Surrender and Live with Barb Roose

Annmarie Kelly:
I am still on a journey, but I can't always see where I'm going. And I do more falling now. I am lost more often, both literally and figuratively. Sometimes I find myself grasping for my children's benchmarks as though they're good grades and colleges are somehow an indication of my achievements, but I know deep in my bones that that's their road. I need to find my own. And part of finding my way as an adult has involved screw-ups and about faces, jobs I've quit mistakes I've made. I don't love the feeling of untetheredness a lot of days, if you offered me a prescribed path for the second half of my life, some Google map to follow, to place one foot in front of the other, I would probably take it. But then once again, I'd be following somebody else's idea about where I'm supposed to go.

Annmarie Kelly:
And I've done that already. I have spent a long time following directions and coloring inside the lines. I really and truly believe that my life right now is for stumbling over tree roots and feeling my way through brambles and wandering into clearings and vistas I didn't know were there. That means I have to take a look inside myself for signs that I'm heading in my own right direction. And I'm not going to lie, that can be scary, but it can also be triumphant. And sometimes like today I meet other women who are also on this journey. They are on their own path, but we walk a pace together and help each other find our way. Today's guest is one such wanderer. Oh, and a quick note, we actually recorded this conversation a few days ago when I had a cold. That made me sound a little like Kathleen Turner.

Annmarie Kelly:
So if you're wondering who the gravel voiced husky interviewer is, that's me. Okay. Let me tell you about Barb. Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author who is passionate about helping women apply the truth of God's word to the practical realities and challenges they face in today's culture. Barb has taught and encouraged thousands of women at events across the country and around the world. She's the author of many books, including Winning the Worry Battle, Breakthrough, Enough Already and Surrendered. She hosts the Better Together podcast, is a proud mom to three adult children and she lives just down the highway from me, in Toledo, Ohio. Barb Roose welcome into Wild Precious Life.

Barb Roose:
Oh, I'm so glad to be with you today, Annmarie.

Annmarie Kelly:
Well, I'm delighted that you're here. So you and I went to high school together. And then in the before times, we came back into contact at a fancy dress party, a dinner, because you were being inducted into the hall of fame in our hometown. Congrats, belated congrats. So I'm grateful that you're here. And I'm wondering if, since not everybody went to high school with you, would you mind introducing yourself to us and to the listeners? And just tell us your story.

Barb Roose:
Well, Annmarie, you and I grew up in a community in northeast, east Ohio that it has changed and reshaped itself many times. But when we were growing up in that community, it was a safe place for people to raise their families. And it was a small town. And I grew up on the side of town where all the black people lived and back then, I really didn't understand much about the world, other than the fact that I had two parents that loved me and I felt safe every day.

Barb Roose:
And I would never have mentioned that probably 15 or 20 years ago, but now that I am an adult and now that my kids are an adult, I can look back on my life right now and recognize that was one of the earliest and greatest gifts that God ever gave me, was to be brought up in a home with two parents who had their eyes on the needs of their children. And they wanted to create a safe space for them. And so I went off to school. I was a small brown skinned kid who wore giant pop bottle glasses. I had two giant front teeth.

Annmarie Kelly:
I forgot about that.

Barb Roose:
Oh yes. I began wearing glasses in the first grade. And so I grew up with feeling a little torn between two worlds. I had all of the kids that I grew up with on my side of town, all the black kids, and we all rolled and ran and played rough and tumble with each other. But then I had this love of learning and it forced me, at an early age, to feel like at times I had to choose between what my dreams were. I loved books and I loved imagination and writing. And that wasn't necessarily always valued amongst the kids that I grew up with on my side of town. I am grateful. It wasn't always easy and smooth, but I am grateful that I had a number of educators who saw me. They saw beyond my skin color.

Barb Roose:
They saw beyond the pop bottle glasses and the giant front teeth and the awkward us. And they nurtured me. And I wanted to be able to do all the things. And I was grateful that my parents, even though I'm sure behind their bedroom doors at night, they scratched their head because they didn't really always understand me. But I was able to jump in and do things. And again, I always felt this tension between the things that I dreamed about and wanting to do and whether or not I was a sellout or a token to the kids that I grew up with. My cousins and friends who would often ask, well, why are you doing all that stuff with the white people? I was the only black kid in honors classes. Why are you doing all that stuff with white people?

