Caitlin Van Mol 0:00
It's the small talk question. What do you do for a living? I have a podcast. It's about people who almost died. That's the first time anyone's ever said, "Oh, I almost died. Yeah, and

Jessie 0:10
that's the first time I feel like I've had a response like that to like anything like that. Usually, I'm like, "Oh, cool,

Caitlin Van Mol 0:15
and like that's morbidly what I want to hear. Like I want to hear. Oh, I almost died. I have a story. At one of the many wedding events I attended this summer, I ran into Jessie Shelton. Before we get into what happened to her, please indulge me just a little musical theater talk. If you're not familiar with the musical company, it's about marriage and commitment and turning 35. What is a children's theater's version of company like?

Jessie 0:49
Oh, well, our black box productions were pretty damn professional because our our educator slash director Matthew Howe, who has since passed away to cancer. Sadly, he was giving us really mature material because he believed in us. He believed, like, of course, you only have your life experience up to this point, but like, you're smart kids. So, company, yeah. Like, I don't think I understood maybe what it was fully about.

Caitlin Van Mol 1:16
Yeah, it's very much. Oh, you're in your mid 30s specifically. Yeah. So at the

Jessie 1:26
age of like 18, I was Amy, the one who's just like having a freakout. Oh, but it was really fun. You

Caitlin Van Mol 1:32
got to do. I'm not well. You didn't get to do, but you would. Well, I did.

Jessie 1:36
I did for half the run, but they all voted in light of events that they would not continue,

Caitlin Van Mol 1:44
this is Live to Tell, the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin Van Mol. Jesse grew up as a musical theater kid in Minnesota,

Jessie 2:04
and my parents are both musicians. I started with violin from a very young age because my mom was a violinist, and then I got into dance. And then eighth grade is when I discovered theater, and thought, "Oh, I can put all those things together. Of course, the the violin was like practice at least three hours a day, and you know the standards were high, and my dance days were like ballet conservatory. So like everything, and now I'm in therapy and talk about my perfectionistic tendencies.

Caitlin Van Mol 2:35
In August of 2007, 18 year old Jessie was just weeks away from starting her freshman year and the prestigious Carnegie Mellon Musical Theater program, how many people get into Carnegie Mellon like that program?

Jessie 2:49
My year, there were I think our class total was nine for musical theater, and there were three women.

Caitlin Van Mol 2:58
Surprise! It yeah. On august 1, Jessie was driving from work to the theater for that night's performance of Company. She had one of those jobs where, like, someone's mom worked as an accountant or a lawyer or something, and they hired teens in the summer to move around files in a warehouse. Shout out to Dresser Dresser Hassan Kaywood, where I worked for several summers doing this. Anyway, Jessie's castmates also worked with her, and normally she would carpool, but

Jessie 3:30
I wanted to like finish up the last whatever, so I left a bit later than everyone else. It wasn't far, like on either side of the bridge. These places weren't far, but they were over the bridge from each other.

Caitlin Van Mol 3:43
The Mississippi River runs through Minneapolis, and Jesse was taking the I 35 bridge to get downtown to the theater.

Jessie 3:51
I drove onto the bridge, and it was bumper to bumper traffic both directions. I don't know how many lanes are on each side, but like you know, I'm looking around and it's mayhem, so already like kicking myself because I'm like I don't want to be late, but it's like I'll still I'll still be okay. And then all the hell broke loose, and I just remember like a cracking sensation. I mean like cracking, crack seems like too small a word for it. It was like tectonic, you know, crackage, and then I felt like I was on like an amusement park ride because I just felt kind of like a tilta. The

Caitlin Van Mol 4:28
bridge was collapsing with Jesse and hundreds of other people stuck on it,

Jessie 4:34
but I was oddly at peace. I was like, "Wow, I don't know what's coming. I hope it all turns out okay. And then I started rolling backwards, not quickly. I think it was slowly, as I remember. But of course, time could have been super sped down in a moment. And then, boom! I don't remember anything else.

Caitlin Van Mol 4:55
Wow! So you have no idea, like, how you got knocked out?

Jessie 4:58
No.

Caitlin Van Mol 4:59
The bridge was under construction for routine repairs. Crews had unloaded gravel and dirt onto the bridge, and with the trucks and machinery, the bridge was holding more than 250 tons more weight than normal. Also, the bridge was completely full with rush hour traffic, plus the bending gusset plates that had been noted four years before the collapse that finally gave out under all the weight.

