Fifty Cups of Coffee #7: Kristi Dadekian
Date: February 9, 2024
Location: Zoom
How we know each other
Kristi and I met in Boston, Massachusetts when we were both students at Emerson College. We were also both in Emerson’s Los Angeles program. And, she and I both married fellow Emersonians!
What Kristi is doing now
Kristi works as a reading intervention specialist at a local elementary school and as a substitute teacher in Burbank, California. She lives there with her husband, fellow Emerson alum Andy Dadekian, and their three daughters, ages 19, 16, and 15.
Three questions
During these Fifty Cups of Coffee chats, I ask each person the same three questions. The reasoning behind each is as follows:
Question 1 – Social media makes it easy for other people to think that they know us, when truthfully, we all only see a small sliver of someone’s life and who they really are. This is the interviewee’s chance to share something that is important to them that, for whatever reason, other people may not know.
Question 2 – We all have fears, no matter who are are or where we are in life. This helps connect us and show we are all more alike than we are different.
Question 3 – I believe the answer to this question helps show each person’s true values, passions, and their why in life.
There are no right or wrong answers to any of these. I’m including each person’s answers in first person. Their answers have been edited from my notes for length and clarity, but these are their words.
What is one thing you wish more people knew about you?
I’m an open book, so people know me; I don’t keep secrets. I think more or less, I would like people who have seen me only as the mom/parent person, that I actually wouldn’t mind having more of a career. I used to write a blog and I would love to write again. I have hopes and dreams that I wish to accomplish outside of my kids. I’ve put everything on hold the last 20 years and am ready to do more than just the mom and volunteer parent kind of thing.
What is your deepest fear?
What has always been my deepest fear is dying at a young age. I will be 50 this year, so dying young and leaving my kids and my family behind is what I fear. I would worry about them living a life without a parent; I can’t imagine how that would feel at a young age.
Four and a half years ago (September 2019), I had a 99% blockage in my main artery and had a stent put in. We’re still not sure why that happened. I worked out 6 days a week, have never done hard drugs, no high cholesterol… I’m still fearful of something like that happening.
None of doctors wanted to listen to me. I told them I was short of breath, had a pain in my back… they kept doing blood tests and other tests. I was 45 and they were like “you’re fine.” The only thing that showed anything was wrong was a stress test. I had an angiogram and it hit an artery, so I lived in ICU for a few days. I felt like I was living in the movie Final Destination.
So that was my biggest fear and having it almost come to fruition was the worst.
If you had unlimited funds, what would you do with your life?
Traveling! Just traveling. It’s a cliched answer but its true. I would love to go to Italy, Australia, all of Europe. Just go and visit all the places.
So I would travel a bunch, pay off everything, move into a bigger house or have house on other side of country where all of our family is. We’d be bicoastal. For the most part, I would want to travel all the time. Maybe get myself a private jet because I love to go places but hate the getting there part: the airports, the plans. I get so much anxiety before we leave and I get so panicked getting there, but I love it once I do (get there).
Lessons learned
I had so much fun catching up with Kristi after all these years! Here are my biggest take-aways from our coffee chat.
- Listen & trust your body, and advocate for yourself. What happened to Kristi should not happen to anyone, and yet I hear similar stories — all from women — all too often. Keep speaking up, and find doctors who truly listen to you and work to help you find answers. I’m so glad Kristi finally found a doctor who would listen!
- We are all more than what you see in front of you. When Kristi spoke of her looking toward a career as her daughters are getting older, and people seeing her more than “just a mom,” it was from a place I think we can all relate. So many times, we feel like we know people based on the one dimensional side we may see in certain circumstances, but it’s important to remember that there is always so much more to every person than just the part that you see at that moment of time.
- There are two parts to travel: the getting there, and the being there. I love that Kristi addressed this! As someone who writes about travel, I of course love the being there part, but also have a lot of experience in working to make the getting there part as painless as possible. But that doesn’t mean it’s ever easy! And it’s important to remember when we are in the getting there part, that a lot of other people are just as – if not more – stressed than we are, and that patience and kindness go a long way.
Learn more about Kristi
You can read Kristi’s blog, Pooping in Peace.
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