Episode 99
EP #99 Losing everything and rebuilding your life.
Welcome back to Dont get this Twisted
In this conversation, Robb and Tina Marie Garcia discuss their personal experiences of losing everything and rebuilding their lives from scratch. They share stories of eviction, divorce, financial struggles, and the emotional toll it took on them. Despite the hardships, they both found ways to start over and find happiness. They emphasize the importance of resilience, taking one step at a time, and seeking support from friends and family. The conversation highlights the process of reinventing oneself and embracing change in order to move forward. In this conversation, Robb and Tina discuss the challenges of dating, moving on from unfulfilling relationships, building a supportive network, finding happiness and acceptance, overcoming struggles and moving forward, dealing with personal loss, taking steps to improve your situation, having faith in the future, letting go of the past, embracing change and growth, learning from failures and moving on, believing in a bigger and better future, and the power of resilience and rebuilding. They emphasize the importance of taking chances, being honest with oneself, and having faith that things will work out. They share personal experiences and offer advice on navigating difficult situations and finding happiness.
Explicit
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This podcast and website represent the opinions of Robb Courtney and Tina Garcia and their guests to the show and website. The content here should not be interpreted as medical advice or any other type of advice from any other type of licensed professional. The content here is for informational purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare or other applicable licensed professional with any medical or other related questions. Views and opinions expressed in the podcast and website are our own and do not represent that of our places of work. While we make every effort to ensure that the information, we are sharing is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors. Privacy is of the utmost importance to us. All people, places, and scenarios mentioned in the podcast have been changed to protect confidentiality. This website or podcast should not be used in any legal capacity whatsoever, including but not limited to establishing “standard of care” in a legal sense or as a basis for expert witness testimony related to the medical profession or any other licensed profession. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy of any statements or opinions made on the podcast or website. In no way does listening, reading, emailing, or interacting on social media with our content establish a doctor-patient relationship or relationship with any other type of licensed professional. Robb Courtney and Tina Garcia do not receive any money from any pharmaceutical industry for topics covered pertaining to medicine or medical in nature. If you find any errors in any of the content of this podcast, website, or blogs, please send a message through the “contact” page or email DGTTwisted@gmail.com. This podcast is owned by "Don’t Get This Twisted,” Robb Courtney.
Transcript
And welcome to another show of Don't Get This Twisted. I am Rob along with my co-host as always, Tina. How you doing, Tina?
Tina Marie Garcia (:I'm hanging in there, Rob, how are you doing? Isn't that how we do things around here? Was it?
Robb (:Oh, you know, I sound much more pleasant than I really am. Yeah, it was a rough day at work today. It was just rough. Yeah, it was too long. It was slow. I'd rather have it busy all day long. Those slow days, they just drag.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, I didn't get to bed until early this morning because I've been being an idiot doing stuff and not knowing when to go to sleep so then I slept I slept on and off until like 1 30 and i'm like, oh my god, I wasted a whole damn day, but Sometimes you just need to do that to get other shit done. So I did. Yeah
Robb (:Oh
Robb (:Huh?
Robb (:Oh yeah.
Robb (:Uh-huh, no, that's true. Look, I mean, we've all stayed up late for whatever reasons. I used to stay up until midnight talking to my friend down the street, and I would be up at 5 a.m. So I would go to bed at like 12 or 12.30 and then get up at five o'clock in the morning. So, yay, there were some rough days. But look, it all matters what you think worth it is.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:OI
Tina Marie Garcia (:That's true.
Robb (:You know, I mean we used to do that shit all the time when we were teenagers all the time so
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm. I still am kind of like that if there's something I want to do or have to do I'm like I'll sleep when I'm dead I'm just gonna keep powering through until I can't anymore
Robb (:Ah
Robb (:I'm very much the same way. Like if, if I have a chance to talk to somebody that I haven't talked to in a long time or there's a good conversation going, I'll gut it out and go, okay, I'll find a way to nap the next day at work or whatever. So
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I wish I could nap at work. That may not look right.
Robb (:No, no, I'm lucky I can because we have like a little break room with a bunch of chairs in it, so. I mean, you have to sleep sitting up, but you can make it work. Yeah, for sure. Almost everyone at my building takes a nap, it's funny. And they're not all old guys, so it's interesting. So, uh-huh.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Nice.
Tina Marie Garcia (:There you go.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know, it's an interesting place that you work at, because that doesn't happen at my work.
Robb (:Yeah, I mean, all in all, if you really, really had to sleep, you could always go in your car and put the seat down. Like that's, if I really had to, you have a kind of a big parking lot. So I don't know if I could do it there, but we have a small parking lot and you're not bothered by many people. It's cause I work in wholesale and we're in a commercial location. So the only people that come to my parking lot are there for a reason. There's no other.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mmm, that's cool.
Robb (:things around, yeah, so. Unlike where you work, where there's a lot of things around there. So I don't know if I could sleep with the windows down or with where you are, so.
Tina Marie Garcia (:There is a lot.
Tina Marie Garcia (:No.
Robb (:No, no, no. So we talked off the air this week about a topic and you're like, hey, you posted that meme on your personal Instagram, we should talk about that. And I was like, hey, yeah, it's probably a good idea because I think a lot of people either have done it or are afraid of going through it.
Tina Marie Garcia (:No.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Address that. Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm.
