S1E4 OVERTHINKING WITH STEPH [TIFF JENSEN]

INTRO JINGLE

STEPH: Yes. Testing one, two. Hello.

TIFF: Hello. One, two. Testing. Hello.

STEPH: Welcome. Tiffany Johnson.

TIFF: Oh, thank you.

STEPH: Why do we have tender time voice?

TIFF: It feels right. It feels good.

STEPH: It's never felt so right. Anyway, and that's it. We're done. That’s a wrap!

TIFF: It was a good time. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

STEPH: This is overthinking with Steph. I'm your host Steph Grant, and I am in the studio today with my good friend Tiffany Jensen. She has been, what did I say? Like a, like a talk show, sir. Come on down. How long have we been friends now? Tell us, tell us a little, tell us a little story about…

TIFF: We have been friends for many, many moons. Uh, we have been friends for. 13 years and been friends in multiple States. Steph let me sleep on her couch while homeless in California and Texas.

STEPH: That's true. Yeah. Tiff is one of my very good friends. I know that we've gone through a whole lot together. There are times when we don't see each other for a while, but I know we can always get together and pick right back up.

TIFF: Pick right back up.

STEPH: Let's see. Tiff… I've walked into my living room to her making tiny balloon animals on my couch, completely naked.

TIFF: That has happened.

STEPH: I've chopped your hair off with craft scissors in the kitchen

TIFF: and I think one time wasn't there a hatchet involved? There was a woodblock and a hatchet.

STEPH: Then we found the scissors, the woodblock and the hatchet did not work.

I didn't trust myself. It was a good effort though it was… she was very desperate to have a haircut in that, right in that moment. You had Hanson hair.

TIFF: MMM bop

STEPH: MMM bop! So, today, so we're just gonna have a conversation here. This is my first podcast and… I'm not really sure that it's even recording.

I'm also wearing a tiny children's Halloween costume, which you'll see later on, hopefully.

TIFF: It's pretty glorious.

STEPH: Today I was at the grocery store and I was picking something out and this woman goes, “Oh, you should try this.” And I was like, “Oh, maybe I will. Thank you. Random stranger.” And her daughter, who maybe was six or seven goes, “I really like your hairstyle,” and it just made my day.

And then she goes, “guess what I am.” And she was wearing a Halloween costume. I was like, “I'm not really sure.” And she goes, “I'm a Dritan.”

TIFF: Oh, what? A Dritan?

STEPH: And I looked at her and I said, “Oh yes, a dragon kitten.” And we like bonded. I basically bonded with the seven year old. So that like gets, I'm going to start every topic or every show at I think with something I've been thinking about or overthinking about.

TIFF: You've been thinking about dragon kittens.

STEPH: I have been thinking about that. I've also been thinking about how a lot of us have been taught, or teach our own kids, not to talk to strangers and I don't know that I completely agree with that, I think that there's a time and a place for that if you're alone, clearly.

I think that today made me second guess that she was with her mom. Her mom initiated the conversation. She knew that it was a safe zone and that moment in time and the banter back and forth with a seven year old and their mother was just so organic and completely made our day.

TIFF: I have a lot of feelings about that topic. I myself have two kids. I have an eight and a nine year old, and it is a challenge to try to teach them how to be appropriate human beings in social settings, but also maintain their safety.

So I do try to get them to engage with adults when I am around, but try to make that boundary where if you are by yourself or you're not directly next to me, that's not an appropriate time for you to have a conversation with an adult, especially an unknown adult.

Had that conversation in my classroom. Also, we had a big conversation about strangers last week.

STEPH: How old are your kids?

TIFF: I teach second grade, so they're all seven or eight, and it's, it's a challenge for them. I could tell that some of their parents hadn't really had conversations with them about that, at least not real ones.

Dealing with real consequences of that, but it's also one of my jobs to teach them social skills. And if an adult or anybody else is talking to you, you are supposed to engage in that conversation. It's a difficult boundary and line for kids to learn.

STEPH: How long have you been at your school and what do you do?

TIFF: I have been at my school for seven years. I am now a second grade teacher in a general ed classroom. And before that I was a special ed teacher, mostly kids with autism.

STEPH: I think it's, obviously I've never been a teacher in the classroom, but I think that that is one of the most important jobs shaping the future of our kids and the world ultimately, and teaching them how to be better humans. And I look back on my childhood and I think about all the teachers that I had even in, you know, Christian schools and then public school in high school and no one cared. It seemed like no one cared about the wellbeing of those kids.

