March 21, 2022 • 39 mins
Everything is perfect until it isn’t, in love and in life. Emmy revisits two days in her life -- one with a boyfriend, and one with her family -- when her world came crashing down. But can she write her perfect ending?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
OK, this podcast has mature content and language that may
(00:03):
not be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Episode six but perfect ending. There's this thing that's happened
to me a few times in my life, the shift
(00:24):
when happiness is easier to come by, Like it's not
that much of a struggle to wake up and feel happy.
It's when I'm being seen, when I'm fully welcomed, when
I'm deeply comfortable, And of course I get attached to
that feeling. Who wouldn't I would do anything to try
(00:49):
and make that happiness last forever. But what if it's
not in my control. I am Emmy and this is Crumbs,
my love story. It's a show about the things we
settle for and the bits of ourselves that make us
(01:09):
who we are. Aftermarks, I was pretty much taking a
break from all dating Emmy thirty, working on myself. Actually,
(01:33):
I need to tell you something this whole time, and
for my whole dating career as Emmy, I've been lying
about my age, shaving off a couple of years here
and there. I think it's because my sex and dating
life as Emmy started late, and I wanted to have
a shot at young love pretend that hadn't spent so
(01:57):
many years through my twenties confused and searching so hard
to find myself. So my age is a lie, but
I'm working on it. I had just achieved ten years
of sobriety, and I felt like there was something missing.
(02:17):
I felt a huge void within me. I felt like
I should be really happy that I just achieved tenure
of sobriety, but I wasn't. And you know, I had
been dating like crazy, trying to fill this void with
someone else. And then somebody asked me, what does your
spiritual life look like? You know, when I first got
(02:41):
sober and I heard about the spirituality component of the program,
I was a little bit turned off and kind of
like hesitant because again, I grew up Catholic, and I
didn't really want to live the Catholic life right because
I was taught in like if you're like, I was
taught to be scared of God and I was taught
(03:02):
that I was going to go to hell for being
who I am. So I wanted none of that. Somebody
put it to me so simple, they said, you know what,
you just have to believe that there's a higher power,
and it's not you. I wanted to higher power that
was going to love and just accept me for who
(03:24):
I am, with no judgment, with no fear. Someone once said,
you know those waves, crashing waves in the ocean, can
you stop them? And I was like no. So there
was like my first tangible example of something more powerful
(03:47):
than me. So I get in my car and drive
to the ocean and I was meditating and just having
conversations with the ocean pretty much about my obsession with relationships,
with dating, with money, you know, shiny objects. I really started,
(04:08):
you know, having conversations and kind of surrendering those thoughts,
and with time, I felt like the ocean was kind
of absorbing all of those things that I was focusing on.
I stopped constantly thinking about the dating apps, the hookups,
(04:30):
just all that noise outside. I just wanted to work
on Emmy. But I still had Instagram and that's where
I got the friend requests from this guy named Dylan
who was also posting about talk Step program. I didn't
think anything of it. I mean, the kid looked so
(04:50):
young I was. I didn't really think that this was
someone that I would be into. And you know how
it goes on social media, you start liking pictures and forth,
and then you start liking their stories or whatever. I
wasn't looking for a relationship at the time, so I
didn't even go there in my mind. But we started damning,
(05:13):
and I learned that Dylan was a year and a
half sober. He had just gone out of a treatment center,
living on his own, he had a job, he went
to meetings, and he just looked very pure right. He
had this innocence about him that was so endearing. Dylan
(05:35):
was a skinny, tall white boy. He is from the South.
He had a green eyes, dark blonde hair, and very
clear skin. And then the day came when Dylan asked
me if I'd like to hang out with him. I
(05:59):
was a little confused use that first, because you know,
here I am taking time off from dating and not
really wanting to be in the relationship so that I
could work on myself and go through the you know,
the conflicting thoughts in my head. I do I want
to hang out with this kid? Do I not? Do
I want to put energy into this. But I had
a conversation with him about me being trans which I
(06:20):
finally figured out how to talk about with potential partners
without feeling super anxious about it, and I agreed to
hang out with him. We made a plan to watch
a movie, get something to eat, and he came over
and he was just so nice. He's seen me in
(06:43):
person at meetings or at events that I would go too,
but had never really mustered the courage to talk to me.