Barb Roose:
And it was a constant tension. And I think one of the ways I could weather that, navigate that... Again, my parents, they didn't always get me, but they always supported me. So went off to college, went to Bowling Green State University got involved in all of the things. Campus life was a dream. I was thinking about going to law school. And then as life has it, then you meet a boy and...

Annmarie Kelly:
Growing up in our hometown, race was not a conversation that... We didn't use the R word. Did we ever use the R word?

Barb Roose:
Oh heck no. And the part that, I don't know if you know this, but I was the first black homecoming queen in our school, it's a [crosstalk 00:08:38]-

Annmarie Kelly:
I remember you were the... Seriously?

Barb Roose:
And the town... Now my 17 year old recollection, that's all I can rely on right now. But I remember that there were question marks around, wait, it had never occurred to anyone that there was never a black homecoming queen. Now my mother graduated from our high school and she was a B liner, which was the Elite Dance Team.

Annmarie Kelly:
Excellent. Yeah, I wasn't in that, but yes.

Barb Roose:
Yeah. And so there had been some black B liners over the years, which was kind of a big deal. But the town, until I had become a homecoming queen, Medina always politely set race aside.

Annmarie Kelly:
I'm pretty sure I voted for you for homecoming queen. I think that you were the homecoming queen... Because I remember thinking that was so cool. Because you got to ride in the... Do you remember riding in the car in the parade?

Barb Roose:
I did.

Annmarie Kelly:
I was aspirational for this little ninth grade. I'm like, oh, all I want is to ride in a car in a parade. And that's... I remember the... Again, I would've only seen this story above the story, but we did not... I mean, whenever we're looking around at our world and saying we have not come far or we have, we do need to stop and remember, my kids are not growing up in that time. They are talking about these questions. They are asking hard truths and sitting with these kinds of divisions that are not okay. And you're right, it felt like a safe community and it felt like a friendly community and it was. It was safe and it was friendly, but it's mostly because people didn't ask. People didn't ask why were you, Barb, the only black kid in the honors classes? I mean, you're very smart, but it sure wasn't because you were the only smart black kid.

Barb Roose:
Exactly.

Annmarie Kelly:
What was happening was kind of... Those questions we just wouldn't have asked. I'm glad we're asking them now.

Barb Roose:
Me too. And I think that it is such a hard conversation to begin when people spend so much time being silent, particularly in towns where the people who aren't asking the questions, they don't have anything to lose by not asking the questions. So it does take a lot of bravery and courage because there is this scarcity mindset. If we open up the conversation, then there's going to be groups of people who are going to start asking, what am I going to lose if I start having this conversation? And so only the bravest and only the most generous and only the most loving are willing to say, I believe that opening actually leads to multiplication in that scarcity.

Annmarie Kelly:
And naming and talking about things, leads to being informed and empowered to make better decisions than we've been making. I think we were taught to politely ignore race because for some reason it would've been rude for us to talk about... Do you remember that? You didn't talk about skin color because it was rude.

Barb Roose:
It was rude, yes.

Annmarie Kelly:
And how incredibly rude is it to just ignore. What a crazy time. Wow.

Barb Roose:
It made sense to everyone. African Americans in my family, nobody wanted to rock the boat. They didn't want to lose their good jobs. So there were reasons on both sides, why those conversations didn't happen. But even then there were glimpses in the face of what was swept under the rug for too long. There were glimpses that people were able to see. Like I said, I remember somebody saying to me, oh my, you're the first black homecoming queen in the school's history. And I could see on that gentleman's face the light bulb go on and just go, wait a minute. This school's been around for 100 plus years and you could see that. And I believe that those bulbs, it's taken time. But now there's just no excuse for it.

Annmarie Kelly:
No. I didn't know that you were the first... I knew you homecoming queen, but I didn't know until this very moment that you were the first black homecoming queen.

