This is the lovely Kennedy.
36. you can make a human: horizontal with a young mother
This is horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds that’s recorded while the opposite of vertical. Horizontal aims to make private conversations public, in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and cultivate human connection. To paraphrase my eloquent listener ghostheart, I take you into my bed and let your ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations.
Kennedy: And then, also, a very grotesque film of a woman giving birth, which, like … bothers me as a mother, because I don’t think— I, I think that that … is what, sort of, perpetuates women going into birth … fearfully.
Lila: Thinking that it’s going to be like a— murder scene, like a crime scene!
Kennedy: Yeah. Um and I— and that’s not what, a birth is. Birth can be very traumatic, but, if you have the right care providers, and the right support network, and, you educate yourself, and you understand that you’re in control and, you, deserve to be respected, then I think that birth can be very healing and magical …
Lila: ‘Cause all the movies I’ve ever seen show the woman just writhing and shrieking in agony.
Kennedy: Yeah, and it’s definitely not the best feeling ever, being in labor, but I do think that when I was in transition, going from active labor to pushing stage, was the closest I’ve ever been to an out-of-body experience. It was the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Lila: Can you walk me through it?
Kennedy: Yeah. I had a lot of pre-labor with Elva; I had contractions that would stop and start for weeks before her due date.
Lila: What does that feel like?
Kennedy: It feels … sort of like a tightening in your abdomen and then, really bad period cramps.
Lila: Oooh!
Kennedy: Yeah. So, I had that and then, her due date came and went, and, it was funny because my midwives all kept telling me— I was dilated, before then, and they were like, “You’re probably gonna go early. You’re showing all the signs of progressing.” And then, Elva ended up being a week late. I went into labor on a Saturday morning, and, Thom and I were out walking around— it was the middle of winter, we were, walking the aisles of Home Depot and Target and anywhere we could find that was warm and inside to walk, (Lila mm’s) ‘cause that’s the best way to get your baby to sort of engage in your birth canal.
Lila: Ohhh, I can just picture you walking up and down Target aisles, and Home Depot!
Kennedy: Yeah. Um, and then finally I was just like, “Ok, we need to go to the hospital.” It was, it was getting to the point where I was, you know, struggling through contractions and, sort of struggling to speak through them. And, we got there, and, my midwife was like, “Yeah, you’re in labor, you’re four centimeters dilated, you’re having regular contractions, I’m gonna have you, you know, bounce on a yoga ball and you know, walk around, and do some hip-swiveling to try to get the baby to drop some more, and—
Lila: And so, when you say: dilated, it’s that the vaginal opening has, has opened more.
Kennedy: It’s, it’s your cervix.
Lila: It’s your cervix, okay.
Kennedy: So, standard, to push a baby out, you need to be 10 centimeters dilated.
Lila: Okay.
Kennedy: Which I wanna say is the size of like, a cantaloupe?
Lila: (chuckles) That makes sense.
Kennedy: So I was walking around, and I just kept stalling out, like I just— my contractions just kept stopping. So I stayed the night in the hospital that night, and she said that, you know, “We’re gonna keep you overnight because I feel like if I send you home you’re just gonna come right back here.” ‘Cause I’m a first time mom. So, I didn’t exactly know what to expect and when, you like— what the feeling would be when, I would be like Oh, I really need to go to the hospital now. And so she said that I would probably wake up, you know, progressed to almost being to the pushing stage, or I would wake up ready to push. She said that that was usually what happened. And instead I woke up, annd, in typical Elva fashion, she, you know, was just like “I’m gonna do what I want,” and I ha— was having no contractions, and I hadn’t progressed any more. And so, I had to do more laps around the hospital. I was so sore from the previous day, going up and down steps, just!
Lila: (sympathetically) Oooooh.
Kennedy: Trying ruthlessly to get this baby out, and, so, we … ended up walking from about 8am to 11am, and then I took a rest, and the midwife came in and I really thought I— was gonna end up getting sent back home, because I was just stalling out again. And, they hooked me up to the contraction monitor, and as she was giving me my options (giggle) my contractions picked back up, and, I, progressed for another couple of hours, just bouncing on the yoga ball and relaxing, and then I chose to have my water broken, and (laughs) that’s when, things, got real, so! Having your water broken itself doesn’t re— you don’t really feel it, it just feels, you know, like a little bit of pressure and then, like this huge gush of fluid coming out of you.
