The Moth Podcast: Diavian Walters and Lori Gottlieb

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Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy, and on today's episode, we have two stories for you.

The first one is from Diavion Walters, and Diavion was part of our high school Grand Slam back in 2016, where she told this story.

Now, keep in mind as this story unfolds that these stakes are basically the end of the world when you're in high school. Here's Diavion Walters live at the Moth.

Oh my god,

I feel my heart like drumming in my chest.

Okay, so when I was younger, my mom was the only one to touch my hair and that was one of two reasons.

The first reason being I had portial alopecia, meaning that I had these bald spots that doctors told me I would never be able to grow my hair back, I'd never be able to braid my hair, and I felt really insecure being a child because I love my hair.

So,

but with some mom magic, it grew back. It grew back really healthy and I was so happy.
I didn't have ball spots anymore.

But this leads me into the second reason why my mom only did my hair because thick hair and a tender scalp, it doesn't mix.

It don't mix. So whenever I saw a comb, whenever she went to do my hair, come let's braid your hair, I would run and like hide under the bed.
There was no other option for me.

So at one point, we both grew tired of this. I grew tired of running from her when I saw the comb.
She got tired of trying to like yank my hair straight, because my hair was nappy when I was a kid. So

it still is, thank you. It still is.

But she's like, no what? Screw it. I'm gonna give you a relaxer.
So I'm like, so you mean you don't have to comb my hair all the time? You don't have to braid it tight? I love it.

Can we do it now? So my hair is straight and I like it for elementary school to like middle school. It was in ninth grade when I went on YouTube and I started watching these natural hair videos.

I'm like, oh my gosh, look how nice this is.

I want this. The girl, she had such long, pretty, curly hair.
And I'm like, your hair can do this? I didn't know that. So I'm like, I want this.
I want long, curly hair.

So I decided to go on the journey to becoming natural.

And I transition.

And I decided that New Year's of that year was when I was going to cut my hair because New Year knew me new hair, right? So

I decided that that was when I was going to cut my hair, but it didn't work out like that because it was around December 14th.

And I was deep conditioning my hair and I just noticed how nice those curls look with the conditioner on it. And I was like, what if I cut it now?

And I look at the scissors that's on top of my mirror in the bathroom, and I'm like, I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna, I have to give my pup, I have to give myself a pep talk because if I don't, I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna chicken out, and it's not gonna happen.

I'm like, this needs to happen, my hair needs to be healthy. So, I grab the scissors and I start cutting it before I tell my parents, before I tell my mom.

And I'm just like, there's nothing she can do if she doesn't like it. Oh, well, because it's in motion, you can't stop it.
You can't.

So

I cut the front of my hair and I'm like, mommy, can you help me? And she's like, with what? Washing it out? And I'm like, no, I want you to cut it. So she's stunned, but she helps me.

So in the end, I rinse out the conditioner and I'm like, Where are the curls? Like, my hair is no longer curly like I saw in the conditioner. It's poofy.
It is shrunken.

And I'm just like, I didn't sign up for this. Where is my long, curly hair? I didn't see it.

So so I go to my mom and I'm like do you like it it's okay if you don't like it you can tell me if you don't like it even though I'm gonna cry but you can tell me if you don't like it but it doesn't matter what she thought because she's my mom your mom forever loves you no matter what you do it's your dad that's the problem

so

I go to my dad I'm conscious of all the times he told me, your hair looks so much better when it's straight, or your hair is so much better when your mom does it. And

I'm nervous. I don't know what he's he gonna say.
So I walk into the kitchen. I'm like, daddy, do you like it? And he looks at me and I'm like, and he's like, what did you do? And I'm like, I cut it.

It's healthy now. And he's like, you look like a mushroom.
And I'm like, what?

So. I'm a mushroom now.
I guess he didn't like it. And at one point, I didn't like it either.
But I remember it was summer youth. It was about last year.

And my hair was shrunken and I couldn't deal with it.