Jessie 5:28
So then, when I finally saw pictures, I'm pretty positive it was my car. I mean, it's hard to tell with all that wreckage. Yeah, it

Caitlin Van Mol 5:38
definitely like looks like it had just dropped into the water. It was like because there were cars just like sitting on there.

Jessie 5:45
So mine was one of those, and I know that I that I dropped 70 feet

Caitlin Van Mol 5:52
since the collapse. Jesse has been able to put together some pieces of what happened to her after she lost consciousness.

Jessie 6:00
So there, I there was this one guy that I met later on, and this guy had been conscious, like he was well enough off after the collapse. He was able to get out of his car and like check on people, which like, wow, like that's still a really traumatic event. And then he looked at me in my car and left me because I was knocked out, and he thought I was dead, but I think the story goes that when he encountered the firefighters, etc. who were coming to rescue people, he was like, "I know there's a woman in this Honda over there. Blah blah blah, and so they got me out. And I believe my mom said that from when they got me to when they got me to the hospital was pretty quick. So it did move pretty quickly.

Caitlin Van Mol 6:43
Meanwhile, at the theater,

Jessie 6:45
my dad was in the orchestra. He played trumpet for the show, and my dad, meanwhile, is like when it's like, where is she? Like Jessie's never late. Like she hasn't texted anyone or called anyone. Something must be going on. So my dad is. I heard later outside the theater, like pacing, trying to get in contact with me. I can't imagine what was going through his head. I still haven't really talked to him about it. I know my mom said she took she finally took a deep breath once my toes were wiggling. It was like, okay, good. She's not paralyzed.

Caitlin Van Mol 7:19
What is the first thing you remember after you woke up.

Jessie 7:23
Ooh, at this point it's kind of hard to say because of like what people have told me and what I remember. But I think I remember waking up. I think the first person I saw was actually my childhood best friend Laura because she got to the hospital I think as soon as she could. My parents like I don't know what that chain of communication was, but I don't know how they how they even knew where I was. I also remember this is so stupid, but I had this Calvin Klein bra, and I really liked it. And all my clothes they just had to cut off of me, and so I have never found that bra again.

Caitlin Van Mol 7:59
You are not the first woman who has been like I was wearing my favorite bra or or underwear, and they cut it off with me, and I was so annoyed.

Jessie 8:11
You know, we prepare ourselves to lose a lot of things and like make peace with a lot of things, but like our underwear, like you, you know, it's like come on. But just to go down the memory train a little bit more. It was really interesting who showed up to check on me. Random people that I had been in, like this guy was in French class with. He had also given me a ride home because I got my license super late. There was one time that both my parents were out of town, and he, one of his parents, lived close to me. So like he, I don't know. I guess my mom set it up. I don't even know how that happened, but yeah, he gave me ride home a few times. So like you know, maybe we were a bit more involved than just like regular classmates. But

Caitlin Van Mol 8:53
he had a crush on you for sure. I

Jessie 8:55
was. It was also weird because I was like dating someone at the time who was a classmate of a friend of mine. They were both at the University of Minnesota, and like we weren't that serious. But then, like I almost died, and so then it was like weird because I was like, we're kind of forcing this into like he was emotionally affected, but he really what like it was not serious.

Caitlin Van Mol 9:16
Yeah, but I mean it's hard. Well, we went through this together, and so yeah

Jessie 9:21
yeah

Caitlin Van Mol 9:22
and I would I committed to being there for you

Speaker 1 9:26
yeah and

Caitlin Van Mol 9:26
so like it becomes very serious very fast

Jessie 9:29
right and yeah he came to visit because of what had happened really and like met my parents and like that wasn't really it you know

Caitlin Van Mol 9:36
how long were you guys did you guys stay together

Jessie 9:39
it was most it was like all long distance. It was probably to like September.

Caitlin Van Mol 9:46
Oh, okay.

Jessie 9:47
I'd say, and I was the one who was like, "Hello, what are we doing? Yeah, if it could have been anyone else that went through this with me, I would have preferred that.

Caitlin Van Mol 10:00
Because what Jesse was now going through was healing from fracturing her back in four places.

Jessie 10:08
So my fractures were impact fractures, which I think in some ways for healing was better. They didn't have to like realign anything per se. But yeah, shit got squishy. But yeah, looking at X-rays, I mean, it's like not like I looked at X-rays before. Like I didn't know what my spine looked like before.

