When Janelle got divorced, she kept her married name. And she does not have kids. Andrea wanted to know why. Thus began the flow of conversation about why we change our name, why we don’t, the power of that little ring around our finger and the debunking of some very traditional assumptions about marriage. Includes a nod to ayahuasca, the Antwerp Diamond District and East of Eden. You’ll hear:
-Why Janelle considers her ex-husband lifelong and chosen family
-A surprising definition of divorce-How to marry yourself and what that even means
-Why Janelle calls her step-son her spirit-son
-How East of Eden inspired Andrea’s marriage mantra
TRANSCRIPT:
Janelle: Hi, Andrea. Welcome Bravehearts to permission to be human.
Andrea: it is cold here in Colorado, but Janelle is just in Miami and D. C.
Janelle: Yes. I am just returning from a three plus week away on the East coast. And I was Boston, New York, Miami, DC, all over. And for those of you who followed me on I was in Miami and I was trying to explore. I'm going to explain some of like the real time insights that I was experiencing while I was there.
This was in case you have forgotten when it was really friggin cold here in Colorado and I got to be in 70 degree sunshine The lesson I had talked about was realizing that I was staying at an Airbnb slash hotel that I just wasn't in my radiance in, Like I had a threshold of what I was looking for and evaluating and it met it. I got there, I was like, Oh, like this room's kind of dingy and not dingy. It was clean. It just wasn't, it just wasn't right. It was close to the ocean. There was things that were good about it, but ultimately I had booked it because here is my minimum threshold of what I was looking for. And then it was the cheapest option of like having met the basic criteria. And the lesson I learned after being in Miami was like, oh, money. Which is really often my first metric of evaluating something isn't. It's the most important metric right now for me that I'm experiencing or exploring.
I'm going to talk to you today about how I feel about investing in my radiance, which you've already heard about, but that it's, yeah, how is it that I feel? And I noticed this in Miami when I got up and I was hungry and I was going to go for breakfast and food in Miami was super expensive and I was like, Oh, I don't really want to spend 20 on breakfast.
Like, I just wish I could go get like a 6. 99. , but I was in, there was no whole foods in walking distance. There was no really anything that was cheap in walking distance. But I looked on Google and then I saw something that said breakfast burritos. And then the review said, worst breakfast burrito of all time, but it was the cheapest option.
And I was like, okay, you know, you know what? You just had this revelation about investing in your ratings. What do you want for breakfast? And I was like, Oh, what I actually want is the avocado toast from Pura Vida, Miami. And it's going to be 20 and I'm just going to go spend 20 on breakfast.
Andrea: Food. Food is something you have decided is part of your radiance and worth investing for. So you followed
Janelle: I did. And when I followed it, what ended up happening was like a magical moment where I got it to go. And then all the tables were booked, but there was one that was, there were outdoor tables. So one that a guy was sitting at by himself, I asked if I could sit down and while I waited for my food. He said yes.
And what resulted was in a hour and a half beautiful conversation. We were totally in sync on so many topics. It was so fascinating. He's a United, fight attendant. He's been doing it for 20 years. So we talked about all the benefits of that and where he'd been and, , and how he just like trusts and follows, spirit.
It was so beautiful. And I was like, Oh, I followed my radiance. I spent 20 for the breakfast that I wanted and the conversation that was so beautiful and so fun. That was the best thing I did the whole time I was in Miami. And so it was like, Oh, right. When we follow and invest in our radiance, then there's actually more magic there.
Andrea: Fun stranger encounter. favorite things ever.
Now this is reminding me that we don't go out to breakfast very often anymore. Probably because it's so fucking expensive, , and where that used to be one of the, favorite things to do, something we did, my husband and I did early when we were dating.
Just like so satisfying. I just love going out to eat in the morning. So I get this coupon the other day and I never use coupons anymore, but it came in the mail. One of those ValPak crap things, which I never even look at hardly, but I'm like, okay, I'll just flip through it and make sure there's nothing that I care about.
It's all this crap like sighting and roofing and blinds and shit. But then I see this coupon for Spanky's, which is like a, you know, local DU place. And I've been there before and the food's delicious. We love was buy one entree, get one free. I was like, okay, that's like a 50 percent discount on breakfast.
