I Wasn't Always A DIVA!

Warrior DIVAS | Real Talk for Real Women

Hello, and welcome to Warrior Divas: Real Talk for Real Women, and I am your host Angie Leigh Monroe. I'm excited about connecting with you today to talk about all the gritty things that impact us, women, every day. Today, I want to take a little bit of time and share with you some of the personal walks that I've come through to lead us to where we're at. But the reason isn't to talk about myself. It's to build a connection with you, see, my focus with this show is not to have a place where I just talked to you when you sit there and listen, but for us to connect offline and online, and really build those relationships together. I'm going to share the hats that I wear, I'm going to share some of the trials and tribulations I've had, and I'm just going to open up and be transparent with you for a little bit.

So like I said, I wear many hats. I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a business owner, a boss. Let's see, Diva to my grandkids - Yes, that's my grandma name. Fake Mom to several kids that we've helped raise over the years. There's a lot that I've done. I'm a military veteran. But there are several more hats I'm sure I wear that I don't even realize it. But I bet you as I listed off some of those things, you wear some of the same hats I do, don't you? You know, that's one of the things is building relationships starts with finding commonality. And that's what I'm hoping to do today. I'm hoping that we can build relationships starting right here, right now. You know, some of y'all might be thinking this sounds a little beautifully utopian and very unrealistic. But hear me for a little bit, okay. I've been through some stuff, to know how devastating it can be not to have the right people in your life. How walking through things alone can make things seem 10 times, 100 times worse than they really are. So that's why building relationships is so important to me.

See, I was raised in a little hometown, it's a little town called Euless. It's halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth literally 20 miles to downtown Dallas, 20 miles to downtown Fort Worth. My mom and dad met in the local post office. They said they played post office together. And if you don't know what that is, I’ve dated myself, and you need to go to Google it, yes, Google it. So later on, my dad became a police officer. My mom stayed home with my brother, my sister, and me for many years and then went back into the workforce. And when she did, she worked for the government. So, she, they both had their own lives. They were living, I had my brothers and my sisters, and it was a normal raising. My husband, when I met him and he came here he basically called us the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family. You know, we played outside until dark or my mom whistled. We got spankings or whoopin’s as I call it here in Texas. We played sports and we were at church every time the doors opened. And yes, I was raised in the church. And from time to time, you'll hear me refer back to my Christian faith, my belief, my system that I go back to for my own personal walk. But more than that, you'll hear me talk about my missteps in life and in business, and how I was able to find my way back to my true self. Now, why is it important for me before I go into the next part of the story, I want you to know that I'm not sharing them from a point of shame. I'm not sharing them from a point of bitterness, or victimization. What I'm sharing them from is a point of victory. And that's what I want to help women get to, is that point of victory where they can share their story, and not share it from a point of pain. But from a point of significance, and helping others move on. You know, these are things I didn't use to talk about. These are things that were so painful to me that I had shame surrounding them. I thought everybody else's life was perfect. And mine was a hot mess. And what I found out is as I started sharing my story, other women had the same story. And they had felt alone and they had felt disconnected from others. And so, my hope is by me sharing my story, it's not for you to listen to me, but for us to find a connection.

