March 8, 2022 • 28 mins
Zach is Emmy’s dream partner, until an off-handed comment sets her on a spiral of self-doubt.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast has mature content and language that may not
be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Episode
four Play The part part of dating someone is knowing
if it's okay to share your full self with them
and really hoping that they want to see the fuller picture.
(00:24):
My last boyfriend, Adam loved part of me, the part
that passed as assis woman. He loved that I could
hide the bigger picture of who I really am, and
I was so used to hiding that I played along,
and I hated it. I wanted to be seen and
appreciated as a whole person. But even if someone access
(00:49):
my identity or my story, are there other parts of
me that I just can't stop hiding. I am Emmy
and this is Crumbs, my love story. It's a show
about the things we settled for and the bits of
ourselves that make us who we are. Emmy professional Latina
(01:21):
just moved to l a and exploring the scene asterisk,
trans and sober. After Adam and I broke up, I
got a text from an old flame, a very handsome
guy in his early forties named Zach. He had been
following my social media and figured out that I was single. Again.
(01:45):
So when Zach and I first hooked up, it was
kind of a casual, one time thing. We had met
through a mutual friend, and then he invited me to
come over to his house. He had a really nice
house with an amazing view of the ocean. I remember
walking in and just getting hit in the face with
the strongest smell of weed. So immediately I started thinking
(02:08):
that this wasn't gonna be good for my sobriety. But
we hung out, hooked up, had a really nice night,
and that was it. So we never really had that
discussion of like, what are you looking for or what
do you want from this? I lived forty miles away
from him and in l A with traffic that's like
(02:31):
two hours away, So that was it. And then about
a year later, after Adam I got a text from Zach,
I texted back. I wasn't opposed to the occasional hook up,
but Zach actually asked do you want to go to
a movie or have dinner? So he was asking me
(02:54):
out on a date, not just the hook up. I
felt like maybe he wants to get to know me,
and Zack asked me, do you have any favorite Italian
spots in l A and the reality is that I
didn't because I hadn't been exposed to the l A
life yet. I was still in college. And you know,
(03:18):
also like I'm super broke. I'm living off of my
four one cave from a T and C that I
had cashed out. So yeah, no, I didn't know fine dining.
You say Italian, and I'm you know, I'm thinking Olive Garden.
So we drive from his house to an Italian restaurant
in Hollywood, and you know, it's called Ostia Angelini. I've
(03:43):
never been there and never heard of it. We walk
in and it's so nicely set. You walk in and
it's dark and has candles and it's just ambience is
so elegant, and I'm thinking, wow, this is really nice.
So we sit down. The waiter gives me the menu.
(04:06):
I didn't know what the funk I was gonna order,
so I literally just pointed out something in the menu
and ended up with the delicious pasta. And the food
just kept coming, appetizers, desserts, diet coke refilled. It felt
really good to be wined and dined. Everyone deserves this
kind of treatment. And when he asked about my family,
(04:28):
I took a deep breath, and I did something different.
I told him the truth, all of it. I told
him about my mom's drug use, that I started working
at age sixteen, and that I had a custody of
my sisters by the time I was nineteen. I told
him like, actually, my mom's in prison. You know that
(04:49):
I was so berned that I had my issues with
cocaine and alcohol. I expected him to be a little
more like ho ship, like this bitch is crazy, but no,
like he was very receptive and caring. He had this
look of actual care and concern on his face, which
allowed me to tell him more about myself. And I
(05:11):
was an open book with him. I didn't feel like
I had to hide who I was or have any
shame about where I came from. I was like, hell, yeah,
this is this is what I deserve, you know. And
the more that I got to know Zach, I started
(05:31):
developing sort of feelings for him. It was like the
way I saw this, you know, our relationship if you
want to call it that, what's kind of like Mr
Big and carry from the Sex in the city, right
Like he was my Mr Big. He was older than me,
he was stable, took me to the best restaurants. I
(05:56):
felt like he cared about me. YEA, one night during dinner,
he said, you know, your entire life, you've taken care
of your mom, You've taken care of your sisters. Who
takes care of you? Like, why don't you let someone
take care of you? So he would always try to
(06:20):
do nice things for me, whether you know, take me
to the movies, or go out to a nice dinner
or you know, even he would even cook for me
at his house. But it wasn't just his time and
his care that he was offering. One day he said,
I mean, if you ever need any help, you know
(06:41):
I have the means to help you. I have a
lot of pride, like I don't wanna ask anybody for
a handout. That's just that's just who I am. It
wasn't until sometime, you know, maybe a year after I
knew him, that I actually did accept help from him.
