We were sitting by the fireplace, the heat warm on our backs. The Christmas tree lights twinkled softly in the distance as I sat down next to my mom on the couch. I had already heard some of the stories from my mothers teenage years but I was excited to hear the kind of trouble my mom got into in the 90s, and compare it to my teenage experience. The first couple questions I asked her, she was very short with me, only giving the necessary details to answer a question. My mother is a very social person, always full of new stories to tell, but as I sat next to her, my legs curled up underneath me, I learned she does not really like to talk about herself. When I asked about her friends and family, she had many funny stories to tell, however when the conversation shifted back to her life, she tensed up a little more. This is interview pushed me to think of new questions I had never thought to ask my mom, and although it was uncomfortable at times, I learned many new facts about her that brought us closer together.
Helayna: What were you like when you were my age?
Janel: Very social. My friends were very important. I liked to be involved or not bored. I was on the ski team and I had lots of friends. We would go out and do stuff. We were on a boom ball team. Always spending the night at friends houses or looking for things to do.
Helayna: What did you and your friends like to do for fun?
Janel: Usually it involved a lot of just driving around looking for other people, looking for your friends. Sometimes we would go like Moonlight bowling, a lot of times we would play broom ball. If it was the summer, you’d just go hang out at someone’s house. We’d go hang out where somebody worked. My friends worked at a dry cleaner and we’d go hang out with them all day while they worked. Real boring stuff, but you just want to be with your friends. We used to watch 90210 every weeknight at a friend’s house and have like a hot dish and desserts and then watch our shows together.
Helayna: Was there a time you got in trouble?
Janel: I got in trouble when I was like in fifth grade. I had two friends that were kind of mischievous and would always lead me to do different things. And one time we had a soap sud fight in the kitchen, but the soap suds were like two inches thick all over the kitchen floor. And then we went upstairs and we got into a baby powder fight in my mom’s bedroom, and we weren’t really smart enough to know how to clean it up properly, like we didn’t vacuum, so then when she would walk into her room, every step she would take white puffs and clouds would kind of form because there was baby powder in the carpet. She was not happy with me then.
Helayna: And what was your relationship like with your brother?
Janel: When we were young, we used to fight and yell at each other, sometimes like some physical fighting. And then, I’m trying to think what age, it just sort of stopped. My brother said he just realized… He was not very social and if he was nicer to me that he would have a friend. And then he did become nicer to me and we became best friends. Sometimes we would both stay home sick from school on the same day and bake chocolate chip cookies together. If the neighborhood kids came around and wanted to know if my brother wanted to play soccer, he would like hide behind the door shaking his head no and then pointing like, you go, you go. So I would go out and play soccer for him. And, later in high school we were good friends. We were on the ski team together so we had the same group of friends so a lot of times we would go out together like on Friday nights or to people’s house or ski things and we’d go together just because we were like good friends.
Helayna: And do you remember your first boyfriend?
Janel: Boyfriend? Yeah. Yep. No, of course you remember your first boyfriend. It was in high school, and I stayed in touch with him for years and years. He was a few years older than me and then he lived in Minnesota and I went away to college in another state and occasionally he would send me like a Christmas card or write a letter, it was back before the email days. But yeah.
Helayna: How did you two meet?
Janel: We met through another friend, somebody my brother was friends with that kind of lived in the neighborhood and he knew this guy and my friend who lived in the neighborhood had dated this guy so then she would always be on the phone with him, and then he had a friend over, and then occasionally she’d be like, here, just talk on the phone to this girl for a minute. So then we would talk on the phone, and then we started to get to know each other, so then the four of us all would hang out.
Helayna: What did your parents think of you having your first boyfriend?
Janel: Uh, they didn’t love it just because he was older, but he did come around and, like, they met him and he took me out on a real date, and then they were fine with him. And then years later, like when I would come home from college or whatever, they’d be like, oh, why don’t you invite him over for whatever was going on. But I think they just didn’t like that he was older.
Helayna: How much older was this boyfriend?
Janel: I think he was three or four years older.
Helayna: Alright, how did you decide where to go to college and what to study?
Janel: I knew I wanted to go out of state because I loved the mountains and I wanted to ski and I kind of wanted like an experience that was not city or suburban. I wanted a high altitude mountain town where it was small and people would know your name and I wanted to go where nobody really knew me. Once I got to school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do you just take some general classes and then it was like oh well business is a good all-around degree to have but then I was also very interested in recreation which was very big where i went to school and you could major in it and then they had a specific sect where you could kind of major in the business part of travel and tourism so if you wanted to own your own rafting company or own your own you know alternative sports or that kind of stuff. And so I got a degree in commercial recreation and a degree in business administration.
Helayna: And how did you meet your best friends out there?
Janel: I didn’t really meet them until after college. I lived in a town that was 30 minutes south of a ski town, and I worked at that ski resort throughout college. And then once I graduated, I knew I wasn’t ready to move back home, so I decided I would move up to the actual ski resort and work there. And then I got a full time job working in the PR and communications department and putting on extreme sporting events like the extreme skiing and snowboarding event and working for the ESPNX games. And then you just meet a bunch of people that way. And I also worked in the rental shop where we rented out skis and snowboards. And there’s just a crew that you’re with every day, and you get to go ski with every day. There was one of my managers, he had roommates that would come up and meet us on our lunch hour, and that was my friends Kate and Tally. And we would ski with them, and then they’d just become your own friends. So it wasn’t really until after college that I met my true core best friends.
Helayna: What was your favorite memory from when you lived away from home?
Janel: I don’t know if I have a favorite memory other than having a core group of friends and really feeling like I belonged, like a sense of community in the small town where you’d walk downtown and you’d know everybody or they’d know your name and you felt like you belonged there. You kind of got a sense of who you were becoming as an adult like what kind of person you wanted to be and you were unattached like you didn’t have kids and you were single and you knew it was the time of your life and you were surrounded by people that wanted to do the same stuff. It was like hey we should go do this for the weekend, hey we should plan a trip and do this. It was always something and then you could just do it it was like living in a place that had access to so much stuff that you like to do, you could really experience so many things with your friends and you just kind of knew like, I’m young and I’m carefree and this is like a formative time in my life and I’m happy with the person I’m turning into.
Helayna: Do you have any regrets in your life?
Janel: No, I’m not really a regretful person because I think everything that you do whether it wasn’t your first choice or not, kind of shapes who you are. And since I like who I am, I don’t really think regretting something is helpful. I can’t take it back, and it’s formed me into the person that I am today. So even if it wasn’t a good experience, learn from it and take it and add it to your story and move on.
Helayna: What is a piece of advice you would give to your kids?
Janel: Oh, to always listen to their mother. No, I would say to always be yourself. Don’t try and be someone else and fit in with the group because even if that does work and you fit in with group or a job or something that you think you want and you’re not yourself, eventually you’re not going to be happy. Once you’re comfortable with who you are and you find people that love you for that, there’s no better feeling. So I would just say to do what makes you happy and be yourself so you can find the right people to surround yourself with.