Lila: And that’s the sac?
Kennedy: Yeah. And, the first contraction after that, you know, I was in the bed, I sor— (chuckles) I was gripping the armrest on the hospital bed, and I, was like, “I want the epidural; I want the epidural now.” And, I had gone into it, really not wanting one, and I had, you know, made it very clear to, you know, the people who were there supporting me— Thom, my mom, our friend Pearl, and my midwife, that that wasn’t what I wanted. And so, when I said that, everyone was kind of like, “Ok that’s fine, but let’s get through this contraction and we’ll talk about it.” And, of course, you know, I would get through it and then be a little more clearminded, and say, well no, that’s not what I want at all. So, about three hours after that, (laughs) which was crazy, I was completely naked, I ripped all of my clothes off (laughs) I was running around the hospital room, in the birthing tub, out of the birthing tub, had the shower head on my back, was wanting to be touched, was not wanting to be touched, (Lila mmh’s) I was like, bearing down on the yoga ball, and then, it was the strangest feeling, my body started to sort of push and I, I felt the pressure of Elva’s head in my birth canal, and, I remember sort of like stopping and, there’s this moment of just absolute clarity that I hadn’t had, because I had been in— you know, the most intense pain I had ever been in in my life, and, you know I’m not— I’m not a religious person at all … but I felt, like connected to some sort of like ether, like, there was like this huge beam of like energy from somewhere like, pulsating down on me, and then, you know, I— I was like, I’m pushing, like I— my body is pushing, I wasn’t pushing, my body was pushing for me, and my midwife checked me, annnd, forty minutes later, Elva was born!
Lila: I was wondering, because: why do we need to do all these things to make it happen when, ostensibly, our ancestors, just, you know, at some point, squatted down … and their body just birthed a baby, I mean the body— knows how.
Kennedy: Yeah. I mean we didn’t survive millenia not knowing how to give birth, so. I think it’s because … with … you know the way the medical industry has progressed in the Western world, I think it comes from a place of mm— misogyny, honestly, that these, you know, male doctors are telling women that their bodies don’t know how to birth and that it’s something they should be afraid of. And there are so many stories out there of women who … didn’t have … the birthing experience they wanted, or that their birthing experience was very traumatic to them, because someone else was calling the shots for them.
Lila: Right, as though it’s a malady. Kennedy: And I—
Kennedy: Yeah!
Lila: As though— they need to be treated for this illness that they have, of child— birth.
Kennedy: Yeah, but then on the contrary there’s like this weird, you know, culture about like having a, a “baby body” and like, did you— how fast did you bounce back—
Lila: Yeah.
Kennedy: And how did you lose your baby weight, which I think is equally as strange, because, y— you know, giving birth, in a way is a trauma to your body, it’s—
Lila: It’s absolutely—
Kennedy: Your, a human is exiting your body—
Lila: (laughing) Yes!
Kennedy: — and, you know, if— your friend, you know, had to go have this crazy surgery where they got like their guts cut out or something, you’re not gonna wonder like, “Oh, I wonder what Bob’s body looks like after he went through that— crazy thing!
Lila: (sarcastically) I wonder how long it will take him to get his eight-pack back.
Kennedy: Yeah, exactly! And, I think—
Lila: I asked someone the other day: How in the world, because there— it is in the magazines, Oh, this celebrity bounced back. She was photographed in Ibiza four weeks after, delivering her baby … and they said that, they have C-sections, and then, when they’re sewn back up, they, essentially do a tummy tuck. Essentially—
Kennedy: Really.
Lila: — take the skin and tuck it under.
Kennedy: I’ve never heard that.
Lila: I had no idea about that either. But I was wondering how it could be possible t— to change one’s body after … after such an incredible distension of skin…
Kennedy: Yeah.
Lila: In such a quick amount of time.
Kennedy: And I think— I’ve actually never heard of women doing that I, I have heard of elective C-sections, obviously I— and to a certain extent, I do believe that: women having options as to how and where and when they want to give birth … is a form of respect.