So then the following day, Dylan wanted to hang out again,
make plans to hang out again, and we made plans
to go on a date, and he wanted to take
(07:06):
me to his favorite sushi spot, and I was like, Okay,
I guess I'm back in the dating game. The fact
that he texted me the next day wanting to hang
out again, it wasn't like something that I was super
used to with my other casual dating experiences. Remember Max
(07:28):
had totally just fucked with me. So we went on
the sushi date, which was terrible sushi by the way, Yeah,
I remember, I even got sick from it. However, the
company and the conversation was so good that that didn't matter.
And I remember a week and a half had gone
(07:51):
by of us like hanging out and I get a
phone call from him and he says, I just you
to know I'm not a fun boy, and I really
want to date you. And I'm like, okay, hold up,
(08:12):
this is too soon. We just met. And I pushed
back a bit. I'm like, I don't think you mean
what you're saying because you just met me. You don't
know very much about me. And he said no, but
I want to m and then this turned into date
(08:35):
after date, him spending the night, me spending the night
at his place, and it just evolved so quickly. And
then one morning we were in my apartment. He woke up,
turned over, looked at me in the eyes and said
(08:56):
I love you. Mm hm. And it just seemed like
such a pure expression coming from him. It felt sincere,
It felt genuine. This felt like a really strong connection
because he had this carrying and nurturing way about him.
(09:19):
I could tell he had a good heart. But I
didn't say it back. I wasn't ready, but it did
feel like maybe I could say it back. I did
feel a connection. I just didn't want to make the
same mistakes, dive into fast and get swept away. Dylan
used to call me his queen, and his actions made
(09:42):
me feel like a queen because he was so attentive.
He would go out of his way to just show
me affection in a way that nobody ever had. You know,
He'd stared into my eyes, he'd caressed my face, he'd
play with my hair. He really put the effort into
knowing what made emmy happy. We started traveling. We would
(10:09):
go to conferences like Top Step conferences. We go to
events together. Then we got a dog together, and he
started spending more time at my place and that his
just to have that experience of getting adopting a dog together,
it was beautiful. I found myself falling in love with
(10:32):
this guy. I knew dealing was from the South, so
that was kind of a That was kind of nerve
wracking for me because I just know how Southern families
values could be right a little bit on the conservative side.
(10:54):
And he would tell me, oh, I want to take
you to South Carolina, or I want you to meet
my family. I want you to meet my brother. There's
I want you to meet my mom. And that made
me feel very nervous because gosh, how was that going
to go. I definitely expressed this concern with him. He's like, Oh,
they're going to love you, don't worry about that. And
(11:16):
then one night, he told me, hey, look, I'm going
to take a family vacation and my mom knows that
I'm dating you. She said, you're welcome to come with us.
We're going to Europe. And I freaked out because, oh shit,
what is this family going to think of me? What's
(11:39):
going to be the reaction when they find out that
Emmy is a trans woman? And I expressed that concern
to him, and when I told him what I was feeling,
he said, hold on, and he picked up the phone
and he called his mom and he's like, hey, Mom,
how are you blah blah blah, you know, small talk,
(12:00):
and then I heard him say, yeah, Emmy would like
to come with us, but there's something that I want
to tell you. Emmy is a trans woman and I
love her, and my heart just sank. I was scared.
I was nervous. Was this going to tear our relationships?
(12:22):
I had to keep that a secret from my boyfriend's parents,
rise I wasn't going to be accepted. And then he
hung up the phone and he said it's all good,
and I'm like, what does that mean? And then my
phone rings and it's his mom. He said, answer, and
(12:44):
I started freaking out. I'm like, oh my god, Oh
my god, what am I going to do? So I
answered him like hello, and I heard this woman's voice
with a Southern accent, and she said, Honey, I just
want you to know that what you are doesn't matter
to me. What matters to me is that you love
(13:04):
my son and you treat him right. And I'm so
looking forward to you coming with us to Europe. And
I felt like I've never felt before, seen loved, accepted
what Dylan had done. It was something that no one
(13:28):
ever had. Dylan really presented me as I was, no hiding,
no shame, just love that phone call. Those amazing months,
they were just filled with joy. And as amazing as
it was to feel safe and loved and taking care
(13:50):
of it was also scary because this wasn't the first
time that I felt this way, and I knew that
this feeling it doesn't always last. When I was six,
I had felt just like that. It was a time
before pain. I was living with my grandmother, my mom's mother, Mommyda.
