ker A: Welcome to sharing my truth with Mel and Suzie. The uncensored version where we bear it all.

Speaker B: We do.

Speaker C: 1234.

Speaker A: Hello. Hello and welcome back. It's sharing my trove pod with Mel and Susie. I'm so excited. Do I sound excited, Mel?

Speaker B: You sound like a Valley girl or something.

Speaker A: Welcome back, guys. Please, while you're here, if you could just give us a cute little five star review, that'd be amazing. Tell us your deepest, darkest feelings on those reviews. We want to hear them. It's all anonymous. Maybe not in the reviews, but in our DMs. Whatever you feel like.

Speaker B: Yeah, we get a lot of those, though, don't we?

Speaker C: Hey, babe.

Speaker B: Hello, my darling.

Speaker A: I love you so much. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm fabulously. Fabulous. I love that so much.

Speaker A: I mean, perfect.

Speaker B: That's what you should be, really, shouldn't you?

Speaker A: All the time, every day. All day.

Speaker B: Well, that'd be long.

Speaker A: Too much. Sorry. Well, today we have a very special episode, and we just had an amazing interview.

Speaker B: We did miss Erin Keating.

Speaker A: How do you say her name in British?

Speaker B: Keating.

Speaker A: Is there a special.

Speaker B: Thing, Erin? Anyway yes. Anyway.

Speaker A: It could be like Diane Keaton.

Speaker B: It's almost yeah. Okay. Thanks, Susie. And she's from the podcast Hotter Than.

Speaker A: Ever, which she is.

Speaker B: She definitely is hotter than ever.

Speaker A: Is she ever.

Speaker B: She's living her best life, that's for sure.

Speaker A: It's amazing. Like, you hear her story. You'll hear it on our pod. Go check her pod out. Hotter than ever. She talks she talks about her life and how she got to this point of just kind of becoming a new woman in her 50s. Which is so cool because I think when we talk on the episode that's coming up right now of, like, usually a lot of women kind of lose themselves in this, which she did, and she admits to that. But the way she's found herself again is so inspiring.

Speaker B: It is. And I also think her story she speaks mostly to women, but I think her story actually can be relevant to anybody. It's just she got to a point in her life and thought she had all the trappings of what she wanted success and career and a marriage and children and a big house and all this sort of stuff, and then wasn't actually very happy and not happy in her marriage. And she talks about what happened. We won't give it away. And it made her think, actually, I got to do something. I got to change this. Otherwise, this is another 40 years of this stuff. And I think it's relevant to anybody, whether you're young, you're middle aged like me or you're older, just like, it's never too late to actually just live, like, to be happy and maybe think about what is the thing that you want or the thing that's missing or why you're not happy. And I think that's the problem is often that's very difficult to figure that out.

Speaker A: 100% lot of stuff. It really does. And just the fact that she's a mom, she has or had her career completely laid out for her. She is an award winning television producer. She was huge in New York and now in La.

Speaker B: She's just so cool.

Speaker A: But the way she's yeah, created her own thing now and she's like, **** it, I don't care what people think anymore of me. I just want to be who I want to be.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, listen, can say that you'll listen to the interview. One of the great things I found about her. She's just very open and very honest about what she did and her feelings and so on. And talking about that to actually help other people, because a lot of people are stuck at whatever point they are in life. Particularly. Obviously, when you hit 50, it's a kind of landmark thing. But listen to it. Listen to the interview that's coming up and you will see. You will see.

Speaker C: You were here.

Speaker B: I was here. I was here. But you the audience and here what happened.

Speaker A: Oh, my God, we love you so much. Go and listen to this.

Speaker C: It's going to start in three, two, one. Goodness. Hey.

Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for coming on. We're obviously so excited to have you here. It's always so fun for us to meet fellow podcasters and obviously listening to your episodes and your topics are so fun and vibrant and obviously go with exactly what Mel and I love to chat about as well. And I'd love for you to just give us a brief introduction for our listeners. What you do, where you come from.

Speaker B: What your pods about, what your pods.

Speaker A: About, and maybe where they can find you as well.

Speaker C: So what do I do? So I have a podcast called Hotter Than Ever, and it's about reinventing yourself in midlife. My own story is the story of the podcast really is. I was 20 years in the television business as an executive and an executive producer and largely in the comedy world and really had an amazing run and still might, right? But I don't think sitting on the executive side, I think for me, corporate life is done. I think what happened was I got COVID. I got extremely sick. I went to the hospital. Yeah, I was vaccinated, but I got COVID pneumonia. I went to the hospital and they said, right this way, and gave me all the medications that were available at the time and checked me into a room by myself and I felt like I was at a spa. I really was like, this is amazing, right? I'm alone by myself and no one can plausibly ask me for anything. I was in an extremely intense job and a marriage that was very intense in kind of all the wrong ways. I had at the time, twin ten year olds, a boy and a girl. I was kind of like doing it all all at once. I had just moved into my dream house, had always wanted to buy a house, and finally made that happen. And I think getting really sick and then turning 50, like, two weeks later was just a complete wake up call for me. Wow. And really what it was is that my life looked perfect on the outside. I was doing all the things you're supposed to do and living life to the fullest according to the American dream. And I was ******* miserable. Sorry. Can I curse? I don't know how to not curse. I was miserable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And it was a work machine. I was working constantly. And part of that was because I was hiding from the problems in the marriage. And I hadn't had sex in ten years. I'm a horrified I hadn't had sex in ten years.