Now, I'm going to start off with high school because it was really the turning point of where I was at. I had been at youth camp I'd had an amazing word spoken into my life that I would have a voice that would reach the nation's and you know, my favorite Christian artist was playing the keyboards. His name was al Denson. It was great. But then life happens. And I was in drama in high school. I was super excited. I had a very tall, very eloquently spoken teacher named Mr. Blankenship for drama. And you may hear a little bit of a Texas accent in my voice today. Do not be alarmed. It is authentic. Okay, so what happened back then, as it was so much worse than it is now. And I came running into the drama room Mr. B, Mr. B, Mr. B, it's about that third B, with the 16 syllables that made up the letter B. That he turned around. And what happened next shook me to my core. He turned his very tall features. Hands clasped at his diaphragm. Feet in perfect third position dancers pose. Come on girls, you know the one I'm talking about the one that everybody stands in for pictures and everything else. He's standing there lips, pursed jaw set and says, “Young lady! as long as you sound like a hick, you will never amount to anything.” Then he quickly turned back around and engaged with the students that he was in class with. I was left there standing speechless, shell shocked. All my hopes and dreams in that one sentence had gone up in a debris cloud that was now left, falling on the ground right in front of me. Along with the shattered image that I had put this man on a pedestal in my life served for so many years. All of that was gone. Now, I'm going to be honest with you right now, back in the day, I didn't see that as very helpful. Today, I know what he meant by that was to encourage me to work on my accent to work on the way I was speaking, didn't even possibly protect me from harm, because there are a set of people out there that will hear my Texas accent and discount my intelligence, because I sound like a hick. Well, that's their loss. But back then, I was just a kid in high school. And the man that I had looked up to had totally wrecked my world. So the next day I marched off the stage into the counseling office and dropped the drama. A few weeks later, I joined the United States Navy, as an aviation electrician. After all, aircrafts don't care what my accents like, right? Now, I bet there's a few of you listening today that may have a similar story. Maybe you've had someone that you respected, you loved, that said something negative and devastating to you. Maybe it gave you the drive to push on. And maybe it defeated you for a minute like it did me. Either way, I would love to hear your story. Because it's these stories that help us climb out of the pits of despair that we often find ourselves in when these things happen. It helps us articulate our feelings and our emotions around those moments so that we can dig deep into who we are and who we are called to be.

Now, while I was in the Navy, I got stationed in Rota, Spain. Yes, I was trying to roll my R's there and it totally fell flat. But, Rota, Spain is a beautiful place in the south Mediterranean. You've heard about it on NCIS, you've heard about it on Pitch Perfect three, even though that's not the real base in that movie. I'll tell you that right now. But it was the best and worst time of my life in Rota, Spain. See, when I met my husband there, I like to say it, say it this way in the best Scarlett O'Hara voice and I know that's Georgia but not Texas. But here we go. “I met my husband in Spain just after the war”, doesn’t that sound romantic. Well, it wasn't. So what really happens was the night I met my husband he was falling down drunk in a bar. And literally falling down. He leaned up against the wall next to me, went to put his foot on the wall and leaned over to ask me a question and fell completely face down onto the floor. I have people go “Oh, that's so sweet. He fell for you.” I'm like, Yeah, okay, whatever. Now, not long after that, I was set up on a blind date, my roommate and her boyfriend connected me with this blind date. And who would walk in the room but falling down drunk Mike? Well, a couple of months later, after a few nights together, I got to tell him that I was pregnant and expecting our first child. He asked me to marry him. But I wasn't quite sure that that was the right next move. I really wasn't sure of anything. I headed back to Texas for leave. He headed back to West Virginia. And California, where his main base was, but he was going to West Virginia for leave and I just needed some time to process what was happening. To see what had happened before Mike, as I had been engaged before, to a Christian guy, a marine. And that marine had beaten me, raped me, and left me for dead. And, so, if I could not trust this strong man who sworn to defend our country and be a Christian, to hold up with the values of family and livelihood that was going to leave me feeling like a trash receptacle. How can I trust a man that I've only known a few months with my heart? You know, after that experience, I guess as Joe Diffy said best, my give a darn was busted. I became very promiscuous. And my low had me feeling like a trash receptacle. I had a hole in my broken and battered heart. I had already trusted, had already been defeated. But here, I went to West Virginia to meet my husband, my soon to be husband and his family. So it's Tuesday evening, I landed at the Pittsburgh airport. He and a buddy picked me up and drove me the 40 miles to a small, one light, six bar, four church town. And it's not too long after I walked in the front door. His mom says “so you gonna marry my son?” I said, “well, we're talking about it.” She says “good. I've got the church reserved for Friday at the three o'clock." A bit taken aback but sad to say, I knew my husband well enough to sleep with him. But I didn't know him well enough to say what my feelings were about getting married. And neither did he. I called my mom. My mom said something she'd said to me many times before “you made your bed and now lie in it.” So Friday at three o'clock, I met my maid of honor on the way to the church. I met the guy that walked me down the aisle at the church. And we were married. After a short reception at my husband's cousin's house. We went to his mom's bar. Oh, this is where the party began. Remember falling down Mike, falling down drunk Mike. Yeah, that was him. He was at the bar hanging out with all of his high school friends having a good time. I sat at the end of the bar having Coke, some water, being ignored. And at midnight, my mother in law slammed her fist in the middle of the bar, said “young lady, Grab your husband. I'm closing the bar in two hours. Y'all need to go have your honeymoon.”
I ignored her. So she went and told him, Hey, grabs my hand and I walked and he stumbled the two blocks down the street to his mom's house and up to the room and we're getting ready for bed. And by this time, he's starting to realize I'm not real happy. So he asked me “what's wrong with you?” I said, “Well, this isn't exactly how I expected my wedding night to go.” He looked at me and he said, “Well, maybe your next husband can do better. I just don't see us being married in seven years and then rolled over and went to sleep.” I laid there that night. Why he slept and snored. And I accepted the challenge. I'd already walked away from being told that I wasn't enough once, I'd already been beaten down. I'd already had so many other people try and dictate what I could and could not accomplish. This marriage was going to last seven years, whether it killed him or not. So, I want to tell you about the year that I was in the running for wife of the year, it was 1999. And the running was so close right up until May 29th of 99. That was the morning that I jumped up out of bed as soon as the light hit the window, stood over my husband, shaking my finger in his face and telling him, “you said it wouldn't last seven years and I made it last out of spite.” For some reason, they didn't give me wife of the year that year. I don't get it. You know, I repeated that several times over the next several years. Just to remind him how bad he had wounded me. It wasn't a bragging right for me. It was more of a reminding of how bad he had wounded me with his words. Our marriage was falling apart.