Robb (:It was this symbol. I found it somewhere else It said raise your hand if you know what it's like to lose everything and rebuild your life from scratch And they had a little guy with his hand up and I was like that's totally me because I've gone through that where and you where you're really kind of I Think I've done it twice as well where I got evicted when I was like 21 out of an apartment because of a bunch of dumb shit
Tina Marie Garcia (:And me. Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:A couple times.
Robb (:I didn't lose everything, but man, I was really at the bottom of the barrel. I was making like $6.50 an hour and I didn't want to go back home. So I found a way to get an apartment and I ate like Kool-Aid. I drank Kool-Aid and ate macaroni and cheese and ramen for as long as I could. It was a rough time. But the divorce, I lost everything. Like I lost my house. I didn't have a car. I had a job, but
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm
Tina Marie Garcia (:Jesus. Yeah.
Robb (:That was really it and I didn't know what to do.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm hmm. That was kind of the thing for me, too, with during COVID. I lost, you know, our marriage was over. My car was dying and the mechanic said I needed a new one. My job, I had three days to get out of it because at that point they were they were kicking us out because we hadn't paid rent, even though COVID was going on. I had to move home to my dad's and.
Robb (:So...
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:like it was very and I and I didn't tell anybody which was even worse like there were so few people that knew I was just trying to get through my day and that's not me I'm a talker and I go to people for help but I just think I was so overwhelmed I couldn't I couldn't do it I just couldn't do it so I stayed really quiet and just put my head down and did what I had to do but the loss was severe it was severe
Robb (:Yeah.
Robb (:And you don't realize where you're at. You know with all the things, you're like, okay, I don't have a place to stay, or I finally move back home, my car's taken a shit, money's okay, so I'm eating and I'm surviving. But sometimes it doesn't hit, like, really smack you until you're doing something minuscule or minute and all of a sudden it punches you in the gut and you're like,
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Oh, wait a second, I'm like going through a rebirth of my life, and I don't know if I'm gonna make it through this.
Tina Marie Garcia (:that that's been me. But no, I think now that we're what three years out of the situation and I have a friendship with my ex and the divorce we split everything so I wasn't without anything. I mean I could take whatever I wanted to out of the house and I had to get a new car and I found a new place to work and I'm slowly but surely rebuilding again after.
Robb (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:being an established hairdresser, like I see now where I'm going. But at the time it was like, just please put one foot in front of the other and just get through today without everybody seeing how devastated you are. Cuz I really was. Not that everything didn't need to happen. It did need to happen. It was over. It was, we both had just quit.
Robb (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:doing what we needed to do for each other. It needed to be over, but it was very difficult. It was very scary to start over, very scary to be a woman without a job to start over. You know that, I don't know how I've survived it though. I guess you just have to do it anyway. You have to go through it anyway. You have to, you have to swim to the surface and try to get out of the water and start over, you know?
Tina Marie Garcia (:I don't know really how I did it though.
Robb (:Yeah, you have to.
Robb (:I think that, look, we as people are, we're pretty tough, right? We're resilient. You start cutting corners, first of all. I think that's, at least that's what I did. I went, okay, because here I am, I'm a single dad who's now has to find a place to live. That's when I ended up moving to Vegas. So I was like, okay, I know I can work in Vegas, I shouldn't have a problem. The economy was better.
Robb (:there, like lower rent, I could go there and survive off of what I was making at the time. But it was unknown waters for me there as well. So here I am, I'm leaving. Thankfully, my dad had a car that he wanted to upgrade, so he sold me a car for like four grand that had like no miles on it. Because my dad was retired, so I think he got me a Saturn and I think at the time it had 40,000 miles on it
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:like seven or eight years old. So that's where I kind of lucked out. I had money, so I'm like, here's the money, here's money. So I left with a car, I had a job, I found an apartment where I wanted to live at in a decent part of Vegas. But then the reality hit of I don't know anyone here, with the exception of a friend from high school that she had a family and was married, so I couldn't.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Wow.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:hang out with her or do things with her often. But at least I could lean on her to talk to in a new area. Like, where's a good place to eat, or where's this or that? And then, you know, now I have a, I think my kid was eight, eight at the time? Yeah, eight, maybe seven. I had, you know, going into a new school, I had to do after-school care, like all these things that were.
Robb (:And I didn't make a lot of money, but I was ahead of the game, but not by much. I still live paycheck to paycheck, but I was doing okay. But it was scary, because I didn't, I mean, I moved, and I've done that again when I came where I'm at now. I make these decisions, they're brash sometimes, but for me, I'm lucky because I've.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Like you said, rose to the surface. When I came back from Vegas, I came here with no job. I was on unemployment, but I had a friend in Camarillo who needed roommates. She had this big house, her parents had just moved away. She was like my little sister, this young girl, who was like, hey, I have two rooms, do you want a rental? And I was like, on it, yeah, I could come back. Going there saved me.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mmm.
Robb (:to the point of being able to not pay a ton and get ahead of myself a little bit. But even so, paycheck to paycheck was rough.