Okay, we're going to do that. My daughter never is up early enough for breakfast. She hates going out to breakfast. I don't know what's wrong with her, but she doesn't like it. And so I'm like, great. My husband and I are going to go on Saturday and we go and it is such a mediocre breakfast. It was nice to go out, but it was like.
No, it was crap. I can see why they're putting on coupons because nobody's going there because the breakfast sucks. so to me, that was just like, oh, I was trying to cut corners, like, I'm trying to like make it happen, And actually, I would have been happier staying home and having my coffee and my paleo waffle with peanut butter and raspberries.
Janelle: Got it. Right.
Andrea: It's just kind of trying to make it happen when it's like when it didn't make sense. And so the answer is every once in a while we go and spend a hundred bucks on brunch and we have a Bloody Mary and we get the whole thing, but we just don't do it that often. It's kind of conclusion. okay. Talked about radiance.
Now we're going to talk about changing our names when we get married. The most traditional topic ever.
Janelle: it's a topic and there's different ways to do it. Yeah. Do we change your name? Do you not change your name? All of us have probably had to debate it, whether you choose to change it or not, there's a thought process behind it.
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. so, what was your thought process when you first decided to get married?
Janelle: I have been a staunch feminist our whole life, independent. Um, didn't think, and you know, for anyone, this is your first episode here, who didn't know I got married for the first time at 45. so I was already full of fully formed adults and didn't think I was going to take my husband's name, but not long before we were going to get married, friends asked us like whether I was changing my name four of us were together and I said no.
And I don't remember what he said. I think I, in fact, I don't think he said anything, but I could tell he had a reaction. So on our way home from the dinner, I said to him, you know, if my changing of my name is important to you, I need you to tell me that. And a few days later he turned to me and said, it's important to me that you take my name.
Gulp.
Andrea: Okay, so let's think about your motivations. Did the intention to carry on your own family name play into you not wanting to change your name?
Janelle: I don't think so. I mean, not at certainly not at the time I got married maybe at one point, but by the time I was getting married, I was not having children and my brother has three. So the name is carrying on. I think it really just had to do with like, the feminist independent, just because I'm getting married doesn't mean I'm losing my identity. Idea. And what about you? Did you change your name?
Andrea: I did not change my name. I did give my maiden name to my daughter as her middle name. So I felt like Eventually, once I had her, I was carrying that on. But when I got married, I already had a business, I was a staunch feminist, I was super into Planned Parenthood. Like, I was just realizing my feminism at that point, too.
And it just didn't make sense. And he was really flexible about this. His mom actually had changed her name, but all six of his other married aunts had not. lots of feminists there. they're like, no way. and he did say jokingly once, he was like, that's okay, Andrea, when our daughter asks why you have a different last name, I'll just tell her that mommy's part of a different family. but , he was just kidding, and he was fine with that. He's like, I get it. and even now I have no regrets. It's a little hard to imagine actually having his last name. yeah, it doesn't sit well with me. I'm glad that I kept my name. I had had a child at this age, I probably would have hyphenated her name.
To keep Enright as part of her last name. It seems so complicated. So much spelling. but I was, I was less extreme back then, and, and that's fine. okay, so you did not want to change your name, He says it was important for you to change it.
So what did you do? So luckily we had our regularly scheduled therapy session. a couple of days later for the first three years of our relationship, we saw a therapist every two weeks. It was a tool on our toolbox. It helped us navigate communication challenges. It was just like a standing invite on the calendar.
Janelle: And when we got there, we're like, okay, we've got a topic today. And, I was the one who wanted to get married. In his mind, he had already made a commitment to me and marriage didn't change that commitment and was not necessary, but it was important to me and he thought about it for a long time and then in his own way, he came to the conclusion that it was important to me and so he asked me to marry him. So when we saw her that Sunday, the question the therapist asked me was, why was it important to me that we got married? And to me, it meant that we were becoming family. It was showing to myself and to my friends and my family how important we were to each other. In my mind, the wedding was necessary to show that we were choosing each other as family.
There was something in my system that needed to elevate each of us, he wasn't just Janelle's boyfriend, once he was my husband, then he, he had an identity of his own something. And then same for me is how I felt, so she asked him, why was it important to him that I changed my name?
And he said that it signified to him and to others that we were family. that we had the same name. he also felt that having the same name as my future grandchildren, established a bond between me and them and me as the matriarch of the family. So I truly feel that our three years of therapy led up to that one session what could have been a tension filled major debate.
