Jerica Newby and Wendy Johnson

[00:07] JERICA NEWBY: My name is Jerica Newby. I am 35 years old. Today is Friday, December 10, 2021. I am located in Wichita, Kansas. My partner's name is Wendy Johnson, and she is my one small step conversation partner.

[00:29] WENDY JOHNSON: I am Wendy Johnson. I am 56 years old. Today is Friday, December 10, 2021. My father's 80th birthday. I'm in Wichita, Kansas. My partner's name is Jerica Newby, and she is my one small step conversation partner.

[00:51] JERICA NEWBY: So I'm glad you brought that up. Today is actually a very special birthday in the newbie household as well. Today is my would have been my mother in law's 71st, 72nd birthday, and unfortunately, we lost her this year. So this is our first birthday without her. And so today's kind of a sad day. So special birthday, December 10. Why did I want to do this interview today? I was intrigued by the idea of getting to know somebody that had a completely different worldview than I do. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted by some of the divides that we see in every facet of our life these days. And I wanted to make a human connection with somebody just to understand them more, just knowing they would most likely be completely different from me. And I don't know, I just. I really wanted to get to know them on a human level.

[01:55] WENDY JOHNSON: I wanted to do this interview today because I am, I believe so deeply in the power of those human connections. And Wichita is my home. And I see things on a national level, on a state level, state level, even on a local level, and think so often, doggone, we have to do better than this. Surely we can do better than this. And I think doing better starts with knowing people and having those connections, because then it helps us, I think, be better problem solvers. And you don't treat your friends like that when people are your friends. When you know them, you don't disrespect them and scream at them and do things that are mean. Kindness matters a lot. And I'm excited to get to know someone new. And as Jerica said, even though we know one another, I don't feel like I know you. And so I'm really excited to know you as a fellow Wichitan that wants to do good things for our community.

[03:07] JERICA NEWBY: Absolutely. When you were talking, it made me think of the person that told me about this platform in the first place. And he said, it's hard to hate up close, and I couldn't agree with that more. I think we could use more of that close proximity to truly understand each other. I agree with the story corpse founder when he said, as human beings, I have to believe we have more in common than divides us. I want to get to the bottom of that for sure. So the person who actually shared this platform with me, his name is Damon Young, and a lot of us are familiar with him here in the Wichita community as a thought leader and somebody who is going to, I think, continue to challenge us all to do better. So. So I'm going to read a. I'm going to read your bio, Wendy, and then I'll follow up with a question. So Wendy's bio says that she is fortunate to grow up, learn, live, and lead in Wichita, a place that she loves. Family and a spirit of volunteerism have always been important to my parents, and they instilled that in us. I have a brother and a sister. I love my shockers riverfest and making a difference for people and my place through a commitment to volunteer service. I embrace diversity, and I hope that our community can become even more accepting of differences as we grow together. So for you, Wendy, is where do you fall in the birth order of your two other siblings? Are you one, two, or three? And how do you think, do you think that position has had any effect on your life and your outlook?

[05:05] WENDY JOHNSON: I am the oldest, and I would say absolutely it has. I am the one that makes sure everybody's okay. I am the problem solver. It's interesting, my sister, who is the youngest, one time told me that growing up was always hard for her because she always felt like she was trying to live up to big sister, which was never anything I tried to create, make her feel anything else. I have the greatest family in the world, and that was really impactful to me. I mean, it really made me think about the birth order thing because I'm naturally kind of. Kind of loud. I mean, not loud, obnoxious loud, I don't think, but just charging in, solving problems, taking the bull by the horns. And I think that comes from being the oldest. And now, as both of my parents began a journey with dementia, seeing roles and birth order and how it plays out as we provide care to family is interesting and probably pretty true to form. In terms of how you might stereotype.