Several years later, I'd worked many jobs around Mike's job, and he was moving off to Florida, I wasn't even sure if he was coming back, I needed a job. I'd put out over 400 resumes, not one single bite. Finally, I get a call from a company. They had two positions and they were both part times I've got three mouths to feed. You know, a part-time job was not going to cut it. But I do know two things. One, somethings better than nothing. And two, it's always easier to find a job when you already have a job. So, I went to the interview. As I sat in that interview, I use my best negotiation skills that I didn't even know I had, right? So, I'm sitting there with this person, and he's telling me about the mailroom that bills I'm overqualified for the mailroom. Well, yeah, I'm overqualified for the mailroom, duh! But, there's this administrative position that would really fit me nicely, but he feels that might even be overqualified for that because I'm really full, full-time potential not part-time. So I said, Give me both jobs. Let me prove myself. If I prove myself then what's the harm? What's the foul? The little while you can hire somebody else for the mailroom? Because I can guarantee you, you will want me helping out in other areas as well? He did. And that's what happened. While I was there, I had a girl that I got pitted up against for a job position, right. Have you ever worked with a bunch of women I'm up until this point I had steered clear of working with women? I worked in male-dominated environments. I worked aviation, I worked construction. I worked everything around men, I steered clear of women. And I didn't even know why. Until this happened, I was offered a job, given it. It wasn't one that I really wanted. It was kind of like, well, “you'll do” type thing. And I was really like, I really don't want to do it. And they decided to interview this other girl. And then they took the job away from me and gave it to her. But have you ever been around office politics and gossip?
Oh, that is just feed for the fodder with them. Boy, that turned ugly quick. And next thing I know, Jill and I are being pitted against each other. So, I asked Jill to lunch. She told me later that she was terrified to go to lunch with me because she was afraid that I was going to beat her up or chew her out or something like that and to be quite honest, I probably would have back in my older days.