And I'm like, like this is crap I don't want to do this so I wet my hair put some gel in it it's curly but it's not long it's not the curls that I wanted and so I'm like screw it I put the gel in my hair I put it up in two bun buns in the front and like it's a half up half down I'm like this is gonna have to do this is gonna have to get me through the day it's hot I don't wanna do my hair so I tried to timidly walk past my dad through the kitchen to get out the door I don't wanna hear what he has to say last time he called me a mushroom I don't know what he's gonna call me now

and I was right because because I walked past him and he's like, your hair. And I'm expecting him to be like, go fix it.
But he's like, the buns, they look like ears. You look like a bear.

And I'm like, I am a bear? And I'm like, okay, I'll take that. That's a compliment.
That's a compliment.

And I go to work.

And my friend who's working with me, she's Dominican. She got this real long spiral curl hair.
And I tell her every day, if only I had your hair every day.

And she comes up to me and she's touching me. She's like, oh my gosh, your hair is so pretty.
Look at the coils. And I'm like, what do you mean?

You sitting here with this flawless hair right here that took no effort. And you're talking about this hair that I did in like five minutes.
And she's just like, you should embrace your coils more.

They're so beautiful. I wish I had your hair.
And I'm just, I'm shocked. And I'm like, you want my hair? And I'm like, wow.

And so now I know that I can appreciate my kinks and my coils. That even though I was a mushroom, I am now a bear.
And this is great.

That's Diavion Walters. And after Diavion shared her story, she came into the Moth studio and talked with Michaela Bly, the Moth's Director of Education and Community.
Hi, Diavion. Hi.

So I had a couple of questions about this story, actually. I've heard it a few times and I love it more every time.

Did your dad hear this story? No.

Did your mom, your mom has heard this story? No. Your mom hasn't heard this story either? No, but I told her about it.
Okay, yeah. So she completely agrees with me.

Because he can, my dad can be very stubborn and he often says the first thing that comes into his mind. It may not be the nicest,

but you got to know where he's coming from with it. And he truly does care about me.
So I know that the insult was a joke and nothing to personally affect me.

And I told him that, you know, that joke kind of like hurt me a while after. And he did apologize.
And he said, I didn't mean it in that way. You know, I was just playing around.

How has the story changed for you as you've told it over time?

As my story got older, it got bolder, too.

I bring bring up the issue with the black hair on black women because before it was seen as very inappropriate to have like cornrows or box spritz or to have just a full-blown afro at work.

And it was something that I've never saw until I realized that this was an issue.

So now I'm able to kind of address it and not feel like I'm gonna say something wrong or someone's gonna look like why is she bringing race into this.

So my story can now be a little more political than I wanted to make it when I was in high school.

Because before the haircut, I was always very shy, very like shutting myself in and I always told myself no because I thought that, you know, my story wouldn't matter.

So when I cut my hair, I told myself that you're going to start telling yourself yes from now on.

So I honestly believe that I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't decided to cut my hair and decided to say yes.

But now I can truly say that my hair is never going to look like Nap Tools 85 and I'm completely okay with that. It's a relationship so there are ups and downs, but it still worked out and we're here.

So

today you've got this great, you dyed it like pretty dark red. Yeah.

And it's like just growing out, but I really like the look. And if I may say, I know it's an audio, but it does look amazing right now.
Thank you.

Cool. Well, thank you so much for talking to me.

That was Diavion Walters and the Moths, Michaela Bly. Diavion is a born-and-bred Brooklynite and a psychology major at Mercy College.

She aspires to be an art therapist, and she's been a teaching artist in the Moth Education Program. Thanks for sharing your story, Diavion.

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Up next, a story from Lori Gottlieb. She shared this at a moth main stage we did in Aspen, Colorado.

It was in partnership with the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the theme of the night was this mortal coil. Here's Lori live at the moth.

So I was 37 years old, and I had just gotten out of a three-year relationship, which is terrible timing if you want to have a baby.