TIFF: the whole child.

STEPH: Yeah. It's a tragedy. And I don't remember ever feeling like I could connect with any of my teachers or go to them if I had any type of issue. And I feel like a lot of times there's so much stress going on in a kid's home, maybe in their home life, and they come to school and they're either exhausted or, you know, just maybe need a hug or a friend to talk to and they maybe don't have that, but they can find that in someone like you or in a teacher.

And, you know, making, those conscious decisions, knowing that you're shaping the future.

TIFF: What's really interesting is in the seven years I've been there I've seen a shift in the culture in classrooms.

I talked to teachers who have been doing it a lot longer than I have, and they talk about how now a lot more of our time is spent on those things the kids used to get at home, but now it's our responsibility to teach them things like manners and social skills, and we even have an intentional timeframe for teaching those have an instructional period for teaching those social skills and trying to let kids know that they can be heard and know they're in a safe place and take care of those emotional needs so that those academic needs could be met every day.

In my classroom, we have 30-minutes-ish where we get together in a circle and everybody gets to share how they feel and real stuff comes out of those kids and it's, it's hard and I can tell that they don't have that opportunity to talk about it in other places. So it's good.

STEPH: Do you have something that really weighed heavy on your mind that you heard at some point in your seven years from a kid who really just hit home?

TIFF: Lately it's been really challenging. I have, I've been hearing students talking about their parents fighting or their parents have split up.

I recently went through a divorce, and so my kids are dealing with those things of having to have two houses and their parents splitting up. So hearing my students talk about that is it, it's hard, but it's real. I mean, kids go through those things and they have real feelings and they have real emotions and they deserve to be acknowledged.

Just because they're little, doesn't mean it's not real.

STEPH: Right? They just have different ways of probably expressing it. I'm huge on, I mean, obviously don't have kids, but play therapy. I've heard really good things about, and just finding a way for them and their little minds to cope. They're way smarter than we give them credit for.

I guess that's, that's probably super challenging too, to hear those stories of your kids going through that at school. And then you know, your own kids are kind of going through that too. And that probably just breaks your heart, but also knowing that they have the right skills and coping mechanisms.

And maybe not, maybe you're just figuring that out and trying to figure out how to have those hard conversations with them. But how did, how did they take it?

TIFF: it's an interesting perspective because I have gone through it now. But when they do talk about those things, I just try to reassure them that it does have nothing to do with them.

And that that doesn't mean their parents don't care about them, that their parents don't love them. And it has nothing to do with them, which, you know, I've always kind of thought, but now going through it, I have firsthand experience that it really, and truly has nothing to do with it. So I think it's, it's an interesting perspective that I can give them saying, “I know for sure that this is not you.”

And tell them that my own kids are going through it also, and they know how much I love my kids.

STEPH: So yeah, I think divorce can be… can be messy. It can be… I've witnessed it a lot from my line of work and seeing so many weddings and love stories, and then so many of those couples, you know, get divorced and then it's kind of behind the scenes or not talked about or shamed or, there's so much shame around that topic that these weddings are celebrated, and these love stories are celebrated even on my Instagram accounts where I've had messages saying from random strangers that they've had to unfollow my account and me, because they're so sad about that. It's constantly in your face that all of these happy couples are getting married or in or in love, but we don't talk about or showcase….

TIFF: that that ends.

STEPH: Exactly. And it does end, a lot of times, and they just kind of disappear either from my feed or it's not talked about, or we just go back to the happy in love couples. And so I've tried on my stories a lot of times to have real talk surrounding divorce shame in the LGBT community or just divorce shame in general, or the feelings that come because you've either disappointed yourself or your significant other at the time, or your kids or your parents or…

There's so much, I think guilt surrounding that too, right?

TIFF: A lot of guilt, especially when kids are involved. It is excruciating to try to deal with because you're dealing with your own heartbreak. Nobody gets married with the intention of divorce, but it does happen and people change, and that's heartbreaking enough for me as a human being dealing with the end of a relationship that I never thought would end.

But then seeing how it effects these tiny human beings that I am responsible for, is absolutely heart wrenching. It's a real big challenge to go through the grief and the shame that does go along with getting divorced just from my own perspective, and it's hard to find the balance of trying to be there for them and deal with all of their changes that they're going through and trying to take care of myself as a person.