[06:51] JERICA NEWBY: Birth order, I'd have to say that we relate really closely on that. I'm also the oldest of six kids. I have a very big blended family, but I'm still the oldest out of all of them. I also have a unique position in being the only one between or biologically between my mom and my dad. And so I have a very different appearance from them. Oftentimes I attributed my worldview to that. I figured I had something to do with that, whether that's true or not. But, yeah, I'm second mom. I'm the rule follower. I'm the one that makes sure everybody's okay. I feel a certain level of stress when. And I also feel the need to solve that problem just to make it okay innately. So. That's funny. I think you and I are. It's funny enough, like, we know each other. I think we're gonna be. For some reason, when I saw it, when I saw you pop up on my screen, it's like, oh, my gosh. I think we're gonna be a little bit more similar than I originally thought. I was gonna be talking to somebody from a different worldview, but I know. Let's keep digging. Let's find out. Yes.

[08:08] WENDY JOHNSON: Okay. I get the honor of reading your bio. Hello. My name is Jerica I have a very large, complicated family, complete with two sets of parents, several siblings, and multigenerational family members I have been fortunate enough to actually know. I am the only person in my immediate family to have earned a college degree, and I work in talent acquisition for a large public accounting firm. I am latina, but struggling with my identity. Truth is, it's hard for me to identify with the big buckets most people try to put put you in. There were several things that caught my attention when. When I read that. The first was, you reference complicated family, and I'm interested in what you mean by complicated family.

[09:00] JERICA NEWBY: I'd probably say. I say it's complicated because that's how I feel being. I always, when I frame this up, I say, I'm in the middle of two families, and somebody brought it to my attention one time that I never actually say, like, my family. They are my family, and I adore them. There are. I wouldn't. I don't know if I would change it for anything, but there are a lot of frustrations and struggles that I face. Like I said, being the only child between two people who split when I was two years old and went on to settle into set families. And so I ping pong back and forth between these two. What I see is set entities. My step parents have step parents on one side of the family, so it just keeps growing. But I'm also the person who's very. I don't get hung up on titles, you know, I don't say, this is my stepsister or my stepbrother or my half brother. They're my brother, they're my sister. We grew up together, we share a set of values as a family unit that I like to uphold. But sometimes I feel like not everybody holds that same view, and they do look to the title to say, well, she's not my whole sister. I think being the oldest, it does complicate that, because I relate a lot to what you said about even though I've never tried to outshine anybody or, you know, there has been a perception of some of my siblings living in my shadow, and I view myself as being, you know, somebody who's only ever tried to help and excel their success. That's not as either way. So I say. I say complicated because, one, there's. There's a lot of moving parts. Some people get hung up on the titles, and I'm really just trying to. To do my best. And sometimes that identity does get lost in there, being that half of my family is white and half of my family is mexican. And sometimes I just feel like I'm not white enough for the white people but not brown enough for the brown people. I don't speak Spanish, and there's some level of, I'll say shame that comes with that when people that are outside of my unit or within the hispanic community approach me and try to speak Spanish, and I think, oh, gosh, I'm just letting the whole team down. So, yeah, it is just complicated. I read something on the story corp, which is the history of the story, about oversimplifying things, and I think it's human nature. I think we're almost wired to oversimplify things. We grasp onto what's easy and what's digestible, and sometimes we don't really understand the impact that that has on the people that really need you to get in the weeds and get complicated with them. So I feel like I might cry on this one. The next question is, who has been the most influential person in your life, and what did they teach you? For me, that person has been my grandmother. I can attribute a lot of my strength, actually, to my grandmothers. When I say that I've been fortunate enough to get to know multigenerational members of my family, I think that's one of the huge benefits of my parents having me at a very young age, is I got to know my great grandparents. How cool is that? And the women that I come from are amazing individuals. They're strong and they're outspoken, and they couldn't care less about your labels. And so I'll talk about one grandmother in particular, who, to me, is the epitome of unconditional love, showing unconditional love. I'm not her biological granddaughter, actually. She's actually my stepmother's mom, but I adore her. She has never treated me like anything other than her own, her very own. She encourages me to do what's best for me to really understand why I make the decisions that I make, whether that be from, you know, changing jobs to my. My decision, my personal decision to not have children. She's only ever been supportive in that, where other people try to kind of fit me into their bucket, like, oh, you'll change your mind on this, or, the graduate isn't always greener on the other side. She's influential. She is encouraging and loving and really implores me to dig down deep and do what I feel is right for me but can still do good. And she offers a different perspective. It's always with love. She's not that influencer. She's not that well, you should really do this, because this. Or have you thought about this? Hoping that I'll change my mind? I feel secure that whatever. Whatever solutions I bring to her, she's. She's nothing but supportive. So I think that kind of love and. And grace is not something everybody gets across the board. I'll say she's the shining example in my life, and it's just. It's invaluable. I appreciate her so much. So.