Tina Marie Garcia (:getcha. I remember the first time that I remember ever really starting over was when I was 40.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And I've talked about that before. I was on fertility treatments. I miscarried, had to have a hysterectomy. My daughter ran away. My mom passed away. My house was robbed. I lost everything. That meant anything to me. And then my mom had given me a kitten right before she died because she said I needed something to care for to keep my mind off things. And that was killed in front of me. It died in my arms. So at that point, I felt like I had lost
Tina Marie Garcia (:A tremendous amount. I mean, I still had other family. I still had my husband at the time, but Emotionally, there was nothing left inside of me. I was totally vacant for fuck. I Don't even know how long probably a good four years it took and then and then life finally. Yeah
Robb (:Wow.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Well, because you know, you I was very close to my mom. We were together every day. I was taking care of her. I was staying at the house until four or five in the morning when everybody else that was living at the house got up to, you know, spend time with her so she wasn't hurting herself or falling over or whatever it was she was going through at the time. You know, and then I had to be there before my kid woke up for school because she needed things. And so I felt like I felt like everything about my
Tina Marie Garcia (:world stopped abruptly all at the same time. And it was so devastating.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I don't think my ex even knew how to deal with the emotions that I was facing because that was a lot that was that was hard on my friends to watch let alone my husband to stand next to me. My dad would sit and watch me just cry and he was like I don't even know what to tell you I've never experienced this before so what do you do? But after you quit feeling sorry for yourself and you realize that life goes on and there's a need for you to get up and live again. You start baby stepping it.
Robb (:All right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I'm gonna try this. We'll see if this works if it doesn't work. I'll go back to bed Like it was literally like that. So I did that for it took about four years. It took about four years But in that time I gained a lot of weight Um, I was not good to myself. I was I was trying to survive there. There was a huge struggle um But somehow some way if you're
Robb (:Right.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:If you're alive, you have to put one step in front of the other and it does start to get a little bit easier as time progresses Because you have time to have thought you have time to get used to it Like I never thought I would have to live without my mom. I don't know why just wasn't something I ever thought about and then You know finding her dead in the kitchen Was like fuck now. Okay
Tina Marie Garcia (:Now, okay, you don't have to take care of your mom. You don't have a babysitter. You don't have all the drama that was going on during the time she was sick, but you still don't have a mom. So it's like, what do you do with those hours of the day where you're taking care of somebody? You know, it was, it was a hard reset. And it just, it took some time. And I'm not, I would not say that I was one that didn't have a blessed life. I really did. My parents were together.
Robb (:Hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know, we've lost a lot of people in our family, but we have a huge family and I'm good with dealing with loss and whatnot because i've been through so much but I would still say that I had a really blessed life until that happened and then it was like I got hit with Every freaking thing I could at one shot. So I kind of feel like that was even a blessing Because going through it was so devastating
Tina Marie Garcia (:that I'm glad I didn't have to go through it in pieces. Like it just, okay, you're gonna get shot with this in three months time and then deal with it. So.
Robb (:Right.
Robb (:Yeah, you just took one dead ass in the face and was like, okay, now what do I do?
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, I kind of refer to that as five in the ass, but dead in the face will work too.
Robb (:Sure, five and a half, yeah, I would go with that. I think when you start looking at these life-changing things, and I think that there's many, you know, death is one, relationship is the other, obviously, with divorce or breakups, yeah, or long relationship breakups. Those also have this very
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Long relationship. Yeah. Yeah
Robb (:devastating effect on you because it's all you know. And then what's next? So even if you're in a place where you have a stable household, right? Now you're looking at I don't have the same income coming in, how am I gonna pay for my house? How am I gonna make my car payment? If you have children, how am I gonna make sure that they're getting, you know, fed right, clothes?
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:what they need.
Robb (:all those things. And heaven forbid you had the person who was in your life in a relationship, whether a husband or a girl, a long-term girlfriend, whatever, who helped you with the house and the children and those type of things. So now you're one less person to help you do things. It's devastating, it's crippling almost. And I kind of went through the same thing,
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:I hadn't lived on my own in a long time. Thankfully, I had done it before. So this wasn't anything new, I just hadn't done it in 10 years. So like getting back on the horse of, oh, I do my own laundry, or I have to make sure I cook dinner when I get home. Those type of things where you take them for granted.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah. Somebody else did him for you. Yeah.
Robb (:because you had help. I think those are the hard things, and obviously loneliness, where in my case, it was me, my kid was little, so when he went to bed, it was me and my inner monologue to tell me, okay, get your chin up, everything's gonna be okay.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:I bounce things off the friends because I I'm not a big But I shouldn't say believer I don't tell a lot of people what's going on in my life It's a very small group. So if you know that I'm going through nonsense You're you're a very minute group of people I don't even really talk to my best friend about stuff because we just have a different relationship I don't try to burden people like maybe that's the thing
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm
Robb (:The people that I talk to I know will bounce things off of me real and say, Hey, this, this and that. But when you're alone, it's, it's haunting almost. Cause you're like, okay, fuck, what am I going to do? I got to get up tomorrow. This bill's due. Uh, car payments coming this, whatever. That's, I think, when is the harder part.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Well, the funny thing about me is I didn't realize I was the same way like when me and my ex decided to split up I didn't tell anybody I didn't tell I told my dad I told my brother and I told my next-door neighbor best friend what was going on. But other than that, I really didn't tell anybody and then
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:you know, it was easy because of COVID. Like I wasn't seeing a lot of people, so I didn't have to lie or put on a strong, a strong, you know, facade, facade. I just had to live.
