Laura Leigh Abby Revisits Her Teen Self in New Podcast

Hormones, angst, crushes, friends, memories—There’s nothing like the teenage years, right?

In a brand-new narrative podcast from Paradiso Media, entitled Seventeen: Conversations with my Teenage Self, listeners are introduced to writer and essayist Laura Leigh Abby via the pages of the journal she kept during her senior year of high school. With the entries voiced by teen influencer Leia Immanuel, Abby reflects on her past, while also acknowledging the inherent and often unwitting misogyny of the time. She admits that parts of the podcast are cringe-worthy, but she hopes talking about her experiences will help others.

Today, Abby is 36 years old and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her wife, Sam, and two young sons. She is no stranger to sharing her personal life with others.

In 2016, she published a memoir about falling in love with her sorority sister (Sam) in college, called The Rush, and an essay about giving birth to her son recently appeared in the New York Times’ “Modern Love” section. In 2017, Abby published a handy wedding guide, 2Brides 2Be: A Same Sex Guide for the Modern Bride, which features a mix of memoir and practical advice for couples planning two-bride weddings, and she and Sam also appeared on the second season of Bravo TV’s Newlyweds: The First Year.

OFM caught up with Abby to talk more about Seventeen and reminiscing.

Can you begin by telling us what inspired you to do your podcast series, Seventeen: Conversations with My Teenage Self?

Paradiso Media is the company that produces it, and they did something similar in France. They’re a company out of France, so the French version was a little different, but it was a journalist going back through her journals from when she was 14 and kind of interacting with them now as an adult. Paradiso wanted to do something over here in the U.S., and when they got in touch with me, it was like, “What can we do? How should we make this happen?”

I’m a writer who has also journaled my whole life, so I was like, “I think the most interesting, juicy stuff from my youth is probably that last year of high school.” You have all those cliche moments like prom, graduation, and getting ready for your whole life to change, as well as a lot of firsts like sexual firsts, parties, and those kinds of things. Once I went through those journals, I was like, “Oh God, I have a lot of stuff in here.”

Ultimately, what do you hope listeners take away from the podcast?

There’s a lot of women my age who I don’t think realize that back in the early 2000s, when we were teens, what a completely fucked-up time it was to be a female. There’s much more nuance now in sexuality and self-confidence. When I was young, you were either gay or straight. There was nothing in-between, and if you were gay, that was all you were. That’s all you could identify as. It just wasn’t a part of pop culture or the conversation for young people.

On that specific level, I hope that this generation of females can look back and be like, “Oh, that was a really tough time, and I can connect to this and give myself a little love for what we experienced.” But I really think anyone can connect with it. I heard from a listene—he’s a straight male that’s older than me, and it was after episode six, which was about that gray area of sexual assault. I got really drunk at a party, and when I woke up, there was a guy on top of me.

This man reached out to me, and he was like, “I’ve never thought about it this way. I don’t know if I had any experiences like this, but you kind of opened my eyes to what consent means.” So, I’m just having this conversation, and I hope people can have fun and enjoy what they’re hearing, but maybe also connect with their former selves and their future selves and just feel a little better.

How was it to reflect and look back at your teenage years in the early 2000s?

Some of it was a lot of fun. It was fun talking to my sister about blowjobs, talking to one of my best friends about the parties we used to have, talking to the friends I used to work with about how much trouble we got in at work, but then I also had these conversations with my mom about when someone in the family died, why didn’t she talk about it with my siblings and me? Why did I feel so alone in that, or why didn’t she talk to me about sex when I was young when I really needed her to open up? I also talked to a guy that I had feelings for in high school and confessed to him how I felt back then.

So, a lot of it was kind of scary, but I think at the end of the day, it felt very good. I have grown and dealt with so much of what I experienced back then that I felt prepared to have these conversations, and they all turned out to be so great.

Was there anything you were extremely nervous to reveal or talk about?