[14:45] WENDY JOHNSON: Sounds like a great lady.

[14:48] JERICA NEWBY: She's pretty cool.

[14:51] WENDY JOHNSON: I would have to say the most influential person in my life is my dad. Both of my parents have been just impactful beyond measure. But I think about this a lot as my dad progresses on a journey that just sucks, dementia sucks, and seeing some of the things that he experiences now. And I have an opportunity to, I think, be a teacher for him. Like, for so long, he was a teacher and a coach and a mentor and an unconditional supporter for me. He. From a very young age, I remember him volunteering for an organization in Wichita that led him to a family whose patriarch became his best friend, whose daughters are now sisters by choice. In our family, we've been parts of one another's lives for 50 years, but that all happened because pop was ready to volunteer, and he brought us all along with him to help in this cause, which was a cause that supported me and other girls. It was campfire, which is an organization. It's kind of like Girl Scouts. They're not active here any longer. But we didn't. He didn't. He didn't treat us like girls, like sissy girls. We got our hands dirty, we camped. We, we just, we lived life and we were probably a fairly, fairly simple family when, when I think about it, we weren't into big fancy stuff. Neither my parents were excited about sports, so as kids, we weren't crazy in athletics, which is probably why I am not a terribly competitive person because I didn't grow up in sports. But when everything I was involved in, probably what strikes me most is that my dad is the most accepting human being that I've ever met. Whether it was accepting of friends who were different than me by gender, by ethnicity, by gender orientation, he was accepting and forgiving. Thankfully, when I screwed up, which I did plenty, he. I remember all the times in college and as a young professional when it probably would have been fairly simple to impose his will or ask questions or try to lead me on a certain path and I never remember him doing that. He challenged and supported me to find my own voice and find my own way. And as a parent now of two, almost, well, one of my kids is almost 30 years old. It's really hard to do that. And I recognize how amazing his guidance and his coaching was and I've really tried to think about that as I'm now the meat in the generational sandwich with my two boys. And one of my kids has a granddaughter, has a daughter. It's my granddaughter now, my parents. And so helping to care for granddaughter and helping to care for my mom and my dad, who thankfully are still able to care for themselves, sort of. It's just. It's really interesting to be in that position. But because of the values that my parents, my dad in particular has instilled, I know that where I need to be is wherever he needs me to be to help him be as happy and find as much joy in life as he can, regardless of what that looks like.

[19:27] JERICA NEWBY: Do you feel like you have fully processed what that means yet?

[19:34] WENDY JOHNSON: Mmm, probably not.

[19:37] JERICA NEWBY: Yeah.

[19:38] WENDY JOHNSON: My mo is to just charge ahead and I got to do what I got to do and. No, I don't. I don't know. I don't know Jerica but probably not.

[19:55] JERICA NEWBY: I know. I just. I sit here and I hear. I hear your voice and how much love and it just obviously how much love you have for your parents. And I just, gosh, I worry about you on this journey and I always think about people, you know, they. When they have this sense of duty to others, if that age old does on a plane this week, you know, put on your oxygen mask before you can care for somebody else. And I just. I hope that you have that strength and that support and the resources to take care of you so that you can take good care of them, because it sounds like they're incredible people and deserve the utmost. I don't know, the best care possible. And the fact that you did that to them is amazing.

[20:37] WENDY JOHNSON: Well, the interesting thing is, and you asked about birth order, and I thought about this again as I was talking a minute ago, my sister, who is the youngest of the three of us, lives with my parents, she moved in with them right before my dad got his diagnosis because she had an opportunity to sell her house in a neighborhood that she felt was beginning to decline. And so it was a good time financially. She had big dogs. She moved out in with my parents and then weigh them. And so the obligation is as much making sure I take care of her as she lives it every day with them. And it's just. Most days, it's just weird. It's just weird.

