Transcript
WEBVTT
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A person that I can look across the room and we don't have to say nothing and bust out laughing.
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You know, to be able to look at one of your friends and be able to say, okay, I know, that person has me.
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Yes, I don't have to worry about that person saying anything about me or allowing anybody else to hurt me in any type of way.
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I always felt safe with him.
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Why don't you guys keep it alive, bring it back to life, whatever you know?
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How can you not support we?
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have to bring it back alive, because you do get so comfortable that now we're just living, now we're just existing, and if sex is the basis of your relationship, you're in trouble.
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Yeah.
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This is Lagra, this is Stephanie, this is Cherie and this is Ivanya.
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And this is Timeless and Unfiltered.
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Where?
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we are spilling the tea on midlife.
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One laugh at a time.
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Hello everybody.
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Welcome back to thomas in the filter.
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We are spilling the tea on midlife one laugh at a time I am legra, I'm full, I'm charise and I'm ivania.
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Stephanie, just ate.
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Well, we all just ate, oh god, but it was good.
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Yes, it was good.
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We probably didn't need to eat before we filmed right first of all, we already need naps right without eating, and now we really needed that, but we gonna get through this with our energy.
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You probably noticed we have a fifth host on the couch today.
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We thought we'd come and talk to our wonderful, dear friend, ms Cheryl Biggs.
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Hello, hello.
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Hello hello.
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Well, cheryl has been married for 39 years.
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39 years.
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Black love, black love, black love Okay black love and, being that I've been married before Sharice has been married, the two ladies have not actually been married yet.
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I've been married before Sharice has been married.
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the two ladies have not actually been married, yet I've been engaged.
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Somebody loved me enough to give me a ring for two different people.
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I got one little ring back in high school.
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Does that count?
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No, well, the point of it is, we can't give a perspective of what it's like to be married with someone for 39 years.
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So we thought we'd bring one of our dear friends on board to tell us what's the secret, because we're trying to get the ring hilarious.
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Hello, and keep the ring.
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Well, some of us are let me rephrase that we're trying to help them get one.
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I don't necessarily need one at this point, if it happens this is why I'm confused god willing, right, it happens.
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This is why I'm confused with you.
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I'm saying if it happens, god willing, because you was just a hopeless romantic Right.
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Do you want to get married or not?
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Tell her.
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Tell her, for me, she can still be a hopeless romantic without being married Right but if it happens, an opportunity presents, and it's right, then she's there.
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She's not denying it.
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She's just like mmm, it's just not the center and the focus of my life at the age of 55.
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Would I love for it to happen.
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I would love, I love, love.
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Yeah, I love to be in love.
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Yeah, but I love to receive love.
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Yeah, I love to somehow become my mother.
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I love to cater to my man.
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I laugh because when Sharice has seen me with someone before, she was like, oh my gosh, she took a picture and a video.
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Oh, sure did, which is so funny, like what, and people were like and she was getting and I was like I didn't expect you to be so professional all the time.
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And now, here you are, giggling like a little.
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I'm a girl.
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I'm a girl, I love it.
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You're a girl, I love it.
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I'm a girl, I love it.
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But no, I love love, it's just not the center and my focus.
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You know I am deaf.
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I'm wide open to receive it, but I'm not chasing after it.
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I'm not chasing.
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I'm going to attract my deaf buddy, if you're out there.
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Well, I don't like going through the weeds.
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You had to go through the weeds to get to the flowers I had to At 55,.
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I have been through enough weeds.
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You want to take the short bus?
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in a relationship.
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I'm going to get on the short bus.
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Take the short cut.
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You might get a short bus.
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And whatever it takes or requires.
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So, yes, I am a hopeless romantic and it still would be wonderful to find that person, even though, look, I don't have 39 years, but if God blessed me with another 30, it would be great to spend that 30 with someone, and someone to travel with and all of those good things.
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So since I can't give you that perspective, and none of us could, we had to go get an expert with 39 years, how you doing girl Because how in the world do you do it?
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for 39 years that is more than half of your adult life you have been with the same man.
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Come on, girl, give us some tips, because we're trying to figure it out.
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There is no secret.
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It's like one day just turns into another day and you look up and I don't know that we pay attention to it until somebody says it.
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You know, I know for a fact.
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My son's like please tell me how y'all do this.
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And he even calls his father, like how are you with mom?
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But it's long, I don't understand.