Caitlin Van Mol 10:23
Right. What part of your back was it?

Jessie 10:26
l1, l4, lumbar.

Caitlin Van Mol 10:29
Okay.

Jessie 10:30
t6 and t8, thoracic.

Caitlin Van Mol 10:32
The three parts of your spine are the lumbar, the lower back. Then you got your thoracic, the big middle part, and cervical, the neck part, and the most dangerous to injure.

Jessie 10:45
I didn't have any cervical issues. I did fracture a couple or a few ribs. I had some like from my seat belt. Wear your seat belt. I had some like bruising initially. I think

Caitlin Van Mol 10:59
yeah,

Jessie 10:59
and suffered a concussion, not I guess like a horrible, horrible concussion, but perhaps enough to sort of knock out some of that memory.

Caitlin Van Mol 11:08
Yeah,

Jessie 11:08
they talked about the potential of surgery, which we ended up not. I didn't have to have, which also helped my healing process go more quickly. Yeah, because I don't know what that might have looked like. But yeah, like the the neurologist would come in a lot. I had like a breathing thing so that my lungs would like not lose all their power while I was bedridden. Oh, so I had to like I think it was breathe in and keep the ball floating for a while, you know. And I had to do like a series of those whenever I thought of it, basically. So my mom was like always hounding me about doing my breathing stuff. Mom, get out of here! I just remember for a long time it was like in order to be comfortable, people had to like sort of roll me over and like prop me with pillows on either side. Like I'd call the nurse in, I guess, when I needed to switch, or they'd just switch me.

Caitlin Van Mol 12:00
Now you'd think with four spinal fractures you're gonna be in the hospital for some time, but the thing actually holding Jessie back from going home was her stomach.

Jessie 12:11
They actually kept me in the hospital a lot longer because I couldn't keep any food down.

Caitlin Van Mol 12:16
Was that a reaction to the pain meds?

Jessie 12:19
Could have been.

Speaker 2 12:20
Yeah,

Jessie 12:20
could have been. I'm easily like motion sickness and like I'm just prone to nausea. I guess.

Jessie 12:26
Yeah, I was in the hospital for like either seven or eight days, but I think definitely two or three of those were because I yeah I just couldn't like eat anything, and then without going into too much detail, once I got home, and I was eating like delicious ratatouille. Actually, my mom made ratatouille, and I still fondly remember that because it just was like exactly what I wanted. It was like warm, comforting, vitamin rich, all the things. But I I had some BM problems. Let's just put it that way, and that was horrible. On top of being in a brace with all the pain already, like it's the last thing. It's awful. So to everyone out there, when you have to be on pain medication, make sure you are balancing that out with I don't know what, but figure it out because it's just you don't want to be in that situation. I I cried when I finally went to the bathroom, and that's all I'll say about that.

Caitlin Van Mol 13:26
With Jessie's injuries, fulfilling her place at Carnegie Mellon was out of the question.

Jessie 13:32
I was so keyed up, you know. It's like I was going to finish company and have a crazy rest of the summer, and then go out. And so, like I think too, it was a an amazing thing that they and of course they're not like monsters, but the world does move very fast. So when they said, "Oh my gosh, take care of yourself, defer, come to us next year, or come to us when you're ready, did you

Caitlin Van Mol 13:54
have to like reaudition?

Jessie 13:56
No, no.

Caitlin Van Mol 13:57
Wow. So they, but like, I mean, you really could have not come back this late, like

Jessie 14:02
yeah, yeah, and it it was like pending that I suppose, like because yeah, it's like I obviously this has never happened before, and so who knows how I would spring back.

Caitlin Van Mol 14:13
We'll be back after this break, but if you don't like breaks, you can get ad free episodes for just $2 a month at Patreon.com/slash LivedToTell. So obviously, this happened like right before you were about to leave home and start your adult life. How did it feel to have to put that on hold and go back and be kind of dependent on your parents again.

Jessie 14:45
I'm sort of a Peter Pan in that I was never in a rush to grow up.

Caitlin Van Mol 14:50
Same.