And I really wanted to have a baby, but I didn't want to just marry the next guy who came along.

And so I was in this kind of tricky situation that I guess can best be described as desperate but picky.

And my friend Julie said, you know, even if you don't find the guy in time, you can have a baby in time. And the next thing I know, she sends me some links for some sperm donor sites.

Now, I had no idea what to expect, but I quickly learned that these mating sites, as I started calling them, ranged from high-end FDA-registered cryobanks to, believe it or not, discount sperm providers.

I don't know, maybe it's me, but I just wasn't comfortable going to the Costco of Semen.

I mean, I will skimp on toilet paper, but not on the genetic material for my child.

So I picked one of the name brand sites and I typed in my search criteria and every day all of these choices popped up. Did I want an MBA or a PhD? Did I want a lacrosse player or a literature major?

Did I want a true faux buff or a guy in a band? And it was so confusing because because weirdly enough, these donor profiles read just like dating profiles. And I'd already failed at those.

But the good news was there were these women at the sperm banks who were known as the lab girls. And basically, the lab girls meet the donors when they come in to, you know, do their thing.

And unbeknownst to the donors,

They give us staff impressions that we can't get from reading the profiles. So things like, he has amazing biceps, or he can be a bit scatterbrained, but eventually gets his stuff done.

I loved having this behind-the-scenes personal reconnaissance.

So anytime there was a profile that I was seriously considering, I would call up the sperm bank and I would ask for this lab girl named Maureen.

Now, I would always ask for Maureen because I trusted her to tell me the truth and tell it like it was.

I remember the first time I sent her a profile and I asked if the guy was attractive in person, she said, well, he's not unattractive, but I wouldn't look twice at him in the subway.

So I knew she was my girl. I also ran profiles by my therapist because he knew my patterns.
At the time, I had a thing for edgy but inappropriate men.

And so when I brought in the profile of a guy whose favorite books were Lolita and a Clockwork Orange,

he just kind of looked at me and shook his head. He thought that a healthier choice would be the architecture grad student whose favorite hobby was renovating old homes with his wife.

But I was like, the dude is married, that is so creepy.

To which my therapist replied in his usual neutral and non-judgmental way,

how is having a baby with a married man any less creepy than having a baby with a teenager in college? I had no reply, which is probably why I was in therapy.

Anyway, after months of going through this very exhausting process, I finally made a decision.

Maureen from the Sperm Bank told me about a donor that she described as looking like a young George Clooney.

She also said she really liked him because he was always friendly and in a good mood when he came in. She insisted that he had it all, intelligence, charm, personality, sense of humor.

And she said, and I found this funny at the time given the context in which she was meeting him, she said that he was the whole package.

So I checked out his health history and I read his essays. He liked Cold Play, I liked Cold Play, and I knew that I had found the one.
And I was so excited because I was finally going to get started.

I was finally going to try to have a baby.

It was kind of like the way my married friends felt when they would go off the pill and were about to have unprotected sex with their husbands for the first time.

And I am so psyched and I go on the website and I find my donor's page and I find the little tab that says click to purchase vials and I click on it and then my heart drops.

Because what happens next is a little bubble pops up that says out of stock.

Yeah.

And I think that maybe this is just some kind of strange computer glitch.

So I speed dial the sperm bank and they tell me that actually I picked a very popular donor and that they might not get more inventory for a while because some people have placed him on backorder.

And my first thought is, damn that Maureen, was she pitching him to everyone? Is that why he's out of stock?

And I am really, really upset

because once you pick a specific donor, you start to kind of picture a specific baby. And now I have to let that baby go.
And after all that it's taken to come this far, now I'm back at square one.

So my donor's out of stock, I've just turned 38, and I am out of time, and I'm trying to figure out what to do next.

Because if my plan A had been to grow up and fall in love and get married and have a baby, and my plan B was to grow up and inseminate myself with a 19-year-old sperm from the internet,

I can't even imagine what my plan C might have to look like.

