That's Me! That's Me! episode 21 with Steve W.

**Julia Jay** (0:23)
Hi, everyone, welcome to That's Me, That's Me. I'm Julia Jay.

**Monica Kay** (0:27)
And I'm Monica Kay.

**Julia Jay** (0:28)
Here on That's Me, That's Me, we talk about what brought people back after their first meeting. We want to know what they heard, what they saw, what they felt at their second meeting that helped them come back to the rooms. Each week, we invite a guest to come on the show to share their story of what brought them back to their second meeting, and the moment they began to relate to themselves and say, that's me, that's me.
Hi, welcome. Hello.

**Monica Kay** (0:59)
I'm going to have to reel myself in because we've been having this amazing conversation about geography. So now, yeah, and we'll probably continue.

**Julia Jay** (1:07)
Yeah, I was going to say, now people are like, really? Because we're so cool.

**Monica Kay** (1:13)
That's going to be woven through the whole conversation today. Anyway, how was your week?

**Julia Jay** (1:18)
It was good. It's May, December in the world of people with school-aged children, where it just feels like, mayhem as my old boss used to call it. But in the midst of all of that, we went to the, as everyone knows, big IndyCar fan went to the Indy 500 and it was an absolute ball.
And it was really cool because the last couple of years after my, so I've gone with my parents forever and my aunt and uncle, over the last 10 years, they have slowly stopped going and it's like transition to my cousin and I and my kids. And I have a really close friend in AA that goes with us now, Allison W who by the time this airs, you'll have heard Allison. And in the last three years, it's been hard as my dad was dying and then he died. And this year, it was like, I wasn't clawing at the tradition and like, I didn't have that grief where I like everywhere I was, it felt really heavy. It felt like it was like new. And I'm really grateful because Allison has really like, she walked with me through that experience, you know, and I tried not to taint it for my kids because they love it, but I was really struggling the last couple of years. And I don't know, it's just like another example of somebody in AA walking with me and kind of healing that part of my soul, which is really beautiful.

**Monica Kay** (2:48)
I love that. It's going to be a whole different flavor of tradition, right?
With you and your kids now, the next generation, making sure they get there every year. But your mom went with you, no?

**Julia Jay** (2:59)
So my mom goes to the weekend, she doesn't go to the race. And it's funny, the reason why the older generation quit going is because it's like physically, it's an exhausting day. Like where we park is a mile from our seats.
And you just get like a salt, your senses get assaulted, like 300,000 people. It's a lot. And I always kind of scoffed at like, why can't they go like suck it up? Well, now that I'm 46, I'm not even, I mean, they all went and well into their 60s. I think, man, I got to get I got to get to work. My biggest goal in life, I think, is to like work out enough so that I can physically go to the Indy 500 till I die.

**Monica Kay** (3:44)
And that's a pretty good incentive right there.
It's funny because I was thinking about you last weekend, and it was one of those typical, like when you're, it reminds me when I used to go hiking, right? And I would come back like that was amazing. And people were like, I'm so glad you did it and not me. Like I was home and it was raining and I was like, oh, it would be, they must be miserable, right? Like when you're not doing it, what you, right? They must be miserable right now. And meanwhile, you guys are like, wahoo, this is the best ever.
It's just such a different experience.

**Julia Jay** (4:14)
Well, it wasn't a gajillion degrees and it didn't pour down rain until we started to walk to the car. So it was fine. Yeah.

**Monica Kay** (4:23)
What did I do this week? So I, oh, you know what? I got reacquainted with my local health, healthplex place. You know, my sister's back in town who's the big workout woman. So she's got me, she's got me, dragged me over there and we got signed up. I'll just put it out there bluntly. But it's been so much fun because you guys have heard my lead and I started rowing in sobriety, but it was when I was away from AA. And I like threw myself into the sport. I was rowing like 20 hours a week into the winter. And just like, it was just like such, I just loved it. I love being on the water. And it's funny because that's what I do now when I go over there. Obviously, they don't have water there, but they have the ergs that I can pull on.