Speaker B: Oh, my God.

Speaker A: Does your ****** close up at that point?

Speaker C: You know what? My brain was completely disconnected from my body.

Speaker B: Oh, my God.

Speaker C: I'm like I was just a walking brain. I was a walking head. I was a person who lived to complete the tasks and do the service that I was obligated to do, and pleasure was not part of it. And this happens in marriages. And I told myself all the lies that everybody else tells themselves. I told my best friend, I said, people have really happy marriages with no sex. It's totally normal. And she's like, you're like she wanted to keep the friendship so she'd be there for me on the other side. I blew it all up. We got separated. We went to couple therapy for the last time. We had done many rounds of it. We tried when we agreed it was mutual, we agreed that it wasn't working. We would try couple therapy one last time. It didn't go well. He moved out, and six months later, I got laid off from my big fancy job.

Speaker A: Oh, my God.

Speaker C: And I just decided, yeah, **** it, I'm not going to do life according to the rules anymore. I'm just going to reinvent everything. I'm just going to start fresh.

Speaker A: I ******* love that.

Speaker B: Well, you say that on your website, don't you, where it says you blew it up. You literally just started everything, every corner.

Speaker C: Of your life, everything. Yeah, I mean, I still have the kids. Thank God I didn't restart them. But yeah, I started rediscovering my sexuality. I started rediscovering my voice. My job as a television development executive was to find and nurture other talent and help other people bring their shows to life and nurture their dreams. And what happened in that process was, like was very satisfying work, very creative work. But I was hiding behind the scenes and hiding behind the bosses who I made look really good. And I like them very much, and they deserve all the success in the world. All of the people that I have supported, but I decided I needed to do it for myself.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I needed to get out there. That's exactly what I am in the process of doing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Is it brave? People keep saying that. I felt like I didn't have a choice.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Like, it's what had to happen.

Speaker A: But you know what? A lot of people off themselves as well when they get to a little dark and scary but fair. You chose the path of like, **** it, I'm just going to get to where I actually want to be. And you actually had that realization, which is insane. I think people go their entire lives without having to do that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. I think for me, the turning 50 part of it was very much like, do I want the next 50 years to look like this? And the answer was real clear, right? Like, absolutely not. And if I don't get started doing the things that I know in my heart I want to do and living the way that I want to live and having the kind of experiences I want to have drop dead tomorrow, we all could.

Speaker B: I think it's really interesting you said because I turned 50 in December, and obviously Susie is a lot younger. You really can't it is a weird thing. Like, all these things go round your head and I can connect to a lot of things. Not personally, but I really understand what you're saying. Like, I'm married, I've got two kids, two teenagers. You turn 50 and it is a bit like I think when you turned 30 and you turned 40, was just like this huge thing, but you sort of thought, that's not really that old. There's so much time, but you turn 50. And I was saying that, my head was like, oh, my God, I've got 40 years and then I'll be 90. Ten years and I'll be 60. That's what was going around my head. And my husband just thought I was mad. I'm like, no, in ten years I'll be 60. In 20 years, I'll be 70. And he said, You've got to get on. You've got to do what you want to do. Life is too short to be miserable. I always say to Susie, life is too long and too short at the same time. So it's too short in the sense that you've got to get on with it, but it's too long in the sense that many people, like you're saying, are miserable.

Speaker C: For so long and miserable, like, waiting for the day when they can retire, right, so then they can be happy. No, I'm like I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker C: I think I was as a young person, I was a writer performer, and I was scared. I mean, I did one person shows and I did sketch comedy and I did a whole bunch of stuff. But what I found was the thing I could do that other people couldn't do, which was produce. And so when I went to try to figure out how to have a career, which I really wanted, because I wanted all the grown up things, and I couldn't see that happening for me because I could never audition well, I just was like, who are you on the other side of the table to judge me? Let me judge you. I'll judge you instead. Yeah. So that's what I did. I switched sides. Wow.

Speaker A: And I switched behind you as well.

Speaker C: Yeah. Look, I've crushed it, and that's great. And I like all of the cash and prizes, but did it like.

Speaker B: I.

Speaker C: Would say that it was really a satisfying path that I took. But was it brave? I don't think so.

Speaker A: Well, I'd love to know. Obviously getting COVID and everything. I mean, you could have just got to another job, right?

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: You had all the opportunity. I'm sure you obviously had the experience. And obviously you talk a lot on your podcast about all these sexual experiences that you obviously indeed. Which is amazing. And I absolutely want to get into that. And I want to know what it was like after that first initial sexual experience, after ten years of not having sex.