Barb Roose:
To offset the irony, now I'm still 17, and so are my friends. So while that whole historical moment was unfolding, what was heaviest on my mind was the fact that I didn't have a date.

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh yeah. Who are you going to go to homecoming with? That's the... I didn't have a date to that homecoming either. I think I went and saw Pretty Woman.

Barb Roose:
Oh.

Annmarie Kelly:
I went and saw a rated R movie. That was a gift. Because I didn't have a date to that dance. And so my mom, let me go and see a rated R movie, to offset that.

Barb Roose:
You know what, that's a perfect offset.

Annmarie Kelly:
Right?

Barb Roose:
I mean, that makes sense to me. Yeah. Well the teachers did arrange my date because again, there is a woman my age back then, the choices were... There wasn't a wide breadth of choices for me. And other than it's like, hey, do you want to go with a family member? Great. So that was the drama du jour that took up my energy versus the historical significance of the moment, I needed a date.

Annmarie Kelly:
Sure. Isn't it funny that things we worried about versus the things we could have been worried about, I guess?

Barb Roose:
That's true. But then again, there is an irony for the fact that I'm back in that same spot in life, what 35 years later? Hell, that's great. Let's move on.

Annmarie Kelly:
Hopefully there are better choices. Hopefully there are better choices.

Barb Roose:
I told you about the guy with the 17 alligators that I just got done talking with. And so, you know what, we're going to put a pin in that question.

Annmarie Kelly:
I see you as more of a four to six alligators. And we don't know each other that well, but I feel like I would cap you. You're more of a single digits alligator woman, is how I would describe you.

Barb Roose:
I generally have been, up until now, a zero alligator woman. I decided that I would expand and break away from my usual dating type. My friends have encouraged me to do that. And so what happened was when I decided to become more open, I end up with a guy with 17 alligators. There's that?

Annmarie Kelly:
It's going to... There's a lesson there. I don't know what it is, but there is a lesson there. All right. So let's go back here. So you left high school, you went to college, you got pregnant and you went back to college with a baby?

Barb Roose:
I did.

Annmarie Kelly:
Did you just carry the baby with you?

Barb Roose:
Yes.

Annmarie Kelly:
Did you do your homework and feed the baby? Talk to me about going to college with a baby.

Barb Roose:
Oh, and a husband. We were married.

Annmarie Kelly:
Well, two babies then.

Barb Roose:
And he was in college. So, well, you had two 20 year old college students and a 13 month old. And yes, for that last year, we lived about 10 blocks away from the university and it was a straight shot. We had one car. And so we had a babysitter who just was such a God send. And so we arranged our classes and we went, boom, boom, boom, boom on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then we went a little longer on Tuesday, Thursday, and we made sure our classes were at the same time. And then when we finished class for the day, my then husband, he went off to work and I took the baby back home. And then when he got off of work that night, we would take turns doing homework.

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh my gosh.

Barb Roose:
And if something happened and the babysitter was sick or couldn't, there were a few times I remember carting my oldest to my constitutional law classes. And thankfully my constitutional law professor had a son the same age. And so I had to do it maybe three or four times. And we would sit in the way back of this 300 person auditorium. I gave her a billion Cheerios to be quiet because I was planning on taking the LSAT. I needed to take all... I mean, I could not miss a class. And so I'm feeding her Cheerios with one hand and taking notes with the other. But yeah, we did that for that last year of school and I took a massive amount of hours so that I could graduate on time because I had a job. But it was a season in life when you don't know when you don't know. I mean, we were college students with a kid. You don't know what you don't know. There was still a little bit of a bubble around us.

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh my goodness. I'm thinking of all the situations where I Cheerio'd my own daughter into silence, usually in church. One at a time because they had to sort of [inaudible 00:17:11] them and then they could gum on them for... So you could get a solid minute out of a Cheerio, until they learned there were other things, but oh my gosh. So what made you think no to law school? I could actually see you being a fantastic litigator. What closed the door on that for you?

