Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One 'You think I wasn't going to love you anymore'...That's Not What This Book Is About'

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey how you doing and welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session i'm in my car

00:00:09.560 um of course i'm in my car because i want this podcast to talk about

00:00:16.320 grandma ruby's chapter um and i think it's important i do it in this car because she

00:00:24.100 loved it so much and she always she she always made me promise never to get rid of this car

00:00:29.460 This was the best car she's ever seen. When she got a little bit older, she consistently forgot that I actually had this car, so every time she got in, number one, she'd say, lift my leg, and number two, she would talk about how beautiful this car is and how I could never give it away.

00:00:46.320 So guess what? I won't ever give it away. It's going to stay with me forever.

00:00:53.440 These, as I'm sitting in my car, these are Grandma Ruby's glasses.

00:00:57.280 So for those who don't know about my Grandma Ruby or about the book that I've written and you're just coming upon this,

00:01:05.400 one of the most important aspects to who i am and to how i've become

00:01:14.620 has to be my grandma she was on this planet for 97 years i got to have her for a solid

00:01:23.740 let's say 47 of them and who she was and how she spoke to me and how she loved me and supported me

00:01:35.380 absolutely has made me the person that I am today. I'm going to try to do this without crying guys

00:01:43.380 because it's hard. When I've been writing this book what I found hard is like really digging

00:01:50.240 into those moments in my past where they were beautiful, they're important and to know

00:01:58.000 not only how important and amazing they were in that time and in that space but how much

00:02:05.320 of an effect they're having on me right now. I wish I would have done this podcast when she was

00:02:11.600 still here. I tried to. I tried to talk her into it. She was on TikTok every once in a while,

00:02:18.220 but that was a short time. As I started filming and doing all this stuff on social media,

00:02:25.320 she didn't quite understand it, but she knew she didn't want to sit down and talk for an hour.

00:02:30.340 But in all fairness, she, you know, she had things to do.

00:02:34.140 She didn't want to sit down with me for an hour and talk about heaven only knows what.

00:02:40.220 When I was a kid, you have to understand that my parents got divorced when I was very young or separated when I was very young.

00:02:48.500 And my grandma looked after me when I was little.

00:02:51.780 So she had an incredible connection, an incredible imprint on who I was and who I would become.

00:03:01.640 Right up into the point where let's, you know, my mom thought maybe she was overstepping a little bit as moms and their moms tend to have issue, right?

00:03:13.780 so I was with her from a very young age and then when my parents separated and my mom

00:03:20.520 didn't quite like needed a break and needed to decide to do something else she took a break

00:03:25.980 from nursing we bought a store together in Mansfield we went up there we lived there

00:03:30.820 all together so we became even closer but my mom myself and my grandma would go on vacation every

00:03:36.720 year and these are the stories when I tell these stories and you can obviously read about them

00:03:43.520 I don't need to regurgitate those stories, but those stories and those moments were so incredibly transformative, but I had absolutely no idea.

00:04:00.560 I had absolutely no idea about how incredible they were, about how much of an impact they would make.

00:04:13.600 And I think, thinking about my grandma and the way that she loved, and I'm going to describe her in a little bit,

00:04:19.100 the way that she loved, it's almost like this slow, beautiful build.

00:04:30.560 um, to something epic. And, you know, I come home every night and she lived with me for the last,

00:04:38.180 uh, I don't know, six, seven years of her life. And she would always be on that porch up there.