Speaker C: Okay, here's the crazy part. I had to figure out how to have a full orgasm again because I had kind of lost my own relationship with myself sexually. And so I just very tentatively dipped my toes into the waters of online dating. And I found this app that was kind of a sexting app, so it was totally anonymous. And so I made this profile that was like, coming out of Hibernation, like, help wake me up. I love it. I'm 50, but I don't seem it. Who can help?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And not surprisingly, there were a lot of volunteers. It's like I sounded the call.

Speaker A: Oh, the men can smell that from.

Speaker C: A mild ******* way. Yeah. And so I had an online relationship with a guy who was a dom, so he was very dominant, and he basically told me what to do. He was like, get these toys. Like, do this, do it this way. First it was just texting, and then it was on the phone. I got a totally anonymous phone number from one of those phone numbers.

Speaker A: Like a burner phone?

Speaker C: Like a burner phone number. Right. I never learned his name. I never met him. I don't know. Never met him. I don't know if he was who he said he was or any of it. I don't know what is true and what is not. But he definitely had some expertise. And I walked around Titillated, like, waiting for his texts, so excited. So like, oh, my God, what's he going to ask me to do now? It was so hot. That's amazing. He'd be like, Go in the bathroom at the restaurant that you're in right now.

Speaker A: Oh, my god.

Speaker C: Wow. And I was like, okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, because that's so sexy with someone telling you what to do. You haven't really sorry, if you don't mind me getting personal in here, it's like, were you masturbating when you were kind of in this ten year place of not having sex?

Speaker C: Not very often. And I couldn't get myself all the way to a full orgasm.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: I felt like I had lost a part of myself.

Speaker B: You shut down. In a sense, yeah. And did you think, like, the more time that went on, the more you just thought, I can't get there, and you sort of brush the idea under the cup? Don't confront it. Just don't think about it because it's too big. And then it just keeps getting bigger. I e another year. Another year. Another year.

Speaker C: Yes. And denial is powerful, right?

Speaker B: It is, yes. Very powerful.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I was busy. I was busy working and raising little kids, and that was all I was doing. Working and raising kids. Working and raising kids. Working.

Speaker A: And that is a thankless job.

Speaker B: It is. It's very easy to lose yourself in those years because you're just so busy all the time. And to actually because I think it's a particularly female thing, a woman thing, that we are so capable, somehow, of losing ourselves. We find it so hard to be a mother, a wife, a lover, a person.

Speaker C: Whereas men seem friend. Where were my friends?

Speaker B: Exactly?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Men seem to be very capable. They can wear all the hats. They're fine. But we seem yeah, but some men.

Speaker C: Maybe they don't expect the same complexity of themselves.

Speaker B: Maybe. True. That could be it.

Speaker C: You're right.

Speaker B: They're not so hard on themselves in terms of very how they're doing in all the areas of their life.

Speaker C: Yeah. But I felt very fulfilled by the parenting and by the career, especially because I was just crushing it and getting a lot of pats on the back for grinding as hard as I did at work and for being the hero who would work on the weekends and who would do all the things you needed to do to get it done. And I worked on a team. We were all like that. We were all overachievers and masochists in some way.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And maybe that's why you're so happy with just getting dominated a little bit.

Speaker C: I mean, ****. Yeah. What woman doesn't like being dominated? I'm sorry.

Speaker A: I know. I feel that so much.

Speaker C: Maybe there are people who are not like me, but of course there are, but yeah. So he sort of opened the door for me, and then I was like.

Speaker A: All that your first sexual kind of relationship?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Kind of. With yourself also, which is kind of cool.

Speaker C: And all of them were. All of them were until they weren't. Right. Okay. As a 50 year old woman who's been in hiding in a marriage for once, we got divorced, which was very recently. We were together for 17 years, married for 17 years. So I didn't know who I was as a woman, as a sexual person, as a viable person to date, to sleep with. I didn't know if I was sexy. I didn't know if I was attractive. I didn't know if my body was still appealing. I didn't even know it was appealing before I got married. So I really was like, I wonder what this is like now. And I just threw myself at it. I started flirting with one guy on Tinder, and he was really interesting and smart and kind of a punk. Like, I like a smart ***.

Speaker A: Was he younger than you?

Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, no. You know what? My current boyfriend, my actual boyfriend, is ten years younger than me. Yes.

Speaker A: Love that.

Speaker C: Which is real good for me. This guy was older, but he seemed like a teenager. Like, he had the vibe of a teenager, and he was just real smart, real punky and sarcastic, real horny. And so after flirting for a while, I was like, you know what? This is going to be the guy. This is going to be the guy. That guy just was like, okay, we're just going to try this. Let's see what happens. Because he felt safe enough. I didn't feel like he was going to harm me in any way. Now, he turned out to be a bit of a ****, but that didn't really matter. And one thing that going out and meeting all these guys and sleeping with a bunch of guys and sleeping with multiple people at the same time and having I call it my rum. Springer which is like, what the Amish kids do when they leave the farm after that's, right. They go out into the world and see if they want to come back and be part of the community. For me, I was just, like, out insane adventures, and it was so fun. And the best part of it was nobody knew where I was. Like, when you're a person whose whole life is about being accountable and responsible, and I had a husband who needed to know where I was all the time because he needed to stay close to me. And I was always pulling, pulling, like, I need independence, I need freedom, whatever. You can call that love, you can call that codependence, you can call that obsession. You can call it whatever you want to call it need. So I just had a relationship where I was always known my whereabouts were known. So the most liberating thing was, like, being in the car, going to some bar or to meet someone or whatever and being like, I'm the only person that knows where I am right now.