Robb (:Right.
Robb (:facade.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And I remember when I first got to my dad's house, I remember sleeping a lot. Like I was like, okay, just go to sleep. Like it hurt too much for me to deal with anything. COVID was still going on. I had no reason not to sleep because nobody was doing anything. So I think that through sleeping and just like starting to take care of my insights, that was that was very helpful. But
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know then I had my dad my brother you need to get up. You don't need to be depressed You need to you know, and they didn't know My family they're not a lot of talkers in it I don't know how I became the person I am because I talk about everything with everybody and they and they divulged way more information to me than they ever would anybody else, but um, you know, they were just like you're gonna get through this and
Tina Marie Garcia (:Sooner than later. I started to put one foot in front of the other. I found a job I had to buy a new car like this is how bad it was just so that people know that I'm not making this shit up my friends They're a couple married couple. I knew them to separately and then they got married. So now I got two for one They called me one day and they're like we're at the Honda dealership. Why don't you come down? We got a couple cars for you to look at
Tina Marie Garcia (:The whole time I was not in the right headspace, I really liked my old car. I had lost everything. And I thought, at least my car gets me safely, you know, and then my car's like, uh, no, I got to stop doing that for you too. So we go to the Honda dealership and we're just looking around and I'm not a Honda person anyway, but anyway, I'm like, all right, I need to get a car. Fuck it. Let's just do it. So I get the car and the whole time I'm thinking the car is silver.
Robb (:Mm-mm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:and the car that I have is definitely not silver. It's not close to silver, but my head was so not in the right place that I couldn't even, I couldn't even get that right. Like that's literally how stuck in the situation that I was at the time.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I still to this day don't even like the damn car. I can't wait to get rid of it. I'm gonna be getting rid of it soon, but it was so difficult like to.
Tina Marie Garcia (:to concentrate on what was even happening day to day. I was thankful that my clients weren't around for me anymore because I wasn't remembering names, I couldn't remember what I ate that day, I couldn't remember if I paid a bill. I put all my bills on electronic payment because I was skipping things, not because I didn't have what I needed, but because I was so not focused, you know, and...
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know leaving the place that I had lived for over 20 years leaving my ex who? Thankfully we were able to do this and we have a really good relationship now we were able to get through our shit and forgive each other and move past it, but
Tina Marie Garcia (:Going through that there was no hope for me and even my dad said like I really worried about you because I didn't know How the hell you were gonna pull this out of your ass And and lo and behold I did like life goes on I'm i'm happier than i've been In ages like truly happy with myself and what i'm doing because it's all just about me now i'm not taking care of anything or anybody and um
Tina Marie Garcia (:I'm starting to reinvent the person that I am now. So the things that I kept secret or the things that I didn't talk about, I'm not hiding anymore. You know, when I, when, when I had to face the world and tell everybody, cause even family members still don't know I'm divorced. Like
Tina Marie Garcia (:I really kept shit to myself, you know, so when I see them, yeah, and that's not me. That's so not me. But when I didn't know how I realized that I have
Robb (:Wow.
Robb (:That's tight.
Robb (:No.
Tina Marie Garcia (:a dialogue that I have with people. And until I figure out exactly how I'm going to say what they need to know, or what I want to tell them, until I have that dialogue set, I just don't say anything. Because I, I don't know how to say it. You know what I mean? I don't know how to put it into words. But I finally have been able to and I've told people and they were like, I had no idea for the last 20 years that you were in.
Tina Marie Garcia (:The relationship that you were in I thought you guys were the best couple I ever met and you know what? I'd still agree with it. We were pretty freaking good we just Were going in different directions and didn't you know didn't snap the band back and say hey, we're together You know, it's not working, right? um But man that took a lot of faking it till I made it, you know literally felt like that like you think
Robb (:Hmm?
Robb (:I think that's common though.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I think it's, I think it is too, but I don't see people faking it as well. Like I always, I'm the one that everybody tells it's okay. You know, I'm like, I'll tell everybody you got this. It's okay. But, but yeah, I was faking a lot. I mean, I didn't tell you a lot of shit. I didn't tell anybody.
Robb (:Yes, very common.
Robb (:I do.
Robb (:Oh, I mean, I didn't know for sure until we went to talk at Denny's. That was like, you're like, hey, no, oh, I didn't know why for, well, it was a little bit later, but I didn't even know that it was kind of out of nowhere, like that we were just gonna get breakfast, and you're like, oh, yeah, I need to talk to you about something, I was like, oh, all right, well, cool. And lo and behold, a podcast came out of it, so.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah. And then you still didn't know why. Did I tell you why? Yeah.