(07:06):
And I remember being feeling so embarrassed and just so
kind of ashamed that I was going through the situation.
But like he kept saying, you know, it's fine to
let people help you, right, It doesn't make you less
of a person. Zach was not my sugar daddy. So
(07:27):
don't get it twisted. It wasn't like that. He just
genuinely cared about what I was going through, and he
was concerned I had feelings for him. So, you know,
I'm thinking that this is a guy that I want
(07:50):
to date, This is a guy that I would love
to have a serious relationship with. I saw him as
a good person with a good heart. You know, he
would help all of his friends. He was very generous
with everyone. He's smart, he's um carrying. I want him
(08:18):
to stick around. So I never really pushed dating him seriously.
I just didn't know if he was built that way.
You know, in my eyes, he's husband material for sure.
Right Yet I never really pursued it seriously because I
didn't know if he wanted to have that with a
(08:41):
transgender woman. What I tried to do was to play
it cool. And there was a reason for that. He
had dated all kinds of women in his past, right,
so I knew he had already dated trans women before.
And I remember one time we were having NERD and
(09:02):
he casually said, you know what I like about you
the most is that you're not crazy like some trans women.
I mean, I get it, but at the same time,
It's like not fair, because here's the thing. When I
started my hormone therapy, I was that crazy. You're going
(09:27):
through puberty all over again. This is my personal experience.
I can't speak for all trans people. I couldn't control
my emotions and my feelings, Like I had a rage
and I had like these bouts of I don't even
know how to describe them, like these tantrumps, these rage
tantrums that I would have because I didn't know how
to manage my feelings and my emotions with all this
(09:50):
estrogen that was being pumped into me. So I like
that you're not crazy? Was it a comment about what
stage I was at in my transition? Like what does
that mean? You know? Like who in the middle of
dinner stops and asks like, oh, you know, thanks for
(10:11):
saying that. Can you please like elaborate on that means
so that I can adhere to not being crazy, so
that you can love and like me. We don't do that.
There was that clouded thought in my head of like, well,
what is crazy? You know? Is it all the behaviors
that I displayed in my previous relationships or like the
(10:33):
behaviors that my mom displayed in her relationships, Like, I
just wanted to be a better person. I just wanted
to be cool. I just wanted him to want to
have me around. So I censored myself and I don't
really like For example, if I would have told Zack Zach,
I want to be your girlfriend, is he going to
perceive that as me being cleany? When we're out in public,
(10:55):
it's like we're a couple, right because he's holding my
hand as we're walking to the movie theater. He calls
me babe, and he kisses me in public, like all
these things, yet there's no real label to it. Me
vocalizing my needs could potentially make me look crazy. I
don't know. It's a risk I didn't want to take.
(11:19):
So even though internally I was upset and jealous that
I wasn't the only woman in Zack's life, I couldn't
really show that because I didn't want him to be
turned off by me. I just wanted him to want
to have me around. I decided that was the role
(11:43):
I was going to play. I learned to play the
part early on. When I was seven years old, I
spent some time I'm living with my mom. We're living
(12:04):
in my grandmother's house. But my grandmother's not there, and um,
spoiler alert, my grandmother went to prison, and we'll get
into that in a different episode. But now I'm like
in an adjustment phase. I'm adjusting to living with this
woman who had always been in and out of my life. Right,
(12:24):
my mom would always be in jail, or in detox
or in the rehab. So here's my mom, this twenty
one year old single mom with a heroin addiction. I remember,
you know, we get on wellfare immediately because now my
grandmother can support us, and just the WAFA checks for
some reason, aren't enough money to support a drug habit
(12:47):
and to take care of a seven year old kid.
So my mom continues doing her little side hustles. Remember
that restaurant I talked about, Boom, So there's one job
that my mom took on that I kind of remember,
just happening over and over right again and again. We'd
(13:07):
get in the car, we drive to a foil and
my mom would meet up with these weird people, strangers
to me, and I'd see them hand my mom an
envelope and then you know, just staying nod and I
don't know, agree on the terms whatever, those were and
then we get back in the car and she's like, Okay,
(13:30):
we're going on an adventure. We crossed the border from
Sunny Sea Little to Tijuana and it was literally like
a three minute drive from a boiled to the border.