Speaker B: Yeah. Kind of losing yourself, hot.

Speaker C: Yeah. And also finding myself. Right. I'm making these choices.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: This is me driving my own life. And I think one thing that I learned through this whole process was, like, because I didn't care about any of these people, I came to be friends with a number of the men, but because I didn't care about them or really what they thought of me. I was able to have boundaries and state my needs and be direct and honest and say, like, okay, so I have a couple of lovers. If you're cool with that, that's great. That's just what I'm doing right now. Yes. And if you're not cool with that, that's fine. We don't have to see each other. Or if we would hook up and get together, but I would not hear from them for a week. I'd be like, Yo, what is going on?

Speaker A: There's no games.

Speaker C: I'm not mad at you. I'm just like, what's your deal? Because in a normal scenario, when you respect someone and you've had a good time like we did, you would follow up. Right. And I would say, that's kind of what I expect. You can't do that.

Speaker A: A ******* boss. Ask mom.

Speaker B: Woman yeah.

Speaker C: If you can't do that, I don't need it. There's plenty of fish in the sea. Which is not something I ever believed to be true when I was young. Really? No, because you know what? When you're young, at least when I was young, I was looking for the whole kitten caboodle in one person. Right. I was looking for a husband, and I was looking for someone who I would get along with their family, and we could raise children together, and we would both stay employed, and we would have increasing financial success, and we would go the person I was with had to want all the whole big life thing. And in this phase, it was like it didn't matter to me if it was a guy who'd never been married and he was a bachelor and that was just his deal and none of that mattered.

Speaker A: Yeah. Do you still kind of believe that there is maybe that one person, maybe later down the line? Or are you, oh, no, I'm in love. ******* a bunch of guys.

Speaker C: I'm in love today.

Speaker A: You are in love. That's very nice.

Speaker B: With your husband, do you think it was boyfriend? No, I'm talking about her marriage previous. Do you think it just wasn't the right person? Because my question to you would be, like, from women to women, this eternal thing, can women have it all? Do you think they can have it all? And then you're talking about you wanted all this stuff and you wanted it in one person. Do you think it was him, your mindset, all of the above? You had too many expectations. I mean, what was the kind of issue? Because surely, if you hadn't been intimate for ten years, what was he thinking?

Speaker C: What a couple.

Speaker A: Therapy, I guess.

Speaker C: How do you explain a marriage? Yeah, I think we both came into the marriage with a lot of stuff, a lot of baggage. I really recognized his baggage because it looked a lot like my dad. Have you heard this story before? Have you lived this story before? I think a lot of women that's the imprint. Right? And there were all kinds of things that I don't really want to say because this is about me and not about him, but he had some issues, and there are things that he wanted me to solve for him that wasn't my job to solve. And also I was incapable of solving. No one can solve it. So instead of continuing to feel responsible for his well being, I had to say, you know what? You've got to own all this, and this has got to be yours. Now. I tried, and I care about him, and he's a father of my children. He lives five minutes away. He takes the kids to school every day.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: I see him all the time. I don't like it. I don't want to, but that is what it is. And we're newly divorced, and I hope things will get feel. I hope I will find more grace in my heart at some point. But right now, I'm still mad. And a lot of stuff happens in 17 years.

Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of stuff.

Speaker B: I've been married 22 years, so I totally understand where you're coming from. Was it him? Was it you? Because it sounds like you really decided to take control of your pleasure, of your life, of absolutely everything. You sort of came to the end of the road and decided to do that. And do you think that is different from a male and a female perspective?

Speaker C: It was certainly mutual. The end of it was mutual. We both realized we had tried real hard and brought as much of ourselves as humanly possible to the relationship. And I will say I tried for years and years. Once I knew that it was on the bubble, as we say in TV. I tried for years and years to make it work because I didn't want my kids to suffer. But they were suffering because we were arguing, we were fighting, and we were really miserable, and that was hard on them. Do I think it's different from a male and a female perspective? I think I can only speak for the one person I was ever married to. I got shot out of a cannon when we got divorced, or actually, when we got separated. When he moved out, I was like, okay, what do I get to do now? Who do I want to be in the world? Yeah. I wanted a new adventure. I wanted a whole new life. Amazing.

Speaker A: And now you're in love.

Speaker B: That's incredible. So you said this started during COVID when you had COVID. Sort of, I guess we're talking a couple of years. You've been in this new chapter three years. What are we posting?