Jessie 14:50
And it was funny because, like, when it came time for my friends to go to school, one of them, well, two of them. We're going to the University of Minnesota, and so I, we were talking about like wanting to room together, so that I at least could feel like I'm striking out on my own in some way. And thankfully, I was able to take some classes at the U, so I felt like I was doing something, and that I had like I was stepping forward in some way, even if it wasn't how I had planned, so I think that helped. And ultimately, though, I started just hanging out at home more and more, and like just wanting to like chill with my mom. So I kind of like it was nice to have that space.

Caitlin Van Mol 15:35
Yeah,

Jessie 15:36
part of it was that one of my roommates was a nightmare. I love her as a person, but she was horrible. Not

Caitlin Van Mol 15:41
always good to live with.

Jessie 15:42
Yeah, and so you know, I was just like, okay, I did this, and I'm glad I did it, and like, no, I don't need to do it anymore. So, yeah, but I was bitter. I was really bitter. I remember I was driving around the lake, and I think I saw like a young person crossing the street, and I was just like, "You're in perfect health, and nothing's ever happened to you. Which, of course, now I know that what you see is not the whole story. But a bitter teenager-it doesn't matter, right?

Caitlin Van Mol 16:16
They are a symbol of what it should have been.

Jessie 16:21
Yeah, exactly. I think I've, I don't know, let go of that a bit more. But I do remember, like in February, it was around my dad's birthday, and I think I like went with him to a convention or something because again, I was hanging out, and I remember being really depressed for the first time in my life. I definitely had a period where I would cry myself to sleep. This was like months after. This is when the brace was off. That you know, I would definitely have those moments of just like, whoa, like this big thing happened, and not knowing exactly what the future was going to look like. But beyond that, just being like, that was such a violent thing to happen to my little body.

Caitlin Van Mol 17:02
Yeah,

Jessie 17:04
and I've since had on and off struggles with depression, and and also what I've come to learn is very much anxiety that you know has similar symptoms, whatever. But I think a lot of that is not because of this event, but I do think other parts of it are because I mean your sense of reality is completely turned upside down. Now that's happened to me in other ways where I've experienced that, but like yeah, definitely at that age it's like what this isn't how it's supposed to go. Like why is this happening to me? You know, like

Caitlin Van Mol 17:37
yeah, and like as a teen, you're invincible. Like nothing, yes, nothing bad's gonna happen to you,

Jessie 17:43
exactly

Caitlin Van Mol 17:44
until bridge collapses and

Jessie 17:46
yeah, yeah, and of course that's a very privileged mindset for me. Of course, you know, and like I can't help but acknowledge that is because there's some unbelievable stuff that's happening in young people's lives, but yeah, up to that point, like I said, like I, I got to do the things I wanted to do, and and it just felt like okay, I'm doing all the right things, and so all the right things should happen, and and they had been.

Caitlin Van Mol 18:10
Did you go to therapy at all?

Jessie 18:12
No, and it hasn't even come up so much in therapy in recent years. I kind of wish I had at this point. I think I probably would have gained a lot of perspective and also just like bonded with people as disparate as our lives might have been that that we shared this huge event. Like, I think that probably would have been really healthy for me. But I just at the time felt like I'm healing. I want to think, be forward thinking. I want to like stay positive. Not that going to therapy wouldn't have been positive necessarily, but obviously it would been positive. But the point

Caitlin Van Mol 18:46
is to poke, touch the the hard stuff. Yeah, and so you do have in acknowledging the bad. So yeah, that it yeah becomes positive. But like you have to be in the in the in the bad to get the good,

Jessie 19:04
yeah, yeah. And I think because I couldn't really remember anything, I was kind of like I, I mean, like a lot of people are known to say I don't know what I would talk about in therapy, but it was very much that because again, there were lots of people who were like floating on their cars or floating on other bits of thing. Like I hope that they all got the support they needed. There were there were offerings of that. Like there was like group therapy, and I'm sure there was individual therapy that you know lots of resources that were given. But I was just like, I think I just want to like focus on getting better and see where that goes.

Caitlin Van Mol 19:39
Did your parents kind of treat you more like preciously after this happened.

Jessie 19:47
That's a very good question. So I am the baby already, and I am the baby girl with an older brother, and my older brother always seemed to be more like waiting to like. Flee the nest and you know go off on his own, whereas and I was like, hey, I'm fine chilling. Like I like hanging out with you guys. I haven't like talked to them about this a lot because Midwestern and also like it's all good. But yeah, I definitely I definitely think that when we've had times when we haven't been in as close of contact, like in my 20s, there kind of was a period where I just didn't check in with them as much. You know, they wouldn't ever say it, maybe, but like I think that probably hurt more than it might have if something like this hadn't happened. Yeah, you know, and these are all questions. Like that's just my assumptions of because they're they're kind of both big babies with like a bit of a hardened deal with it exterior, you know. So, so yeah, I think also like

Caitlin Van Mol 20:48
good for them for letting you go.