This is horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds that’s recorded while the opposite of vertical. Horizontal aims to make private conversations public, in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and cultivate human connection. To paraphrase my eloquent listener ghostheart, I take you into my bed and let your ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations.
Kennedy & Thom
In this episode, recorded on my horizontal does america road trip, I lie down with Kennedy. Kennedy is the young wife of my college friend, Thom.
Thom and I went to theatre school together at NYU. I think he graduated one year before me, in 2002. I had a thing for Thom. I’m pretty sure we had sex. He’s pretty sure we didn’t. We’re friends now. I visited him on my first cross country road trip, in 2009, when he was single and working as a bartender. And I visited him on my second, now that he has a two year-old, a house, a wife, and teaches carpentry at a magnet high school.
During October and November of 2017, I drove 10,700 miles in a Honda Civic. By myself. Every single mile of it. Oh, it was delicious. I circumnavigated the U.S. with two intentions: 1. To feel free, and 2. To record with as many fascinating people as possible.
At 20 years old, Kennedy is a mother, a college student, a giver of care, a seeker, a brave, humble warrior. She is a survivor of sexual assault who doesn’t like to use those words. She doesn’t wish to identify with victimhood. She doesn’t want people to see that as her whole identity.
It is a prime example of a great sickness within our society, that a woman who is harmed, should be blamed for having been harmed, and then further judged and blamed for using the accurate term: “victim” to describe the role she has been forced into. I am appalled that she even had to worry about this. It is only a small part of the story of Kennedy— but it is a part of that story. And we both know that silence doesn’t help.
We know that silence and secrecy have caused women to suffer more egregiously than their wounds ever necessitated. We know that silence and secrecy has kept many of us from receiving proper treatment for trauma. We know that we don’t want this to happen anymore. And that she, like I, wants us to be free. To express our sexuality in any way that feels right and meaningful and joyous to us. To love whomever we wish to love, whenever we love them. To speak aloud about the things that have happened to us. To put forth our own stories in the hopes that others may not need to live in shame. I am deeply honored by Kennedy’s vulnerability, and the generosity required of her to share that vulnerability with me.
At first, when I arrived at Thom’s place, I was concerned that Kennedy might not like me. As it turned out, she was concerned that I might not like her. Because due to some disappointingly backwards closed-mindedness, more than a handful of Thom’s friends, and I say that in quotation marks, “friends,” were unkind to both of them when they got together. It is hard for me to understand why a true friend would stand in the way of you loving another consenting adult. But. That’s what happened.
I, however, was delighted to see my friend so happy.
In the first part of this episode, we discuss topics that have never before been broached on this podcast — placenta fajitas, childbirth and misogyny, many bodily fluids, being a young mother, and marrying a 36 year-old at 18.
Come lie down with us in Omaha, Nebraska.
horizontal with kennedy in Omaha, Nebraska. October 2017
If you enjoy lying down with Kennedy and I, become a patron of the horizontal arts! Patreon is an innovation in the life of the artist. It’s a website that crowdsources income on a monthly basis. It can make it possible for me to continue creating independent, uncensored, ad-free homemade radio. My intention is to keep this podcast ad-free, but also to make this my primary career. Show me that you believe in my mission of cultivating intimacy across the world (and dislike ads)!
Links to Things:
Patron of the horizontal arts!
My horizontal does america tour, on which I recorded this episode!
The Turnpike, dubbed a pseudo-memoir, written by Kennedy’s husband Thom.
The Beauty & the Beast cd of poetry that the Renn Faire actor gave Lila.
The David Lanz improvised piano cd, Return to the Heart, that he gave her as well. She listened to them a few times.
Show Notes (feel free to share quotes/resources on social media, and please link to iTunes, this website, or my Patreon!):
iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/horizontal-with-lila/id1238031115&ls=1
website link: https://horizontalwithlila.com/
Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
[8:49] Minimal sex ed, growing up in Nebraska. (Just the film shown in health class.)
[10:01] Kennedy tells Lila the story of giving birth to her daughter Elva.
[20:38] The way that societal pressures play out on women’s pregnant bodies and childbirth choices.