[21:23] JERICA NEWBY: That's what I mean. Like, you, you've got your eye on the ball, like, not only with your. The entire family system, like, who's okay and who needs this and the logistics. And I know that it's genuine when you talk about, you know, caring about her well being just as much. And that's why I just think from this outside point of view, and being an older sibling myself, older sibling myself, I look at you and I'm like, I hope Wendy's. I hope she's okay. I hope she's going to be okay through this process, because you need that support as well. You need the resources to, I don't know, just so you're not running to the ground with all of this, but I commend you for that. That's a heavy lift. Heavy lift.

[22:01] WENDY JOHNSON: Thank you. Thank you.

[22:06] JERICA NEWBY: So can I briefly describe in my own words what my personal political values are? Oh, man. I have a very funny. I talk about not oversimplifying things, that when I think about politics, I think about why we have them in the first place. Like, ultimately, I go back to, you know, why was the constitution, you know, made in the first place? Right. And I view it as a. As, initially, I'm not a strict constructionist. I don't. I do believe that the constitution is a living, breathing document with some very strong foundational constructs that we absolutely should fight to uphold. Hold. But I will just maintain that nobody has had a crystal ball. Nobody could even fathom where we are currently. And there just has to be some kind of common ground. To me, it can't be a stake in the ground. It can't be a line in the sand. It can't be black or white. It has to live on a spectrum. And we have to have these conversations to ultimately get to a point, point to understand what is best or what is going to benefit the greater good. So my own political values, I am a registered Democrat. I'll say that. But when I talk about being put in certain buckets, when I say that, I'm automatically put in a bucket of, oh, you're probably verging on socialism. You probably want our government to spend millions, billions of dollars on social programs, and you want to just, you don't want people to work for themselves. And that's absolutely not true. I just, I tend to think that I may be more closely aligned with that side of the house, just purely based on the human aspect of it. I don't think we should be in the business of telling people what to do with their lives and their pursuit of happiness. Love who you love. Do with your body what you'll do with your body. And I truly mean that from a women's right to choose up to the medical care you receive to how you ultimately choose to live or not live your life. Um, I really think people are just on a spectrum, and we have to be more understanding and helping people find solutions on an individual base instead of like a wide scale, even at the state level, almost seems too big sometimes to be dictating people's lives. So that's a very long winded answer. I don't have a lot of clarification because I don't like, I don't like talking in extremes. I don't like this or that. I don't like you do this or you do this. I want to get to the middle of that. I'd like to see more leaders in this country that get into the weeds and aren't just oversimplifying for the sake of being reelected next cycle. I think that's the frustrating thing. So that wasn't very brief, but that's where I'm at. I wish I could clarify that a little bit more for you, but I just, it's word vomit when the word politics gets thrown around. I just, I can't concisely say this is, this is where I lie. I'm on the spectrum on all different issues.

[25:49] WENDY JOHNSON: I appreciate that because I would probably put myself in a similar kind of, kind of place. And I hear your frustration, and I feel your frustration with politics and systems that seem to have lost sight of making it real and doing the business of people for people rather than for whatever interests may finance a reelection campaign or something of the sort. I really struggle with generalizations, which I think seems to happen so often. I'm a registered Republican, and I could easily not be registered as anything and have that align as much as being a registered Republican. But I want to be able to vote in primaries. That's why I've remained registered. But when I get campaign literature in the mail that they must send out to all registered Republicans, it just makes me so damn angry, because I do not hold most of the social views that conservative republicans tend to hold. I'm probably a little more fiscally conservative, but I definitely don't align with any republican social positions. And I think we spend so much time being hung up on the things that will get us reelected or the things that will get us the sound bites we need or the things that will. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, and I don't know why people behave like they behave. I see so much destruction. And as we just, we just got done with a training session for three newly elected local school board members who will be seated in January and talking about the role of an elected body and behaviors that engender, trust and help move an organization forward. And so much of what was described doesn't represent what's happening at a state or a federal level in terms of moving countries and states forward. And I I don't understand what's so hard, and that's the Pollyanna part of me that comes through. Some of my friends at work call me Pollyanna, and I'm a realist, and I get the game, and I'm not. But that doesn't mean I can't want to be in that kind of space where people get along and they're kind to one another, and they really want to listen and understand how to solve problems and set examples for kids. I work with kids every day, and most of the kids that I see, I wouldn't want. Let me rephrase that. The kids that I see, I would not want them to model their behaviors after most of the politicians that we see working on our behalf, because most of them behave badly. And so if kindness can be a personal, political value, that would be mine.