Jessie 20:51
Yes,

Caitlin Van Mol 20:53
and not being like,

Jessie 20:55
well, yeah, and so in that respect, I don't remember them ever like being like, are you sure you want to do that? Or oh, that sounds kind of dangerous. Or that they very much like yeah have let me live my life, and that could have gone a very different way because they absolutely could have been like, oh my gosh, we need to shelter her. Like we don't want anything else to happen to her.

Caitlin Van Mol 21:16
Now that she had a year on her hands, Jessie needed to get to work, to get back to the physical shape she would need to take on the dancing and acting and singing of her college program. What was your physical rehab journey? How does one heal from a broken back?

Jessie 21:36
Seriously, well, nobody knows. They didn't. They didn't give me any PT. They were basically like I came back in for my like checkup after you know the stipulated months of what like the time it would take for the bone to heal, and they were like the bone will heal twice as strong as it was before. It's the nerves that are an ongoing, and still to this day, like sometimes my back will just get insanely itchy, and like early on before I learned that, like I definitely would like scratch myself. So that's just my life now. But yeah, they didn't. They were just like, okay, you're good to go. And I was like, not only am I like what, but also I'm like, as a performer, I'm like, what? Yeah, it's

Caitlin Van Mol 22:20
like good to go do therapy or good to do good to do what? What do you mean?

Jessie 22:28
So I like well, first of all, I did some acupuncture and some craniosacral therapy. If you've heard of that, it's all about like sort of getting the chi to flow in the right direction. I actually had friends that I ended up finding out they went to the same practitioner who is the sister of a woman that my mom played in the orchestra with. Small world. They went to the same person and would often go before big tests, and found it really helpful or a big paper just to like focus.

Caitlin Van Mol 22:57
What is a session like?

Jessie 23:00
You're on your back, and it's a lot of like they take your head and they sort of like move it around, sort of literally like listening to the energy of your body. I think, and then like a lot of stuff like hands on and over, like sort of redirecting the flow of things. It's very woo. woo woo, but I really helped. Also, stuff like how muscles can be like on diagonals with the body. So if you like touch, you know, this side on the front of the body, it'll help to release something on the opposite side on the back of the body idea, so it's just really about like I don't know even where what the roots of it are. I'm I'm pretty sure they must be in some form of Eastern medicine, etc. Because yeah, it's really about like how the body works, how the body flows. So I did lots of sessions of that. I also my dad, what would he call her? Her name was Doctor Carol, but she was an applied kinesiologist. The thing where, like, literally, they like put their hands like this, and they're they have a like supplement in their hands, and then they just sort of like tap you, and then it's and they and they'll have you stick your arm out, and then like see how like how how strong you are in relation to like what they're holding, but it's pretty wild because certain things like my arm was staying up, and other things my arm would go down right away. So she she put me on a lot of different supplements,

Caitlin Van Mol 24:36
and she was just holding them.

Jessie 24:38
Yeah, it's you'd have to look it up. It is bizarre. My husband's also been to one.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:43
I mean, I believe this is a thing. I just never heard of this.

Jessie 24:46
Yeah, yeah. So I, so I tried a lot of alternative medicines for pain management first and foremost. It's always good to like give yourself a robust foundation, you know. But it did get to the point where I was taking so. Many pills that I was like, my system-it's-it's hard on the system. Even like trying to take calcium supplements to help me regenerate the bone stuff. It's like calcium's really hard to like digest. It's like tough on your stomach. So like when you can get stuff from food sources, blah blah blah. But hey, it was all worth a try.

Caitlin Van Mol 25:20
She did also go to one actual doctor. Well, depending on how you feel about chiropractors,

Jessie 25:28
my mom still goes to him, Doctor Hills. He was a bodybuilder, and then now he's a chiropractor and a physical therapist. So I would go to him for adjustments, and he would give me like some exercises. You know, again, 18. Are we good at doing our exercises regularly? No, but

Caitlin Van Mol 25:50
38. Are we good?

Jessie 25:52
It always feels good when I do it, but I'm like, do I have to get up off the couch?