Instead resulted in me at the end of our 90 minutes saying, okay, I'll change my name. And I kept my maiden name as my middle name, and I became Janelle O'Ryan.
Andrea: Yeah. you gave in as he gave in.
Janelle: Giving in is, is one way to look at it, but I actually think of it as a gift, he was gifting me the wedding and the marriage and I was gifting him the name. Like it was a way for us to meet in the same place and where we were meeting was his family.
Andrea: Got And you are now still Janelle Orion. So you not only changed your name, but you kept your name after the divorce.
Janelle: That's true. So he spent a year writing our vows. , we were engaged for a year. He wanted to come up with vows that he could commit to for our lifetime and had nothing to do with whether we were married or not. The values expressed in our vows were honoring family, faith, acceptance, and kindness, and to being springboards for each other's becoming.
The vows we spoke at our wedding hold true today, even though we're divorced. I now recognize that the container of marriage was not correct for me and that being husband and wife was not the right relationship between us in the long term. And I also believe that I marry the right person. He is my husband for this lifetime.
It's just that the title of husband and wife had an expiration date.
Andrea: So let me just get this straight. So you're saying he is your husband for this lifetime? I had the perfect wedding. I had the perfect dress. I had the perfect husband. All of that was great. I don't need to redo any of that. so in that way, when I die, he'll have been my only husband this lifetime.
Okay yeah and you feel like totally confident saying that now as much as you have changed in the last two minutes and the last two hours and The last two weeks and the last two months and the last two years and the last decade. You're like, yep. I'm good I'm never gonna get married again. I'm just I'm just saying like yeah, I'm just pushing like
Janelle: And everyone can push. I'm happy to be proven wrong. Cause I'm surrendered to the universe and if that's what they have in mind for me. But I will say is that For me, I feel that I needed to get married in this lifetime because I actually needed to get divorced in this lifetime. And I spoke to this on the divorce episode, divorce one year later, and that his role as my partner in helping me come home to myself. Is still the biggest gift anyone could have given to me the marriage succeeded in my mind, our marriage succeeded.
Andrea: Yeah. And so I think I hear that you're honoring your union as an experience that was a big and important part of your life, even though it was not permanent, because really that's the only piece that society is saying, well, it wasn't forever. so it wasn't a successful marriage. That's pretty much the message we get, right? It's like, if you've got divorced, then you
Janelle: Exactly. Our culture assumes that only marriages that last a lifetime are successful. And I'm disputing that in hindsight, like my marriage met my definition of success. And then it brought me home to myself and it turns out it only needed three and a half years to do that.
Andrea: Yeah, I love it. This is, I think this is really taps into like one of the biggest. It's just saying like, okay, the one who dies without getting divorced wins. is really the message for fucking sure. That is the message I got. you better choose right and it better be all the way, all the time because when you get divorced, that means you failed and you failed publicly insult to injury. And you're saying marriage can be amazing and it does not have to be permanent.
Janelle: Right. And I would say There was lots of challenges, right? I wouldn't say our, I was like, Oh, we had this amazing marriage and we decided to end it. Right. It was like, Oh, there was a lot of challenges here and that was what was correct about it. And so it was correct that it ended and it was in the ending that we've gotten to like re define what our relationship looks like that feels more in ease. The marriage itself did what it was supposed to do even though it didn't look a certain way.
Andrea: So if there was a 24 year old, let's say 27 year old, getting married today, say, encounter this, and I watch my own reaction, and I'm just like, Oh, someone's getting, like, maybe you're 32, you're just surrounded by people who are getting married all the time, you're always going to weddings, you're going to Mexico to someone's wedding, and you know, they're spending a whole bunch of money, and they're writing their vows, and they're saying it's going to be forever, and of course, great, I see why they're doing that and I did it too and so would you tell them, Hey, even if it's not forever, you still might get something out of it.
Janelle: I guess the only thing I could do is just, show them my example, like, look at my life. And that they can see that the relationship doesn't look at all the way I thought it was going to look. I didn't get rid of the person. yes, as I said, like there was a lot of pain and challenge in the relationship and there was so much beauty and so much love and so much care and we consider ourselves family still.
And sometimes you don't always like family all the time the depth of our connection is real. And okay. Here's, here's like a little example. I dated someone before I got married who was very jealous and he didn't essentially want me to be friends with someone who I've been friends with for 20 years. we'd had sex, a couple of times in the course of those 20 years we were never even like boyfriend girlfriend and he just couldn't handle us being friends.