(14:28):
My grandmother had stepped in as a maternal figure in
my life. She gave me love, acceptance, She was encouraging,
she spoiled me. My mom had been in and out
of jail, of detoxes, freehabs, so I'm almost always coming
(14:49):
in and out of my life. I mean, I knew
she was my mom, and I had some sort of
relationship with her, but I kind of always saw her
like an older sister because my grandm other was you know,
I called her mommy mommy. She always said that I
was the light of her eyes, and I always felt
very accepted and not judged by her. I remember music
(15:16):
being such an important part of our life. The record
player was in the dining room. It was on this big,
long console, and I remember just the records were stacked
next to each other, and she'd take out a record
and you know, on the cover of the record was
the beautiful face, and we'd seen, she'd seeing, I'd sing.
(15:41):
I was allowed to dance however I wanted. I don't
think I knew what dancing was or that there was
for nation with it. I just moved. I listened to
the music, and I just moved however I wanted, and
I was allowed to. My grandmother and my aunt would
(16:02):
always dress me kind of like an adult. I'd wear
button down shirts, short sleeve tucked in. They wanted me
to be super elegant. Even at that age, I didn't
mind it. I just remember Mimilica always being dressed up.
She loved being dressed up. I remember she'd wake up
(16:25):
in the morning and started putting together her outfits. She'd
put her lipstick on. She loved wearing poop earrings. She
had a big hair. She used to get it done
so she had this really nice golden updu she had
golden hair. She just looks so elegant. I knew that
(16:56):
my Modi Chat would attend business meetings right She'd beat
on and I'd stay at the house. But sometimes she
invited me to come with her if I wanted to go,
and she kind of hesitated to take me with her
because they were long drives, so she said, okay, if
you want to go with me, let's go. My grandmother
loved her car. She had a Chevy Caprice Classic Longhood.
(17:22):
It looks very elegant. It had a chrome accents, this big, boxy,
shiny brown car. I jumped into the passenger side, put
my seatbelt on. Sometimes we drive for a few hours
and I would get so impatient, but she would say,
(17:45):
if you're a good boy, wat take you to McDonald's
after we're done. That was her way of rewarding me.
She turned onto music and you drive m I remember
our drives being so long, and the scenery was just
kind of boring. There wasn't a lot to look at.
(18:09):
It was kind of an isolated area that we would
drive into. He basically pulled into another house in the
middle of nowhere, and there were other cars around the house.
She had knocked on the door, we'd go inside. I'd
sit in the living room and she'd tell me to wait.
(18:31):
She'd go into a room with a few people, and
I'd stay outside, kind of in a waiting area, playing
with my toys, whatever toy I took with me. And
then it seemed like an eternity, like she was gone forever.
But then she'd come out and the men followed behind her,
and they'd asked me, how are you doing? Were you
a good boy? And then one of the men would
(18:54):
pull out his wallet and a hading me a bill,
whether it be a dollar bill or a five dollar bill,
and he'd said, here you go for being a good boy.
The men that would have greet my grandmother were always
very kind. There was a strong respect there in the
way they interacted with each other. And I've seen these
(19:19):
people before, they'd come down to our party. Sometimes they
weren't complete strangers to me. I don't know that I
ever put thought into wondering what she was doing, or
if I was too involved in my toys. But yeah,
I don't think I had any idea of what those
business meetings were. I just lived in this blissful ignorance.
(19:59):
Dylan and I had just added to move in together
about a year after we started dating. It was one
of those situations where it just made more sense to
just have one apartment. You're spending all your time together anyway,
and by this time we had two dogs and not
enough space. This was a huge deal because it's something
that I've always wanted, right, I always wanted to be
(20:22):
the perfect housewife. So we started looking for apartments, and
he wanted to live somewhere where he could be closer
to work, and at this point I was working from home,
so I was open to moving anywhere with him, and
we found this amazing apartment closer to his work that
(20:43):
we just fell in love with. We started furnishing it together.
We celebrated our anniversary. He took me out to this
really nice dinner. Because I always wanted to fulfill this
role of the housewife. I would cook for him, pack
(21:03):
him lunch, to his laundry. I was so happy to
do those things for him. I'm happy. I think he's happy.