Speaker C: Yeah. So two years two years. So I got sick. It was in the hospital a couple of weeks before my 50th birthday. I just turned 52 at the end of August. And he moved out. Yeah. So I got sick in the fall. We went to couples therapy in March of 2022, he moved out. I had my whole rum springer the whole year. And then I started sleeping with this guy around Thanksgiving of last year, and it was like the hottest it is. It remains the hottest thing I've ever experienced.

Speaker A: I love that.

Speaker C: It is so hot. I don't even know. I convinced myself it's not that hot. Like it can't possibly be. And then we get together and I'm like, oh my God. Yeah, he feels the same way. And so we ****** our way into falling in love. And we did not do it the normal way. Like, we just had insane chemistry from the first minute. And I've seen him three times a week since the day we met.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: And like five or six months ago, we started being like, oh, this is actually thing. We go places, we travel, we go to shows, we just laugh, we enjoy the **** out of each other. We're so different.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Which is part of the spark, is that he's not the normal, liberal, intelligentsia kind of dude that I would normally go for.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And yet he is like the most consistent, the most kind, the most awesome, and very male in a way that is really archetypical almost.

Speaker A: Right. But let's call him an alpha, even though I hate that word.

Speaker C: But yeah, he's an alpha.

Speaker A: He was in the Marine, but he also lets you be free and be yourself.

Speaker C: He likes it. I'm so extra. And yeah, I'm into it. I'm like, okay. On hinge.

Speaker A: On hinge.

Speaker C: On hinge.

Speaker A: So many people are meeting their guys on hinge.

Speaker B: You need to do an ad for hinge.

Speaker C: You're like the poster know? I know. Although I wouldn't I mean, other people probably go about it a different way than I did.

Speaker B: No, but do you think you had to do your was it called a rum springer? Did you have to do that to find him, do you think?

Speaker C: Or could if you'd met I wasn't looking for him.

Speaker B: Right. But if you'd met him and you hadn't had the other experiences, do you think it would be different sure.

Speaker C: If he was the first and not the number. Whatever. I love that. Sure. Yeah. I wouldn't because I came to know myself so well.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And I was at the height of my seductive slutty powers when I met him. I just did not give a ****. I was like I was just fearless and direct and real clear about what was going on there. And I didn't want a boyfriend.

Speaker A: I love the slutty powers. That's exactly what it is.

Speaker C: Yeah. I like to say that I was like a taxicab with a. Light on. I was just walking around and every man who had any kind of sexual radar would be like, hello at the mall. Like old dudes, like, whatever. Because I was just walking around, lit up, because I got lit up because I got turned on and I wanted to be turned on in my whole life.

Speaker B: So do you think were you like this when you were younger? Like sort of more connected to yourself when you're younger and then you sort of lost yourself in marriage? Are you saying you've actually now found your connection to yourself? Do you think you were and then you weren't, and then you are again, if you get my drift.

Speaker C: Yes, I do. And it's a really good question. I was always sexual. I was always interested in sex, but I was scared of the marriage, of sex and intimacy. So, like, I could sleep with people, but I wasn't great at having boyfriends, right? You know what I mean? And I think I was like, okay, I can do this, but I don't want to have to seek your approval. And I don't know how to do relationships. And I was so afraid of what people thought of me and whether I was acceptable or not. So I was like, well, I guess I'm acceptable as someone to sleep with, but I'm not going to test it out to see if I'm like a girlfriend. And I had boyfriends and stuff, but I was not a boyfriend girl, right? I was a girl who did whatever I wanted and was very independent. And then I decided I wanted to have kids and I had to turn into a person who was willing to be vulnerable enough to have a relationship. And so I worked on that for a while before I met my ex. My point is that it wasn't integrated. Right? Now that I'm so much older, I know myself, I've lived so much. Yes, I went about the Rum Springer as like a purely sexual adventure, but I couldn't help turning it into a self improvement exercise and a way to improve my communication and how I handle relationships and how I work. On my own boundaries and stick up for myself and feel self expressed and all the things that I want for other women and the things that we talk about on my podcast all the time. There's a sort of sense of agency and breaking the rules and looking at the unconscious rules you've been telling yourself and deciding consciously what you want as opposed to letting this sort of playbook that we all come up with to survive in the world. To succeed in the world, but it may not be what we actually want, may not yield what we actually want. Yeah, I think.

Speaker A: What is the biggest rule that you feel like you broke that kind of changed your life?

Speaker C: Oh, stop lying.

Speaker B: Stop lying to yourself.

Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah. Stop pretending like everything was okay. I stopped pretending like the kinds of interactions I was having with my ex were okay. I stopped pretending the way that I was working was okay. I would tell myself, well this is just what you have to do. No it's not. No it's not actually. There are plenty of very successful people who have a lot more balance than I did who actually take care of themselves, who don't wear themselves to the bone. There are a lot more people who are better at asking for what they want instead of just accepting what's offered to them. I think I had to really stop lying. I also thought I wanted a super conventional life and I think I only thought that because having kids pushes you down that lane and you have to fight really hard to be someone who is not conventional. When you have kids you have to really be either incapable of conforming or really unwilling to conform.