Barb Roose:
Well, that was a dream that I had for a long time and it was a hard one to let go of. But I was hired months before I graduated from college and the starting salary at that job... It was one of the largest companies in America and my then husband, he still had another six months to go and I just made the decision that I needed to put a pin in that dream because he had already sacrificed so much and it was my turn. Then as time went on, especially, as I began traveling with my other jobs and working, I recognized and realized that my personality, my particular way of being in the world, that I probably would not have led a well-balanced life in the legal field, that it was probably a grace that that career didn't go as planned because I would've been a workaholic and it would not have served my family well. I was already a workaholic in other careers, but I would've definitely gone overboard in a legal career.

Annmarie Kelly:
Okay. I can see this. So then when did the pivot to church come? Or actually let me back up. What was church like for you growing up? Were you a churchy kid who liked church?

Barb Roose:
Oh, I was a black kid who grew up in the Baptist church. I was a churchy kid. My ongoing joke is I don't always... I don't recall what day of the week that I was born, but I know that following Sunday, I was sitting at church. So I grew up in a tradition where what people did on the outside, how they looked, how they behaved, how they acted was more important than whatever was happening on the inside. And so when I look at matters of faith, for me, the whole idea behind God is that he is omniscient. He's all knowing. He's all powerful. He's always present. And the faith walk that I have is based out of the belief that I don't have to do anything to earn God's love and that I don't have to do anything to earn God's grace.

Barb Roose:
But the mindset that shaped around me as a kid was that God will only love me if I follow the rules, if I'm perfect. And if I always, always perform well. So that followed me. And that was positive in some ways, kept me from sleeping around a whole lot in college. I mean, I still got pregnant, but it kept me from sleeping all, all around, kept me from drugs. The entree in the ministry was not planned, which for most people who end up in ministry, that's kind of how it goes. After college, I had reconnected with God and I recognized that I had spent years trying to forge my own path, my own faith. And I think God was sitting in Heaven, going girl, you are working way too hard on this. So I finally recognized that, what I say to people, that God wants more for you than from you and-

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh, that's beautiful. God wants more for you than from you. Oh my goodness.

Barb Roose:
And when I was able to absorb that, I was able to relax and really appreciate having a relationship with God. And so I was able to connect to a church in my area, in Northwest Ohio was a young church only at about 160 or so people. And this was back in 1996. They served coffee, which was revolutionary back then. Everybody wore jeans, which was revolutionary back then. They played secular songs, which was revolutionary. And it was a place where it was the opposite of what I grew up in. Which was this new place, people told their stories, they weren't hiding the ugly places in their lives. They were real about how they felt. And so I began to kept showing up week after week and then I began volunteering there. And at the time I was working in pharmaceutical sales and I was wrestling...

Barb Roose:
My kids' dad and I, he was a successful executive recruiter. We were in our mid 20's making more money than two kids needed to be making and trying to decide was this the life that we wanted to live. And we were starting to show some strain because we both had these busy careers and we were eating out four or five days a week, because I was not cooking at the end of the day. And I remember just thinking and going, what is the quality of life that we want to lead? And so a few years later there was an opportunity. They offered a job for an incredible $125 a week, Annmarie.

Annmarie Kelly:
$125 a week, you say?

Barb Roose:
A week. Now I-

Annmarie Kelly:
Let me do the math on that. Were you only working three to four hours that week, would you say?

Barb Roose:
No.

Annmarie Kelly:
Or was it one day a week that you were coming in on?

Barb Roose:
I was a pharmaceutical sales rep, an award winning one. And the first 30 days were free, no salary. Now this was in 2002 or 2003. But I began working and I was in one particular role for about a year. And then for the next few years I kind of would make switches to various roles until I finally landed. And so I spent most of my career on the management and executive team as well as the teaching pastor. And so all of the things from my earlier corporate career and leadership experience, those came back around again.

Barb Roose:
(silence)

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh my gosh. There's some things I'm thinking about. One, when you talked about what church was like growing up. There's that book, I don't know if you've seen it. It's called Crowns. It's church ladies. I'll put it in the show notes. I'll send you.

Barb Roose:
Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:
It's black women in their hats-

Barb Roose:
Oh [crosstalk 00:24:05].