Caitlin Van Mol 25:58
But whatever she was doing was working,

Jessie 26:02
but basically, I I was able to after like three and a half months in a brace. I then was dancing again. Like I I signed up for some classes by November, and of course I couldn't do like there was one thing they were like wanting us to do kind of a layout thing, and I was like that doesn't feel good, but I'm

Caitlin Van Mol 26:22
gonna pass. I'm gonna pass on that.

Jessie 26:24
Yeah, I was like, I got it, you know. But but I think I was so excited to like move my body again, and of course there was a bit of disappointment based on where I had been and where I was. But at the same time, like I don't, it's that whole new normal thing. It's like, would my body hurt as much sitting on the floor for a long time, as it once would. I don't know. I'm older now, like you know. So it's kind of like I haven't I haven't spent too much time in that what if place for better for worse. It's just you know it's it's just not really a good use of time.

Caitlin Van Mol 26:55
The I 35 bridge underwent yearly inspection and since 1991, had been found in poor condition, noting, "Superstructure has advanced deterioration. Members may be significantly bent or misaligned. Connection failure may be imminent. I'm no engineer, but that sounds bad. The 2006 report added that a replacement of the entire structure would be preferable. If you want a full description of what exactly caused the collapse and a better understanding of what a gusset plate is, I've linked to a helpful video in the show notes that will Explain everything, but basically,

Jessie 27:43
I don't know if it was the city or the construction people or both or whatever. It's like people knew that it was not structurally sound with all that equipment plus the traffic, without limiting the traffic. Like maybe if they had tried to do that, it might have changed, or it might have just happened later. I don't know. Like again, yeah. The what ifs not super helpful, but the fact that it was known and they continued was just like such a slap in the face.

Caitlin Van Mol 28:09
Had you known anything about the bridge not being safe before?

Jessie 28:13
I don't think so. Not until the aftermath. I think maybe from the lawyers, or maybe from a news article that came out. I'm not sure. But yeah, I was like, because it's one thing. If like again, shit happens, but in this case, I was like, you, yeah, 13 people died, and so many more were injured. I don't remember the exact number of that, but like, regardless of whether I was one of them, it's just like that is so fucked up.

Caitlin Van Mol 28:36
Yeah, this was preventable.

Jessie 28:39
Yeah, exactly.

Caitlin Van Mol 28:41
There were several lawsuits after the bridge collapse with the engineering company, the state, and contractors. The total received by all 145 injured and the families of the 13 people that died was $95 million. The new I-35 bridge opened on september 18, 2008, just over a year after the collapse. But Jesse hadn't waited that long to get back to driving.

Jessie 29:11
I was like, when I got back to driving and I was able to drive in my brace, but I was like, if I were in a car accident now, I'd like decapitate myself. Like this, yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol 29:18
this doesn't seem safe, guys.

Jessie 29:22
Yeah, no, I didn't do that much, but I mean, I also was like, yeah, I want to get my autonomy back.

Caitlin Van Mol 29:28
Yeah, totally. Was it scary the first time?

Jessie 29:32
Yeah, weird. Like the first time I went over the bridge, and I was in the driver's seat, and I felt the change in just the little, I don't know, the ground isn't as deep anymore. You know, like I remember noticing that, and I used to be really adamant about people wearing their seatbelts. I remember a friend of mine in college like didn't, and I got in a full blown argument with him. I was like, "Don't you fuck around with that?

Caitlin Van Mol 29:57
Yeah,

Jessie 29:57
put your seatbelt on. Accidents are never planned. But yeah, if you can do anything to offset your chances having an issue,

Caitlin Van Mol 30:03
drive safe, guys. We'll be right back. But also, if you don't like the ads, you can get ad-free episodes for just $2 a month at Patreon, Patreon, at Patreon.com/slash LiveToTell. As fall 2008 approached and fulfilling her spot at Carnegie Mellon was getting realer and realer, Jessie got anxious it would all be taken away again.

Jessie 30:34
Also, when I took that trip to visit my aunt and uncle,

Caitlin Van Mol 30:39
Jessie stayed with her aunt and uncle in Israel that summer,

Jessie 30:43
and then I got back. I started getting very like I was kind of weird, like coming home and then like leading up to driving out to school because I was terrified something else was going to happen that would keep me from going, or you know. And it's and that's sort of I see my zero to 100 black and white thinking in that. At first, I was like, "Oh, I paid my dues now. Like, I'm pretty good on the accident train for a while, right? Yeah, but it's like that's not the way the world works. And so then there's also this like, of course, this is gonna happen to me. And but you know, so we've we've navigated those waters over the years. But yeah, I mean, I think I was just like really excited and also so nervous too.