00:04:45.120 She would always be on the porch waiting, but like not purposefully waiting. It was like,

00:04:52.040 I could come home. I could go out in the morning, come home at like noon and she'd be there. Now

00:04:57.840 she'd be having a cigarette. We told her not to do that, but, you know, we tried to get her to quit. 0.97

00:05:03.300 I could come home at two o'clock early from school, she'd be there. I could come home sometimes

00:05:07.700 at 11, midnight, she'd be there. It was like she had this sixth sense. And the only thing that she

00:05:15.380 ever needed in this life, for me anyways, was a relatively quick conversation,

00:05:21.840 maybe a bit of a laugh and just giving her time so she could talk about what she needed to talk 0.99

00:05:31.500 about my grandma didn't need to sit down and have big conversations she was never that person 0.68

00:05:37.680 right she liked knowing that she was important she liked knowing that who she was mattered she

00:05:47.240 liked knowing that she mattered to me and that's really all she needed she didn't need to sit down 0.99

00:05:55.560 and occupy hours of your time in fact she didn't want you for hours of her time she had crap to do 1.00

00:06:00.920 shows to watch you know and i think we forget or or we

00:06:07.800 try to judge what people need and what they want from us um but the big parts of my grandma

00:06:19.460 uh she's british and she was gruff okay she's gruff not a lot of hugs from grandma ruby um

00:06:30.920 you felt sad she'd take you out and buy you something that you let's go shop what can i

00:06:37.920 buy you right that that was it now to some people that's awful like that's just like the worst thing

00:06:44.220 but that was her love language that that was the way she expressed it that's the way she tried to

00:06:50.020 see a smile on your face because big complicated conversations i don't know in retrospect if she

00:06:57.400 could have them about herself, let alone have them about other people. If I was a betting woman,

00:07:04.900 I think my grandma, I know my grandma lived with a couple of things. I think she lived with a level

00:07:15.520 of anxiety that I don't think she could ever quite understand and place. You know, they called it a

00:07:22.900 nervous stomach or acid reflux or all these other things, but I think it was anxiety.

00:07:30.040 My grandma also grew up with a mom that passed. Her mom passed very early.

00:07:37.660 Her family dynamic wasn't as stable. And I think there was always something missing there for her.

00:07:49.340 Again, she could never talk about it.

00:07:52.340 She never talked about it.

00:07:53.960 You'd get glimpses.

00:07:57.240 But her sense of self-importance, and I think this is incredibly important, came from her.

00:08:05.580 It came from her heart, her being.

00:08:09.100 I don't think she was granted it by other people in her world.

00:08:13.180 I think a lot of people in her world left.

00:08:15.400 I think she had felt abandoned very early.

00:08:17.740 And I think she derived a sense of identity and self-worth in spite of, in opposition to that.

00:08:27.200 And I don't, I never really understood how much that was going to affect who I would be.

00:08:36.700 You know, she was a proud, proud woman.

00:08:42.400 Very proud.

00:08:43.600 and she led a lot even though she wouldn't say this she led a lot with instinct she could feel

00:08:51.280 I think she was quite empathetic I think she could feel a lot what was going on around her

00:08:56.480 I think that nervous stomach was probably because she could sense what people were thinking and

00:09:04.580 feeling kind of like a little kid or even like a you know like your pet how they know when you're

00:09:10.200 sad. She could feel that, but she never had the capacity or the ability, or she never chose to

00:09:16.640 sort of step into and unravel it all. I think because of the way that she thought about herself

00:09:22.900 or the way that she contrived or thought about all of these things, I think was just different.

00:09:29.500 So I have a feeling she walked around with a gut reaction to the world around her,

00:09:39.260 and then she reacted to it. So could she have reacted poorly at times? Yeah, yeah, probably.

00:09:49.060 But honestly, I think if you came to her honestly and authentically,

00:09:56.480 that's who she responded cleanly to, clearly to. My mom and her used to like throw it out.

00:10:06.080 Everything was on the table with those two.

00:10:08.600 Everything was on the table.

00:10:09.940 But I also think because there was never an ability or a choice or a learned intelligence,

00:10:18.220 because I think it's a learned intelligence to be able to talk about your emotions,

00:10:22.740 to be able to talk about those feelings,

00:10:24.340 to be able to acknowledge them and acknowledge them in others and work through something.

00:10:29.240 I don't think she ever had the capacity to do it.

00:10:32.940 I don't think a lot of my family did.