And that's when I see on my desk this business card that I got from this super hot 27 year old filmmaker from Harvard that I had spoken to for about five minutes the week before at a professional networking event.

And in that kind of delusional state that can only come from this dangerous combination of intense desire and intense fear, I decide that I should just cut out the middleman, forget about the sperm bank, and I should ask him to be my donor.

And I think this is a brilliant plan, except for the fact that I don't know how to ask.

I've never even asked a guy in a date before, and so I wonder what the etiquette is for asking a guy to be your sperm donor.

I choose email,

and I sent him this kind of cryptic email. Hey, remember me from that networking event? And I tell him that I have what I artfully call an unusual question, and I ask if he'll meet with me.

And so we set up a meeting for Friday at noon. So on Friday, I walk into the appointed place, and it's this trendy cafe called Earth with a You.
And I see Andrew, and I'm a little bit nervous,

but I also have a plan. And my plan is that I'm going to make small talk for a few minutes.
You kind of have to break the ice with these things.

And then I'm going to launch into my prepared speech, which is the perfect combination of poignant and straightforward.

The only problem is that it becomes very apparent very quickly that Andrew thinks we are on a date.

And it never occurred to me that he would think this was a date because he's so young and he's so gorgeous and he's so tall and he's so

completely out of my league. But I'm also having so much fun that I'm kind of forgetting why we're there.

And so, about an hour in, I am completely taken by surprise when he leans into the table and he looks at me with those swoon-worthy chocolate-brown eyes.

And he says, flirtatiously, so, I'm really curious. What was your unusual question?

Oh my God.

My mind goes completely blank. And then I have this sudden epiphany that my brilliant plan to ask a total stranger to be my sperm donor is actually quite insane.

But I'm willing to be insane because I want this baby so badly, so I just go for it and I start awkwardly mixing lay metaphors like not having all the ingredients for the recipe with it's like donating a kidney but without removing the organ.

And then I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have said organ. And then I'm like, it's like donating blood, but with sex instead of needles.
And I look at Andrew and he is staring back at me.

And I think life does not get more humiliating than this.

But then it does because

my metaphors were so awkward that he has no idea what I've been trying to ask him. And so I just say, look, I am 38 years old and I really want to have a baby.

And I'm wondering if you would maybe consider donating some sperm.

And this time I know he's got it because his entire face changes and he kind of freezes and his mocha chai latte is literally suspended in mid-air.

And we sit like that until he finally breaks the silence and says, Wow.

And then he says, I wasn't expecting that at all.

But then he says, But I'd be willing to talk about it. Cool.
So over the next couple of hours, Andrew and I become oddly intimate, and we discuss everything from our childhoods to our future dreams.

It's like talking about sperm has broken down all the emotional walls, kind of like after you have sex with somebody for the first time.

And by the end of the coffee, he says that he's going to give it some thought. And by the end of the night, he sends me an email that says, so far I am a yes, but with more questions.

So we decide to meet again at Earth. And in fact, over the next month or so, we meet at Earth so often that I start calling Earth my sperm office.
And my friends start calling it simply Sperth.

And at Spurth, we talk about everything from medical histories to semen samples to anonymity to whether we should have the doctor do the insemination or whether we should have sex to increase my odds of conception.

He picks sex.

He does. And I am particularly psyched about this development because

I know that I will never again for the rest of my life have the opportunity to have sex with a movie star gorgeous six foot two 27 year old with ripped abs and chiseled cheekbones and Brad Pitt's hair.

That will never happen. And so I am Psyched, but I'm sad.
And I'm also obsessively watching the clock.

And one day at Spurth, I tell Andrew that I'm about to get my period, which is always a super hot thing to say to a guy.

And I tell him that, you know, if we are going to go forward, we have exactly two weeks to make a decision.