[29:48] JERICA NEWBY: Yeah, there's a. I call it a hubris, just like, why are you the only one that can solve this? Why is there only so many people with the same last name that can run this country? If we truly are innovative and value the diversity of thought. Why don't we go out and find it? I mean, how can we? Funny, I know I work with a bunch of accountants, so I think about just their analytical brains, and sometimes I stop and I think, like, how are we in this big of a pickle with our diversity issue? How could you possibly have the data outputting a certain result and you not question it at all? And maybe they did, and that's a blanket statement. But I think that's what my mind goes back to on some level. Like, how do we. How do we see what's coming out? How do we see what's happening and not question it and not put forth different solutions, or at least bring different people to the table to be like, okay, what am I missing here? Gosh, I just. I don't know. It's baffling to me. So when I go back to that, like, common ground, to me, it's just like, what would any, like, reasonable person do? But also, what does reasonable mean these days? Like, what is a reasonable person?

[31:10] WENDY JOHNSON: Right?

[31:11] JERICA NEWBY: How do we get here? I don't understand.

[31:15] WENDY JOHNSON: I don't know. I asked. There's probably not a day that goes bye where I don't ask myself that question. At some point, how did this happen? I mean, to really get to the point where hate in such a bold and public manner is acceptable, and bullying and name calling and behaviors that we don't allow from children in classrooms that no one would allow from a child in a classroom are behaviors that adults manifest all the time. And kids see that kids behave like the adults around them behave. And it can be pretty heavy.

[32:08] JERICA NEWBY: Do you see kids emulating their parents, or do you see them rolling their eyes like, oh, God, I just. I can't wait to not be like that.

[32:17] WENDY JOHNSON: It's probably the spectrum, but I think as we. I mean, some of the kinds of behaviors that have really been a concern that relate to social emotional health and well being and either hate or kindness or lack of kindness or self doubt or the stresses and the struggles of economic situations or hatred for one group or another. We see those in the community and we see those in kids, and it's long past. It's beyond the political question, I should say. But the question of mental health, the well being of communities, is just really a struggle. And I think about. About kindness or lack thereof and the vitriol in politics and can't help but think that it's all tied together. When you see that kind of behavior from politicians at a national level, how are people not supposed to be influenced by that?

[33:32] JERICA NEWBY: I think that, yeah, the sad part, my husband is from the UK, my father in law, my brother in law, and mom up until this year when she passed or live in the UK. And getting that outside perspective from them is just like, they laugh at us every time I went back home, they wanted to talk about Donald Trump and how we had made this just really american, just really silly decision to elect him. And at first, I'll be honest, at first, I didn't, I didn't vote for him. And at first I was, I was mad. I was like, what? Like, how does that happen? But I think I reserved to be like, all right. I pride myself on being a reasonable person. Right, whatever that means these days. And I was like, all right, let's give it a chance. Let's see how it goes. And what ensued.

[34:36] WENDY JOHNSON: I was just made it up.

[34:38] JERICA NEWBY: I was just disappointed.

[34:39] WENDY JOHNSON: Yeah.

[34:40] JERICA NEWBY: So it really stinks. And then it sucks to have that outside perspective of somebody seemingly laughing at you for this terrible decision. And, you know, I don't even know if that's the right answer, like the I told you so, or if it's just like, hey, you guys will do better next time. Hopefully you figured it out. But, yeah, I think to your point, I looked at him as, and, you know, and some of the people in the companies I worked for supporting him, I'm like, you wouldn't want this man running your company. Why do you want him running your country? Or do you want him running the company? Because I guess I just want to understand that thought process. And I, those questions. And so, funny enough, I have republican white men that feel comfortable sitting down, talking to me about this. And I actually pride myself on that. I don't, I try not to judge. I don't call them morons or idiots or, I can't believe you voted for so and so. I just really try to understand what the thought process is behind that. And I try to relate it back to something that I can understand, which is probably why I came up with the, okay, would you want him running your company versus running your country? Example. I just, I try to. I try to equate it to something, and that's kind of how I stay grounded in this. Even though there are things that are incredibly frustrating. My husband gets the brunt of that. He's my safe space. But I just, I don't know. I still sometimes end up being, like, baffled by, by where we're at. And I agree with you. There's, there's some connection there. But I don't know. I don't know how we solve it. I don't know how, how we break it down and help bring back some of that common ground, that middle ground, and help people understand there is actually a middle ground. You don't have to be this or that.