00:10:34.500 you know and I don't think I was even willing to acknowledge my feelings my guttural response

00:10:43.740 my instinct honestly until I came out I don't think and then I was kind of shoved into it

00:10:52.460 I I think coming out shoved me so hard into my feelings because I didn't come out until I was

00:11:01.740 in my late 20s shoved me so hard in my mid-20s into my feelings that I had to quickly figure out

00:11:07.720 how do I talk about it who do I talk about it to sometimes how do I defend it you know and I waited

00:11:15.140 a long time to tell my grandma I thought because she was older I thought oh she's not going to

00:11:20.660 want to talk about this or or she or or maybe underneath I thought she was going to have a

00:11:26.000 problem, you know? And as I joked about, talked about in the book and joke about, but this was

00:11:32.020 quite literally how it happened. When I told her after a particularly horrific breakup,

00:11:36.840 she shoved me off the couch. It was like an elbow. I was sitting beside her and she kind of gives me

00:11:43.000 one of these and she goes, what'd you think I was? And I popped off the couch. What'd you think I

00:11:47.600 wasn't going to love you no more? That was it. That was our big conversation. That was, I never

00:11:54.540 had another conversation with her about it not in a oh you chose to to date or you're you know

00:12:02.180 you're you fell in love with a woman kind of way never again we talked about relationships don't

00:12:07.440 worry my heart gets trampled many a time after that so so she knows when I get hurt she knows

00:12:12.320 when it's you know when I break up but we never ever had a conversation about that again

00:12:17.920 and there there is this cleanness to that

00:12:23.440 and and when i try to pinpoint how i am who i am

00:12:30.340 it has to come back to that moment and that level of acceptance by that woman

00:12:41.500 about who she was and how she loved me and how she supported me.

00:12:49.880 And, and I think it was instinctual for her. It wasn't fake. I don't think my grandma

00:12:55.860 faked anything ever in her life. She, listen, when she married my grandpa, um, in the forties,

00:13:07.820 the 40s in the 40s my grandfather's polish and his last name uh he was polish so so he had a

00:13:16.840 polish last name now my grandma didn't like i didn't know this until recently she didn't like

00:13:20.820 the way it was pronounced so if you were a woman his polish name and i might mess this up

00:13:28.120 was kajorski or no kajorska uh for for a woman or kajorski something like that for a minute

00:13:41.340 my grandma thought that was too hard and she looked at it and phonetically she said well it

00:13:46.100 looks like kajorski that's how it sounds that's how we're gonna pronounce it from here on in

00:13:52.500 and my grandpa said okay that's who my grandma in the 40s i'm surprised my grandpa didn't take

00:14:01.240 her last name in all fairness i think if the idea would have entered her head he would have been a

00:14:05.860 cooper that's who she was that's how strong and and like single-minded she was and and to think

00:14:15.140 about that in the forties was just incredible. She never cooked a meal, toast, Marmite. Um, 0.90

00:14:26.120 that was it. You know, my grandpa did all that. She did clean, but like on her own terms. And,

00:14:33.340 and because probably she didn't think anybody else could do it properly.

00:14:37.540 She definitely didn't ally herself with the expectations of her time, 1.00

00:14:42.980 of her economic position my grandma also didn't like um she didn't come from a wealthy family 1.00

00:14:50.940 she she didn't like the fact that they were treated how people were treated based on that 1.00

00:14:57.660 she always believed herself in her soul there was an expectation she should be treated

00:15:07.000 well. And in her head, I think that came a little bit with money. But in actuality,

00:15:15.620 I also remember her taking off her very expensive jewelry to see how people were going to treat her

00:15:20.940 when we went places. She had this genuine understanding of the way that people worked.

00:15:30.200 And again, I think it was instinctual.

00:15:35.000 Right before, and this was proven to me, actually, all of this was proven to me right before she passed.

00:15:42.080 So she passed when she was 97, 97 and a half.

00:15:46.200 I told her she was supposed to hit 100.