Annmarie Kelly:
And they're all dressed for church. And so it is the show piece that what you're talking about, what we look like when we go to church, but then the stories that go with it are kind of like what you're talking about, the peeling back the veil. And so one woman's like, I hate this hat, I've always hated this hat. My mom makes me wear this hat. It is not me. And I go to church with my mama and I'm still a child. She's like I'm 45 years old. And I'm the assistant deputy attorney. And she's like, but when I go to church, I'm still a child. But I'll send it to you. So it's reminding me of moving from a place where what you look like on the outside somehow determines what you are on the inside. And then coming to a church where you had secular songs.

Annmarie Kelly:
I call those boyfriend Jesus songs. I love you. Jesus. I will be with you. Jesus. The first time I heard a boyfriend Jesus song, I wasn't thinking about Jesus at all. But I was singing and Jesus... But those boyfriend Jesus songs, those make you feel some kind of way. You are praising and you're thinking about who your homecoming date is. Those boyfriend Jesus songs, is what I call them.

Barb Roose:
Oh, that is so precious. I'm going to hold onto that, boyfriend Jesus song. I'm going to hold onto that. And as a little post script, a fun thing. When I was a kid in the black Baptist church, those hats that you talked about, my grandmother and her friends, they all wore those incredible hats. And as a kid, I lived for watching all of the embellishments. They would have flowers, they would have plumes. They would have ribbons. And there would be all of these embellishments on these hats. And when the music started getting good, Annmarie, and the women started clapping, because in the black Baptist church, it was not the frozen chosen. These women, they could take a lap if they needed to, there was nothing like watching your 65 year old grandmother kick off her shoes and take a lap. I was like, what is happening here? But those women made sure that those hats were pinned down on their head. And the reason why, was because they didn't do their hair under those hats, Annmarie.

Annmarie Kelly:
Oh, they just come-

Barb Roose:
Their hair-

Annmarie Kelly:
I didn't know that.

Barb Roose:
Which is why I use that in some of the things that I teach about and write about, as the symbol of the kind of Christianity that I saw growing up. That as long as you looked good on the outside, people didn't ask questions about what was happening underneath.

Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah. I think there are some parallels there with just the world in which we grew up. You put on a brave face, you just worked really hard. You got it done. You never let anybody see the cracks. You never let anybody know if you're having a hard time, you didn't need help. That you didn't need help. You had it under control. And that was the goal, right? I don't even know what that is that we were aspiring to be. I mean, in general, I hated church growing up. I participated, but I didn't want to go there. I Was made to go there. You had Sunday school. Our Sunday school was sometimes on Saturdays, that got in the way of the cartoons. And sometimes on Wednesday nights that got in the way of talking on the phone. It moved around.

Annmarie Kelly:
But I remember one of my teachers, she was actually my friend Maggie's aunt, still is my friend Maggie's aunt. Michelle said, there're going to be times in your life when you're going to feel close to the church. And there's going to be in your life when you're going to pull away. There's going to be times in your life when you're going to be full of faith and hope, and then there's going to be times in your life when you're not. And it's always going to be there for you. A.

Annmarie Kelly:
Nd again, as a kid, I didn't really understand it, but I pocketed that. And when you referenced in your own writing about what it feels like to be in one of those times, because I will be honest. I am in a period of doubt right now, since my father passed away. Since this pandemic, I think a lot of people have been having a rough time. And when you referred to a wilderness season, I understood that. So for folks who haven't had the chance to read your books, I'll make sure we link to them and talk about them as well. But what's the wilderness season and have you spent any time there? Because I'm looking for people to connect with.

Barb Roose:
Well, I am so glad that you, first of all, that you've shared that about yourself because this has been a global wilderness season. And there may be people who've never heard that kind of language before or haven't felt comfortable admitting it. But a wilderness season is this space and time that has a couple of characteristics that we all feel personally. First we have little control over our circumstances. The wilderness season is the suspension of the things that we had previously found normal or familiar or comfortable. The wilderness season is a space where we ask questions and times we try to get back to the way that things used to be. But the most internally pressurized aspect of the wilderness season is that it's confusing. And we do ask hard questions about God. And for me that the last decade before my marriage ended was a very long wilderness season.