So once we crossed the border, we drive to this
I don't know, a restaurant and then my mom would said, okay,
(13:51):
get in the back, and I jumped in the back seat.
You know, a strange man would get in the front seat.
My mom would open up the envelope and hand this
man a passport or a green card, whatever it was,
and you know, the man would analyze the green card,
(14:15):
read it off to my mom, and then that started
like a dialogue, a conversation where my mom would start
asking the man, Okay, what's your name, where are you from,
what's your data? Were you born, how did you get
your paper? How did you become a citizen. I've been
crossing the border my entire life. I knew like my
(14:37):
mom was role playing and she was pretending to be
a border patrol agent when she was asking these strangers
these questions. And that's when I realized that what my
mom was doing, her little side hustle was crossing undocumented
immigrants into the US with fake documents. I remember definitely
(15:01):
knowing that what my mom was doing was illegal and
that she could get in trouble, that she could go
to jail. But you know, I'm in this adjustment phase
where I'm trying to get to know this woman, and
I go with it. Right the people please are in
me just wants to be I want to fit in.
(15:22):
And so even though deep down inside I know that
she what she's doing is wrong, and deep downside I
don't want to do it, I do it. And I
remember there was this one day that my mom, you know,
we picked up this stranger, a woman, and she got
in the front seat and my mom was like, you know,
(15:46):
I think my mom was probably not feeling well or
maybe she was high, I don't know, but she said,
I'll be right back, and so she left me in
the car where the stranger and I took the document
I think it was a resident alien card, and I
(16:09):
took it upon myself to start quizzing this woman and
I start asking her like I took on the border
patrol agent role and I started role playing with her.
I remember asking her like, oh you know, what's your name,
what's your date of birth? And so when my mom
got back in the car, I very proudly said, oh
my god, mom helping you. And she was like, okay,
(16:33):
you know, and she just let me. Let me do
it for a while. So my mom would always call
me her little helper. Being called her little helper, it
made me feel proud of what I was doing. And
then the day came. We're at the border. There's one
(16:59):
car for an of us, and you always get that
rush of adrenaline when you're the next in line and
you know what you're doing is illegal, and so there's
like this thrill that you get right like are we
going to get away with it? It was our turn
(17:20):
and we were pulling up to the border patrol agent
and then he starts asking questions and he starts asking
the strange woman, what's your name? Where are you headed too?
I'm The woman starts stuttering, she starts getting nervous. So
(17:43):
my mom starts answering for her, and the border patrol
agent says, ma'am, I'm speaking to her, and so my
mom shuts up. The border patrol agents talking to this
woman in Spanish, and something's off I know, like, we're
not going to get through this one. My heart starts beating.
(18:08):
I start getting scared. I can see my mom just
get so quiet and so like wide eyed that she
starts getting nervous herself. And you know, the border patrol
agent takes our documents, he starts writing a piece of paper.
(18:28):
He puts the documents on the windshield wiper with the
other piece of paper and sends it to secondary inspection.
I was scared. I knew my mom was gonna go
to jail, and I didn't know what was gonna happen
to me. You know, I had just lost my grandmother
(18:50):
to prison, so I was adjusting to living with my mom,
and now she's gonna go to jail, and I have
to go adjust somewhere else. They take the stranger away,
and then they handcuffed my mom. They get her out
(19:10):
of the car. They put her up against the car
and they handcuffed her, and they escort her through this
hall and they take my hand and I'm walking right
behind my mom and we get to this huge room
with a lot of people sitting there. I'm imagining they
were the people that they had busted that day, and
(19:33):
it's just like I'm shaking. I know my mom's gonna
go to jail. What's gonna happen with me? They sit
us down, they take my mom's car keys, they inspect
the car, they take my mom's wallet, they take her
handcuffs off. Finally, when we get to this seating waiting
(19:56):
area and there's a bunch of people just sitting there,
and I could tell they were, you know, I could
tell that they were in the same situation as we were.
I asked my mom, what's going to happen, and she's like,
I don't know, and she gets really quiet. I start
getting antsy. I'm a hyper little kid. I have this
(20:19):
little styrofoam airplane that I had been playing with, you know,
the kind of little styrofolm airplane you get an ice
cream truck. I had that in my hand and I
was just throwing it, you know. I was running around
and my mom was like, sit down, sit down, like
we're gonna get in trouble. Sit down. We were already
in trouble. Like core with kidding Mom. And I'm playing
(20:42):
with this little airplane and I throw it really far
and it lands close to the turnstiles, you know, like
when you're exiting that building, and my mom calls me.