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I don't understand, I can't, I don't think I can do it, but you're going on year seven son but yes, yeah and there's no secret, there's no, I can't sit here and lie and say oh, we compromise, oh, you know we, no, it's just one day.
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But you have to like each other.
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We do like each other.
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We were friends first.
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That's the foundation.
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Take us back.
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How did you meet.
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Okay, how did you meet?
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How did you meet, oh God.
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Well.
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Now is this going to be his version of the story.
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No, it's going to be Cheryl's version.
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Anthony, I was coming home from basketball practice.
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His uncle is a year younger than me.
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There was a train strike in New York and Anthony went to Teterboro School of Aeronautics, so he had to catch the train and the bus from New York to Jersey to get to school back and forth.
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Well because of the strike.
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He didn't do it, but his uncle, grandfather, lived, good Lord, okay, two houses down.
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Okay, it's his uncle.
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So it's his grandfather.
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Okay, lives two houses down from me.
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But me and his uncle went to school together, okay, so I was coming home for basketball practice, looking a hot mess, but them short shorts and the long legs?
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No, anthony can tell you exactly what I had on.
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Oh, wow.
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I cannot.
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I remember I think it was a blue and tan Puma sweatsuit.
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If I remember his story correctly, he could tell you the sneakers I had on.
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Oh my goodness, Hair swept out, hair swept.
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I looked a hot mess because I was mad because my mother sent me to the store.
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What?
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I looked a hot mess because I was mad because my mother sent me to the store and I had to walk because that's up north.
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We didn't right right, so I was walking by.
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He said hi.
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I said hi.
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Curtis introduced me and said hey, what's up?
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And I kept going.
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He asked his uncle who was I and he told me he's a man, you don't want to bother with her.
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She's dating a three-letter man.
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You know she already.
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That was when we had letter jackets right he had a three's a man.
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You don't want to bother with her.
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She's dating a three-letter man.
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You know she already that was when we had letter jackets.
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Right, he had a three-letter man.
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Okay, he's playing three different sports, okay so he was like you don't want to bother with her.
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She got three, you know brothers blah, blah blah.
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And he was like, okay, his version of the story is that when he saw me he said, hmm, I could do something with that, okay so apparently he did we were friends.
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I tried to to hook him up with my friends.
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Oh, because I thought he was a nice guy, because I was already taken.
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So I never looked at him like that until he made me look at him like that, and how did he make you look at him like?
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That.
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Just being present.
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He was just present, he was just right.
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Like I'm from up north I can say safely out A hood rat, but I can dress it up, and so for me it wasn't about like now.
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Everybody kind of wants microwave love.
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They want you to have the house, the car, the dog, the fence, and for us we knew that we had to hustle for it.
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So while he was going to school I was helping him study because I had never met a black person saying they were going to be aircraft mechanic.
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You going to fix what?
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Airplanes Airplanes.
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We don't do that so he's he's known for a long time.
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That's what he wanted to do, no he wanted to throw bags for eastern airlines, because that's what his uncle did and he wanted to travel, so he wanted to travel benefits and whoever?
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His counselor was said why don't you just go to school to be a mechanic, not just throw the bags?
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and he was like whatever's going get me to fly free.
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That's what I want to do.
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So we used to sit down together and study and if I went places, we his uncle.
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We all had the same friends because we went to campus schools was maybe about 25 black folks in this, so we all had the same friends.
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We all ran in the same circle.
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Y'all went to private school, yeah.
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Oh rich?
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I don't know why my mother did that so what happened to the letterman guy.
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Where the three letter man at.
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So you were doing all this studying while you had a three letter man, Kind of sort of.
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What happened is I also played volleyball besides basketball, and we always had what was a 24-hour volley time.
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So Anthony came as my friend and would have like food ready for me juice.
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He was working hard.
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He was working you.
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He was working you.
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Yeah, setting me up, and so it was winter, we wound up having a storm that night, a snowstorm, and so we didn't know it until it was time to go, and so maybe Anthony was with me for 23 and a half hours, and the last half an hour my boyfriend showed up because he was away at college.
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So he showed up at the Bali time and he stayed for the last 30 minutes and it was time to go home and so I would have had to walk, and so it's 25 blocks from my school home.
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I'm used to that because we walk in every day, yeah, up north.
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So Anthony said, no, I'll drive y'all home.
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So y'all.