STEPH: Do you feel like you've had to put yourself on the back burner a little bit at times and not maybe deal with the actual divorce and the heartache and what happened because you have kids?

TIFF: Yes. It's been… The way things are working now is I have my kids every other week. So, when I have them it's like go mode.

It's everything is about them and all their million different activities that we do. And I see them every day at school, so that's good. But those weeks that I don't have them is when that like deep hurt comes back and it's… It's hard.

STEPH: It's probably feels like, I mean, I obviously, I've never been there, but it probably feels like you're missing a limb or two limbs.

TIFF: It really does. It's my entire life is, is gone as I knew it, and I thought I would be… you know, I've visioned myself when I'm 85 and this is not what I saw.

STEPH: And then does it make you question decisions?

TIFF: Everything.

STEPH: Right?

TIFF: I mean, it really makes me question everything about my life, everything about who I am.

Everything about what I thought about human beings. Yeah. It changes everything.

STEPH: Do you think that there is, I mean, obviously you can't go back and change anything, right? And you are where you are. Is there something to be said about,f you know, rushing in to relationships or marriage? because I think a lot of us have crafted this picture in our minds of what we really want and we can, we are very good, and I speak for myself too, and so many love stories that I've seen, we're very good at almost making these people fit into this story, you know, and shaping them into this dream that we've created for ourselves.

TIFF: Yeah. It's, from my own experience, the person that I married was not at all what I thought that I would marry. I mean, before I met her, but I don't know, circumstances of life and things happened, and it was…

We had known each other for about two years before we got married. And personally, I thought that was rushed. I had a plan and that was not my plan, but I loved her and I went with it and I wouldn't change it because I have these two amazing little creatures that came out of it.

STEPH: They are the best.

I'm wearing one of their costumes right now!

TIFF: But it's, you know, I do question things and I think I will stick to my guns a little bit more and stick with who I am in the future. I think I made a lot of compromises with myself that I shouldn't have and now I know better.

STEPH: Do you feel like you lost bits of yourself throughout this process? Or that you've, do you feel like you took time to get to know yourself before you got into this marriage? And I think that going off that topic, I know this is not something we were going to talk about, but really truly finding yourself and being okay being alone, before you get into this marriage, you know?

TIFF: I don't know. I thought I knew who I was before. And I think now going through all of this, I did know who I was better before… because I'm remembering who I was. I'm talking to people who knew me before that, and they're seeing me come back to who I was and I liked who I was. I don't necessarily like who I became in the last few years.

So it's… I don't know that I bounced around from relationships, but I did, I mean, I was in them and then not in them. And I don't know. That's a difficult question.

STEPH: It is, and I think that, I think there is something that to be said about meeting someone and growing together and growing with them. I think that's possible.

TIFF: Yes, I do. Yes. You just both have to be willing to move together.

STEPH: And accept that that other person could completely change, right before your very eyes. You know, it happens. It happens frequently. And I think that if I had gotten into… I mean when I came out, when I was 23/24 all I wanted was to get married and to have kids and to have this dream, you know, this love story and this romance and you know, I could have basically shaped a lot of people into that and put them in my scene, you knows.

Now; 10, 13 years later, I'm 36 now, and I'm like, thank God I did not do that because I had so much to learn about myself and so much trauma to tackle from my upbringing that I had no idea.

I would have probably completely shifted on someone and maybe they would have grown with me, but maybe not. I was in no space to let anyone in or even to connect with people. But yeah, taking some time for ourselves and figuring out what's important to us and what you value in another person, and when you find that with someone, you just never know. You never know what could shift.

TIFF: because people show you what they want to show you, and then you know, there's no guarantee that that's going to be… who they are.

STEPH: Accurate. Yeah. Yeah.

TIFF: And that's dating super scary.

STEPH: Yeah. I can't imagine right now. So how old are you?

TIFF: 34

STEPH: Dating is pretty nightmarish.

TIFF: Terrifying.

STEPH: I dread it. The actual word is dread, and I can't imagine being in the place that you're in when you were married, for how long? or in a relationship for how long?

TIFF: Nine years.

STEPH: Nine years. Two kids later. Moving States away, you know, starting this new life.

TIFF: With no family here, having to do all of it without my people.

STEPH: Right. What does dating even look like after something so fresh?

TIFF: I'll let you know. It's like, I don't even…

STEPH: is it something that you feel like you can tackle or ?

TIFF: I have no idea. What I've noticed is; when I do go out and talk to people, I still have not been able to make the shift of mindset of looking at people as though it's an option because it has not been an option for so long, that I go out and I would talk to people and make friends and that's, that's that.