And I was like, This person has been part of my life for half of my life at the time, more than half of my life at the time. And I was like, sex doesn't, it's like not even the remotely, the defining factor of these 20 years and the thought of getting rid of that friend just didn't sit well with me at all.
Why would I let go? a little bit of a non sequitur, but like, it's the same thing with my ex husband. Like our relationship, it meant so much to me. There was so much there just to get rid of it because it doesn't look the way I thought. it was not an easy choice.
I'm not saying I was like, okay, great, going to get divorced. And you know, y'all know it hasn't been easy. And yet. I'm so clear that like I'm leading with love and I want the love in my life that he gives me.
Andrea: Is really beautiful. Yeah. That's real. so I don't know if I answered the question too, but the question to the 27 year olds getting married is ultimately the thing that I learned is that I don't know who I'm going to be forever. I feel like I can trust my love, but I couldn't trust now is like, Oh, what does that love look like and express?
Janelle: The container or the love change from here's my, the love of a husband to a love of a, like a brother neighbor family. Right. Like, but love is there, but it doesn't express the same way.
Andrea: I like that. Yeah, because some people you feel like you're gonna love the rest of your life, what it looks like may
Janelle: Right. Or the frequency, right? Like I really believe that like, know, I might not see someone who I loved deeply for 40 years. It doesn't mean I'm not going to love them when I die. So the love gets to be there even if the relationship looks different.
Andrea: And what did your ex husband think about you keeping your name?
Janelle: Well, there's just a little bit of an oops. haven't done everything perfectly here in this situation. I might sound big and lofty and totally involved, but not always. So we saw a therapist before we got married and then we weren't seeing one for a lot of the time of our, of our marriage. And then once we decided to get divorced, we decided to see a therapist again.
Yup. that was, again, showed our commitment to one another of like knowing this was going to be fucking hard and how can we support us navigating this as gracefully as possible. so I mentioned in a session that I was keeping My name.
And she said the same thing. Oh, what a wonderful decision decision to make together. And then I realized in that moment that showed one of my tendencies in our relationship was that I didn't ask him. I didn't tell him. I just told him while he was sitting there in therapy session. , and I had made a big decision without consulting him, which wasn't considerate
Andrea: And so what ended up happening, did he say Okay, or did he say I bless this or did he say that's annoying? I don't think you should keep it or Or was he just annoyed that you hadn't consulted
Janelle: Just to know that I hadn't consulted him.
Andrea: Totally fair, of course, but I'm just curious if he came to peace with it. He did He never said anything about it again. Happened in this, what and so what , I mean, what I was saying was I feel still connected to Tim's family. I was the one who wanted to get married, and I'm the one who was like, okay, marriage isn't working for me. And this container, it was a mutual decision to get divorced,
Janelle: But the point being is that. I had made a commitment to him of being family by changing my name. Like I wasn't going back on that commitment.
Andrea: Your relationship to his son? Who I know you now call, instead of stepson, you call him your spirit son,
Janelle: Right. Yes. I've called him my spirit son ever since an ayahuasca journey where I had the sensation of recognizing him as my soul's son. the vision impacted me deeply and viscerally. I feel so grateful that I found him in this lifetime, and so grateful to his mother and father, the humans who birthed him. because I realized that I get to have an easeful relationship with him because I only came into his life at 20. don't have any of the baggage of trying to parent a child. I get just to have the relationship of trying to foster his adult ness. I shared with him that vision. Um, that I had, I shared with , my spirit, son, my vision.
And since then we have called each other spirit son and spirit mom. , our relationship is one of ease and love and laughter. you know, interestingly, like long before divorce was a consideration around the table at all, I had made a commitment to him that even if my relationship Yeah. We're gonna do a different I'm definitely gonna a meeting tomorrow. Yeah, definitely be there. We'll be there. Bye. Bye. Yeah. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. his future children.
Andrea: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
Janelle: Divorce was necessary for my becoming, but it didn't mean that I made the wrong choice in getting married. In fact, just the opposite. I married into the family and we are family and I am an Orion.