[36:36] WENDY JOHNSON: Yeah, that's probably the part that is, for me, most frightening. Frightening is the word that strikes me on days.

[36:46] JERICA NEWBY: Is it scary that. I was going to ask you that? Do you feel scared by the happening? Okay.

[36:52] WENDY JOHNSON: I do. I just, what I feel scared by is that it, it feels like there are days when it feels to me like a point of no return has been passed in terms of sanity and rational, kind people. The kind of people that, in my mind, when I think of Bob Dole, I think of people who are willing to accept differences and achieve solutions for the common good. The notion of the common good. And it just seems like the notion of the common good and the willingness to hear what people who are different saying is just gone. And there are days when things feel so, like, radicalized and you've got to be on one extreme or the other, and kindness doesn't have a seat at the table, and so you can't have real conversations. It's all daggers and barbs and lack of trust and, and being the fixer.

[38:21] JERICA NEWBY: Yeah.

[38:22] WENDY JOHNSON: I keep asking myself, what, what can I do? What can I do? I want to do something, and I don't know what to do.

[38:31] JERICA NEWBY: I I think, okay, so I, I have kind of done this little exercise. I find this comfort and this actually kind of joy and having difficult conversations with people I have nothing in common with. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna refuse to, I'll give an example, but I'll refuse to, like, give names. But there was so demographic wise, like, I'm a, like I said, I'm a 35 year old latina woman who errs on the side of, of social liberalism. Right. Socially, I. Yes, live your life. So I was talking to a white male who's probably in his mid fifties, very openly republican. And sometimes we'll engage in conversations just because it's different. And to his credit, I think that he finds joy in talking to me. Two, because it's a safe space. And so this is my way of fighting back, is having these conversations with people that I know are going to, we're going to be on completely different ends of the spectrum, but approaching them with understanding, even though I don't, I don't expect myself to completely understand it. It's my goal to walk away from that conversation, not having acted in the way they probably expected me to act. That's how I'm looking to help break down some of this. And that's so small and something that is not a lot of bang for your buck. But I take that with me in every interaction. I talk to somebody, I try to just listen. I try to offer my perspective, not influence, because we all know, we all know that people aren't going to do what they don't want to do. It has to be their idea to change. It cannot be yours, it cannot be the government's. It cannot be anybody outside of their being right. That is deeply ingrained in us, I think, as Americans. And so with that understanding, I don't try to change. I just try to control what I can control. And that's where I'm finding joy and I, I'm combating this crazy, crazy climate that we are currently living in. So Kevin asked, how often do I speak to this person? Kevin, I probably speak to this person, the person that I reference. We speak on a regular basis, not about these issues. I would say we interact in a professional setting. But because I've gotten to know this person over a few years, there have been instances that have come up that he's confided in me and things that really, like, that really challenge my ability to respond respectfully. I mean, there, I mean, honestly, I think in years past, if somebody would have told me that being a gay is a choice, I would have lost it. I would have like, you're absolutely wrong. This is crazy. Like, how dare you say something like that? But instead I engaged. I'm like, okay, do you ask your gay friends about this? Do you know anybody that's gay? Have you had this conversation? And this person actually has a very, very close family member who is, who is gay. And it still hasn't swayed anything. So again, I take that perspective. And just knowing you're not going to be able to get to everybody, but you just, you still, there's still a human being. Even though I vehemently disagree with this person, I still treat him with respect and grace and as much understanding as I can possibly muster. And I would never, I would never call him a moron or a jerk or whatever. I think misinformed, but he's, he's a human and he has a family and he's, he's person. He's a human being. And I think that's back to my point of, like, it's hard to hate up close, because I know person and I see him as a human being. It's hard to hate. So anyway, that was long winded. That's how I'm fighting back, Wendy. It just those little. Those little tiny. What do I call it? Yeah, that's.