[21:31]
Kennedy: I do think that elective C-sections are on the decline as of right now, probably because women are finding, you know, that they— don’t— owe their postpartum body to anyone, and, essentially that their postpartum body is no one’s business but their own. I do, think that if, you know, you are choosing that, for— reasons … of your own, like maybe you have had a sexual trauma of some sort. I have read a lot about that, that birthing can be very hard, if you have had sexual trauma, because, the hormones that are released, are in some of like the same centers of your brain (Lila hm’s) that are activated after a trauma, or, like, if you have PTSD it can make it very hard to give birth. I just think that … there maybe needs to be more of a push for women to understand that their bodies … like, you can make a human! Like, you’re making another human being. You know… why would your body ever be the same after that? (Lila hm’s) Like it, it shouldn’t be, and you shouldn’t want it to be! Because—
Lila: Well it’s got a different job now.
Kennedy: Yeah! And, and that’s okay, and you can still be sexy and beautiful and— hot, and whatever else you want to be, after, giving birth! It doesn’t make you some gross old crone, like, “Oh I’m a mom now, I can’t be, I can’t— you know, be my own person and be empowered.” It— like— being a mother does not have to consume your whole identity.
Lila: Well you’re very sexy and beautiful and hot.
Kennedy: Well thank you.
Kennedy & Thom after Elva’s birth
[23:44] Kennedy continues the story of Elva’s birth.
Kennedy: So, when I was pushing, pushing feels like a relief, it doesn’t— pushing was the thing that I was most afraid of, I thought that that was gonna be the hardest and the most painful, but l—
Lila: It sounds like it’s gonna tear.
Kennedy: Yeah, but … when I started pushing, I felt relief and I stopped feeling the pain of the contractions because I was pushing through them. And, I did, tear a little bit. I didn’t have to be stitched or anything like that. And I remember feeling some—
Lila: Do they put oil, or something?
Kennedy: Yeah, my mid—
Lila: To lubricate?
Kennedy: I— don’t, believe so, my midwife did do counter-pressure with me, so.
Lila: What does that mean?
Kennedy: So she took her thumbs, and— the most traumatic tears happen usually when it’s going downward, when it’s going toward, your anus.
Lila: When the baby’s— head is going downward.
Kennedy: Yeah. So instead, my midwife was placing counter-pressure downward on my vaginal opening, so that as the baby’s head came up, it would push upward on me. And I did tear, upward a little bit, but nothing major that had to be stitched or repaired or anything like that. Not to say that i— isn’t still— you know, even, a year and a half out, still sensitive and, you know, you have to, be proactive and like really, sort of, massaging that area, to sort of, keep the scar tissue, a little— more loose—
Lila: Ohhh.
Kennedy: — and break it down a little bit more. Just because if you have, hard— scar tissue in that area it can be really sensitive and—
Lila: And you massage it without any kind of cream, just—
Kennedy: Yeah, like, just like— Lila: — with your hands.
Kennedy: Well with oil or like, coconut oil, or—
Lila: Oh, so you do.
Kennedy: Yeah. Or like a lubricant that you like and react well with. (Lila mmhm’s) So the pushing was a relief. And, like I said, as she was crowning, I felt a little bit of— stinging. But nothing compare— I thought that that was going to be the worst part and that by far, you know, was, mostly the easiest. (chuckles) Uhh—
Lila: WOW.
Kennedy: Yeah. But then when her head came out, I mean, that was— the biggest relief, and then when I got through her— so, the head is the hardest part. You get the head out and then, as the shoulders come out, it sort of, you know, the baby just sort of comes out very easily after—
Lila: The shoulders are the widest part, right?
Kennedy: Yeah but the head is the hardest part to get out. And then, once the head is out, your care provider can sort of, hook under the shoulders and sort of help you, and, you know, sort of ease the baby out that way. And, it was funny, Thom and I both had the same feeling: Thom was going to catch the baby, I wanted Thom to catch the baby originally, but when it came time and my midwife was like, “Okay, ehh— you know, we’re ready for Dad down here,” I— (chuckles) said no and I wanted Thom to stay by me and continue to hold me and support me.