Robb (:It's kind of funny that that's what happened. But I think that what you did was very common. Um, and I see it with a lot of people's relationships. I think that we keep a lot to ourselves to keep our family from taking the brunt of it. Right? So like, let's say you're in a shitty relationship, whether you're married or in a standard, you know, relationship, you keep a lot of this held inside because
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:you're trying to fix it or trying to find a way out, but you don't wanna throw it on maybe your children who are close to the family or your parents that are making sure you're okay. Mine was probably kind of a shock as well. I remember just calling my parents and going, oh yeah, I'm getting a divorce. And they were like, what? We didn't see that coming. Because a lot of us, and it's not that you're hiding it, you're just living life.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:So you're not gonna like every time you, I mean, maybe in my case, I don't do it. Every time I had a bad day or something went wrong in my marriage, I wasn't calling my parents going, what do I do? I just, that's not me. It's like, I'm gonna try to float to the surface and try to fix it. And I think a lot of people do that. And I've seen it with many of my friends who've been in long relationships. They just don't know what to say.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm. It's a it's definitely a dialogue that you need to Address and I didn't know how to do that I didn't know how and I didn't want to I didn't want to tell everybody what was going on Like I still to this day I only tell who I want to tell and more people know about me that listen to the podcast than my own family Thankfully, a lot of my family don't know that I have a podcast and they're not trying to find out anything about it. So Whoo, thank God
Robb (:So you're shocking people.
Robb (:You're not alone.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Hehehe
Robb (:Right, right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know, but.
Robb (:I just think you're looking down the barrel of a gun with your family. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You tell them and then you're under a microscope until it's either fixed or you break up. You know what I mean? So.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah. Well, I remember when I told my brother in the middle of telling my brother, I was being really honest because he and I are tight. He goes, Whoa, Tina, just give me the cliff notes. Like I don't need to know all the details here. He goes, you're making me nervous. Like my butt's puckering right now because I'm worried for you. So don't tell me all this. Just give me the, give me the cliff notes, you know.
Robb (:Uh.
Robb (:I can so see him saying that to you.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Like just tell me what I need to know. Tell me what side I need to take. Tell me how we're going to do this. And I got you. But, um, but at the same time too, he had told me a lot about what was going on in his divorce, not in his marriage, but once it, he finally, the shit hit the fan. Then he told me, so I thought we had it like that. And he's like, no, I have it like that with you. You don't have it like that with me. I don't, I can't deal with what you're bringing me.
Robb (:Right.
Robb (:Right.
Robb (:Right. I can see that. I can see that.
Tina Marie Garcia (:So, but then I realized a lot of people couldn't, a lot of people didn't know, especially like being in the relationship style that I had, like, nobody had gone through that enough to be able to like have a conversation with me. It was like, every time I said something, it was like I, I
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:blew their mind like wait what was going on like I can't believe the two of you went through that wait can you tell me how this works and then it was like I'm trying to tell you what my problem is we're past all how it works like and then I shut down I always shut down because I don't know how to have that dialogue you know and people are going to judge and people are going to
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Right, right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:come up with their own conclusions, and I found that I'm just letting them now. Like, my niece, she graduated the other day, and we had, you know, the exes family and my brother's family in the same room, but some of our family is more the exes family now than they are my, I don't know how the hell that worked, but traitors, whatever.
Robb (:Oh, I know about that. I can tell you a story.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Well, we were all sitting at the restaurant and I took my ex with me. I'm like, hey, our niece is graduating. Do you want to go? And he's like, yeah, absolutely. As a matter of fact, we both.
Tina Marie Garcia (:wrote and put money into the same card because that's how cool we have it still. And I think I blew I think I blew the bitches away that he was even there and they didn't know how to act and her side of the family the ex my brother's ex's side of the family. They looked at me kind of funny. They were trying to figure out where I was with things. There was only one uncle that came up to me. And he said, I am really proud of you. I said,
Robb (:Right. Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Because you don't devastate your life to move on you were worried about your about your husband You were worried about how your family was going to treat them and look at your sitting there together at the table And you're really enjoying each other's conversation joking and laughing with your other cousins and the kids and the kids came up And you both hugged them at the same time and he goes it almost looks better than it did when you guys were married
Tina Marie Garcia (:And I'm like, well, it's definitely not fake. You know, we're not doing that. So. The devastation, it kicks you down. It takes you to your knees. It makes you it makes you really have to believe in your faith, in your values and that you are capable of making it. I never really saw myself as a survivor because I didn't really ever need to survive. I had a really.
Robb (:Right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:good family, I had a good life, everybody used to get pissed off at me because they thought I had it all together. I just hide it better. And so...
Robb (:Sure.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Now I'm like, I don't have to hide anything and I'm not down on my knees and I am making the money again and I am driving a car even though I don't like it. I'm going to get a new one because I could afford to. I'm going to get rid of that and get something that makes me happy and you know what? It'll be in the color that I actually want because I'm in a better frame of mind and
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I've got new clients. I got rid of all the bitches that I didn't like. I was like, they everybody ghosted me. Oh, let's just ghost who I need to ghost and start with a new crop because being a hairdresser for 32 years, you know, you should invent yourself and you should get rid of people that drive you crazy for a solid 20. Get rid of them, you know, so as much as it is devastating, as hard as it was, as much as it felt like a divorce, as much as I felt like
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I'm not a divorce, a death. As much as it felt horrible, I'm now more who I need to be. Like even the basket weaving. I love basket weaving. I know that's the nerdiest fucking thing that anybody could come up with, but I'm Native American and we all have it in us and I found something I'm really good at. And it brings me joy to sit with my cousins who also don't have a mom and they throw
Tina Marie Garcia (:they throw their like Tina, what do you think about this or Tina, what about that? And I'm, I find myself saying, go for it, like whatever it is, go for it. Because if I could get through those two huge events in my life that really did take me down to the kneecaps, you could do this. Like why, why be afraid? Why live wanting something when you could have it go for it. And I think ultimately that that's, that's what I got out of all that loss was
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You're still here. There will still be people in your life that you love. There's still going to be people that will hold you up. Life does go on. Yeah, I miss my mom. I miss my daughter. I miss I miss all the shit that I miss my anniversary ring. You know they got stolen. Like my grandmother's wedding bands. I miss certain things a lot. But you know what? I don't need them to live either.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And that's...