[43:05] WENDY JOHNSON: That's what it's going to take.

[43:07] JERICA NEWBY: Small mercy.

[43:08] WENDY JOHNSON: And I love. I love what you said, that it's hard to hate up close. It really is.

[43:13] JERICA NEWBY: That was Damon who told me that. But, yeah, I agree. Yeah. I don't know. Is there anything else you want to clarify or ask or.

[43:28] WENDY JOHNSON: So one of the other things that you'd mentioned in your bio that I told you I was curious about. You talked about all of the buckets that people try to fit you in and not being sure you fit in any of them. What is the most difficult bucket to try and exist in or get away from? What's the most difficult stereotype or category that you feel you're put into that doesn't fit?

[44:06] JERICA NEWBY: I'd say that's tough because I really do view my identity intersectionalities as equally important. I don't like to put one over the other, but when it comes to that, I don't like to tell a lot of people that I am a registered Democrat because that automatically paints a perception of me. And then I feel like I have a lot of explaining to do. And I will say that one. And the woman bucket, I struggle with a lot. I don't know why I feel so differently about my womanhood. I am a straight woman. I'm married. I have a husband, no kids. That is by choice. There's nothing medically inhibiting me from having children. It is just a personal choice. I take that from a worldview of. I just. I just don't. And this is me personally, I don't feel like the. Our society is very nice to women. And that one. That one I struggle with a lot. And that we're not nice to women. We treat them differently, especially when they decide to populate our world and have children. You know, they're superhumans and they're doing a superhuman feat. And we don't have the capacity to find the resources to support that. I just. I'm baffled by it. And I. Yeah, I struggle with my womanhood and what that means. And so I try to define it for myself and just try to, again, be very understanding and encourage other women to find what matters to them, you know, whatever that journey looks like for them.

[45:55] WENDY JOHNSON: Do you think it's a question, an observation? Do you think it's hard to not fit into the mold. I mean, whatever the mold is, whatever the bucket is when you don't fit. Is that an easy place to be? Is it a hard place to be, being different?

[46:18] JERICA NEWBY: Oh, yeah. No, it's definitely. You feel, I think. I think everybody handles it differently. For me, it's a very lonely place. But that, I think, stems from my personality. And I'm a people pleaser. I am the one. I'm the fixer. It bothers me on a level. If somebody thinks that I'm weird or doesn't fit in, and then I find myself needing to explain that I'm trying to untangle that part of my identity from needing to explain and just being content here. I need to put my own oxygen mask on sometime. Right. And take care of what's in here before I'm. I feel the need to explain that to anybody else or why should I have to explain that to anybody else? I don't know. It's tough. So, yeah, I think we can offer Grace and understanding to everybody we come in contact, and because you just. You never know what part of somebody's identity they're. They're really struggling with or they're really identifying with. And it's bothering them that they. They don't fit in for. For some reason, and that could be self perceived or some external factor in their world that's telling them they don't belong. I think back to your point. Kindness is just. It's needed now.

[47:34] WENDY JOHNSON: That.

[47:34] JERICA NEWBY: Right. It costs you nothing to just be kind. You have to change your value, your set of values to just be kind.

[47:47] WENDY JOHNSON: How did we do, Kevin?

[47:52] JERICA NEWBY: Yeah. What did you. What did you think overall, Wendy?

[47:56] WENDY JOHNSON: Well, I think there are probably a million things that I could have coffee and visit with you about that would be really awesome to talk about.

[48:04] JERICA NEWBY: I would. I would love that. We should definitely. We agree. We should. We should keep in touch. I will say, on some level, I'm a little disappointed that I don't get to interact with somebody who's just, like, wildly different from my. From my worldview. But, gosh, gaining a friend and another, I don't know, possibly another acquaintance, mentor, just another human being that I can connect with is a great, great part of this experience.

[48:35] WENDY JOHNSON: I agree.

[48:37] JERICA NEWBY: Yeah.