Speaker B: I think you have to not worry about what everyone thinks about you and that's a huge thing. I mean I have an 18 year old and a 15 year old and you have to really be very sure that the way you're doing it, you're doing it your way and just block everyone else out. But I do also think you talked about age and we're of a similar age and I talked to Susie about this a lot that you kind of have to live quite a long time to kind of realize all the things that were wrong that you don't want, that you want to be now. And it's almost like you've got to have done it to get to the point where you are to go I don't want to do that anymore, and to change it as opposed to starting when you're in your twenty s and go, no, let's not do this, that and the other because you don't know.

Speaker A: Until you I want to be open. I want to be open to all opportunities and understanding of where I want to be in my life. I have no idea what I do and like and don't like unless it's.

Speaker B: To do with my *****. Well yeah, she knows about that.

Speaker C: Good. I mean that's really important first step. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like I was on a path to be a different kind of person. And then I decided I needed to make a good living, and I needed to set myself up to have kids. And that really changed the way that I made decisions so I could not be like a bohemian artist, world traveler, working just to make enough money to travel and do whatever, seeking adventures and all of that stuff that I did when I was young. I will say that I'm so much less uptight than I was when I was young. I'm so much freer. I just don't really care what you think. Of course I want to be approvable in some way, but I don't have to be approvable to everyone. I think the people who get you will get you, and the people who don't, won't. And the people who come along for the ride of your evolution are the right people and the people you leave behind. That was for that time in your life. So I think that I've heard many women our age say, I just didn't have any ***** left to give. And I feel that way. I feel that way even though I still would like to be able to have some kind of safety net if I ever want to go back to corporate life. But I'm blowing it up as we speak. Like, the more honest and self expressed I am, the more I'm making decisions about my future. Right. And who knows how people will judge me? There is the possibility that they might. But for me, being honest and thoughtful and open about my journey, I feel like, is a service to other women. And having the conversations that I have on the podcast about all kinds of things from menopause to sexuality to oh, my God, I mean, anything and everything that we've covered. I'm about to interview a woman who's a doctor on skid row in La. How do you do that? What's that like, being a woman in your 50s, doing that work? Like people who have made radical pivots, from being like lawyers to filmmakers. I'm so interested in how people choose to live their lives as authentically as possible or strive for that authenticity.

Speaker A: I do notice that. Do you only or you mostly interview women?

Speaker C: I'm only interviewing women right now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which I love. I think that's a very cool way to do it and understand how all women of walks of life are living their lives and how we're ******* breaking the rules, as you say.

Speaker B: Yeah. One of the parts about our podcast is I'm Gen X and Susie's a millennial, and that we want to have this discussion as women, but obviously the perspective is different. And I think particularly if you're 50 now, you're a Gen Xer. We are in this sort of vortex of full on Gen X mothers. It was very different and we sort of changed that and where that's going? So we're asking all these questions at our age, 50 year olds that our mothers and grandmothers, nobody ever talked about any of that. What do you mean you're not happy? Just get on with it. What do you mean? Who cares?

Speaker C: Well, and you're British. You've got it double.

Speaker B: Well, yes, I've got it. Yeah, the British thing doesn't help.

Speaker C: My dad's British, so I totally get it.

Speaker B: Oh, right, yes. We're all a bunch of repressed weirdos, I'm afraid, but yeah. So it's fascinating that you're talking to women, because I think we have to have so many more conversations with ourselves 50 year olds with younger women, with older women, so that hopefully this gets a little bit more a. Little bit easier or just at least we communicate more about what's going on and not sort of stuff it down into a box all the time.

Speaker C: Yes. And I think so many of us are so accomplished. So many women in Gen X really took the having it all real seriously, and they ran full speed ahead at their careers and their ambitions, and then they layered marriage and children onto that. And I feel like we carry the world. We carry the world, and maybe we don't all want that job. Absolutely, yeah. I'm still raising my kids. They're still my top priority. But that doesn't mean I can't start my own thing or have love affairs or fall in love with a younger guy. Whatever it is, I try to protect them from the less appropriate side of my evolution. But I'm not entirely successful at that because we're real close and we all live in the same house. But like, my daughter's, like, I don't listen to your podcast, mom, because she listened to the trailer and she was like and that's all I need to know. Thank you very much. Spicy. Yeah, her nickname for me is Spicy. That is you.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. Well, my two daughters, they don't want to listen to it either, so I totally get that.

Speaker C: Right? It's like, oh, Mom, I'm about to hit that twelve. They're still interested, but coming up on 13 1415, I know they're going to be like, mom, enough.

Speaker A: I'd love to know. What do you kind of tell women my age? If you talk to millennials or Gen Z's even, or even your daughters, what is the thing to make us feel hotter than ever at this point in our lives? How do we get to the point of that kind of freedom? Because I know women who were my age who are already trapping themselves in this kind of life where you just know they're not going to be happy in 510, 20 years. So what is the point? How do we get to not get there? Like, how do we get to freedom?

