When you left the house was it hard to readjust to regular life?
Latoya, no. I missed my husband so much and I couldn’t wait to start using the things I learned in the house. I mean, two weeks before I graduated, I was rallying to Rhonda saying ‘I’m ready. I’ve had enough of the house. I’ve learned everything I’m going to learn. Now I want to go out into the real world, go home, and take everything I learned and see if I can put it to good use. It’s really wierd when you have all that attention on you. Especially when you’re someone like me who loves attention. But other than that, I just was really happy to be back. And I realized how much I took for granted and it was another lesson learned.
Would you do another reality show?
Hell, yeah! In a second, I would do it. I think it’s a great experience. Again, Starting Over is more than your typical reality show. It really is therapy first, and then the show. They really want to help women, but I would do another reality show in a heartbeat.
Which ones would you be good on?
Even though it’s a little out of my league because those people are professionals, I would love to do like “Last Comic Standing” or “Big Brother.” Again, just letting people see into your life, everyone can learn something. Whether or not it’s good behavior, or bad behavior, whether you’re clean, disorganized, there’s always something that you can learn. And I get emails all the time from people saying ‘Thank you so much for sharing you story. You’ve helped me in so many ways. And even people who didn’t like me and who were negative toward me said, ‘Hey, you know what? But I can learn from you. Or I can share your experience with a friend who is just like you. So, I think it’s a great thing, reality TV.
Did your coworkers and friends watch the show and what did they think?
Yes they did. And they were a little taken aback by some of the things I did, especially to Candy. They know me and they know how I am but to kind of see me on camera and see me on television be that way to a total stranger, they looked at it in a different light. They didn’t realize how it could come off because they know me. Some things they were a little prejudiced about, as far as my behavior . They said ‘Oh, it wasn’t that bad.’ They thought it was funny. Over all, it was positive responses. With the exception of ‘Oh, you look ten to fifteen pounds heavier!’
Now that you have achieved the goals that you went on the show to achieve, what are your goals now?
First, I want to practice every day. I am improved but I am not perfect. Nobody is. So I try to be the best person that I can be and do things so my husband can be happy as well. But I am always working on practicing new habits and keeping all of the things that I learned in the house fresh because you can always fall into new patterns and I don’t want to do that. My goals are now for the career. They kind of left that up in the air, but I know that I have a gift and I do know how to make people laugh -- now in a good way instead of a bad way. And I do like to make people feel good and happy. I’d be happy to do that. So I’m really trying to do something in comedy. I’m doing some writing and I would really like to do something with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I know with About.com, I’ve learned many a thing on About.com on that subject. You have experts and things on ADD. But I think Adult ADD is a thing that I think a lot of people don’t understand and I’d like to bring a lot of awareness to that, as well.