There's no other intention because there just, it wasn't even on my radar, I was taken.

STEPH: Right.

TIFF: So making that shift after almost a decade of having it turned off is really weird to me. I don't know how to look at people as a potential date.

STEPH: And then even connecting with them.

TIFF: I've been trying to do better with connecting to people because I didn't, I always had one foot out the door. I never thought I'd stay in Texas.

STEPH: Here we are, what, 10 years? I'm coming up on 10 years. Jeev.

TIFF: Oh, that's me.

STEPH: We're about the same, right? 10…

TIFF: Yeah. I’d say you moved out here, yeah, a little bit before [me].

STEPH: I planned to be here maybe three… five years

TIFF: I planned on six months. Nine years later!

STEPH: It kind of has a way of... I mean, I think we both left a lot behind in California, a lot behind. Our families, religion and a lot of things that I knew needed to happen for me to start fresh. I didn't even think it out. Didn't overthink it for once! I just had to save myself and get out. And luckily I did that, but to be here for 10 years, you know, it's weird.

I don't put roots down often. And, I've still, I’ve been here 10 years and I don't feel like I have roots down, I don't feel like I have a home, even though I have a cozy, sweet loft and a dog that I love, nothing is ever comfortable.

TIFF: Yeah. I have felt the same way. I've met some wonderful people that I love dearly here, but it's never been home and I've never allowed it to be home because I never planned on being here. Even throughout my marriage. The plan was to move back home and I couldn't. Well, and now I'm here.

STEPH: Do you plan, is that in the, in the works?

TIFF: That is not a possibility currently

STEPH: Because of the arrangement. Right. Okay. That makes sense.

TIFF: So I'm here now and I'm trying to invest in Texas. Now that's my new goal; is go out, meet people, talk to them.

STEPH: Well, I'm here.

TIFF: I know. Only you're stuck with me and my people.

STEPH: I think that there's, you know, home… I ws just going to say, it’s so cheesy, but

BOTH: home is where the heart is!

STEPH: I know that you are so close with your family and your siblings are phenomenal.

I know a lot of people on Instagram following me know some of this, but I never talk about it willingly on social media. So I think this is a good outlet to talk about, you know, home and what that looks like and the things that aren't talked about, like the hard things, like not feeling like you ever truly have a home. Where you don't feel comfortable even at your own home.

You know, it's so sad. And I know there are a lot of people out there that maybe just feel like they're getting by every day trying to make new traditions for themselves or just everyday life things where they're just trying to get by and make the best of what seems to be home.

TIFF: I've known you for a long time and that every time I hear you say the word traditions, you have always been seeking that.

That's something I've always known about you. You've been looking for that depth and wanting to find traditions and trying to make traditions with people forever. I mean, for as long as I've known you, that's always been what you've been searching for.

STEPH: Yeah. And I try. It's true. I try to create those. Any chance I can get to where even if you know, I go to the supermarket with someone, I want that to be the best time and an experience in and of itself to where they're going to remember “that one time I went to the grocery store with Steph. We got in the freezers and we hid from each other and we put on masks and chased each other” like, why not? You know, tomorrow it can be over. I want people to remember those traditions and those memories where they might not get that way with anyone else.

I might not get that with anyone else. I might only have myself at that moment to make me feel joyful, you know? And to find some type of happiness in a small chore. Like going to the grocery.

TIFF: Right. But you need to know that it's also okay to just do nothing.

STEPH: Hmm. That's a topic for a different day because… I can't relax.

That's my problem. So this has been really good. I'm really enjoying this conversation. I think that what I want to end on, I don't even know how long we've been talking, but, is what keeps you up at night? What is something that is, you know, you wake up in the morning feeling like P D… I'm just kidding.

You wake up the morning and you're like, it's that same thing maybe on your mind that stressing you out, but when you'd lay down in your bed and those slideshows play, what haunts you?

TIFF: It has been the same thing haunting me for a year and two weeks now.

STEPH: Wow.

TIFF: Very specific, isn't it? How real are we getting here?

STEPH: We're getting real.

TIFF: It is the image of my ex wife with someone else. And it is that image that has haunted me for a year and two weeks.

STEPH: Do you think that'll ever go away?

TIFF: Eventually I think it will, but it's… I mean it, yeah, it's what I fall asleep, wake up, wake up in the middle of the night, can't go back to sleep.