And then his workships started becoming longer. He worked kind
of a swing shift, so he'd leave here around two
(21:24):
pm and get back around midnight. But then he started
coming home at two am or three am, and so
I was a bit confused at first because I said,
I thought, you know, living closer to work, you were
going to be home sooner. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm
so sorry. You know, we've been really busy and there's
(21:44):
been overtime, and I don't know. I kind of felt
like maybe something was off. But I kind of quieted
those thoughts, those negative thoughts that we get. I'm like,
I'm not going to obsess over something that's probably not real,
because Dylan would never. Dylan would never. I kept telling
myself that one Sunday, we had a normal day, just
(22:10):
like any other. We ran errands, we went to the meeting,
we walked dogs, and then after dinner it came time
to watch TV. He was pretty adamant about us starring
type of show he wanted to watch, and I was like,
I don't want to watch that. Can you please watch
something we both enjoy? And that kind of turned into
an argument. Finally, you know, he went upstairs and watched
(22:33):
his show and I stayed downstairs watched my show in
the bedroom, and then he came downstairs a few hours
later and he gave me a kiss on the cheek
and he's like, I love you. And he kept kissing
me a bunch of little kisses on my mouth, on
my cheeks, and he just said I love you, I
love you. And I was like, you know, kind of
(22:55):
petty when I said, do you really we can't even
agree on a show? Mhm? And honestly, I was just kidding.
I wasn't being serious. But then his face kind of
changed and I was like, what's wrong? And he just
stood there in silence, and I was like, oh, Ship,
(23:19):
something's wrong. And he looked at me and he said,
you're right, I don't love you anymore. And my heart
just sank and in my mind I'm like, oh shit,
oh shit, oh Ship, what do I do? Let said
(23:40):
sit down, let's talk about this. He sat down, and
I told him, look, Dylan, I would never force you
to stay in a relationship that you're not happy. And
if you're not happy with me, that's okay. I'm dying inside.
(24:03):
My heart shuttered in a million pieces, but I want
to have a clean end with him. And if he
doesn't love me, like, what's the point of keeping somebody
around who doesn't love you if they're just gonna end
up resenting you? That's what I thought. You know, we
(24:23):
had just signed a lease together on an apartment, but
I was trying to keep my cool and I didn't
want to attack him or make him feel bad. I
was trying to be supportive. I guess the word is
even though it was like so much pain inside, even
though he had just ripped the rug out from under me,
(24:45):
I still wanted to be his support I felt he
deserved it. I thought he was worthy of it, and
you know, I guess I didn't really stop and think
about what I deserved. And then he just closed his
eyes m and tears just started flowing down his face.
(25:05):
And I knew that told me that there was someone else,
So I asked him, is there someone else? And he
can't stop crying, and I could tell that he's in pain,
and all he muttered was like, it's nothing serious. Well,
(25:31):
it was serious to me. Who is it? I asked.
I demanded that he tell me. He said, why does
it matter. It's not going to make things better. I said,
you better fucking tell me who it is. That support
that I had for him just seconds before? What's gone? Right?
(25:54):
It turned into anger because I was betrayed. He betrayed
my us. He responded, it's just someone from work that
I've been hooking up with. And then it made sense
to me right him coming home at two or three
o'clock in the morning, him saying that he had to
(26:15):
work on weekends. He went upstairs and he said, I'm
gonna give you some space, and I said, no, you
need to get out. I can't be under the same
roof with you. Knowing this, he grabbed his phone charger,
his car keys, and he walked out. What happened? This
(26:45):
reality that I was living wasn't real. I was betrayed.
This relationship that I had put so much effort into
being the perfect partner was a sham. M A few
(27:05):
weeks passed by, and then Dylan reached out to me
and he had another confession. He wasn't sober. He hadn't
been sober. He had been using behind my back before
our breakup. I asked him to come by, and he did.
(27:27):
He stopped by and he looked terrible. He was skinnier
than ever. He looked like he hadn't slept. And I said,
what do you want to do and he's like, well,
I'm going to drive to South Carolina. I was like, well,
that's insane because you haven't slept. I said, do you
want to stay out there or do you want to
get sober again? And he said, I don't know. After
(27:53):
talking and talking and talking, I finally convinced him that
treatment was the best possible option. OK. I called his friend,
I called one of his mentors, I spoke to his mom,
and somehow we all got him to go into treatment again.
(28:14):
I don't know if necessarily it was like a way
to prove my love to him. I just knew that
I loved him and that I didn't want him to die.
He was only supposed to go to treatment for a
few months, and then when he was going to get out,
we would revisit. The situation. That turned into years. Really,
(28:38):
I didn't hear from him until about a year and
a half after he had left. So I had to
continue with my life, but I never got closure, to
be completely honest, that was dreading recording this episode because
(29:00):
it's the most recent experience that I've had, and things
are probably not going to end up the way I
would like them to end up, you know, which I've accepted,
and I guess I realized that no matter how perfectly
I fit the part, didn't always mean that someone else
(29:21):
is going to treat me perfectly. You can't write the
happy ending by being perfect. The morning everything changed. I
remember that morning. My grandmother was not going to take
(29:45):
me to school. She had some work thing to tend to,
and she seemed a little preoccupied. We had a family
visiting from Texas that week, and I remember it was
a full house. My grandmother was there, two of my
aunts were there, the maid was there, two uncles that
(30:08):
were visiting from Texas were there, and then my mom
and Geico. My grandmother told me that one of the
uncles from Texas was going to drive me to school
because she couldn't that she would pick me up later.