Yeah. I think the episode about sexual assault was tough for me because it’s something I’ve never talked about with anyone. I completely buried it and forgot about it, and I think the reason I was afraid to talk about it is because I always felt like it wasn’t enough. Women get raped every day. Who am I to be like, “Oh, I had a shitty experience, and I felt bad about it?” I think it was giving myself permission and giving everyone permission to say, your feelings are valid. If something shitty happened to you, you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it, whether or not it’s as bad as what can happen to someone else.

All eight episodes are out. Do you plan to do a Season Two or another similar podcast?

I would love to. It’s been well-received so far, and I’m hoping since the entire series is now out, it will kind of catch fire, and we get more listeners. Hopefully, Paradiso or someone else will want to help us make a second season.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

The advice I would give to my younger self is, first of all, don’t be in such a rush to grow up. I think that’s something we all look back on. It was so easy back then, but it didn’t feel easy. So, I think I would tell her, you don’t have to be insecure. You don’t have to go hook up with boys you don’t like because that’s what you think you’re supposed to be doing. You’re going to find your people, and you’re going find love. You’re allowed to feel good about yourself. It’s not something you need other people to do for you. You’re great just the way you are.

You are known for your memoir and personal essays. Have you always had a passion for writing?

Yes, I have been writing as long as I can remember. I’ve been keeping journals for as long as I can remember. I majored in writing in college and went to grad school, so I’ve always been writing and pitching, and I’ve had an interesting experience in the publishing world. I’ve done a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and it’s my passion. I love it.

How important is journaling to you?

When I was younger, journaling felt like the only way I could speak my truth and say my feelings. Now, I don’t necessarily feel that way. I have a spouse; I have friends; I have loved ones; I have kids, but I still want to chronicle my experiences and what it’s really like. The good days, the bad days, things I’m not going to remember. Sometimes, you just have to get it all out and put it on paper. Even if you then put it away and forget about it, it’s sometimes nice to look back and be like, “Oh, remember that trip we took and we stayed here?” I have all the information of what we did. It’s nice to get my experiences in there, even if I’m not going to look. I just want to get it all out.

I read that keeping a journal helped you accept your sexuality. Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, I’ve actually written about that. When I first fell in love with my wife, I was 19, I had no inkling as to what was happening. I thought I was a straight, white cisgender female. Falling in love with her was very scary for me, and for a while, I wouldn’t even write it down. I wouldn’t admit it in my journal. I think when I finally did, and I could start creating the words for myself, it allowed me then to start to translate those words into how I could tell others, how I could really come to terms with that, and start to let people in.

Do you have any pieces or books currently in the works right now?

Just the podcast right now. I have a wedding guide that came out a few years ago; it’s called 2Brides 2Be: A Same-Sex Guide for the Modern Bride, and I know there’s a lot of wedding planning going on as we hopefully enter this post-COVID era, so I implore anyone who needs some help planning to check it out.

You and your wife, Sam, also own a fitness studio where you are an indoor cycling and boxing group-fitness instructor. Any tips on getting rid of winter weight now that we are moving into warmer weather?

I try not to focus so much on weight, but more on how fitness makes us feel good. I love my group fitness; I love my studio, but I’m also excited to get outside and go for a run. For your readers, I’m sure you live somewhere beautiful, so get outside, go hiking, and once you start to get active again, it’s kind of a self-perpetuating thing. It starts to feel good; you want to do it a little more, and then you’re ready to try some new things.

What are some personal and career goals you hope to achieve?

Hm, good question. I think I would love to continue in the podcast world. It’s a fun way for me to incorporate writing in a way that I can get a new audience interested in what I’m doing. A few years ago, I was working on a YA novel, and I’ve never written fiction before. I kind of let that go, so I think I’d love to get back into that. In the future, I would like to write a fictionalized account of my experiences, which I talk about a lot in the podcast. Working at the OFC, the country club I worked at, that was a place for a lot of shenanigans. I think it’d be a good setting for a young adult novel.

Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?

I just want everyone to check out Seventeen, and if they love it, please review it, and give us all the stars!

Stay up-to-date and connect with Abby by following her Twitter @lauraleighabby, Instagram @theabbyfam, or visit her official website, lauraleighabby.com. Seventeen: Conversations with My Teenage Self is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other digital streaming platforms.

Photos courtesy of Alicia Martire and Liam Goodman