Now, I know that sounds like a lot of pressure to put on a guy, but you have to realize that at this point, we have nicknames for each other, and we know the intimate details of each other's lives, and we have inside jokes, and we've explored everything that could go right or wrong with the donation.

And we've talked about what a blessing this child would be. And he thinks I'm courageous, and I think he's generous, And it's a total love fest.
And I am sure he is going to say yes.

So the next day, we decide to take a walk and kind of iron out the final details. And on the walk, it unexpectedly starts raining.
And Andrew has his big oversized coat.

And so he takes half of it and he puts my left arm in one sleeve and he puts his arm in the other. And because he's a full foot taller than I am, we're kind of walking diagonally like this.

And that's the moment that he confirms that he is in. It is a definite yes, and we are going to go forward.
And I am elated.

And I am standing there getting drenched in the rain in this coat with this man who is going to give me his sperm. And I think about how I can't wait to tell my child this story one day.

And then Andrew disappears.

I don't hear from him for three days, which might not sound like very long, but when you're 38 and you're about to ovulate and your only other baby option is on back order, three days is a freaking eternity.

And I'm trying not to get stressed out and read into this because stress is bad for conception. But, you know, I know something is up.

And then he calls me and he leaves a message and he says that we need to talk. And whereas we used to just say, hey, it's me, now he leaves not just his first name, but his last name.

And that's when I know that the unthinkable is about to happen. I am about to be dumped by my donor.

When I walk into what I know will be our final meeting at Spurth, I see Andrew at our special little sperm table over there. And the minute I sit down, he starts spewing the breakup clichés.

It's not you, it's me, he says. My life is just so unsettled right now that I thought I could commit, but I'm not sure.
And for your sake, I don't want to string you along.

And then the kicker, I hope we can still be friends.

And I look at him and I say, that's okay, there are other fish in the sea. And I make that terrible pun because I know that if I don't, I will burst out crying in public.

But inside, I am dying because this is now the second baby that I have so vividly imagined and that I will now never meet or hold in my arms and so I go home and I decide that I have to take a break from this whole sperm donor thing because it is just too much heartbreak to bear so I ovulate and I get my period if you can't follow the biology don't worry about it and whenever those diaper commercials come on, you know, the ones with the adorable baby butts, I have to grab the remote immediately and turn off the TV.

About a month later, I force myself to go back online and start looking for a new donor when Maureen from the sperm bank calls and she tells me that somebody has returned a vial of my first choice donor sperm, the one that she said looked like a young George Clooney and was the whole package.

I'm not sure how I feel about returned semen.

I mean,

at Whole Foods, you can't even return any personal hygiene items.

But Maureen assures me that it's still sealed in its nitrogen tank and she says that if I want it, I need to let her know right now.

So that winter I have the baby

and when he's old enough I buy him one of those Where Did I Come From books, but this one's written specifically for sperm donor kids. It's called I'm a Little Frosty.

And I start reading it to him and he says, wait, I thought this was going to be about a snowman.

And I say, well, actually, this frosty book is about the time that mommy needed to get some special seeds to make a baby and the seeds needed to be frozen. And he stops me and he says, I was frozen?

And I say, well, a part of what was used to make you was frozen. And he gets this huge smile on his face and he does a little fist pump like LeBron James does when he scores a three-pointer.

And he says, I am so cool.

And I look at my son, who, by the way, does look like a mini version of George Clooney,

and

I think about how I never could have realized back when my relationship ended at age 37, or during all of those baby discussions with Andrew, or that devastating day that I was dumped by my donor.

I never realized this, but it became so clear to me right in that moment. This magical child is the whole package that I'd been searching for all along.
Thank you.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author, and she writes the weekly Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.

That's it for this week's episode of the Moth Podcast. The Moth Radio Hour returns next week.
Podcast production by Timothy Luli.

If you'd like to see pictures or any extras from the stories that you heard today on the podcast, just visit our site, themoth.org.

Dan Kennedy is is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On, and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.

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