Robb (:Correct. Am I?
Tina Marie Garcia (:That's what I'm like thankful for because if I did, I wouldn't be living the way I am and I wouldn't be happy. I'm, I'm a happy person. I will find a way to be happy. It took me a good solid few years. And then it took getting over COVID and forcing my life to move on because I needed a life. But don't be afraid to be at on your knees. Like don't be afraid of that because good comes out of it.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know, you don't have.
Robb (:Yeah, I agree. All you can do is go up. You know what I mean? Like when you're at rock bottom or in a shitty spot, you can only go upward. And I think you're right. I think a lot of people are so worried about other things around them that they forget about themselves. Right? You're worried about how, it's like I have a friend who was in,
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, right? He have no problem going anywhere else.
Robb (:a long relationship to the point where maybe the kids and the people around thought that it was just what they both showed on the surface. And when you're not happy, you're just going day to day and going, okay, I'm getting through, I'm getting through, I'm getting through. And then once the family finds out, they're devastated and they feel like they have to pick a side. And it's like, okay.
Robb (:Let them. You can't control outside things. You can only control what happens to you. And you gotta find happiness. Whatever that is. And it's hard and it's not easy. And it's okay to lean on friends as well. I have friends who, look, if someone's willing to help you, take it.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Agreed.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:I did, I was lucky. I had a place to come back to in California where it was easy, I could survive in the meantime to get back to the state. And then when I decided it was time to move this direction where I live now, I made it, you know, the place I work needed a person. I made a, I wrote what I needed to make on a piece of paper and said, this is what I can't come for anything less than this. You have to make decisions in life.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:You got it. Yeah.
Robb (:And it's gonna be hard, you know, and you're gonna have to scrape by. And you're gonna have to do things that you maybe don't want to in the meantime to get ahead. And you can do it. I think that's the biggest thing to tell people that are gonna listen to this is that you can do it. It's not impossible. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt bad. There's gonna be.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And it's never going to be the same way again. It's always going to be different. It's you're never going to come out the same person, but you're going to come out a more evolved person if you do it right.
Robb (:I mean... Yes.
Robb (:For sure. And I think that you can get to where you wanna be. Like if you're in a bad marriage, like we've talked about it several times, you have to get out of it. If you're in a shitty relationship, you have to get out of it. We're at ages now where you're just, well, you're gonna suffer for another two years. I told you, my friend in Vegas suffered for years and years, and I'm talking like 17 of them. And then,
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mmm.
Robb (:decided to get out of her marriage for whatever reason. And now she's 48 years old, pushing 50, and she's like, what do I do? And I was like, keep going. I think you're only 48. Should have you have done it sooner? Of course you should have, but you're still in a spot where, so you're 48, big deal, move on. There's more, and look, we live in a different.
Robb (:way of dating and it is hard when we get to this age. And if you don't wanna do online dating and who wants to bar hop all the time? And she lives in Vegas, it's gotta be even more hard. It's gotta be tremendously hard because you're always meeting people from out of town. You know what I mean? Like it's that thing. So but if you live in a local place, it's like okay, take chances. Whatever that chance is, go to the supermarket, date whoever, but.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Don't stay in something that you know is never going to be okay. You can hit rock bottom you can lose all your shit or lose things or people Sometimes hitting rock bottom isn't losing your house or your car. It's losing the people around you that Were meant a lot and you can rebound from that people will come back like children
Robb (:If your child's mad at you because you're divorcing your dad, they're going to come back around at some point and realize, okay, my mom is now happy in most cases. And well, I mean, yes, we'll use the bell curve like we do on this show all the time. People will come back and at least see what's going on and realize, look, you did what you did for whatever reason. It's like my ex-wife.
Tina Marie Garcia (:In most cases, I would say that. Yeah.
Robb (:She decided to do whatever for her own reason at 40 years old, wasn't happy in a marriage anymore. She ended up getting remarried, bought a house. She's happy. Good for her. And that's what you have to do right now. If you're in something that you're not happy in and you know, you're not going to be happy in it and you're staying in it for the wrong reasons, all you're doing is jumping in a hole and slowly dumping dirt on yourself.