Caitlin Van Mol 31:25
Were you nervous about how intense it was going to be on your body?

Jessie 31:31
Yeah, but I think at that time, I and I try to remember that this is a good way to think. But I really was of the belief system that like if I do my best, it's gonna be great. Like I'm gonna deal with whatever comes, and and I deserve to be here.

Caitlin Van Mol 31:52
And the time finally came for Jessie and her dad to drive from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh. How did it feel to finally go to school?

Jessie 32:03
Surreal. First of all, two of my the two people who ended up being like my best friends for at least the first chunk of school, and one of them throughout we lived together for two of the four years. They had done the pre college program and had like taken it upon themselves to like stalk everyone who was incoming, basically. Yeah. And so they like totally zeroed in on me as soon as I showed up to orientation, and like my dad dropped me off and then like took off. Some parents hung out for a bit. Yeah. And so

Caitlin Van Mol 32:37
I see all these like kids moving into college, and then like their parents take a photo of them, like with their bed all made up, and like the room, like like and my parents threw all the shit in the room, and then we're like later gator, and yeah, like

Jessie 32:52
yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol 32:52
I spent the rest of the day by myself unpacked. Yes,

Jessie 32:56
yes, and that was yeah, that was very much my experience too. Yeah, you know, my dad. I think my dad helped me. Actually, did he though, or did he just kind of like? Because I also hope he got to

Caitlin Van Mol 33:06
lift things.

Jessie 33:08
I don't know though. Not not because he wouldn't, but I might have been like, okay, I got it. You know, like

Caitlin Van Mol 33:14
yeah, yeah.

Jessie 33:15
Because that was an element of it too. Like okay, like finally here.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:18
Yeah,

Jessie 33:19
let me let me go. Let me see what this is like.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:22
But anyway, back to her two friends that warmly stalked her before she arrived.

Jessie 33:27
But yeah, so those two like they very much were like, "Are you Jesse? and like, and that's how it began. But but so they

Caitlin Van Mol 33:36
knew about your back.

Jessie 33:37
I think so because all that stuff would have been pretty fresh on like Facebook and all that thing back when we were using Facebook.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:44
Jessie got through college without any more metaphorical rugs being yanked out from under her, or any more literal bridges collapsing under her. Do you have any like PTSD from it?

Jessie 33:57
That's a good question. It's hard to say. Yeah, I have to wonder about my relationship with fear, and because on the it's like here's another thing that like through the healing process, like people using that catch line of like live every day like it's your last, or like asking me if oh are you now living every day like it's your last, and I'm like no, like that's like both. Like we can't. What do you like? Yeah, you have you have to live your life. You have to pay your bills. Like you have to like do your laundry. Yeah, you know.

Caitlin Van Mol 34:29
I I would never go to the dentist. Like, what do you mean?

Jessie 34:34
Right, right. It's like that doesn't really, of course, like seize the opportunities. Like notice the beautiful little things, whatever. Don't be angry all the time. Sure, yeah. So in terms of like that, suddenly feeling very vincible, shall we say, rather than invincible, and my you know how I often refer to it as my brush with mortality. That sends a lot of questions up into the air for me. Of like, oh God, what might happen if I do this? Or like, oh my gosh, maybe this is going to happen. Or maybe, maybe more of that worst case scenario catastrophizing. I have to wonder if that comes. But then again, even as a kid, when my mom, because my mom didn't go away from home a lot, but one time she flew to like Kalamazoo, Michigan, for some like concert or something, and I was like, "When are we going to hear from her? Like she was going in an airplane. Like what's happening? And then when she flew to Spain for like a you know concert series, and and I was like, "What if something happened to her plane over the ocean? But you know, so it's like I've always maybe done that. I also think I've been very suggestible though, because people like to read into my accident and what I might have been feeling and how that might be affecting me now, and then they'll like ask me a question or like a leading question, and I'm like, Oh, maybe when that maybe never crossed my mind before

Caitlin Van Mol 36:06
would make sense, but I don't know.

