable of where he was at and what he was doing and everything. I just didn't know who he was with.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, you showed up, and then we also made a friend at the company party, too. That's it will have to be, yeah. We'll have to make this a whole other episode. But we did make a friend at this last company party that is not a part of the company group or anything like that. She just was associated with one of the other guys there, and we like for a short stint. Yeah. A whisper of a moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

But she was cool. Yeah. She was cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

We're gonna have to probably like hit her up sometime where in the world.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

I was gonna say we're gonna have to pull her in and like get her tea from like the outside of the blue collar life. Yes, yeah, for sure. Having those little inner moments of the blue-collar life, but not being involved in it.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I find out there's either family men in the blue-collar life or they're hoes. One of the two. There is no in between.

SPEAKER_05 12:26

There is no in-between. Not a single in-between person I've ever met.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

No. Um, but also earlier you had brought up another thing that I thought was interesting and maybe wanted to elaborate on is that you're you realize after you grew up that your parents were children raising children. Absolutely. So, like, what's the age difference with your parents um and you? Uh 24 years. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

But my mom and dad both had their children when they were 18 and 19.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

So they hadn't even they weren't even old enough to drink by the time they started having kids.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Barely even old enough to freaking vote. And so it was like they the me seeing how I was at 18, I feel so bad for the stuff I put my parents through and the fact that they had children going through that process. I won't wish that upon my worst enemy.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Because it's just it's stressful. And like was with me not having children at a young age, I still don't get it. You know, so it's still hard for me to understand, but I had to stop looking at it from just my perspective and look at it from theirs. And then that's what made me realize oh, I'm kind of a dick about like bagging on my parents for years and like using that as like this crutch. Yeah. So yeah, it took me, took me a while.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah. Well, having Ava so young, I couldn't relate with that. I mean, I got pregnant with her at um 18 and then had her at 19. So yeah, right right around the same time with your parents starting out. And it is, I don't think about it. I hadn't thought about it from that frame of mind until recently when people are like, We we don't know what we're doing as we're raising kids, and you don't find that out, or you don't realize that for your parents' point of view.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

And to think too that we have so much additional technology now versus them just doing this, like them playing with the link of logs and waiting until the freaking street light comes on. Exactly. Or having like Oprah tell you that you're a bad mom one week and with good mom the next week or whatever. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:16

I can't even imagine. So that's the thing my dad always taught me. Another random little like thing of a bit of information that I kept.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Please.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

Um, my dad always told me that there are a million right ways to raise children, and then there are a million wrong ways to raise children, and none of them are correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, that's accurate.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Which makes no sense when you when you hear it because you're like, well, you just said there's a million right ways and a million wrong ways. So how is every way not right? And it's just it it depends on you as a parent, the children, the environment, the stress they're under.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah. So that took me forever to grasp to where I was like, oh well, and having kids seven years apart from each other, each childhood is vastly different from the other.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

And they're all kind of like independent, like they're all stereo kids. Yeah, they're not raised around close to the same age where you're like, Oh yeah, we're all siblings. It's like each of them is an only child in their own sense, no matter how much they bond with each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And you're brothers and you are a little bit farther apart, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:10

We're like five years, they're like six months apart.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Um, but we're like five years apart. So they were able to hang out with me as a kid because I was a little tomboy. I always tried to do the stuff they were doing, but as we got older, it just turned into we have our own life. We're in high school, and you're just getting into middle school, maybe. So it was like, okay, there was a vast difference as we got older.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah. That was the part that was like hard for me is that the girls don't get to go to school together.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

It's definitely like safety in numbers type of thing. Like that's my thought process. But at the same time, it's also like my brother was in ROTC, and I did that because I was just trying to follow their lead.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

And once they found out because he was the XO of the ROTC, and so once the ROTC found out whose sister I was, there was a different level of expectation.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

And so it turned into like this war of like, I'm not my brother.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

Don't put me in the same same file as him. I'm vastly different. And I got out quickly because I was like, I don't want to be, it's not that I don't want to be associated to him, I just don't want to have the same expectations because I am not him.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

So it turned into like seeing what being close enough in age can do, but also having the negatives to not being close enough in age to where you guys are going to school together and there's a safety. But let's say you got a super smart kid and a kid that let's say has a learning disability, it's like, oh well, you're so and so's sister, you're so-and-so's brother. Well, why aren't you getting this? Your brother's so smart, this, that, the other, and it just turns into like a little degrading thing for kids as they get older. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

So I don't know. So yeah. And that's just the that's the beauty of life, is that it's all a learning game.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

So and everyone's experiences is to each their own. You know, it's always like I run into people that that try to compare their miseries to others, like, oh, my life is so bad. And it's like, you know, yes, everyone's life is bad. Everyone's life is good, but your your worst is not gonna be the same as someone else's worst. You can't compare. You can sympathize or empathize, but you can't compare. And you have those people out there that try to compare, and it's like you're doing a disservice to you and the people that you're talking to.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Do you know when you like became cognizant of that? Because I feel like so many people, especially young girls, like we are so like almost sheep-like-minded for a small amount of time. Some never grow out of it, some like realize, like, oh, I don't have to follow the river. Like, maybe I want to go off on this trail, or maybe I want to blaze my own trail. But I think everybody finds that at different ages. So, do you remember like realizing that you were cut from a different cloth?