Robb (:You might as well just hit rock bottom and go you gone you gone you over here. You're fucking gone I can't talk to you anymore and I need to do my own shit because i'm gonna survive Because you will Because we have to
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I did not think when I was 40 because I also two of my best friends I had to get rid of two I just couldn't have them in my life. They they stayed my friends way too long and they weren't exactly right for me and so even my
Tina Marie Garcia (:The people that I leaned on for support all got taken away at 40. But you know what the funny part about that is? I didn't think I could live without them either. I have great friends now. Like I have they're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. But as far as friends they show up they ask if I need help. They they are there. They will answer the phone when I call like
Tina Marie Garcia (:You know, I know a lot of people they don't answer their phone at all. But when I call my friends, they all pick up. And why is that? Because I pick up for them. It's more reciprocal. It's more of a hey, I really love being your friend. I'm not I'm obligated because we were together as friends for so long. It's not like that at all. I got great people holding my holding my ass sometimes when I need, you know, when I need somebody to hold me up there and
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Sure.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I look at all that is now it's such a blessing. It's such a blessing because my life is way better than it could have been had that whatever was in my life stuck around. And that made it all worth it. Although I still don't know how I don't know how you did it either. I watched you do it from afar. I knew what was going on with you. I don't know how you did it. You just put one foot in front of the other and time takes care of the rest.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And and that's exactly what I went through you know it's just you have to believe that you're gonna be okay No matter what just believe it don't if you could just not second-guess that part of yourself You're you've got it licked. You'll be okay and The less kicking and screaming you do the more acceptance you put into your life the easier it becomes as well because I'm a kicker and a screamer it took me a minute
Robb (:Pretty much.
Tina Marie Garcia (:It took me a long minute and I don't think I needed to torture myself as long as I did.
Robb (:I mean, I did a little torturing here and there for sure. I think the bigger thing for me was, is okay, like, you're gonna make it. You just, you have to realize that struggle is going to happen. And you might have five months of shit and then all of a sudden something happens and it turns a corner and you're like, oh, all right. This is where...
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:I'm kind of going up over here or you, you know, a friend in your life goes, okay, look, we're gonna do this now. Or your relative is like, hey, things are looking up. Or your job ends up being better, right? You're like, in my case, you're getting a lot more business. Things are picking up and you're like, oh, okay. And you don't get ahead of yourself, but you're like, oh, shit, like, all right, things are all right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:where when devastating things happen around you, your regular life isn't affected. It's like when my mom died. That affected me personally and mentally, but it didn't affect my life period, with the exception of obviously not having a parent. But there was no other roadblocks in my way. I was like, okay, I could sit back and take that in and go, okay, I'm dealing with my mom's death.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:but I'm not letting it affect my bills or my rent or taking care of my kid or making sure that everything is being taken care of. I just sat back and went, this is horrible and how am I gonna keep moving forward? And I think that that's what you have to do in any of these things is when you hit the speed bump or the anchor drops, you go, okay, how do I get out of this situation where
Robb (:the least amount of things or people get hurt, and I'm moving forward or stepping or keep moving forward, baby steps, whatever it is, without dragging myself to wanting to jump in front of a bus. And you can do it, you just gotta find the right people around you to go, everything's gonna be all right. But you need to do this and you need to realize that you're
Robb (:yeah, you're in a bad spot right now, but it'll get better. And then believe it, because that's the biggest thing. If you don't believe that you can get out of the situation and be better, you're just going to stay in it. Because unfortunately,
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:and look forward to it because there is a lot that does happen that is going to make you happy. So you have to believe it.
Robb (:Sure.
Robb (:Yeah, you can't wallow in shit and think that you're not gonna smell. If you keep wallowing in it, it's gonna be stinky. The only way to get out of that is to get out of the pig pen, wash yourself off, and go time to move forward, time to move on. Can't be on this farm no more. Maybe you don't need pigs. Maybe you need to move on to something better.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:You can do it. It's not easy and I don't pretend that it is. And my only thing to the people out there listening, mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:But it's not that hard either when you... It's not that hard either if you're honest with yourself.
Robb (:Correct, that's what I'm trying to say. For me, what is, for you, what would you tell somebody right now who's in a situation, doesn't matter what it is, what would you tell them to do?
Tina Marie Garcia (:Hmm Do whatever you need to do to bring a little bit of happiness to your life every day and Have faith that things will work out the way that they need to work out because they do You can't
Tina Marie Garcia (:you can't have all the answers to a story that you're on page two reading. You have to read the whole book in order to get there and at page two you're not going to know shit so don't expect to but by page 150 you're gonna you're gonna get in the swing of things you know you're gonna have a better comprehension of what you need to do what's gonna happen how it's gonna feel and then you could start working on it.
Tina Marie Garcia (:And you know, you got to finish the book because there's so many Life is not perfect for either of us. We both have our struggles even coming out of all the things that we've been through um I'm still living in one bedroom at my father's house That is way too tiny for the stuff that I have and I don't know where i'm gonna put my shoes right now There's so much uh space That that I don't have you know that shoes are an issue right now
Tina Marie Garcia (:But on the other hand, I go to bed every night and life is not, it's not bad. I'll wake up tomorrow. I'll be okay. I could come, I could leave with nothing and be okay. Cause you know what? I did that. And I never, I'm not that person. I'm the one that everybody comes to. Cause you could live in the same place for a hundred years. They know how to find you. They come to you for support and help. I've always been that person, but
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Going through all this, I was the only one that could help myself. And once I let go of how things should look, or how I wanted them to appear to other people, once I got rid of the facade and just said, it's nobody's fucking business, but my own, like it started getting a little better little by little, piece by piece, day by day. It gets better. And you don't stay in any situation the same forever.
Robb (:Correct. My only advice, and it's very simple, is if you continue to live in the past, you'll never get to the future. You have to see something different ahead of yourself. Stop being the person you were 20 years ago, five years ago, five minutes ago. If you're in a bad spot, it's look for the future and forget about the past.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mmm.