00:15:47.920 It was rude that she didn't. 0.99

00:15:50.820 She had to be in a home because she got sick at some point. 0.90

00:15:57.820 She couldn't get out of bed.

00:15:59.380 thought maybe she was gonna be able to get out of it but you know that wasn't 0.99

00:16:07.660 the plan and so she was in this home and and I was terrified she was gonna hate

00:16:13.480 it there but she actually the people were so lovely to her and cared about

00:16:18.220 her so authentically that my grandma was okay there but when I would come to

00:16:26.360 visit her she was forgetting a lot like a lot she'd forget people all the time one time she

00:16:35.060 forgot me for about 10 minutes guys it was the hardest 10 minutes I've ever tried to live

00:16:38.900 I swear to god I sat down with her she didn't know who I was I said well that's okay and I just tried

00:16:44.600 to talk to her because like I read or I heard somewhere you just have to sort of meet them

00:16:49.280 where they are don't scare them don't try to tell them that you're somebody that they're not going

00:16:53.160 to be able to put and so I just sat with her in about 10 minutes she remembered who I was it was

00:16:57.940 the longest 10 minutes of my life but every time I would visit her and it was every day for the few

00:17:03.680 months that she was there she she forgot that I was that I was gay she had no idea so a lot of the

00:17:12.800 times Anna would come with me and so she didn't know who Anna was and every time we would come

00:17:19.460 there i had to come out to her again every single time she'd say who's that i said oh grandma that's

00:17:26.280 my fiance that's my girlfriend and every single time guys bar none she'd go oh she's pretty like

00:17:37.700 yeah one time she goes well that's a little weird i said yeah it's a little weird but i love her

00:17:44.560 And she goes, well, that's all that matters. And she's really pretty. And that was it. I came out to her. She maybe three, maybe three months. She was there. What is that? 90 times.

00:17:58.380 maybe not all 90 because Anna wasn't with me every single time

00:18:04.920 but a good chunk of times I had to come out to her and every single time

00:18:14.400 she responded with her true authentic self and that true authentic self wasn't bigoted

00:18:25.140 wasn't hateful wasn't homophobic it was accepting and it was founded in love now did she rely a

00:18:33.480 little bit on the well at least she's good looking side sure but you know what my grandma would tell 0.98

00:18:38.900 you uh that that's fine that she always she judged people the way people look like that's what

00:18:44.900 well they're pretty i gotta tell them if they're pretty if they're good looking you know what i mean

00:18:48.880 Um, and this ability of this woman who had lived, you know, since the twenties and to 0.79

00:19:00.960 not have that as her instinct, there was a level of, of beauty in that and a level of,

00:19:12.280 of of equity and inclusion in that that i hope that that subconsciously drained into me

00:19:26.920 we never had a single big conversation

00:19:31.320 but who she was i think instinctually became a part of who i am today

00:19:42.280 and outside of the coming out thing and outside of all of that i'm not going to pretend i know a

00:19:46.760 lot of you out there think like she was this like like soft lovely old grandma guys guys 0.97

00:19:56.120 she was gruff she's she could be grumpy she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it 1.00

00:20:05.320 but i could call her at two in the morning pre-internet and ask her how to spell a word 0.99

00:20:11.560 because I was working on an essay and she would spell it, say everything else. Okay. Everything's

00:20:19.480 good. And hang up that phone phone. And I know for a fact that there was this underlying connection

00:20:28.380 of I love you. And it gave me such strength, I think. And it gave my mom strength. And

00:20:42.000 I did another chapter in a podcast with my mom, so you get an idea of that relationship.

00:20:48.860 And what my grandma made me realize for today, because that's what it's about, right? It's

00:20:54.560 about these moments, these moments in your past that you don't quite understand what

00:21:00.740 they mean in that time and what do they do for you now.