Lila: How was he positioned?
Kennedy: So, my— mom was, to my left side and Thom was to my right side and Pearl was on my left hip, helping me with my left leg.
Lila: And, you were lying down?
Kennedy: No, I was in, like an upright seated position, holding my legs up with my arms.
Lila: And Pearl was helping you with this left leg
Kennedy: — Yeah. Lila: to keep it up?
Kennedy: Yeah. And—
Lila: And Thom, had his hands o—
Kennedy: Just around me and holding my hand and holding my arm and sort of, you know, petting my hair and, was talking me through everything.
Lila: And you wanted him to be in the room the whole time?
Kennedy: Of— yeah, of course.
Lila: You didn’t, ever kick him out? (Lila giggles)
Kennedy: No, no. And I, I originally had only wanted Thom in the room, but when it came time to push I wanted (laughing lightly) everybody to stay. (Lila giggles) You know. I need everybody here.
Lila: You wanted the— the energetic support?
Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And so—
Lila: You weren’t— I’ve heard women say that they felt embarrassed because, they, were going to void their bowels, and they didn’t want their, their partner in the room to see that…
Kennedy: So that happens sometimes. That didn’t happen to me. Unless it did, and nobody told me. (both laugh)
Lila: (still laughing) You didn’t notice.
Kennedy: Um, Thom and I are very— there’s really no body shame or, you know, body fluid shame, between us.
Lila: (emphatically) Yes, you’ve had a lot of talk about pooping since I’ve been here. (Lila laughs)
Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, so, I, I was definitely not concerned about that, and I wasn’t concerned about pooping or concerned about him seeing a baby come out of my vagina or anything like that. And, he, was very supportive and really wanted to be there and wanted to, you know, watch his daughter be born, and, so, when the midwife, you know, held— her up and placed her on my bare chest, it was— Thom and I talked about it later, and we were both very relieved that we had the same feelings. People talk about, sort of this euphoric moment, this like huge rush of love the second you see your baby?
Lila: Yeah.
Kennedy: And when I saw Elva I, sort of, was like, “Oh! It’s you.” Like, “it was you in there that whole time.” I was like, “Wow. She’s here. That’s— who’s been in there with me this whole time!” And it wasn’t until, you know, I was holding Elva skin to skin, and starting to nurse her, that I really felt that, sense of euphoria that people talk about, kick in. And it’s very interesting because: up until more recently, skin to skin, and giving the baby directly to the mother wasn’t necessarily common practice in America, usually—
Lila: Right!
Kennedy: — you take the take the baby to the, little, um, weight table, and you clean the baby off, and clip the cord and—
Lila: Right.
Kennedy: — do all of that sort of stuff, before giving the baby to Mom.
Lila: But your baby was given directly to you—
Kennedy: Yeah.
Lila: — before cord-cutting.
Kennedy: Before cord-cutting—
Lila: That makes PERFECT SENSE. Kennedy: — before anything.
Kennedy: Yeah.
Lila: Why wouldn’t you?
Kennedy: Yeah, so I wonder, if that maybe has something to do with like the ease of nursing, because you’re releasing that, oxytocin, you know, immediately, when the baby is placed on you skin-to-skin and starts to suckle and so on and so forth. So, I— have heard women talk about … how hard it was for them to nurse, after having like, a C-section, or if their baby wasn’t given directly to them, and I wonder if it’s not because, you’re not, like, releasing those bonding chemicals right away.
Lila: Ooooh, interesting.
Kennedy: And—
Lila: It makes so mu— from everything that we know about how babies become malformed, don’t develop, if they’re not cuddled and embraced, and don’t— if they don’t have the skin contact, if they’re not s— you know, swaddled and held and … it makes so much sense that if you don’t have that as your first experience of leaving the body, that there would be— some complication somewhere along the line because of it.
Kennedy: Well yeah, I mean … I think, sometimes we forget that, you know, the baby was in there for nine whole months with you, in this sort of, you know, lovely warm, swimming pool.
Lila: Right!
Kennedy: With a full belly and, everything you need, and … it’s very dark and relaxing in there.
Lila: Suddenly it’s cold and bright out here—
Kennedy: Yeah, so—
Lila: There’s all these, things around.