Barb Roose:
We had this family that wasn't perfect, but we were happy and we were cute and successful. And through a series of circumstances, all of a sudden, everything that I thought about my life began to slowly fall apart and I could not get out of it. And I was working on staff at my church. I'm a person who is a follower of Christ. Just because we have faith, that does not mean that we're immune from hardship or doubt or struggle. And I remember just sitting, going, God, why aren't you fixing this? I am praying, I am reading my Bible. What's happening? And those years went on, the early part of those years, I did not handle it well, Anne Marie. There was a lot of anger. There was a lot of resentment and there was a lot of bitterness.

Barb Roose:
And then the next phase, it was grief and it was acceptance. And then towards the end, which was 2018, 2019, it was just pure grief. And it was just this space where I had to decide whether or not I was going to try to hold onto control or if I would let go. And so if anyone has been familiar with, I wrote a project, it's actually a Bible study called Surrendered, Letting Go and Living Like Jesus. But then there's also a small devotional book. Oh that's so sweet, Annmarie held up her copy with all her... Oh, okay. She's got them there.

Annmarie Kelly:
I always hold them up to the listeners as though they can see us. I forget it's radio, but I just like to hold up the books so our listeners at home can imagine them. I always hold them up.

Barb Roose:
So they can imagine them. But what I hope maybe today, is if someone is listening and you recognize that you've been in this wilderness season, there's three questions that I had to ask myself. And then there's something that I call Surrender Principle number one. And so I'm hoping that maybe this could be a practical place that infuses some hope. And so the first one is are you tired of trying to fix a situation that's out of your control?

Annmarie Kelly:
Yes.

Barb Roose:
Yeah. The second question is, are you tired of trying to force solutions for people who won't do what is healthy or helpful for themselves?

Annmarie Kelly:
Yes.

Barb Roose:
And then the third one is, are you ready to let go of trying to be God?

Annmarie Kelly:
I mean, kind of, I feel like I could get it right, if they would just listen.

Barb Roose:
Well, thankfully that... And you know what, Annmarie, I'm so glad you said that because that one was the hardest for me. I just thought, you know what, God I'll call you in a minute. Let me try one more thing. And so I identified, there are five control, loving behaviors that we resort to when we're in a wilderness season and then we start to panic. And so I call them the Shine Control Loving Behaviors. And so Annmarie. So S-H-I-N-E-, SHINE, meaning we want to cast our light or influence. And so we've got stonewalling, which is digging your heels in. We got helicoptering-

Annmarie Kelly:
Check.

Barb Roose:
Which was... Oh, check, okay. Helicoptering, which is micromanaging. I is interrupting, which is not just interrupting with words, but interfering with what somebody is doing. Then we have nagging. I don't need to define that.

Annmarie Kelly:
Why you got to bring that up? Come on, this is a safe space.

Barb Roose:
We didn't hear anything here. And then the last, the E is excessive planning. And that was a big one for me. And so those five Control Loving Behaviors, those pop up in wilderness seasons because we're trying to fill the fear that we have. But the practical thing that I want to share with everyone today, I call it Surrender Principle number one, there are six of them. And these are what I created, but it is that I am not in control of others or outcomes. That's Surrender-

Annmarie Kelly:
I wrote that down. I have it right here. And I'm like, are you... Really? I'm not at all because it feels like you are, right? Especially when you're in a family and the kids are coming and going, and you're the keeper of the schedule and you know what time they're supposed to be there. And you've packed the... You feel like you're in control of an awful lot. But the fact that we can't control other people's outcomes, that we actually can't control...

Annmarie Kelly:
At first I read, I'm not in control of others or outcomes. I don't know about that. And then the more I thought about it, that that's what's driving me crazy. Is that in your wilderness time, you actually have to realize how much you are not in control of. And the more you... I just, I try to hold on much tighter. Do you ever do that? You just, well, if I just try a little harder, if I just sleep a little less, if I just get up a little earlier, if I just stay up a little later, if I just, if I just, if I just, if I just. And then at some point you just kind of crumble. Because you can't just, and that's, what I found in your... Surrender is the one I've read most recently, but how difficult it is to let go.