She's like, come here. So I grabbed my airplane. I
go back and she's like, I think that's the exit
(21:04):
to the street. Okay, should we leave. She's like, we'll
keep playing with your airplane. Keep playing with the airplane,
just throw it really far, and when I call your name,
don't turn around. Just keep playing with your airplane. And
(21:28):
so I started playing with this airplane. Gells at me.
You know, they called me wet all back then. So
she's like, what all seeing that there? You know? We
all sit down, and I wasn't listening, and I threw
the airplane past the turnstiles and my mom's like what all?
And she gets up and she runs towards me to
(21:52):
get me. We already have this deal like if she
calls my name, I don't turn around. I just keep
walking and she's going to chase after me. And so
I go onto the turnstiles, pick up my airplane and
throw it even further into this like long hallway, and
(22:14):
she's screaming, what don't come back here? And I'm not listening,
and I hear the turnstiles click, and I just like
glanced over and I see my mom just crossed the turnstiles.
So I keep throwing my airplane further and I see
a two double doors and it says exit, and I
(22:38):
remember pushing that handle, and it was like into the street,
you know, just people walking normally. It's right at the
trolley station, and I just keep running. My mom's chasing
after me. She's yelling my name, but I didn't turn
around and go back. And next thing you know it,
(23:02):
my mom's out. I'm out and we'll get on the trolley.
And I felt so proud of myself that I was
able to get my mom out of this situation where
she was going to go to jail. We laughed the
entire ride, just this release of fear and this happiness
(23:24):
of being free. But that passenger she was still back there.
I think about her sometimes. Nothing ever happened to us.
I don't think we crossed people anymore after that. I
(23:45):
think my mom finally got a little scared that she
was on the radar. When my mom tells stories about
this time in our life, she tells him with a smile,
I guess I just wanted to be close to my mom,
and that was the only avenue that I had to
be close to my mom at the time because she
was deep in her addiction. So like, I made it work.
(24:11):
I worked around it. If she needed me to be
her little helper, then I was going to be her
little helper. Yeah, it's hard to think of this as
a funny story when it was painful at the same time.
(24:34):
It was painful to have to search for ways to
be wanted even when they made me really uncomfortable. And
it's painful that I got used to that and that
it stayed with me over time, so that with boyfriends,
I was so ready to figure out what they wanted
me to be and be that and censor everything else.
(24:59):
If I fit the mold of what they are or want,
then I'm good. Like I'll fit in and I'll be wanted,
and I'll be loved and I'll be accepted. If I
wanted to have this experience, Mr Big and Carry Bradshaw experience,
(25:19):
like I had to fit the bill and I had
to adapt and play the part. If Zach wanted me
to be his causual flame, I was just going to
be his casual flame. I normalized being casual when I
wanted something more so because I was sensing myself and
(25:42):
trying not to seem crazy. I never really told him
what my true feelings were and that I wanted something
serious with him. And because I never told him, you know,
he's off on a new chapter in his life with
someone else, so I will never get the chance to
(26:02):
tell him. He got engaged. And that was that. In
my eagerness to want someone to want me around, I
quieted a big part of myself, my needs. And I
(26:25):
know it's because I was used to that. I managed
to find someone who made me feel more comfortable expressing
who I am and where I come from, But the
whole time I felt like I couldn't express my feelings.
Great that you can tell me about your mom's heroin
us and being in prison and her not being around
and you having to raise your sisters. But don't let
(26:48):
any of that make you any less chill, okay, tell
me about your life, but not about your emotional needs.
Don't let any of that lived experience make you crazy
or demand ending keep it together. But my emotional needs
are part of me. So what would it be like
(27:09):
to be my full self? To express myself? Can I
do that without fear? Next time I crumbs? I try
(27:34):
Crumbs is the production of I Heart Radios Michael Lura
podcast Network in association with Children Horse. It's produced by
Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jasmine Rometo and Alex Sumeto.
Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel
(27:55):
Executive produced by Javances and Conno Burn for I Heart,
Alex Bumeto for Children, Joshua Weinstein, Jasmindro, Metro Cam and
me Emio Lea Special thanks to Monissa Hendrix, Fernand Estrava
and Sara Mota. Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart
(28:16):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast has mature content and language that may not
be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Episode
four Play The part part of dating someone is knowing
if it's okay to share your full self with them
and really hoping that they want to see the fuller picture.