Andrea: Yeah, that's making me think quite a bit. so fascinating. Yeah, okay. So what about your wedding ring? Did you keep Did you keep it on the same finger? I've seen this now, I know, but
Janelle: Yeah. so the, the wedding ring he gave me has an incredible story. when he asked me to marry me, he actually gave me my mom. My mom's wedding ring. So I wear my mom's wedding ring and engagement ring for my entire engagement. And then on my wedding day, I switched to the ring that we had made.
And when I was shopping for a ring, he was like, don't you want something custom and different? And I got to different jewelry stores and he was like, why don't we like fly someplace? And, whatever reason was resistant. I didn't talk to a diamond dealer here in Denver. And he was talking about the diamond, districts in Antwerp and in Tel Aviv.
And he just made it sound so exciting that I was like, what am I doing? Why would I not want to make a trip out of going to this ring? which was, yeah, his, my husband's idea the whole time. So we flew, he flew us to Antwerp, , to go to the diamond district to find rose cut diamonds. I was really clear that that was the type of diamond that I wanted.
For anyone who knows what they are, they're very, very flat. They actually almost look like glass, they don't have very many facets. They're not particularly very shiny, they're so flat that they lie flat on my hand and I didn't want a raised diamond. So we found a boutique designer, in Antwerp.
It was the last place. I didn't think we were going to have any luck and he was like, Oh, I just a collector of rose cut diamonds. It was really believable. And he's like, they're at my house. They're not in my studio. So he got on his bike and biked home and then biked back with a bag full of tiny rose cut diamonds then we designed The ring and I designed it myself and it's got three rose cut diamonds on it. It's so unique. It's so beautiful. It's so much meaning What I did during the process of the divorce kind of was organic. I was actually, it was during a medicine journey. I performed a ritual on the ring.
Where I, put it over fire and did some clearing with sage and cleared it of any negative energy of associating that the ring is supposed to represent something that it doesn't. And then I held a small ceremony with just me where I put the ring on my right hand and said, I choose myself.
And so now I wear the ring on my right hand
Andrea: And you married
Janelle: And I married myself.
Andrea: Did you talk to your ex husband about that too?
Janelle: No.
Andrea: No, it doesn't matter. I mean, whatever. It's your ring, I suppose. I don't, I just don't know what, I don't, what are the rules on that? Like, do you, some people give the ring back? Do they sell it? Do they keep it? I don't know.
Janelle: Yeah. He and I haven't talked about it. I mean, he knows I wear it. in all honesty, like there's some, some of the conversations from last year are blur because they were, intense. So it's possible I didn't, didn't say something. don't think, you know, I think you'd be totally fine with what you did, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's mostly. I guess I'm really just honoring there was so much beauty and love and adventure and meaning in our relationship. And I'm choosing to keep those parts that I want you. we live next door, so we've obviously chosen each other in lots of ways it's not like we're like hiding from each other. Like we've both made this commitment to stay in each other's lives.
Andrea: Do you want to talk about marrying yourself and go into that? That's a whole other, of marrying yourself is Allie Katz, who's a friend. if you go to like AllieKatz. com or something, maybe you can find her story and her wedding on there. She's a friend of mine who married herself and had a full on wedding, wedding dress and everything, had her friend, walk her down the aisle to marry herself. the marrying yourself, concept for me represents this feeling that I had for a long time, which was true when I wanted to get married to him was that I wanted to feel chosen. this desire to feel chosen, I think is a, is a,
Janelle: It's a feeling a lot of us have. And I think it's that feeling that can often lead us to make decisions. And that feeling can be one of like longing or a whole or incompleteness. Like there's so many ways to describe it, the feeling that we have. the journey for me was realizing that I needed to choose myself.
I was essentially outsourcing this feeling of like completeness and wholeness within me to somebody else. And I think our culture teaches us to do that. there was a recognition during my whole journey of getting divorced that I was like, Oh, I'm actually getting divorced.
I'm choosing me. And from this place, then, the honor, you know, like, which is symbolized by the ring and having it just, like I said, like a little ceremony that I did for myself, but then I get to choose who I want to come into my life. I'm not like grasping. it just completely shifted and energetic within me.
And. I do think that someone who marries themselves doesn't mean that they can't get married to someone else too, right? I'm not saying that that precludes that, but the having chosen myself, I'm showing up in the world in a totally different way.
Andrea: And I see the sequence and that's, that's important, I think, in the same way that we say in the prayer before the meal, I had a client remind me of this the other day, you know, Namaste. What does Namaste mean? Oh, the divine in me or the light in me sees the light in you. Guess what? We say the divine in us first because we have to identify that first.