Barb Roose:
I still have to work on letting go of control every single day. Those tools and principles in the book and the Bible study, they still give me life today. We don't just snap out of it, when it comes to letting go of control. We have to recognize that, there are just some things in this world that we have to let go, and we have to give over to God. Not give up, not give in, but give over and let God take care of it because we can't. There is a very short one line prayer that I pray. Especially when, Annmarie, I'm looking at something and I don't want to give up control of it, but I need to. And this one line prayer, I'm hoping that especially if prayer is hard for you, that maybe this would help. And the prayer is simply this God I can't, but you can, and I will let you. Amen.

Annmarie Kelly:
I could talk to you forever, Barb, but we have to end. So I always end with a few icebreakers.

Barb Roose:
Oh, yay. Fun.

Annmarie Kelly:
I like to put them there. Right? So the camp counselor in you. So these are just multiple choice. You can pick one. Coffee or tea?

Barb Roose:
Tea.

Annmarie Kelly:
Mountains or beach?

Barb Roose:
Or.

Annmarie Kelly:
Early bird or night owl?

Barb Roose:
Night owl. Oh [inaudible 00:36:35] yes.

Annmarie Kelly:
Loud or quiet?

Barb Roose:
Quiet.

Annmarie Kelly:
Watch sports or play sports?

Barb Roose:
Play sports.

Annmarie Kelly:
If you could time travel, would you rather go back in time or forward in time?

Barb Roose:
I'm a black woman living in America, I'm going forward.

Annmarie Kelly:
I suspected as much. But I'm always interested in what people say. Well, the fashion was okay, fine, sure, whatever.

Barb Roose:
No, I'm more practical. I'm more of a survivalist.

Annmarie Kelly:
I like it. Okay. Now these are a few short answer. What is something you love about where you live?

Barb Roose:
For me, I live in a historical district and so it is friendly and it is absolutely beautiful in the summertime.

Annmarie Kelly:
What's something quirky that folks don't know about you or likes or loves or pet peeves? I don't know something that people don't know about you.

Barb Roose:
Well, the one that people seem to find the most fascinating is the fact that I prefer to eat dessert first, when I'm at a restaurant.

Annmarie Kelly:
Look, I've seen that written down.

Barb Roose:
Yes.

Annmarie Kelly:
I just thought that was not real.

Barb Roose:
No, no, it's real.

Annmarie Kelly:
That's true.

Barb Roose:
So here's a deal I'm never hungry after the meal. So every time they come around and ask, would you like dessert? I kind of get a little ragey. So years ago just realize that I can order dessert with my meal and I ask them to bring it out and then I can take a bite of food. I can take a bite of dessert. And it's a system that works for me.

Annmarie Kelly:
I think there's a life philosophy in there. I think way too many of us delay for someday those things that we think maybe one day we might and we dream about it and we put it on a board. But go ahead and do some of that now, don't save that. Don't save that sweet thing for later. I mean, as you and I both know, sometimes the people in our love don't get the later that they had planned to get. We don't know where laters going to be. We don't know if that dessert is happening. So bring it now. I like this. I saw that written down about you. I just thought it was something that they say in intros that was, like she's a nine alligator kind of girl. The thing people say about you, but.

Barb Roose:
Nope, that is absolutely straight up the truth.

Annmarie Kelly:
What's one of your go-to songs? It could be new. It could be old school. It could be corny.

Barb Roose:
Yeah. It's going to be kind of corny. So you know what, I just... Shoot, man. See, we just had this really great discussion. And now I just got to be honest about my Spotify. So let me go with the one that's not going to be as painful. So we're just going to go with C & C Music Factory, Everybody Sweat Now. Yes, I'm still playing that in it's lip syncing glory.

Annmarie Kelly:
It is timeless. It is timeless. There's some Milli Vanilla, songs in their lip syncing glory that I will actually say that I... There's a... Okay, moving on. But I'm some... Okay. Favorite book or movie or both?

Barb Roose:
So favorite book I just finished... Well, gosh man. So look, I'm a full-time author and literary agent. It's hard. So I have to do two. It's a short answer. So first...