(00:24):
My last boyfriend, Adam loved part of me, the part
that passed as assis woman. He loved that I could
hide the bigger picture of who I really am, and
I was so used to hiding that I played along,
and I hated it. I wanted to be seen and
appreciated as a whole person. But even if someone access
(00:49):
my identity or my story, are there other parts of
me that I just can't stop hiding. I am Emmy
and this is Crumbs, my love story. It's a show
about the things we settled for and the bits of
ourselves that make us who we are. Emmy professional Latina
(01:21):
just moved to l a and exploring the scene asterisk,
trans and sober. After Adam and I broke up, I
got a text from an old flame, a very handsome
guy in his early forties named Zach. He had been
following my social media and figured out that I was single. Again.
(01:45):
So when Zach and I first hooked up, it was
kind of a casual, one time thing. We had met
through a mutual friend, and then he invited me to
come over to his house. He had a really nice
house with an amazing view of the ocean. I remember
walking in and just getting hit in the face with
the strongest smell of weed. So immediately I started thinking
(02:08):
that this wasn't gonna be good for my sobriety. But
we hung out, hooked up, had a really nice night,
and that was it. So we never really had that
discussion of like, what are you looking for or what
do you want from this? I lived forty miles away
from him and in l A with traffic that's like
(02:31):
two hours away, So that was it. And then about
a year later, after Adam I got a text from Zach,
I texted back. I wasn't opposed to the occasional hook up,
but Zach actually asked do you want to go to
a movie or have dinner? So he was asking me
(02:54):
out on a date, not just the hook up. I
felt like maybe he wants to get to know me,
and Zack asked me, do you have any favorite Italian
spots in l A and the reality is that I
didn't because I hadn't been exposed to the l A
life yet. I was still in college. And you know,
(03:18):
also like I'm super broke. I'm living off of my
four one cave from a T and C that I
had cashed out. So yeah, no, I didn't know fine dining.
You say Italian, and I'm you know, I'm thinking Olive Garden.
So we drive from his house to an Italian restaurant
in Hollywood, and you know, it's called Ostia Angelini. I've
(03:43):
never been there and never heard of it. We walk
in and it's so nicely set. You walk in and
it's dark and has candles and it's just ambience is
so elegant, and I'm thinking, wow, this is really nice.
So we sit down. The waiter gives me the menu.
(04:06):
I didn't know what the funk I was gonna order,
so I literally just pointed out something in the menu
and ended up with the delicious pasta. And the food
just kept coming, appetizers, desserts, diet coke refilled. It felt
really good to be wined and dined. Everyone deserves this
kind of treatment. And when he asked about my family,
(04:28):
I took a deep breath, and I did something different.
I told him the truth, all of it. I told
him about my mom's drug use, that I started working
at age sixteen, and that I had a custody of
my sisters by the time I was nineteen. I told
him like, actually, my mom's in prison. You know that
(04:49):
I was so berned that I had my issues with
cocaine and alcohol. I expected him to be a little
more like ho ship, like this bitch is crazy, but no,
like he was very receptive and caring. He had this
look of actual care and concern on his face, which
allowed me to tell him more about myself. And I
(05:11):
was an open book with him. I didn't feel like
I had to hide who I was or have any
shame about where I came from. I was like, hell, yeah,
this is this is what I deserve, you know. And
the more that I got to know Zach, I started
(05:31):
developing sort of feelings for him. It was like the
way I saw this, you know, our relationship if you
want to call it that, what's kind of like Mr
Big and carry from the Sex in the city, right
Like he was my Mr Big. He was older than me,
he was stable, took me to the best restaurants. I
(05:56):
felt like he cared about me. YEA, one night during dinner,
he said, you know, your entire life, you've taken care
of your mom, You've taken care of your sisters. Who
takes care of you? Like, why don't you let someone
take care of you? So he would always try to
(06:20):
do nice things for me, whether you know, take me
to the movies, or go out to a nice dinner
or you know, even he would even cook for me
at his house. But it wasn't just his time and
his care that he was offering. One day he said,
I mean, if you ever need any help, you know
(06:41):
I have the means to help you. I have a
lot of pride, like I don't wanna ask anybody for
a handout. That's just that's just who I am. It
wasn't until sometime, you know, maybe a year after I
knew him, that I actually did accept help from him.
