That's Me! That's Me! episode # 23 with Mary R.

**Mary R** (0:23)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to That's Me, That's Me. I'm Monica Kaye.

**Julia Jay** (0:27)
And I'm Julia Jay.
Here on That's Me, That's Me, we talk about what brought people back after their first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. So often we hear what got us to our first meeting. But we also love hearing what brought people back for their second. What did they see? What did they hear? What did they feel that encouraged them to return to the rooms? Each week, we invite a guest to come to the show to share their story and what brought them back to their second meeting in the moment they began to relate to themselves and say, that's me, that's me.
Welcome back. This week, we have a little bit of a different feel because we have a guest host. Monica had to be away this week, and so we decided to try on having a new host. So welcome, Khaki S. Okay, but we're really, I'm really glad you're here. Thank you for agreeing to Anna Wim, guest host. And how's your week going?

**Khaki S** (1:26)
Oh, gosh, my week has been really busy. Actually, my last month has been really busy and this week has kind of slowed down.
But really exciting news, my oldest son is coming home from a year of living in Australia, and he actually lands tonight. So we're really all so excited to see him for people like us in my family. It's really hard to communicate when there's a 14-hour time change. So we have not had that daily interaction. We've had about maybe four connection points that were meaningful over his year away. So we missed a lot. Yeah.

**Julia Jay** (2:07)
Wow, my eyes got really big for those of you that didn't know.

**Khaki S** (2:11)
Yeah, like I said, 14 hours of time change means phone calls are really hard, and that's how we connect best.
But yeah, we're really excited to hear about his time away. I think I'm so impressed with what he did, how he picked up and moved across the world and was completely independent. Had a couple situations that we heard about after the fact, where I was like, wow, you're really an adult. How'd that happen? So I'm excited to see him. He's a swell human, and we've really missed him. So yeah, that's my exciting news for this week. How about you?

**Julia Jay** (2:52)
Well, just as a side note, if you follow us, and I've listened to other episodes, Khaki's episode was episode seven, which was released on March 20th of this year. So if you're interested, if you follow us, you can go to Recovery Radio Network. And they're a part of a sort of catalog of different AA speakers. So if you want to go through, you have to find that's me, that's me. And then so you kind of have to search, but you can find it. It's worth it.
But I don't know if I mentioned last week, if I went to the Cincinnati Orchid Society meeting.
I was joking, I've joked with people about like when you are 46, this is the kind of excitement you have in your life. But I went to that last week and then some of the members there joked that this would be the last time I'd ever owned just three orchids. So they were right. I went and bought two more orchids at a nursery this week, and one of them bloomed this morning and I was so excited. So I don't know, there's something really special about that. And, but also I was thinking, as Cackie was talking, my oldest is away for five weeks on a ranch and is basically like cowboying for doing an internship. And he's 16 and it's been interesting. It is, I guess I just like forget that, like what I wasn't anticipating when he left, I'm really excited for him. It was hard like the day before he left, the anticipation of him leaving.
And like just the not being able to communicate as much as I want, but I also have like kind of I've had to really be careful about not becoming this like worry wart of a mom when he's on the phone. And I noticed like every once in a while will be FaceTiming and he and my husband will start to giggle and I realize it's because I'm being like so worried. Like I was really trying, he doesn't have an oven. And so he has to cook his own food. And so and he's working all day and is exhausted and needs like hearty meals and he has a stove, a toaster and a microwave. And I was like, well, what if I sent you a crock pot? And he said no, and that wasn't good enough for me. I had to like justify why he needed a crock pot. And my husband was like, Julia, he doesn't need a crock pot. So I'm right where I need to be this morning, worrying about other people. And in this, Monica and I always talk about, it's nice to get locked in for two hours, where you have to just worry about the here and now. So I'm really excited for our guest today. Her sobriety date is February 22, 2001