Speaker C: It's a great question. I only have my own answers. I don't want to be a life coach or a guru or anything. I'm in an inquiry that I'm just making public, right? And I'm willing to share myself so that other people will grow from it as I grow and change. But what do you want? What do you ******* want? That is the question that women have the hardest time answering. Getting in touch with your own wants, not filtered through what my parents want for me or what society says I should want, or any of that. What do I want? What lights me up? Where do I feel good in the world? Who do I like being around? What is the work that feels meaningful to me? Who are the people that make me feel like the best version of myself. How can I get more of that? That's, to me, the simple and impossible answer, right? To get in touch with what it is that you want is a very hard thing for women. Because we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, right? Like, if we go out and we're real clear and super ambitious and direct, what a *****. Who does she think she is, right? God, she's a lot she's full of herself. The culture has a lot of great, very powerful tools to keep us exactly where we're quote, unquote, supposed to be, right? But cultivating a bit of a **** it attitude. I never had that. When I was young, I cared so much what you thought of me. I cared so much whether I could be approved of by men, by bosses, by society in general, whatever, right? By the social rules I grew up with, by my family, by everybody. I care so much less about that now, and I feel so much better. And so the more like, I started out as an actor, and I would go into auditions and I would be.

Speaker A: Like, I'm so scared they're going to get it right.

Speaker C: What are they going to think of my body and how? And then I have friends who ended up very successful as actors who would go in, do a thing, charm the **** out of everyone, be prepared, do their thing, and walk out. **** it. Maybe that happened, maybe that didn't. I could never get to that place in any area of my life. But that is what it takes to be a successful actor. Maybe that is what it takes to be living comfortably in your own skin in the world.

Speaker B: That's the thing that everyone finds attractive, though. If you're confident and you're like, **** it, I'm doing me, then that's what draws people to you. Or in your case, you were talking men are drawn in by that because it's like, so appealing. And a lot of younger women, they don't have that because it's impossible, because there's so many things they're fighting against and pressures. Like, I have to live like this because I'm supposed to be a girl boss and I'm a feminist, but I don't want to do that. And everything's pulling in different directions well.

Speaker C: And how do you get in touch with your center, right? Like, I didn't find any spirituality until my forty s. I didn't meditate ever until my forty s. I think finding a way to be quiet, even just journaling, honestly, it sounds so simple and like Dear Diary. But there's a way to get in touch with what you're honestly thinking, and that's to write. And you may be lying to yourself on the page some of the time, but probably not if you do it all the time. These things are so simple but also so hard, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, they are hard.

Speaker A: I mean, the biggest thing that I love what you've done, obviously, is, like, you've just really owned your sexuality at an age where I think a lot of women are forgotten. Because I think a lot of women like Gen X. Now, women in their 50s coming up, they feel invisible. And I think what is amazing is that I think a lot of the time, we always think that people make us feel invisible, but we're actually making ourselves feel invisible. And I think that what you've done is done that oppositely, where you have been like, I'm ******* horny. I want to ****. I want this man. I want to do whatever. And you're doing it. And that's so inspiring, I think, for a lot of women, young and women who are coming up in their age and feeling hot, still hotter than ever, here we are.

Speaker C: Honestly, here's what I'll say. Men of every age were interested in me, and I'm like, 2030 pounds overweight. I don't have the gym body. I don't have the whatever. I take good care of myself. I put myself together well. But I'm not like a supermodel by any stretch. I think of myself as a very normal woman.

Speaker A: Erin, you're a milk. I'm sorry to say it.

Speaker C: I know that's what my boyfriend says. That's what he no, seriously. He was looking for a hot mom because he does not want kids. And every woman his age who wanted to date him, he is total marriage material. He is total dad material. And he was like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. And so every woman was like, how do I get a ring on my finger? And he's like, ******* lay off, guys. He's like, I want a hot mom that will be resolved. And I'm like, okay. But now we have to deal with like, how do we do this? Because you don't want kids and I have them, so we'll have to figure that out as we go. They're aware of him, but I'm not introducing them yet. Meet them at some point. But he's for me. He's not for them. He's for me.

Speaker B: Yes. Right?

Speaker C: He's for my life and my fun and my joy and my pleasure and my adventures. And it's okay if a mom has that in her life. Of course it does not. Can be more than live, right? You don't have to live in a certain way just because you're a mom. I'm not harming them. I'm an amazing mom. I'm in. I'm grumpy sometimes, but I'm real present. And it's another one of those unconscious rules, right? Oh, I'm a mom, so I can't oh, I'm over 50, so I'm not hot by default. It's like, actually, there were 28 year olds. There were 23 year olds. I didn't sleep with them. That was not my thing. I was like, if I could have given birth to you, I'm not having sex with you. But I know other women my age who only date guys in their twenty s. Of course. Yeah, right, because they're hot, but they're ******* idiots. Come on. I mean, I dated a couple of guys in their thirty s and I was like, oh, you are as self centered and terrible as the guys in their 30s when I was in my 30s. Because they haven't lived, they've not been beat up by life, they haven't failed at anything yet. They haven't been humbled. Right. Good way of putting the fact that yeah. And I put out there like, I'm looking for someone with some grit. That's what attracts me as someone who's lived. Let's not be on a bullshit basis. It can be hot and sexy and that could be what it's about. But also, are you interesting? Are you going to sustain my attention? Because my attention is not just between my legs.