(07:06):
And I remember being feeling so embarrassed and just so
kind of ashamed that I was going through the situation.
But like he kept saying, you know, it's fine to
let people help you, right, It doesn't make you less
of a person. Zach was not my sugar daddy. So
(07:27):
don't get it twisted. It wasn't like that. He just
genuinely cared about what I was going through, and he
was concerned I had feelings for him. So, you know,
I'm thinking that this is a guy that I want
(07:50):
to date, This is a guy that I would love
to have a serious relationship with. I saw him as
a good person with a good heart. You know, he
would help all of his friends. He was very generous
with everyone. He's smart, he's um carrying. I want him
(08:18):
to stick around. So I never really pushed dating him seriously.
I just didn't know if he was built that way.
You know, in my eyes, he's husband material for sure.
Right Yet I never really pursued it seriously because I
didn't know if he wanted to have that with a
(08:41):
transgender woman. What I tried to do was to play
it cool. And there was a reason for that. He
had dated all kinds of women in his past, right,
so I knew he had already dated trans women before.
And I remember one time we were having NERD and
(09:02):
he casually said, you know what I like about you
the most is that you're not crazy like some trans women.
I mean, I get it, but at the same time,
It's like not fair, because here's the thing. When I
started my hormone therapy, I was that crazy. You're going
(09:27):
through puberty all over again. This is my personal experience.
I can't speak for all trans people. I couldn't control
my emotions and my feelings, Like I had a rage
and I had like these bouts of I don't even
know how to describe them, like these tantrumps, these rage
tantrums that I would have because I didn't know how
to manage my feelings and my emotions with all this
(09:50):
estrogen that was being pumped into me. So I like
that you're not crazy? Was it a comment about what
stage I was at in my transition? Like what does
that mean? You know? Like who in the middle of
dinner stops and asks like, oh, you know, thanks for
(10:11):
saying that. Can you please like elaborate on that means
so that I can adhere to not being crazy, so
that you can love and like me. We don't do that.
There was that clouded thought in my head of like, well,
what is crazy? You know? Is it all the behaviors
that I displayed in my previous relationships or like the
(10:33):
behaviors that my mom displayed in her relationships, Like, I
just wanted to be a better person. I just wanted
to be cool. I just wanted him to want to
have me around. So I censored myself and I don't
really like For example, if I would have told Zack Zach,
I want to be your girlfriend, is he going to
perceive that as me being cleany? When we're out in public,
(10:55):
it's like we're a couple, right because he's holding my
hand as we're walking to the movie theater. He calls
me babe, and he kisses me in public, like all
these things, yet there's no real label to it. Me
vocalizing my needs could potentially make me look crazy. I
don't know. It's a risk I didn't want to take.
(11:19):
So even though internally I was upset and jealous that
I wasn't the only woman in Zack's life, I couldn't
really show that because I didn't want him to be
turned off by me. I just wanted him to want
to have me around. I decided that was the role
(11:43):
I was going to play. I learned to play the
part early on. When I was seven years old, I
spent some time I'm living with my mom. We're living
(12:04):
in my grandmother's house. But my grandmother's not there, and um,
spoiler alert, my grandmother went to prison, and we'll get
into that in a different episode. But now I'm like
in an adjustment phase. I'm adjusting to living with this
woman who had always been in and out of my life. Right,
(12:24):
my mom would always be in jail, or in detox
or in the rehab. So here's my mom, this twenty
one year old single mom with a heroin addiction. I remember,
you know, we get on wellfare immediately because now my
grandmother can support us, and just the WAFA checks for
some reason, aren't enough money to support a drug habit
(12:47):
and to take care of a seven year old kid.
So my mom continues doing her little side hustles. Remember
that restaurant I talked about, Boom, So there's one job
that my mom took on that I kind of remember,
just happening over and over right again and again. We'd
(13:07):
get in the car, we drive to a foil and
my mom would meet up with these weird people, strangers
to me, and I'd see them hand my mom an
envelope and then you know, just staying nod and I
don't know, agree on the terms whatever, those were and
then we get back in the car and she's like, Okay,
(13:30):
we're going on an adventure. We crossed the border from
Sunny Sea Little to Tijuana and it was literally like
a three minute drive from a boiled to the border.