Robb (:because your past doesn't define you, you can have a better future with whatever it is you're looking for. Let's just say that. Just look to move on.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Take a leap of faith Yeah, you have to have a you have to You have to have a leap of faith you have to know that no matter what you know what I did find That everything that I was afraid of It that wasn't the hard part Stuff that I was afraid would happen. It was okay. It was the stuff I wasn't thinking of that was hard, but it wasn't as hard as doing what?
Robb (:That's the biggest one. I agree. I agree.
Robb (:Right.
Tina Marie Garcia (:I wasn't meant to be doing anymore. You know, I sometimes relationships aren't meant to last forever. There's they're meant to teach you things. They're meant to get you through a certain period of time. They're meant for growth, but they're not meant forever.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Once you once you run that out let it go if you're if you're in a situation That you know you're being abused let it go like let whatever go that isn't serving you That's making you miserable every day if it's making you miserable every day other than your children because your children are going to make you Miserable every day until they go through whatever they're going through
Tina Marie Garcia (:It's okay to let go. And if it's meant to be, you'll come back to it. Your life will take you right back to where you need to be. So take the leap of faith. Know that you're gonna get through it. Know that when you're going through the worst of the worst, you are building character. You're gonna come out stronger. You're gonna come out better. You're gonna come out bruised a little bit, a little bit battered, but you're gonna see what you're really made out of.
Tina Marie Garcia (:and you won't live in fear anymore because you'll have already lived your hell.
Robb (:Correct. I totally agree with that. My friend down the street, she finally told me she saw Shawshank Redemption. And I think that the end of that movie is how everyone should kind of look at life. Sometimes you got to crawl through two miles of shit to get clean on the other side.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, sometimes.
Robb (:And we all need to do that every blue moon. And don't be ashamed of yourself. You're not a failure in whatever you do. I thought for a second I was a failure at marriage. But now that I've learned way more and talked to a lot of different people and met people who made me feel different ways, I wasn't a failure. It wasn't meant to be. Sometimes you have to find.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:You have to go through a bunch of people to find the right one. Or you have to go through a lot of situations to find the right place. That's all it is. Rock bottom isn't the end.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, I still feel like, yeah, I still feel like I failed, like I couldn't find a way to make it work. But then I have to think, were you really supposed to make it work? Was that the goal? Like, was that really what was supposed to happen? Because clearly, he seems way happier now. I seem happier now. And what was the goal? What were we trying to accomplish that didn't serve either of us?
Robb (:Sure.
Tina Marie Garcia (:because it didn't happen.
Robb (:Sometimes you won't realize that you weren't a failure for quite a bit because maybe you're gonna go through more failures until you, again, sometimes you have to make a conscious decision to stop what you're doing. Stop what you're doing and try something different. If you're into asshole dudes, try the nice guy.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:until you get on the right path.
Robb (:If you're into working shitty jobs, try applying for something different. There's other ways of doing this, and I think you've said it best, and maybe we'll end it on this, that is a leap of faith. If you keep doing the same nonsense, stop and try something different, and if that doesn't work, you try something different after that. Stop being afraid to.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:move forward and rise above where you're at. You can lose everything and guess what? After that, you'll have new stuff to try to lose in 10 more years. It's nonsense. So I think we've both came out of this okay.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Tina Marie Garcia (:As we should. And you know, if nothing taught me anything, back in 94, we had a huge earthquake here. And everything in my life got scooped up with flat shovels and thrown into big bins because it was devastating here. And we lost everything. My car was underneath big cinder blocks that were once a brick wall.
Robb (:Mm-hmm.
Robb (:Hehehe
Tina Marie Garcia (:My animal that I had was gone for 11 days couldn't find him. We had no water, no electricity for 11 days. We had no place we could buy things that were close by. We just had to grin and bear it and pick up all of our shit with a flat shovel, throw it all away. And you know what?
Tina Marie Garcia (:94, what is that, a good 30 years now? We have more shit in the house than we need again. So, you know, it's not like it doesn't get replaced. It does, it does. So you just have to let go and know that bigger and better is on its way, because it always is.
Robb (:Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.
Robb (:You're right.
Robb (:Yes, it all does.
Robb (:that we'll leave it at that. I think that's the best way of leaving this show off. And yeah, make sure you check out our social medias. We're on that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Check us out on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeartRadio, tons of different places you can listen to podcasts. Make sure that you subscribe and or follow and share this with other people because we're starting to see some newer places kind of pop up.
Robb (:And obviously they're either finding us through wording or word of mouth. So pass it on to your friends and family and make them listen to at least one episode so they can decide. Anything else to say there, Miss Tina?
Tina Marie Garcia (:That's awesome.
Tina Marie Garcia (:We're at our this is our 98th episode. Is that am I correct? 99th So next week is our 100th episode. I don't even know how we did this coming from Let's start a podcast at Denny's like who knew hundred episodes. It's kind of freaking cool Yeah Look forward to that
Robb (:No, 99 I think. 99th.
Robb (:Yes, yes ma'am. Woohoo! So yes, next week's will be 100 and also, I'll be celebrating a birthday on that day. So all good. Until next week, for my co-host Tina, I'm Rob, and this is an opinion show, so don't get it twisted. Keep coming back and listening.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah.
Robb (:Until next Wednesday, Tina, it's always fun. Have a good night, we'll talk to you later. Bye.
Tina Marie Garcia (:Yeah, you too. Alright, bye.