See, when I worked in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic and aviation electrician. When women came into my shop, I was their worst enemy. They were not going to come in there and just be willy nilly little girl and worry about their nails getting broken or other things like that they were going to do their job better than any of the other guys were or they were going to get out of my shop. I was much tougher on the girls than I ever was the guys. I really saw the women around me as less than. I saw them as being weak. And until Jill told me this, I didn't even realize that I had that vision of them. Now, Jill's the one that opened my eyes to let me know what I was missing out on the most. And that was friendship.

Who knew friendship was so important. I'd been busy raising a family, married to my husband doing all these crazy, crazy things, and I needed friendship. A couple of years later, I'm working at my church and lo and behold, another situation. My boss is getting promoted, another assistants, bosses getting promoted, they're getting promoted to like what we call it the inner sanctum. It's a C level suite type of situation. And normally at that point, if your boss was getting moved up, you moved up with your boss. But that position was the position of a personal assistant. I was not a personal assistant, I was administrative, get stuff done girl. Right? I did not know how to play nice with others. When I started at the office, I was already having a problem because they put me in an office with 12 women. I had just started working with women at my last job and now I’m with 12 of them. Do you realize how many personalities we had going at one time, not to mention perfume smells and baking smells and candles, smells, and all sorts of stuff. It was like sensory overload, right? While I was there, and we were going through that transition, I learned something amazing. Gossip just doesn't happen in the workforce. It happens in church offices too. So, I did it again. I took Kim out to lunch. And we were the couple in our offices from that point forward that knew where all the bodies were hidden. We knew all the things that were going on, we knew how to handle things. We were the ones that when things needed to get done. We were the ones called to get them done. But what happened even more than that was Kim and I started hanging out outside of work. Our husbands and I got started getting together for double dates. We started attending our kids' events together. We started building relationships together, we saw the joys, joyous highs, the devastating lows of each and everything that happened in our lives for 13 years.

So this is going to bring us to our spotlight today. Our spotlight is called Everyday Divas. And each episode we're going to highlight a woman who's made a significant impact. She may not be a household name, but her impact leaves an indelible mark on each of our lives. And our Everyday Diva that I'm going to talk about today is, Kim Yates. As I said, Kim Yates and I work together, we had an opportunity to be enemies of each other. But we turned that opportunity on its tail and became friends and sisters and connected. Our husbands are friends. Our kids are friends. We loved, challenged, and supported each other throughout many, many years of ups and downs, pregnancies, marriages, deaths, and so much more. And she was my biggest cheerleader for starting and doing the things that I do here with Divas Impact. See, Kim's the one that taught me to see people not just tests, Kim's the one that taught me to look beyond the surface, and to look for what people needed to feel connected. See, Kim has about 40 other kids, as we call them, I call them fake kids, she calls them other kids. And of those 40 kids, they all loved and adored her. And I say loved, because this past Saturday, we laid my friend Kim to rest. You won't ever get the chance to meet her face to face. But in everything that we do from this episode moving forward, our work with Divas Impact, our work that we hope to build for the future. You'll see Kim's touch because of what she has taught me, how she connected with me, how she was willing to reach out with me. So, I want to ask you, what is your touch? What is it that you are doing to make an impact on the world that you're in? Because that's what we're going to be challenging with each week? What is your impact? Where are you going? How are you doing it? Now we have our Divas Impact Inner Circle, and we would love to connect with you there and be real with you there. It's a closed group, you can talk about whatever you need to talk about in there. We're going to be real with each other. We can continue the conversation from this podcast in that group. But you have to be willing to be open and transparent so that you can get the relationship that you so desperately don't even know that you need a lot of times. Wow. So I'm ending this on a bit of a solemn note because I am a little sad about my friend Kim, but I'm so happy that I had the great opportunity to get to know her. Because she pushed me, she challenged me, to get us started on what we're doing today. So thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for our next episode where we’ll share more about Divas Impact, how it started, where we are going and join us in our deepest impact Inner Circle and until next time, this is Angie Leigh Monroe, reminding you to be a diva
and make an impact.