It's torture. But I know it's only myself doing it cause I'm the only one thinking about it. And so I need to let it go. And if anyone has any tips on how to do that, let me know!

STEPH: I wonder, I mean, I can't… For a chronic over-thinker that would be something that I think, you almost have to sit in and to feel it in torture yourself for awhile, but to what end? Right?

TIFF: When will it stop? When does it end?

STEPH: And, and it's not like you can, if we are getting real, you know, like, it's not like you can not see this person.

TIFF: Yeah.

STEPH: You know, you've got kids.

TIFF: I don't have that luxury. I think this is the first time in any relationship [where] I wish I could not see them anymore.

I'm best friends with most of, well all of my exes. They're all my people. And this time I wish I couldn't, but I have to.

STEPH: That was supposed to be the end, but I'm gonna, maybe we'll cut this out, but I’m going to end on this: if you could say one thing to this person, knowing that she might hear this and know it was that this is torture and it is rough; what would you hope for that person to know?

TIFF: I think I've said everything and I have not been heard. I have not felt heard, I should say. Before our incident even occurred, I didn't feel heard and I haven't felt heard since then. So I don't know that saying anything is going to do anything.

I talk a lot because that's how I process things and I have never felt heard.

STEPH: Do you think that, knowing that it could help someone else, knowing that… what your thought is... Like, are you angry right now, at her?

TIFF: At this exact moment? 

STEPH: In the last few weeks I guess, or…

TIFF: I have been filled with an anger, and a rage for the last year that I didn't know I had in me.

But it's interesting cause that's not the person I am. I'm not an angry person. But I also saw myself for the years leading up to that with this anger. And, I think if you're out there and you're listening and you have felt yourself getting angry more and more in life, maybe do a little more reflection on what's really going on.

STEPH: What do you feel like you need right in this moment from the universe, or from a friend? If you could create a perfect person or even a perfect situation where you're like, I really just need this, what would it be?

TIFF: I need somebody who I can just talk to all the time. Like it's hard to not have someone to call about everything.

Like, when I'm feeling super sad when I'm crying on the bathroom floor, or whether I'm super happy. I have different people I can call for all of those things, but I have a really hard time picking one because I don't want people to… I don't want to burden people. So, I do miss having that one person and, unfortunately, I still feel like she is that person.

So when I am mad, that's who I vent to and then it just makes things even worse.

STEPH: I get that. The reason I asked that too is, I've recently had a situation personally where I needed… I knew what I needed in that moment and I knew the reaction I needed from someone and it was really just for them to be sensitive and say, “are you okay Steph? I cannot imagine the layers that go into that.” So to hear from that person “I wish I could hug you right now.” Because half the time the people that I reach out to you not anywhere to where they can come over and hug me. And so when I don't get that from someone, it's almost crushing because I rarely open up to anyone.

So if I do, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And if it is, almost rejected or not if, but that's also…

TIFF: If you don’t get exactly what you need and it's hard.

STEPH: it's hard because you're like… it's like when you tell your significant other to wash the dishes, and then they do it and you're like, “well, you're only doing that because…” like, you want someone to almost know you well enough to give you what you want, but then if you don't let anyone in and tell them what you want…

There's this constant tug of war, which is welcome to my life and my brain with overthinking. Right?

TIFF: Absolutely.

STEPH: I think that we have covered a lot and I'm so happy that you're here with me, and this was completely random. You were coming over here to go to block party Halloween thing and I was like, “can we test the mics?” and here we are having our first podcast! I hope it recorded. If it didn't, I'm going to kick myself in the shin… thrice.

TIFF: It's been glorious.

STEPH: Glorious. I love you so much. I hope you know that. And this is, it's been that reminder that I love you and that you are someone that I want in my life as a constant.

And I hope you know that too, even though we are 45 minutes away.

TIFF: Oh my gosh.

STEPH: And not on my couch. I love you, and thank you for joining me on Overthinking with Steph. No idea what the outro is, but that was overthinking! Yeah.

OUTRO: Well, Hey, thanks for overthinking with Steph. Can't wait to hear from you on the social, so make your way over to add Steph’s Podcast on Twitter, and tell me your thoughts. Catch the breakdown on Patreon and where we get into the nitty gritty and overthink the conversations in this episode. Till next time, keep creating scenarios that will never actually happen and live your one damn life.

outtakes:

random jingles!

take me to the chalet!

keys, keys, keys, keys!