SPEAKER_04 17:47

I think it was probably when I was like 20, 21, maybe 22. Okay. So it took a while, you know, like 18, 19, I was still out partying, drinking, having fun, not really caring about anything because I I had no recolite or no care for anyone else's being or well-being. And so I was like, you know, I'm just gonna whatever whoever falls behind me falls behind me. Whoever treads with me is gonna tread with me. But now it's turned into like I still think that way. If you don't want to be by my side, you don't have to be, but I'm not gonna force you to be either. You know, like I there's no hard feelings. Yeah. Um, but it took me a lot of inner work because I was tired of being sad for myself, yeah, and making like everything just using every negative thing that has happened to me as a crutch.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

And so I had to sit with myself and I went into like a good long year, if not more, depression. And all I did was go to work and come home and sleep. I barely ate, I barely socialized with anyone, but that was like my time to start learning myself and the things that triggered me and the things that were really bothering me. And so when I started doing all of that, I sat in the sadness. And they say it's not good to sit in sadness, but sometimes it helps.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

That's the only way I can learn. Like, yeah, you'll we have only been in this a couple of years now, but you'll learn about me. Like, if I'm overwhelmed, I go off like everything, like I go dark for a couple of couple of moments to to collect everything to be like, okay, I need to analyze everything, and then I can come back into the exact now.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

It's like the three to five business years of analyzing, like I just need time to recoup.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

And that was me with work as I was getting so overwhelmed with everything going on, and I was like, I'm going to crash out and I'm not doing good, and I'm cognizant of the fact that I'm not doing good, so I need to step away.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

Otherwise, this can turn into something deeper than I need it to be.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

And I didn't want it to turn into that. I don't want to be negative. I didn't want to be negative for my partner and create a hostile house for him, or just a sad house, like, I'm supposed to be his piece, that house is supposed to be his piece. So I need to keep myself straight to help keep him straight on top of that.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

So it just it took a lot of work to try and, I guess, in a sense, break the cycle that my parents raised me in. But that was the other thing, is I didn't want to be like my parents.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

My parents are good and I love them to death, but some of the ways that I was raised, no matter how good of an intention, it impacted me emotionally. And I did not want to be that way for whatever children I had growing up. So I had to learn from that. And instead of using it and saying, Well, my parents did this to me, so I, you know, I can't, I can't do better. Right. I went, My parents did this to me, so I need to be better. Yeah. I need to do this because I don't want my children to be in the same, the same position I was in. I I felt too much and I didn't want to put another human being through that.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

So that that was like my process and all of this learning about myself and and this, and probably a lot of marijuana was involved. But there was a lot of dope. There was Teach would be so proud of me.

unknown 20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

But it like that helped me stay calm enough to clear my mind when emotions got high.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

When I was trying to figure out what was going on. Um, which not saying that's the best way to go, but that was what helped me at the time rather than drinking my sorrows away and not remembering anything. Because that's how I spent a lot of my growing up time was drinking my pain away and just not remembering anything and just being useless. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like I need to I need to be a better human being, just in general for myself and for anyone else. So that that was that process.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Well, it sounds like though, it has benefited you because as you have said, you had an epiphany today. I did that you are fine, like every like you're in the peace of your time.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Yeah, I'm in the peace. I am. I have outside of hearing clickety clackety dognails on the floor and having to empty the dishwasher once a day, like I have nothing to complain about, or the fact that I just don't get as much attention from my partner as I want. Right. I get enough. I get more than I could need, but yeah, there's no kids for you to show.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

That way.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Exactly. Like, you know, I can go stir crazy at times because there's only one person I really ever talk to. But other than that, I have nothing to feel bad about. I have nothing to be frustrated about. I have an amazing life. One that I never thought I would have, especially at this age. I'm freaking married. Like what?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

We were just talking about that yesterday. Of like, if you would have asked us 10 years ago what you thought your life would be like, and it's not.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

I honestly probably would have thought I'd be dead.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Really?