Kennedy: I can imagine that, you know, coming earthside would maybe be, a little horrifying, if you’re immediately placed on this cold hard table.
[32:30] How long until Kennedy’s cord was cut?
[32:50] Kennedy schools Lila on the placenta.
[33:14]
Kennedy: The placenta’s a very interesting— thing. Some people encapsulate their placenta, and, take it as a pill, some people make placenta smoothies, some people, freeze their placenta and eat it as a steak, later.
Lila: What do you make of that?
Kennedy: I actually kept my placenta. And, our friend Pearl and our friend Derek, so graciously brought it home for us while we were in the hospital, in the cooler, (Lila laughs) and they cut it in half and put it in our deep freeze, and I was planning on making placenta fajitas (Lila hoots and howls) around the time Elva was six months old, but unfortunately our deep freeze gave up the ghost, so I lost my placenta—
Lila: No placenta fajitas for you!
[34:28] Is eating the placenta in order to increase your milk supply or decrease postpartum depression, a myth?
[35:27] The moment that Kennedy felt the flood of love for her baby.
[36:13] Lila compliments Kennedy on her comfort with bodily fluids.
[38:00] Kennedy on her big pregnancy breasts. And plugged ducts. Ouch.
[41:09] What was Kennedy’s relationship to her breasts before she started breast feeding?
[43:43]
Kennedy: If I have any advice, any unsolicited advice to women, who, um, are pregnant is: don’t take a mirror down there right away!
Lila: (laughs sympathetically) You did?
[45:12]
Kennedy: Growing up with my only sex education being porn, I had this idea of what a vagina should look like, and had some weirdness around my vagina even before that because my vagina didn’t look like that.
[45:32] Kennedy on discovering internet porn while in middle school, by Googling “blow job” and then going down an internet rabbithole.
[47:49]
Kennedy: Or, I remember, I remember like, riding my bike and like, feeling that, when you were like, going over like, bumps or something like that. (Lila mmhm’s) And I remember, feeling … sort of, shameful about it, because I knew that, you know there was sort of this uh … zone around, you know, as my parents called them, “private parts,” that like, you sort of don’t speak about them, you know you don’t, you don’t touch them, you don’t let other people touch them.
Lila: So the education you got from them was: This is private and— stay away from it.
Kennedy: Yeah.
[48:37]
Kennedy: My Dad is, more religious, but it’s interesting because, just from talking to my Mom as an adult, my mom was, very, sexually active and sexually explorative, but, she said to me, that she just never wanted to think of me like that.
Lila: (sounding unconvinced) Ye-eah.
Kennedy: Which, I mean, with, certain connotations I understand, but having a daughter of my own now, I would just want to have an open dialogue with her from the get-go, about how things work.
Lila: Yes.
Kennedy: And when she does become, you know, sexually mature in her own time, I want her to be educated, and understand, that her body is her own and she can do with it as she pleases.
[49:55] Kennedy on conceiving Elva while she was taking the birth control pill.
[51:25] Lila on how her mother only wanted to see a male gynecologist, and how she much prefers a female.
[52:46] Kennedy on the meltdown she experienced while on depo provera. “…and freaked out and hurt myself very badly.”
[57:09] Kennedy on informing her parents that she was pregnant, as a teenager.
[58:19] The talk Thom had with Kennedy’s father after Kennedy discovered that she was pregnant.
[58:53]
Kennedy: I— don’t recommend getting married when you’re 18 to anyone. I don’t think anyone should do that ever. (Lila laughs) Do not take— you know, Thom and I have been married for two years now, and things are wonderful and going great, but uhh—
Lila: How old was he when you met him?
Kennedy: He was thirty-six? And I really, do think that, it is an isolated incident, and I, I was fully aware that when I chose to marry Thom and chose to have a baby with him that I was going into this situation not knowing myself. And I, cannot, say that I know myself completely now, but I do know myself and have changed and grown immensely, even in just the past two years, as I will continue to do throughout my 20s. And, I think, that understanding that, about myself and Thom, also understanding that about me, has… made things go a little more smoothly. Because … I think, that, and— even with my previous experiences with older men … it wasn’t ever about me. It wasn’t ever about me as a person, it was about me as y— you know, this young fantasy girl. It was about, you know, acting out, this idea, of being with a younger woman.