So once we crossed the border, we drive to this
I don't know, a restaurant and then my mom would said, okay,
(13:51):
get in the back, and I jumped in the back seat.
You know, a strange man would get in the front seat.
My mom would open up the envelope and hand this
man a passport or a green card, whatever it was,
and you know, the man would analyze the green card,
(14:15):
read it off to my mom, and then that started
like a dialogue, a conversation where my mom would start
asking the man, Okay, what's your name, where are you from,
what's your data? Were you born, how did you get
your paper? How did you become a citizen. I've been
crossing the border my entire life. I knew like my
(14:37):
mom was role playing and she was pretending to be
a border patrol agent when she was asking these strangers
these questions. And that's when I realized that what my
mom was doing, her little side hustle was crossing undocumented
immigrants into the US with fake documents. I remember definitely
(15:01):
knowing that what my mom was doing was illegal and
that she could get in trouble, that she could go
to jail. But you know, I'm in this adjustment phase
where I'm trying to get to know this woman, and
I go with it. Right the people please are in
me just wants to be I want to fit in.
(15:22):
And so even though deep down inside I know that
she what she's doing is wrong, and deep downside I
don't want to do it, I do it. And I
remember there was this one day that my mom, you know,
we picked up this stranger, a woman, and she got
in the front seat and my mom was like, you know,
(15:46):
I think my mom was probably not feeling well or
maybe she was high, I don't know, but she said,
I'll be right back, and so she left me in
the car where the stranger and I took the document
I think it was a resident alien card, and I
(16:09):
took it upon myself to start quizzing this woman and
I start asking her like I took on the border
patrol agent role and I started role playing with her.
I remember asking her like, oh you know, what's your name,
what's your date of birth? And so when my mom
got back in the car, I very proudly said, oh
my god, mom helping you. And she was like, okay,
(16:33):
you know, and she just let me. Let me do
it for a while. So my mom would always call
me her little helper. Being called her little helper, it
made me feel proud of what I was doing. And
then the day came. We're at the border. There's one
(16:59):
car for an of us, and you always get that
rush of adrenaline when you're the next in line and
you know what you're doing is illegal, and so there's
like this thrill that you get right like are we
going to get away with it? It was our turn
(17:20):
and we were pulling up to the border patrol agent
and then he starts asking questions and he starts asking
the strange woman, what's your name? Where are you headed too?
I'm The woman starts stuttering, she starts getting nervous. So
(17:43):
my mom starts answering for her, and the border patrol
agent says, ma'am, I'm speaking to her, and so my
mom shuts up. The border patrol agents talking to this
woman in Spanish, and something's off I know, like, we're
not going to get through this one. My heart starts beating.
(18:08):
I start getting scared. I can see my mom just
get so quiet and so like wide eyed that she
starts getting nervous herself. And you know, the border patrol
agent takes our documents, he starts writing a piece of paper.
(18:28):
He puts the documents on the windshield wiper with the
other piece of paper and sends it to secondary inspection.
I was scared. I knew my mom was gonna go
to jail, and I didn't know what was gonna happen
to me. You know, I had just lost my grandmother
(18:50):
to prison, so I was adjusting to living with my mom,
and now she's gonna go to jail, and I have
to go adjust somewhere else. They take the stranger away,
and then they handcuffed my mom. They get her out
(19:10):
of the car. They put her up against the car
and they handcuffed her, and they escort her through this
hall and they take my hand and I'm walking right
behind my mom and we get to this huge room
with a lot of people sitting there. I'm imagining they
were the people that they had busted that day, and
(19:33):
it's just like I'm shaking. I know my mom's gonna
go to jail. What's gonna happen with me? They sit
us down, they take my mom's car keys, they inspect
the car, they take my mom's wallet, they take her
handcuffs off. Finally, when we get to this seating waiting
(19:56):
area and there's a bunch of people just sitting there,
and I could tell they were, you know, I could
tell that they were in the same situation as we were.
I asked my mom, what's going to happen, and she's like,
I don't know, and she gets really quiet. I start
getting antsy. I'm a hyper little kid. I have this
(20:19):
little styrofoam airplane that I had been playing with, you know,
the kind of little styrofolm airplane you get an ice
cream truck. I had that in my hand and I
was just throwing it, you know. I was running around
and my mom was like, sit down, sit down, like
we're gonna get in trouble. Sit down. We were already
in trouble. Like core with kidding Mom. And I'm playing
(20:42):
with this little airplane and I throw it really far
and it lands close to the turnstiles, you know, like
when you're exiting that building, and my mom calls me.