Annmarie Kelly:
You're allowed.

Barb Roose:
Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert. It is-

Annmarie Kelly:
Right.

Barb Roose:
Right. Just finished it for the second time. And then the other one it's... I'm going to do it, my favorite 2021 read because it's not my favorite of all time, but Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

Annmarie Kelly:
Wasn't that book... So that book shook me. You think at first that you're nothing like Eleanor Oliphant, you're like this woman's crazy. She's got some issues. And then little by little, you realize that we are all Eleanor Oliphant and... That was some good work to be done in that book. I haven't read that in a little bit, but yeah, that was a good book. I agree with you there.

Barb Roose:
It is such a... I actually used it a week ago. I did a virtual presentation to an international corporation about a week ago. And I was talking about pandemic exhaustion, not fatigue, but exhaustion. And I decided to talk about suicide for a little bit and use some quotes from the book. Because like you said, we read her story and we feel far away from her and we pity her. And then as the story goes on, we recognize that not only are we like her, but there are times when we want to be just like her.

Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah. And I think that whenever... I mean, suicide is also one of those things that people don't say the S word, because if we say it, then we're going to convince someone to kill themselves. That's actually not how that works, right? That when you bring up that there are times when people are alone and broken like she is and what saves her, not spoiling anything, is that outreach. That being seen. How often are we in company with people and we don't see them, we don't hear them. We don't look them in the eye. We compare our outsides to their outsides and we get nowhere. And so with that book, it asks you to see someone's insides and our insides turn out to be kind of gross a lot of the time.

Barb Roose:
I agree.

Annmarie Kelly:
But they're also really beautiful. That was a good book. I have to look at that one again.

Barb Roose:
Yeah. No, I know. I was like, I haven't read it in a minute. Now that we're talking about it, I'm like you know what, I've... Yeah, I've read it twice. And it's a gift each time.

Annmarie Kelly:
That's good. Okay. And last one, if we were to take a picture of you really happy and doing something you love, what would we see?

Barb Roose:
You would see me at one of the beautiful local Toledo metro parks with my earbuds in my ear, tennis shoes on my feet and sunglasses and a smile on my face while I'm walking.

Annmarie Kelly:
Love it. I also love that you called them tennis shoes. I think that... I grew up calling sneakers, tennis shoes, my whole life. And people assumed that they were just for tennis. I'm like, no, no, no, that's tennis shoes. That's what we called them. Not trainers, not sneakers.

Barb Roose:
Which I feel like that must have been a double quandary for you since you were such a big tennis player.

Annmarie Kelly:
Thank you, Barb Roose for coming on the show today. Thank you for reminding us to find beauty in the brokenness and hope in our surrender. Something we didn't talk about, but that I want to end with is that story that you wrote about, it's Kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi?

Barb Roose:
Kintsukuroi, yep. Kintsukuroi.

Annmarie Kelly:
Kintsukuroi. Okay. Japanese broken pottery that's been reassembled and fused back together. And I looked up pictures of this. Demonstrating the brokenness that can be transformed into something more beautiful that all of us, inside of our brokenness, can come out on the other side and through it with our cracks showing and be beautiful. So thank you for transforming some of our brokenness. Some of my brokenness today, Barb. Folks, our guess has been Barb, Roose, the author of many books. I'm not holding them up, but Surrendered Winning the Worry Battle, Beautiful Already. Her most recent one, I think is it Breakthrough? Is that the most recent one? I'm not-

Barb Roose:
I think so, yeah, at least for another week. Yep.

Annmarie Kelly:
All right.

Barb Roose:
I've track of them all.

Annmarie Kelly:
I'm losing track too. We will link to all of them on the show notes page. And to everyone listening, be good to yourselves. We're wishing you love and light wherever this day takes you. Barb, we're wishing you that as well. Be good to yourselves. Be good to one another. And we'll see you again soon on this wild and precious journey.

Speaker 1:
Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to Executive Producers, Gerardo Orlando, and Michael DeAloia, Producer Sarah Willgrube and Audio Engineer Ian Douglas. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1:
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