SPEAKER_04 22:33

Yeah. Like I I didn't see myself making it past 21. RIP juice, but like it was I spent a lot of my time metaphorically and even physically, like trying to make things better for myself in the worst way possible.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

And so I never thought I would be this far out into life, into where I'm at, nor did I ever think I was gonna be happy again. But it actually felt good to like feel this weird lightness on me. You feel golden. Yeah. I literally like I was driving today and I'm like, this feels freaking like I'm on a high right now. Like this is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I'm on a natural high. This is new for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

I was like, wow, like my heart is beating, and like I'm not sad about it. And that's it's so morbid to say it, but it's like it's that's how people think. I know that you know, and it takes a lot for people to get back to a happy point and to find their pink and to find their confidence in themselves.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

When you're in a rut like that, definitely, like as you like described, like being in that dis that depression, and you just you don't know how to pull yourself out of it.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

It's when you think you pull yourself out of it, you know, you're it's manageable.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

And it's not something that's on the forefront of your mind. But like today, I feel like was genuinely like me getting out of my funk. Where I had that moment where I was like, what am I so sad about? Like, I need to figure out and so I I just was like, Oh, I've got nothing to complain about. I can't be mad about anything right now. So why you know, why be mad?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

We're gonna listen to this when you have a bad day.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

That's a great idea. Just send me the clip of me saying that'll brighten me.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I have nothing to be mad about as you're like balls deep in wedding stuff.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I know that I'm balls deep in stress, but I'm not balls deep in stuff that makes me sad and depressed. I think. I don't think so. I don't think I am. Like, yeah, I'm freaking 26, I have no children, and I am a stay-at-home wife. What? That's crazy. Amen. Yeah, like that is that is what everyone dreams of, and it came sooner than expected. But overall, I think my my husband would that's so weird to say.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

I think my husband would be Wait, how long has it been that we've we officially could say that?

SPEAKER_04 24:47

What's today?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

The 27th.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

It has been 11 days.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

11 days?

SPEAKER_04 24:54

It has been 11 days. It has not even been two weeks. We're not even there yet. Wow. I know it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

It's been two business weeks.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Two business yeah, but it's two business weeks so far.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

So I figure that we will have a couple more episodes so we can take everybody along for your wedding planning and that would be great. And then we can also talk about your experience with blue-collar life and um a kind of a a high-level overview too is that I do want to have um more conversations with you and other I call them lift ladies, um, to kind of understand like the the women who support men in the blue-collar position are built different.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

They have to be.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Well, I was like thinking about it last night because women who uh support blue-collar men or are dating blue collar men, they are independent most of the time. And I was like thinking about women versus girls, and like girls being like, what do we do now? And women being like, watch this. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Like, I feel like what can I do with this versus the girls that are like, I don't know, I can't do anything with this.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Right. I don't I don't know where I'm gonna go next. I don't know, like you know, oh whatever, you know, is it like la t-da, like women I feel like in the trade or attached to the trade are very different in that sense.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Absolutely. We're handed a pile of shit and we will make time out of it. Like that that's just how we have to be. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Well, it it's lonely, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

It really is.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

So, like, and that's when I was when we first got into the trade. Um, I was looking into like, are there groups out there for elevator wives and girlfriends? Like, is there something that I could be a part of? And I I came across this Reddit thread, and somebody's like, No, this isn't military wives or Leo wives, you don't have really anything to like connect on. And it was one of the elevator mechanics basically saying that, like, mind your business.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

So it's because they just don't want us sharing these.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

You know, so uh so for me, I was like, you know what? I'm going to make that a part of my identity, is bringing along as many lift ladies that want to come along with me and making them feel seen because that's it is a very lonely lifestyle. Like you especially if you have kids and you're doing this by yourself, like if he goes out of town, he's out of town for maybe a week, maybe he's out of town for a day. And then also you can't get a hold.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

Yeah, and visits they get visits up here two days out of the week. Right. Which are their recoup days, so you're not doing a whole lot.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

No, you have to make sure everything's like ready.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

So fresh warm meal, house is clean, laundry's folded and hung up. So that way they have nothing to complain about.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

That's Jade's way of life. My way of life is a little bit more chaotic, but at the end of the day, when's because I don't have kids. Yeah, I have three and then one for baby currently.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Currently.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Currently. So, anyways, this has been fun. Thanks for doing this with me. Thanks for bringing me along. Well, let's buckle up, buttercup, you're here for a while.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Oh, yay. I don't know if the fans are ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Um they will, they'll get used to it. The audience we're going for will be ready for it. Go, yeah. They're gonna be like, I love Jade.

SPEAKER_05 28:17

She's my spirit animal.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Thanks, guys. If you've made it this far, go ahead and give us a follow on uh your preferred platforms. I'm on TikTok at the.jaded.dame on that's TikTok, and then on Instagram, I'm at jaded dame podcast, or you can follow me individually at Athena Monuma on Instagram. Also, um, don't forget to rate us on your preferred podcast platform and give us a follow. See you next week.