Jessie 36:09
Yeah, but it's it's also kind of interesting because like a couple years ago, my best friend from childhood, she we were talking about all sorts of things, just like life updates, and she said like that was a really traumatic thing that happened to you, and I hadn't really been like I've been talking about it more lately, either because I've realized I've never told certain people who I'm really good friends with, or like it's come up in other conversations. But before that, I hadn't really spent much time thinking about it specifically. So when she said that, on the one hand, I was like, "Oh yeah, dramatic, but I also was like, "Oh shit, yeah! Like I haven't maybe spent enough time untangling that for myself.

Caitlin Van Mol 36:56
That's always the like weird thing. Is like, am I okay, or is this gonna like one day something will happen and it'll all just like come back up again?

Speaker 3 37:08
Yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol 37:09
are you a good Midwesterner and shoved it deep down so deep down, or are you actually just like no? I'm like pretty chill about this actually. Yeah,

Jessie 37:18
yeah, and it's really it's hard to say because like little things can trigger something that like maybe are very clearly associated with something or just a general feeling of panic or unease or I don't know and so I think it's it's been good to talk about it though yeah it's really hard to say.

Caitlin Van Mol 37:38
Jesse graduated Carnegie Mellon in 2012 and went on to tour with Waitress as Dawn, star across Jonathan Groff in 36 Questions, the podcast Musical, which I recommend you check out wherever you get your podcasts, and most notably, Jessie was in the original Broadway cast of Hades Town. She left the show for a while, but returned in 2024 as one of the fates, and finally wrapped up her time there on July 19th. Can we just talk about Hades Town for a minute?

Jessie 38:12
Yes, why not?

Caitlin Van Mol 38:14
I did just look through my playbills, and I found my the first with the original cast, and you were a fate. How are you feeling now that it's

Jessie 38:24
done? Oh my god, I feel really good. I'm so glad that I went back in 2020. Or, but yeah, it's um because the first year was just so full of like personal and professional stuff that that building holds so much, yeah. But I'm really glad I went back because it helped me to like return to it in a very different place in my life, and also to just like dig in a little deeper, like really like get to know people more. And because I think before, I mean, I was in the building so much starting in 2019 as a swing and mounting the show, that when I what didn't have to be, I would like go away. Yeah, you know, and then and even when we reopened, I still kind of like you know coming out of the pandemic. I don't know was weird, and so I still felt like I'd go to work and then go home. And now like yeah, it's like those people. I really I dug in and had some good convos and really like connected,

Caitlin Van Mol 39:27
yeah,

Jessie 39:28
with people on a on a real level that I hadn't allowed myself to before. It's not that they weren't willing or open to that, and everyone was always so loving and supportive. But you know, you you you get back what you give, and that just whole energy exchange. So yeah, and and the final day, because I can totally freak out of like, oh, it needs to be perfect, and this and that and the other. Some stuff happened, some stuff didn't happen, and it was perfect.

Caitlin Van Mol 39:54
If I could afford the music from company, I would definitely be playing the song, being a. Right here, which is about opening yourself up to love and relationships and how they are great and how they can also be messy and like annoying, but in a good way. And it's very life affirming and invigorating. But I am on a budget, so here's Jesse with some ending platitudes

Jessie 40:20
to leave everyone with something wholesome, we never know what's going on for people. There are people with disabilities that you look at, and and it happens all the time that people are like, "What are you talking about? But and it's like, you know, don't attack them. You don't know what's going on, you know. And hey, that goes more broadly for just everybody being who they are. Like, don't fucking go after people for being who they are, but just to like have more space and more patience and more empathy for ourselves and for others, because we all go through hard times, even if our lives are blessed. So I think like being supportive, listening when someone needs you to listen, talking through stuff even if you don't think you need to talk through it. It's it's just it's all really valuable. And again, even though this happened to me when I was 18, I am still alive. And so as I get further into my 30s, like shit's gonna keep happening, and I'm gonna keep discovering. Like, oh wow, I've been hanging on to that for a long time, or you know, whatever it is, you know, not psychoanalyzing myself about this detrimentally. So, but just like acknowledging and owning what's happened, you know, I think that's a huge thing in terms of being able to like let it go, or or grow with it, or grow past it, or whatever the case may be.

Caitlin Van Mol 41:50
This is Live to Tell. I'm Caitlin Van Mol. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Live to Tell Podcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. It really helps the show. I'll see you in two weeks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai