Arrinna Poessnecker October 29, 2019

LBST 2301 Interview on “The Good Life”

My mother is seventeen years older than me. I always prided myself, and still do, on
knowing her almost better than anyone. On watching her grow up. But deciding to do this
interview with her made me realize more what kind of person she is and who she has become. I
decided to work from the ground up, as if I knew nothing. Turns out, I knew bits and pieces, but
not really the full picture. She doesn’t talk about it, hardly thinks of it in her quest to live her
best life. To quote Edna Mode from The Incredibles, “I never look back, darling, it distracts from
the now.”
To reiterate, she is not someone to pity. She is not someone to be trifled with.
Objectively looking (especially having looked at the ACES studies), my mother could have very
easily not become the woman she is today. This over-three-hour long conversation helped me
understand the path she has taken in a new light.
On December 8th of 1979, Dannielle Rogers was born in Omaha, Nebraska to a family of
now five members. Jason, eight years old; Dawn, ten years old; and her parents, Bonnie and
Roy. By 1982, her parents divorced. This was potentially pivotal to my grandmother, Bonnie,
and her mental health. Due to apparent, though not confirmed, mental and physical abuse
from Roy left her with crippling agoraphobia- a fear of leaving the home. Couple years later, her
father and brother moved several states away where my mother had very little contact with
them. Around this time, Bonnie started seeing Bob, a man I vehemently detest. Several large,
glaring red flags were raised with this man, all of which were ignored. He had pulled Dawn
through the wall by her ankle after she neglected to do the dishes. How this was managed, I’m
still not entirely certain, but there was a human-sized hole in the drywall. He attempted to
molest my very young mother. He removed the post in the bunk so it would collapse on the
child beneath, which happened to be my mother as well. Despite these events, which perhaps
shows the mental stability of my grandmother, they were convinced by Bob to move a couple
hours away to a much smaller city, Grand Island, to live with him. From there, it got worse. He
would remove parts from their car, so they were forced to walk everywhere, even in the bitter,
long months of winter.
Bonnie also just wasn’t a good mother in her own right. She would essentially tell my
mother, from a very young age, about how terrifying the “outside world” was and other people.
She neglected to take my mother to school often, to the point where truancy officers would
show up. Each time an unexpected knock was at the door, my mother was ushered to her room
and told to fake being gravely ill. This left my mother with crippling anxiety about everybody
and nearly anything. She was teased for her library books reeking of smoke, for being painfully
shy, and for hardly ever showing up. There was even a time where Bonnie drank all the alcohol
in the house, drove them to the gas station (this was before children sat in the back or seatbelts
were a requirement) to get more alcohol and got into a car wreck. They drove through and
intersection, were hit by two vehicles, and their vehicle wrapped around a street post. Instead
of getting them out of the vehicle immediately, my grandmother started hiding beer cans under
Arrinna Poessnecker October 29, 2019
LBST 2301 Interview on “The Good Life”

the seat. Dannielle recalls leaving hints for people to pick up on the situation she was dealing
with, but she could never say it outright and no one ever stepped in.
At some point, Bonnie broke it off with Bob, leaving Dannielle with her mother alone
where these scare-tactics continued. She found a small group of friends, all of whom came from
less-than-ideal homes. This helped her open up and she still talks to some of them to this day.
When my mother was about fifteen, sixteen years old, Bonnie found a new love. He seemed to
be a standup man and they planned on marrying. My grandmother gave my mother an
ultimatum. Move with the new husband or marry Matthew, one of her friends, and move out.
My mother and my future father chose marriage. Nebraska does not allow children,
which is exactly what a sixteen-year-old is in terms of marrying, to wed. So, my maternal and
paternal grandmothers sent my mother and father off to South Dakota, where the laws allowed
such young marriage with parental consent, with essentially a permission slip to marry. They
married on my father’s seventeenth birthday, so he would never forget the date. In South
Dakota, they waited three days for the check to come in from my mother’s part-time job, took
off on a crotch rocket, and headed down to Arizona where I was conceived shortly after.
My mom states that my father was a different man when they met to when they
“settled” down. Ages sixteen to twenty-one, their ages at the time of their divorce, is the time
where many young adults will prioritize their life goals. My father quickly chose money. My
mother; family.
In Arizona, she explained they had nothing. My father came from no better of a home
than she. They managed to get my father some polos for interviews. My mom, pregnant with
me, had no nice clothing for her own interviews. She wore one of Matt’s polos (my parents
have nearly a foot and a half difference in height which shows even more the desperation in
their situation). She landed a job in JC Penney where she started taking pride in her
appearance. Matt worked any odd job he could, worked nights, and so on. Looking back, as
much as both myself and my mother despise him, we know that he will always monetarily care
for his family, which is more than what his only family would do and what a number of parents
have the grit to do. He was doing much more than what he was taught or shown to do.
However, he had a warped view on what was expected of the mother in the household. He felt
like my mother should go to work and stay home, have no social life, because she was to take
care of their baby.
He told me vastly different stories of my mother while I was growing up, so it was a
different kind of pleasant to hear the other side.
It sounds as though the breaking point was when my mother’s twenty-first birthday. At
this point, they would have already moved back to Grand Island, Nebraska. This would have
been the year 2000, so I was a little over three years old. We made her a cake and I helped her
blow out the candles. Not much of a family celebration or get together or joyous occasion,
which twenty-one is a large milestone. It was then that she really realized that where Matt
Arrinna Poessnecker October 29, 2019
LBST 2301 Interview on “The Good Life”

prioritized money and getting out of this social hole he felt trapped in, my mother was fine with
being “poor” but having a warm, wholesome family. He also consistently guilt-tripped her when
she was going to get her GED because I was often with my mom’s friend, whose son went to
daycare with me, so that she could study and then we could have a “family” dinner. My parents
divorced shortly after their twenty-first birthdays and she returned to her maiden name.
She had my brother, Marvin, and then re-married with his father, Dennis, becoming
Dannielle Garcia. After their divorce, she kept his last name, though, and he’s an excellent
father to my brother. Since that divorce, my mother has dated on and off. Some men were
better than others, but they each put her one step closer to realizing the life that she will have
for herself. Dannielle has blossomed more and more into the person she wants to be; the
person she will be known as.
This has been a large introduction, but I find it important for several reasons. Like stated
before, she will not be pitied. Instead, this shows where my mom came from and the stark
difference to where she is now. It makes me so damn proud that I brag about her often, more
often than I talk to her. Two, even though my mother is still in the prime of her life, not even
forty-years-old yet, documentation of her word and stories is still invaluable to the world’s
memory of her. She proves that your past is not an excuse for you being a shitty human being.

DISCLAIMER: This interview will include curse words. My mother curses and I will not censor her
in an interview about herself and her views. That rings idiotic to me.

What is happiness?
“Happiness is the contentment you find in spending time doing simple everyday things-
but its magical because of the people you do it with. Happiness is that magical feeling. It’s not
magic, it’s the smile on their face… that, to me, is happiness. One word? Contentment. There’s
such a crazy spectrum that can make you happy, but it itself is the contentment with whatever
is going on. If you dive in deeper … that feeling comes from feeling close to someone or being
self-sufficient.” Happiness is that feeling of being valued, either to yourself or others.

What is a good life?

“A good life is building yourself up, honing your skills. You get self-worth from
contributing. Contributing to yourself, to other people, using your skills. These build into your
self-worth and value, therefore building a good life. Its not just about making money and
getting degrees, its how your family sees you. Are you involved? Do they trust and love you?
Being there for other people, to support them… contributes to your good life.” She adds,
Arrinna Poessnecker October 29, 2019
LBST 2301 Interview on “The Good Life”

laughing, “And also, maybe being rich. And having a nice body. We can joke about that stuff,
but you really can achieve those things. ‘Oh, I want good body’, then work out, fat ass.”
It is important to note here that my mother, outside of her full-time job, works out,
ideally, every morning. She participates in Pilates, weightlifting, and yoga- the latter of which
she even instructs classes on. She is also taking classes to become certified in coaching about
physical fitness, nutrition, and personal transformation. She wants to prove that anyone, with
the right guidance, can achieve their goals and kick ass.

Do you have any regrets?

“Regrets? I do have them in my life. Yeah. Absolutely. I wish, [and] this is a blanket one
for me and goes from when I was young…” She referenced the occasional trend of ‘what are
two words that you would say to your younger self?’ “Easy: Be heard.”
She also noted that she regretted not sticking up to my father. That my father taking me
would never have been allowed nowadays. That she didn’t know how to stick up for herself, but
now it’s not an issue.

What has been the most pivotal moment of your life?

“I hope in five years, the pivotal moment of my life will be right now. I feel like I’m
seeing things very clearly right now, in terms of myself and not really [having] someone else
influencing that... Until now, I’ve gotten by. I don’t regret that. But none of it was pivotal or
amazing. A lot of it was just getting by. Now, I feel like I’m ready to do that.”
She has goals, not hopes or dreams, of finishing up her certifications, getting a degree
saying that she is competent in desk work, and take off to Bali for a very immersive experience
to be certified to instruct yoga. Perhaps even stay there and teach.

Are you where you thought you would be?

“I honestly never put a lot of thought into where I thought I wanted to be… and I think
maybe that’s not good. But I’m thinking about that now!” Very much a ‘better late than never’
response. Whenever people tell me they wish they traveled when they were younger or wish
they could do this or that, I always, always bring up my mom. She turns 40 this December and
has, now famously as I quote it often, told me her 40s will be the best decade yet. She wants
more tattoos, take her gun out more, a motorcycle, finish up a degree and these certifications,
and take off to Bali as soon as my brother is settled in college. Sure, she could have perhaps put
these ideas into motion, but had she- she wouldn’t have become this same person today. It
may feel like she wasted that time in a way, but I think everyone just finds that sweet spot at
different times. There is no manual.
Arrinna Poessnecker October 29, 2019
LBST 2301 Interview on “The Good Life”

Any advice for me?

As sort of a caveat or segue from the previous question, Dannielle continued, “My
advice to you would be… Think about where YOU want to be. And make a plan for it. Because
you can very easily end up doggy paddling around in circles if you don’t have some sort of
direction. So make a plan and go. Make mistakes. Fix them. Keep going. Fail. Go more. Have a
few friends you count on but cut out any naysayers. Even if you fail big at something, you’re
winning by trying something risky. That’s what I’m doing now… I wish I had someone tell me to
do that 20 years ago.” I think, honestly, that quote speaks enough for itself, and is often what
my advice sounds for almost any situation to my friends. It’s reassuring to hear my mom have
the same advice that has been tried and true after so many years. Hopefully I, and her for that
matter, are those people that tell people this when they’re younger and get them moving.

Conclusion:
Overall, my mother’s story has particularly related to the ACES statistics we looked at.
Difference being my mother did not become a statistic. She is drastically different than her
siblings and even more so from her own mother. She had a teacher she liked, but no one knew
to directly help her navigate that childhood. She left home while young, they made it on their
own. Back in Nebraska, she did find a role model at work. My mom credits much of her love for
dressing up and being well presented to Yuli, an older woman who was always in slacks, heels,
and had a loving relationship with her husband. My mother began to imitate her and was
ecstatic when Yuli offered old clothing to her.
Also true to the studies we saw that adversity, or trauma, when younger can lead to
resilient individuals leading happy and proud lives very different than the one they were raised
in.
One of the first classes we had, we talked about how everyone is experiencing the same
mundane life as ourselves. This realization did make it easier for my mom to come out of her
shell and it was something that she instilled in me as a child. Everyone is a just a person; talk to
them. That, and as stated above, “your past is no excuse for you being a shitty human being.”

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