00:21:05.320 Those moments, those are the moments that made me understand that all a kid needs, all

00:21:20.060 any person needs in this world, I swear to God, is one person. I was lucky enough to have more

00:21:25.780 than one, but is one person. Is one person you can call at 2 a.m. and ask how the word's spelled

00:21:30.760 or bail you out, whatever point of life you happen to be. It's one person that no matter

00:21:36.720 what you do, no matter how you stand or how you dress or who you date or what job you choose to

00:21:43.220 do that. One person will never change. We'll never take it away. We'll never make it transactional.

00:21:54.060 If every kid could have one person in their corner, in my opinion,

00:22:01.400 you will change the world.

00:22:05.060 and I've seen kids that don't have it and I try my best to be it

00:22:14.020 because you can't tell them you're in their corner that's that's the beauty of family and

00:22:23.460 I mean family it doesn't just need to be blood but it needs to be over a long period of time

00:22:29.120 because you can't tell somebody you're in their corner you have to prove it so many times in so

00:22:38.580 many big and little ways that they never ever question it they never have to that only happens

00:22:45.740 over time and that's why it's so hard for teachers i think to develop that level of trust that level

00:22:52.740 of connection, that level of proof. You tell the kid that. But if that kid's been let down

00:23:02.780 time and time and time again, it's an uphill battle. You got to prove it. You have to prove

00:23:11.880 that you were there. And it can't just be through words. It has to be through the moments

00:23:19.520 of their life where they're scared, where they've made mistakes, where they've turned down the wrong

00:23:25.640 path, where there has to be a walk back, where who they are gets to be okay with you. And that

00:23:37.720 does not mean you don't hold people accountable. That does not mean when they do something wrong,

00:23:42.160 you say, don't worry. No, no, no. No, that's not what I mean. But I do think that when we talk

00:23:53.700 about teaching, we spend a lot of time talking about tactics of how to facilitate conversations

00:23:59.420 about math, or teach them how to read or teach them how to write an essay and teach them to be

00:24:04.280 confident to do these skills. And we haven't figured out and we haven't helped teach them

00:24:09.480 how to be confident in themselves, how to be empowered by themselves.

00:24:17.480 Because if we can't do that, the lessons of mathematics don't mean anything.

00:24:25.080 How are they supposed to mean anything?

00:24:29.380 When they don't believe in themselves because nobody else has believed in themselves before.

00:24:37.740 How do we do that?

00:24:39.480 And when a kid's 15, 16 years old, oh, guys, it's a steep uphill battle at that age.

00:24:48.900 It really is.

00:24:52.700 Because you're trying to undo, or you're trying to manage, or you're trying to balance the disappointments, the loss, the limitations.

00:25:04.060 And teach them, you know, about the War of 1812.

00:25:09.480 I heard weird noises. I thought that was a bird. I think there's birds nesting on my roof.

00:25:18.840 My grandma also could be sarcastic. That was a love language. 1.00

00:25:25.140 my grandpa my grandma also understood

00:25:30.720 the value of of authenticity and honesty even when it caused tidal waves

00:25:45.980 my grandma also taught me

00:25:48.340 that who I was and how I was

00:25:54.520 was incredibly important, powerful, meaningful, and good.

00:26:03.940 And she didn't do that with big conversations.

00:26:09.400 She did that by picking up the phone and talking to me on the way home from school about nothing.

00:26:15.580 And she did that by making sure that any time I was ever with her, that I felt loved.

00:26:31.320 And I did it, I hope.

00:26:34.060 I hope I did that for her.

00:26:35.880 and some of the things i learned from her was where it was was to be strong and be independent

00:26:45.400 and do whatever the hell i wanted to do yes and it was also learning from the things she couldn't do

00:26:52.300 well so have those big conversations have the hard emotional conversations put things on the table 0.94

00:26:59.920 Don't walk out that door. You stay put until it's understood or resolved.

00:27:07.220 All those things matter to me and I think all those things are incredibly important to do.

