conversation with mom

00:00 Hobbies did you have when you were younger?

00:02 I didn't think that was the first question.

00:04 Well, it is the first question.

00:06 I always painted and I drew, and that was it. And out cooking. But not exactly. Just. I didn't like my parents food because they would always make us meet every single night, kind of like I do now, but it was so. It was like making a lot of salads and things that only I would eat. Move on.

00:31 Okay. Um. How were you as a person when you were my age?

00:37 How was I? I see these questions already. Um. Lonely, isolated from the world. Weirdo. Nobody liked me. I was desperate, an outcast. I was desperate. I was awkward, quirky, cool at the same time. Just trying to find my own place in the world.

01:05 What was your first job?

01:08 Baskin Robbins was my first legal job. Scripps ranch. And my illegal jobs were washing my neighbor's truck and cars to make money so that we could pay for our religious servant trips. And. Well, I didn't do the job, but I was gonna say my sister had to iron my dad's shirts and our neighbor's shirts.

01:38 Okay, let's see. Are there any funny stories that people tell about you from when you were a child?

01:44 Heck, yeah. When I was five, going to a water park and thinking that the guy was my dad. That was, like, next to me, because I didn't look up, and I held his back and smacked his belly. He was a big, fat, furry white man. And that was not my dad at all. I don't know why I thought it was. Maybe he was wearing the same color. I don't know. That was a good one. That was a real good one.

02:07 Okay. Who was the most important person in your life? And why?

02:11 Who is or who was.

02:12 Who is, um.

02:17 I think my dad.

02:19 Why?

02:20 Because he is the constant. He's been the most constant, besides my abuelita, in my life. He never left me. He raised me pretty much by himself because my mom was always gone, and he's always been there. He's just always been there. Regardless of me wanting him there, he's always been there.

02:46 Okay. What is your favorite memory that you have of us?

02:50 What is us? Us as a family or us as you and me?

02:55 You and me.

02:57 Go turn the heat down. Favorite memory?

03:01 Um.

03:03 When I locked you in a cardinal.

03:05 Now.

03:06 Favorite memory. Favorite memory. Oh, when I. I mean, it's a sad one, though, too. I was so frustrated with you, and, you know, I just didn't know how to get on with you. And you were about three and a half maybe four. And we were living in Washington, and I was about to scold you for getting my face, and you showed me your first ever drawing. And it was, that was when I think about that moment every single time, that was like one of my first precious, truly precious moments with you, because I didn't know how to get on with you because I didn't have a mom.

03:41 That's sweet, though.

03:43 That was sweet. I felt really, I always will feel really bad about that one.

03:48 Tell me how you want people to remember you.

03:53 Just how cool I am. I want them to see things. Like, like when my dad, he was just in Costa Rica, and he had to call me because he saw all the trees and the plants and the trees and this lady, and want, I want people to be infected by me. I want them to see things that just automatically, whether it be jewelry or bugs or animals or plants or aquariums and just caught, like, or weird things just because I'm weird. And just, oh, that's Andrea. Like it is right now with my friends and how they'll text me. Like, I thought of you. I saw this. Like, that's, that's, that is, to me, the biggest quality is to be so, such a stain in people's mind, positively or negative, where they just can't help but see the resemblance physically or personality wise or things.

04:46 Yeah. Okay. If you could change anything about your life, what would it be?

04:55 My internal struggles, those are not things that I know. Everyone goes through internal struggles and carries their childhood baggages or whatever, but those struggles, they really, they often, they are my biggest excuse in life. I don't like that.

05:16 Would you have raised me differently if you could?

05:19 Absolutely. 100%. How was that part of the question? Because that wasn't included. Well, I mean, I had a tremendous postpartum when I. You were born. I was 20. I was a child. I didn't even know your dad, really. We were kids. I didn't even know how to care for you or love you until you were, like, eight. It was a weird experience.

05:45 I thought it was three.

05:47 No, no, that was the drawing. Yeah, it was. Really. You and I had a really hard moment of life together. I think it has a lot to do with, again, my baggage of childhood trauma and being a kid when I had you, because that's why cats shouldn't have babies when they're kittens.

06:06 Okay. If you have any aspiring words, what.

06:10 Would it, would you, like, say you do, you boo boo. Who cares about what anyone else thinks about you? You are. Doesn't matter what you are everything. And you should never have to change for someone else. Not in the negative way. Everyone needs to change. Change for yourself. And always be self critical. Be constantly evolving. Was that the question?

06:34 Yeah.

06:34 I feel like I said no. I like that that was the end of it. Good.