Lila: When did you realize you were attracted to older men?
Kennedy: I think I always have been attracted to older men, I even remember being younger, and being attracted to older men, even, you know, when I was like 10 and 11 and—
Lila: How much older?
Kennedy: I mean just always men, in the sort of age range of like 30 and like 30 – 50, um, and I don’t, I don’t consider myself to have uh, you know, quote unquote “daddy issues,” but I, have, just growing— up— around, I think, even my mom and her friends, I’ve always felt a little more comfortable around the adults.
Lila: Me too.
[1:01:33] On not feeling quite comfortable with our peers in high school.
[1:01:45]
Kennedy: Even throughout high school, I— … felt very out of place and weird. And—
Lila: How so?
Kennedy: Just that like I, felt, not that I felt like I was necessarily more mature than my peers, because I do think (laughing) that when we think we’re like, at our most mature we’re probably at our most immature. (Lila giggles) Um, I just felt like I couldn’t necessarily relate to … relate to them in many ways, other than that we were sort of in the same place at the same time.
[1:04:25] Where did Lila go to seek social validation and attention? The Renaissance Faire.
[1:05:16] The 30 year-old actor who played the Archbishop of Canterbury that Lila had a crush on at 14 or 15. Kiss?
[1:07:33] The gifts that the Archbishop gave Lila, a cd from the Beauty and the Beast TV show from the 80s, with love poetry underscored by music, and a piano improvisation cd by David Lanz called Return to the Heart. She listened to them a few times.
[1:08:17]
Lila: I think he wrote me a letter… And I, I found it when I was going through some of my things when— the last time I was in Florida. And he said that he couldn’t … do that to me. That he couldn’t, kind of, pluck me, you know, off the vine, and … he said that he felt I would eventually say he had taken the best years of my life.
Kennedy: Yeah and I think, Thom … has some, sort of, anxiousness and worry about that also, and, right there was a period whe— early in our relationship where, he, came to me and sort of, we talked through it and he, said that he, felt like he was a bad person for … being with me and wanting to be with me, for that same reason. Because, Thom you know had already had this very, you know, rich experience in his 20s, in New York City and, you know, had all these friends and um, different experiences, just like traveling and performing and he had found himself and found his passion, already, and I think that is the biggest issue in age gap relationships is: it can be hard to level with someone who… doesn’t know themselves or know what they’re … super passionate about yet. And, he was worried that, me being with him, from that point on, was going to hinder me.
Lila: Right.
Kennedy: And, I think I would be lying if I said that being a young mother and being married … the past couple of year, hasn’t hindered me, because it has, you know it put my, um, so—
Lila: Your studies on hold.
Kennedy: Yeah it put my studies on hold it put any, real, space for me to be able to … continue on my journey of self-discovery on hold, completely. But, I, understood that— I, I, didn’t necessarily know how… how much it would put it on hold, but I knew that my experience in my early 20s was not going to be similar— to my— peer groups.
Lila: Right. But you— Kennedy: Um.
Lila: — don’t think it’s a part of your—
Kennedy: No, it totally is a part! And, I think that, in some ways, I feel like I have sort of, a jump (chuckles) on my peers, even though they are, you know, a year ahead of me in their studies. I don’t have, the room to fuck up. Like, like I— there’s not room for me to be irresponsible in that department, because it’s not just like, my future riding on it, it is also, you know, my child’s, and.
Lila: You’re not messing around.
Kennedy: Yeah. And, I, am grateful for that.
36. you can make a human: horizontal with a young mother
This is horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds that’s recorded while the opposite of vertical. Horizontal aims to make private conversations public, in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and cultivate human connection. To paraphrase my eloquent listener ghostheart, I take you into my bed and let your ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations.
Become a patron of the horizontal arts, by supporting me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to make independent, uncensored, ad-free work, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious benefits, ranging from quarterly lullabies to bonus episodes to tickets to live recordings to handwritten postcards! You can become a patron beginning at $2 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous.