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So, the one who's been working you all this time drove you and your boyfriend no, okay, so he drove y'all home and his uncle drove us home, dropped my boyfriend off first, then dropped me off and then he went home and his uncle said you stupid, she just played you, you need, didn't drop me off at anywhere home.
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And he said his uncle said you stupid, she just played you, you need to drop her, you just played it.
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So a couple weeks went by, I hadn't seen him, didn't talk to him, nothing in my brain.
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It didn't faze me, because we in a relationship, we friends so my boyfriend, anthony, decides to come by the house to talk.
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My boyfriend shows up again the same time.
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It's like a movie and this time Anthony says you have to make a decision.
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He said it in front of your boyfriend, like my boyfriend was standing there.
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Anthony was standing there, and I'm right here.
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And Anthony said you have to make a decision.
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And that's when I looked at him and I was like oh, wow, oh, oh, okay.
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And so I looked at my boyfriend.
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I said hey, anthony, you know, came back for a visit, so I'm gonna have to get with you a little later so he was saying a decision on who was staying at the house or who you gonna date, who?
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who I was staying with at the house moment, but the moment I thought it was like, I was like yes, that was his thing was like I'm not leaving.
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He said, if you tell me to leave, I'm gone.
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Oh god, it's always like uh, okay, oh, gosh, love, I'll talk to you later.
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I'm gonna call you.
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I'm gonna call you later.
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Okay, okay, oh jeez.
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And your boyfriend was okay with that.
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No, he wasn't.
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No, he wasn't, he couldn't have been.
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I was just like your boyfriend was okay with that he left.
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He did leave.
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He did leave.
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There was a whole lot going on after that, after he left.
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Oh God, he wasn't my.
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You're not my boyfriend, no more.
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I guess not.
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May he rest in peace.
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But you know, and that's what made me look at him, because every girl I would set him up with, they would come back and be like he said nothing.
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What do you mean?
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He said nothing.
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Anthony talks a mile a minute to anybody.
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And they were like you ain't say nothing to us.
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And I was like what are you doing?
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I'm setting you up with like the nicest girls.
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What are you doing?
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I'm setting you up with like the nicest girls, what are you doing?
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And they was like no, he want you, and that's when my girlfriend was like he wants you and I was like no, he doesn't, I'm dating.
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Oh little love story.
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Yeah, he slow walked her down, he showed it.
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Look at that.
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It, built it did it.
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Yeah, that's that's how we met and 39 years later and I was, of course, we all we only get to see the end result.
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You know, the outside looking in, I'm sure, ups downs absolutely round and round and all of that, but y'all still together, we're still together that's why I said when y'all asked me to come here, I was like what day is it?
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am I going to say nice things today?
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I'm not going to say nice things.
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My mother was like behave yourself.
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And anthony just laughed.
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But no 39, I feel safe with him and that's what's important to me only.
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The only downside of that, I would say, is I felt like I gave all of myself to my family.
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And so now, here I am at 60 saying who is Cheryl?
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Yes, what does she want, what does she like?
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And it's a difficult situation because when we got married I a television, he had a VCR, so everything, hey, we watch the tv, everything we have other than his motorcycles have been in both of our names.
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Yeah, so it's like when I turned 50 I went and bought my own car, and that was the first time that I bought anything on my own.
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Oh wow, and he didn't like it.
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Oh gee, he did not like that.
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I did that.
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Did he already have his motorcycle?
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Yes, he wanted to be included.
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Right.
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Why did I feel?
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the need to go get something with just my own money.
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Like what you trying to say he was getting scared.
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He's like feel the need to go get something with just my name on it.
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Like what you trying to say he's gonna scare he's actually about to leave what's he?
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Doing I should have been the one because at the motorcycle club and I don't.
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I don't rock with that crowd.
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I definitely stand out.
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Um, so I'm the one that should show the concern, but to him, for me to step out and do something on my own was like wait a minute.
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Where did that, you know?
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where did that come from, especially after that?
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many years yeah.
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Yeah, and I and I I don't know why I felt the need to not tell anybody I was going to get it or anything like that.
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I think I did it just to see if I could, just to see if Cheryl could do it Not mommy, not wife, not your mother's caretaker, not you know, just Cheryl.
00:15:57.312 --> 00:16:05.336
And so it was funny because I had a handicap sticker in my car and I told my, my oldest daughter.
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I said I think I'm gonna go get the license plate that have said that's selfish.