00:27:16.580 And just because she didn't know how to do them and she didn't know how to tap into that anxiety

00:27:20.980 and she didn't know how to talk about it and maybe she handled it wrong and maybe she didn't do it

00:27:27.240 right and I know nobody is perfect but even in the absence of things she did

00:27:38.480 perfectly she still taught me how to do them you know I think that through all

00:27:52.420 the trips so we used to drive to florida together every year her my mom and i you guys can read

00:27:58.900 about that obviously i wrote very i wrote epic pages about it and it was always hilarious and

00:28:09.420 fun and sometimes we had big fights but there was a vulnerability to my grandma that maybe

00:28:18.040 I only saw I remember one time so she wasn't living in my house yet she was renting a house 1.00

00:28:23.940 close by and she wouldn't smoke in the house so she'd go in the garage but the garage door had

00:28:29.180 this thing where it kind of like was on a weighted system kind of kind of slammed shut a little bit

00:28:34.100 and she went out to try to have a cigarette and she fell and my mom called me right away and said

00:28:39.180 that she fell and I went rushing out there and as I go rushing there I sit her down and and I know

00:28:48.680 that she's sitting down and you can tell clearly she's she's broken this arm and I know it's broken

00:28:57.560 she knows it's broken she's not crying you think she cried no she's not crying but I know she's

00:29:03.760 scared. So I sat on the floor and I got behind her and I leaned her against me. And I said,

00:29:14.300 it's going to be all right. We're going to get an ambulance. We'll get it fixed right

00:29:17.280 up. I said, but this is what you get for smoking. And she laughed and she giggled that kind

00:29:21.640 of mousy giggle that she had. And she goes, well, don't move though, Joe. Don't move from 0.96

00:29:31.160 there. And I said, of course, I'm not going to move from here. I got you. I'll stay here

00:29:40.240 until they get here. We'll go together. I always knew that my grandma wouldn't move

00:29:49.180 from there. I always knew that. And the best thing we can do in this world, I swear to

00:29:58.080 you is have people in your world that know you won't move from for you won't move from

00:30:08.320 that as long as they need you you'll be right behind them

00:30:13.220 having hard conversations if need be but you will be there in every single way that you possibly

00:30:21.260 can be there and I think the lessons that she taught me without ever talking to me

00:30:30.640 the identity and the confidence she gave me without ever trying to gas me up without ever

00:30:40.720 trying to explicitly state it that all of the subtle lessons that grandma ruby gave to me

00:30:48.660 were fundamental truths of how you should be there for a person and love

00:30:58.040 and how you're going to help grow a person with action rather than just words.

00:31:10.100 So, my lesson in this episode is simple.

00:31:15.880 you can't tell somebody they are strong they are powerful they are unique

00:31:24.000 you have to live it with them and you have to support it you support them as they go through

00:31:33.080 it don't tell them that they're powerful help them choose to be powerful stand with them

00:31:42.020 while they are doing something terrifying.

00:31:47.300 Don't tell them, whoa, whoa, whoa, this could fall, this could fail.

00:31:50.900 You want to empower them?

00:31:55.940 Make sure you're there supporting them when they want to do things

00:31:59.440 that scare the living hell out of them.

00:32:02.580 Make sure that you're being authentic every step of the way.

00:32:05.980 If they're important to you, be authentic with them.

00:32:12.020 And make sure you can laugh at everything, because they know you're never laughing at them.

00:32:25.060 And on that note, guys, that was a crying one.

00:32:34.400 Continue on down this road.

00:32:37.420 I want you to put in the comments, put in your ideas.

00:32:41.260 I want to be able to continue this discussion because I think as a teacher as a person on this

00:32:46.800 planet that the more we can do and the more that we can give what my grandma gave to me and the

00:32:53.480 more that we can give that out into the world the stronger the better the more impressive this world

00:32:59.480 will become overnight thanks so much for hanging out guys and I will see you next Tuesday same bat

00:33:08.600 time. Same bat channel. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - June 24, 2025

The One 'You think I wasn't going to love you anymore'...That's Not What This Book Is About'

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