Speaker A: No, you were in an experimenting phase, let's call it. Maybe it's not a phase. Maybe it's just no for sure way of life. Yeah, but did you experiment maybe with women as well? Or were you kind of like, I know, I in college. College.

Speaker C: In college. Yeah. That's the typical story. Right? What do we call them at college? We called them lugs. Lugs lesbians until graduation.

Speaker B: No, I've never heard that. That's so funny.

Speaker C: I had a girlfriend in college.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I have so many friends who were lugs. But now I know what that term is. That's fantastic.

Speaker C: Yeah. I haven't used it since then. Yeah, I didn't like eating *****. I didn't. No, I did a couple of times and I was like, this isn't yeah, it's not for me. I'm really hot for guys. I date guys.

Speaker A: We love a good ****.

Speaker C: Yeah. And also strength and hunger from a man. Feels so amazing, right? To feel wanted. To feel like they can't get enough of you. They can't take their hands off you. They can't everything you do, they're like devouring you with their eyes. Like, oh my God, is that the hottest thing ever? That's what turns me on, is just feeling like we've got this current going between us and all we have to do is sort of turn up the flame. Right? That's a mixed metaphor. We've got a pilot light going and it's lit all the time. And then all you got to do is put on a little gas. That's a cleaner.

Speaker A: Oh, I love this so much. I wish, Erin, I could speak to you about this for hours and hours and hours and hours. I know we've already gone almost an know. I know it doesn't feel long enough. And we're going to come visit you in La. Okay, babe?

Speaker C: Please do. I would love to hang out.

Speaker A: We would have so much we would have too much fun.

Speaker B: Maybe we would. And a few too many cocktails. Who knows what else we're going to talk about.

Speaker C: No, I don't really drink these days.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker C: We'll drink them because weed is legal here. Weed is legal here.

Speaker B: Oh, and here, it's very legal here.

Speaker C: Let me tell you, my favorite thing is drinks with THC in them. So I could have my THC drink while you have your glass of wine or whatever your poison perfect for me. I have done shrooms a bunch of times recently. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's so perspective shifting. As long as you're in a safe place with people you trust, it's mind opening. Those are the experiences I want. Those are the experiences I want for other people to open their minds, to question all the things they've assumed were true about their lives, all the rules that they've been following. Like, maybe those aren't your rules. Maybe those are rules for somebody else. Maybe you can do it differently and feel better as a result.

Speaker B: Sounds like very good advice.

Speaker A: Extremely good advice.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: My darlings Erin, we could talk forever. This has been an absolute blast. This is so fun for us, and you're so successful and so funny. And we really recommend all of our listeners to obviously listen to you. Hotter than ever.

Speaker C: Get on it.

Speaker A: She's got really good guests on. It's really great. And talking to hot women doing their.

Speaker C: Thank you so much for the plug and for having me on.

Speaker B: I love it. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Yes. I want you to just give your little last maybe pitch of where people can find you. Give them your ads, your emails, whatever you want them to know.

Speaker C: Amazing. Look for Hotter Than Ever on wherever you listen to podcasts. Find me on Instagram at hotter than ever Pod. We're also going to be putting all the episodes up in audio only format on YouTube at Hotter Than Everpod on YouTube so people can listen to them there. Or Aaron d Keating on Instagram.

Speaker B: Fabulous. Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: And we'll definitely be speaking again.

Speaker C: I'll give you the six month update. I could give you the six month update once we're like, absolutely.

Speaker B: We need it. We want it.

Speaker C: That's it.

Speaker A: I wanted to know everything. That every sex party you've gone to with your new boyfriend or your new boy toy and you're in love oh, no, he's found by a sexual hottie.

Speaker B: She wants to know everything. She always wants to know everything.

Speaker C: Yeah, you can call me.

Speaker A: I'm already on it, babe.

Speaker B: Okay. So great to meet you. Thank you so much for your time.

Speaker C: Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Fantastic. We'll speak soon.

Speaker C: Okay, bye, darling.

Speaker A: Sharing my truth. Pod is so excited to partner with Vibrator.com, where the A in Vibrator is the number eight. This is an extremely exclusive code where no other podcast has it. If you go to Vibrator.com right now, use the code Ms 15. That's ms 15. At Vibrator.com, you can now get 15% off anything in store that's any sex toys for you, your partner, your neighbor, your mom. We don't judge, we don't care.

Speaker B: Get it?

Speaker A: Now go to the link in our bio, put in the code and get jiggy with it.

Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at sharingmytruthpod and leave us a voicemail on our sharingmytruth.com to share your stories and experiences with us. We'll see you next time.

Speaker A: Bye bye.

Speaker C: Don't get three, two, one. Yeah.