She's like, come here. So I grabbed my airplane. I
go back and she's like, I think that's the exit
(21:04):
to the street. Okay, should we leave. She's like, we'll
keep playing with your airplane. Keep playing with the airplane,
just throw it really far, and when I call your name,
don't turn around. Just keep playing with your airplane. And
(21:28):
so I started playing with this airplane. Gells at me.
You know, they called me wet all back then. So
she's like, what all seeing that there? You know? We
all sit down, and I wasn't listening, and I threw
the airplane past the turnstiles and my mom's like what all?
And she gets up and she runs towards me to
(21:52):
get me. We already have this deal like if she
calls my name, I don't turn around. I just keep
walking and she's going to chase after me. And so
I go onto the turnstiles, pick up my airplane and
throw it even further into this like long hallway, and
(22:14):
she's screaming, what don't come back here? And I'm not listening,
and I hear the turnstiles click, and I just like
glanced over and I see my mom just crossed the turnstiles.
So I keep throwing my airplane further and I see
a two double doors and it says exit, and I
(22:38):
remember pushing that handle, and it was like into the street,
you know, just people walking normally. It's right at the
trolley station, and I just keep running. My mom's chasing
after me. She's yelling my name, but I didn't turn
around and go back. And next thing you know it,
(23:02):
my mom's out. I'm out and we'll get on the trolley.
And I felt so proud of myself that I was
able to get my mom out of this situation where
she was going to go to jail. We laughed the
entire ride, just this release of fear and this happiness
(23:24):
of being free. But that passenger she was still back there.
I think about her sometimes. Nothing ever happened to us.
I don't think we crossed people anymore after that. I
(23:45):
think my mom finally got a little scared that she
was on the radar. When my mom tells stories about
this time in our life, she tells him with a smile,
I guess I just wanted to be close to my mom,
and that was the only avenue that I had to
be close to my mom at the time because she
was deep in her addiction. So like, I made it work.
(24:11):
I worked around it. If she needed me to be
her little helper, then I was going to be her
little helper. Yeah, it's hard to think of this as
a funny story when it was painful at the same time.
(24:34):
It was painful to have to search for ways to
be wanted even when they made me really uncomfortable. And
it's painful that I got used to that and that
it stayed with me over time, so that with boyfriends,
I was so ready to figure out what they wanted
me to be and be that and censor everything else.
(24:59):
If I fit the mold of what they are or want,
then I'm good. Like I'll fit in and I'll be wanted,
and I'll be loved and I'll be accepted. If I
wanted to have this experience, Mr Big and Carry Bradshaw experience,
(25:19):
like I had to fit the bill and I had
to adapt and play the part. If Zach wanted me
to be his causual flame, I was just going to
be his casual flame. I normalized being casual when I
wanted something more so because I was sensing myself and
(25:42):
trying not to seem crazy. I never really told him
what my true feelings were and that I wanted something
serious with him. And because I never told him, you know,
he's off on a new chapter in his life with
someone else, so I will never get the chance to
(26:02):
tell him. He got engaged. And that was that. In
my eagerness to want someone to want me around, I
quieted a big part of myself, my needs. And I
(26:25):
know it's because I was used to that. I managed
to find someone who made me feel more comfortable expressing
who I am and where I come from, But the
whole time I felt like I couldn't express my feelings.
Great that you can tell me about your mom's heroin
us and being in prison and her not being around
and you having to raise your sisters. But don't let
(26:48):
any of that make you any less chill, okay, tell
me about your life, but not about your emotional needs.
Don't let any of that lived experience make you crazy
or demand ending keep it together. But my emotional needs
are part of me. So what would it be like
(27:09):
to be my full self? To express myself? Can I
do that without fear? Next time I crumbs? I try
(27:34):
Crumbs is the production of I Heart Radios Michael Lura
podcast Network in association with Children Horse. It's produced by
Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jasmine Rometo and Alex Sumeto.
Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel
(27:55):
Executive produced by Javances and Conno Burn for I Heart,
Alex Bumeto for Children, Joshua Weinstein, Jasmindro, Metro Cam and
me Emio Lea Special thanks to Monissa Hendrix, Fernand Estrava
and Sara Mota. Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart
(28:16):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Emmy Olea
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