To effectively see the light in someone else. we can do that other thing first, we can see the light in someone else. It's not really complete and clean and pure unless we've identified and come from a grounded place where we're seeing the light and divine in ourselves.
Janelle Exactly. I clearly got married, thinking I didn't, I didn't know all of this stuff back then. So there was part of that, but I thought I was making like a grounded centered choice and I was for who I was then. but yeah, the, the spiritual journey that I had been on has just been like, as like a led me, the brave heart, you can't see me, but I'm just like holding my hands over my heart right now.
I just like loving, loving me that. A lot of the tension in our relationship was I couldn't feel his love it looked different than I thought it was going to look. And ultimately I couldn't feel my love for myself to the depth that I was asking him to love me. so now, and I again mentioned this in the divorce one year later episode is that now that I love myself in the, in the marriage to myself and choosing myself as just a representation of that, I can so deeply feel his love.
Andrea: Yeah, it's beautiful. mean, this is just part of why we do the work. that's the crux of it is coming home to yourself and loving and marrying yourself if you want.
Janelle: I It certainly changed my life.
Andrea: So let's talk about rings for a minute, just because, in the same way you have talked about divorce and marriage, meaning different things, mean, just because society does rings doesn't mean we all have to, right? whatever you want to symbolize your union, you can. I was definitely more traditional when I was 26 and I definitely wanted a diamond and I just have a very simple, a simple, a big diamond, but a simple ring. And, on the inside, my husband and I engraved the words, glory, ho. and to me, it really just like means even more because of what you just said, one of our quotes at our wedding was, think it's by the author of the Little Prince, and he says, love is, Not always so much looking into each other's eyes, but also looking ahead together in the same direction. that really resonated with us. Like, we love each other and we're going to a similar place. We want to live a life that we feel aligned in how we want to live our life and where we want to go. so we read a passage in East of Eden. At the time we were reading that book about finding the glories in life. And that passage goes like this. So sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite.
It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn. It flashes in the brain, and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber.
The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then, the glory, so that a cricket song sweetens his ears. The smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished.
And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing, but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness. And it sets each man separate from all other men. So I really love that and like, we both were like, Oh, this is what we're talking about in life is we want to find the glories together. And then we added the hoe on the end as like sort of a trail and like walking. And so then glory hoe became our mantra. And you'll have to excuse all the mentions of man in there because you know, it was a book written a hundred years ago,
Janelle: I love the story. I've not heard this. I've not read this and the story about your ring. I don't know this mantra. I don't know this phrase, um, in your ring. So I'm just like feeling the tenderness of that. And
Yeah, I felt like this is, yeah, this paints a really beautiful, beautiful, vivid picture of the gray turning into the brilliant torrent of color.
Andrea: Yeah, and I think it's shifted over the years, right? What we were seeking then and the glories we wanted, and now just recognizing the glory, you know, getting up in the morning and simple things. And from this, you know, it became our mantra, our decision to join the Peace Corps. And it was the name of our blog when we were in the Peace Corps back when blogs were new thing.
And then I put up the, I put up letters on our wall that said that. anyway, the fact is like that, that was the ring and that's what I still have on
Janelle: I'm so glad that you shared that.
Andrea: Yay. I know. It's like, I can't believe we haven't talked about that. I think it's really interesting and I'm, I'm fascinated.
I am taking away from this conversation with you, even though we've talked about these things, like there's this deeper level of, you considering yourself an Orion, even though that marriage was temporary and is over, you are permanently hitched together as chosen family.
And it's, it's strong language, like it's a big commitment, keeping his name as your own. And yeah, I just think it's, it's, it's bold and I'm glad that it works for you and that you're just like, yes, this is what I'm doing. This is what feels right.
Janelle: Yeah. Thanks. It is a big commitment. I think that's, what's so fascinating about my journey. It turns out I don't need a marriage certificate to be the marker of my commitment to this family. I am listening to something within myself versus outside of myself. When I say that I am an Orion.
Andrea: Yeah. Yeah. Really fascinating. I love how complex we humans are.
Janelle: That is true, which means back to it. We're giving you permission, brave hearts to do it. However you want to do it.
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely.
Janelle: Thanks for listening to my story.
Andrea: Let this inspire you.
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