I got ready for school and my uncle took me
to school in my grandmother's car. So we're driving to school,
(30:32):
which is not even very far from where we live.
It was probably about half a mile away, and we're
getting close to the school entrance when all of a sudden,
this black car pulls up behind us and demands for
my uncle to stop. Immediately, the car was surrounded by agents,
(30:53):
like fifteen agents surrounding the car with their guns drawn.
One of them pools my uncle out of the car
and pats him down, and I'm just gripping my seat terrified.
Then another agent came and opened my door, brought me
down from the car, asked me my name, and said, here,
(31:16):
let's take you to school. I looked up and all
I could see was everyone who was standing in front
the school was just staring at us, because this happened
right at the entrance of my elementary school. I turned
around and I see that my uncle's being arrested. The
(31:37):
asient walked me into the school office, and the secretary
immediately took me into the principal's office, and then they
took me to class without saying anything else. The school
day went by so slowly it was like everything was
happening in slow motion. Spelling tests math class and kids
(31:59):
singing songs. I couldn't move all day. Before the school
day ended, they pulled me out of class and brought
me back into the office and said, you need to
wait here. Your grandmother's picking you up. And of course
I assumed it was my milch I was picking me up,
(32:20):
but to my surprise, it was my Nana, my dad's mom.
I felt like something was off. I remember going to
my nana's house and everyone was just so secretive. I
could hear them talking, mumbling, but I couldn't really make
(32:42):
out what they were saying, and everyone just seemed worried.
That night, it was explained to me then my Miles
I was in jail. I learned that night, that's seven
years old, that my queen, my hero, was probably going
(33:05):
to be put away for a very long time. The
very next day, the San Diego Union Tribune printed an
article four dred and seventy five pounds of alleged cocaine
sees that the Border six are arrested. They called Mymdica
(33:26):
the ringleader. The newspaper called it the largest cocaine seizure
at the point of entry in San with an estimated
street value of thirty million dollars. Oh my god, why
am I crying? I needed to shut on them. In
(33:49):
talking to my aunt, she explained to me that once
my Milicia knew that they were going to come and arrest,
her first thought was to come and get me from
school so we could leave and get away. She didn't
make it in time. Our family had been watched for
(34:13):
a very long time. This had been an ongoing investigation,
and they knew everyone's schedule. They knew exactly what our
daily routine was. She didn't really have a chance. This
(34:34):
is the day that my life changed completely. The stability
that I had, the structure that I knew, was taken
away in the blink of an eye. My Militia had
always been the protector of the family. She took care
of everyone, and she could no longer do that. This
(34:56):
is the day that I lost my Militia as my mother.
Everything that I knew that was warm and comforting was
suddenly taken away, and it kind of set me up
for the terrible things that happened to me after. I
had no idea of the things that I was going
(35:18):
to experience from this loss. I was living in a
really happy childhood and this reality that was presented to
me the next day was not the story I thought
I was living, and I felt that I had no
control and how the story of my life was going
(35:41):
to play out. This was the beginning of my sadness,
of a lot of suffering, the beginning of a story
that I never thought was going to be my story.
For a long time, I tried to be the person
(36:02):
who didn't have the suffering of what happened to me
on this day. I've tried to figure out what my
life would have been like if I would have had
a normal childhood, What I would have been like if
I would have had a normal childhood. I wanted to
be that person, but that's not me. I don't have
(36:31):
the perfect TV family, but we've come a long way.
I remember the day I visited Mammilicia as Emmy for
the first time, and when I walked into the door,
she got it from her table, gave me a hug
and told me I was beautiful, and my big crazy
family accepted me for who I am. I don't have
(36:55):
the perfect romantic love story, but I do have a
really important relationship that's new, and that's the relationship I
have with my mother, My mom has been clean for
about six years, and that's just a fucking miracle. I
get to have this relationship with her that I've always wanted.
(37:18):
Our Christmas is looks so different than that Christmas we
spent in that seedy motel. Today she makes sure that
we all get together on Christmas and make the modest
as a family. That we were matching pajamas, that wants
her kids together on her birthday, that wants to celebrate
family unity, and I love that. For as long as
(37:47):
I can remember, I've been looking for love, looking for
that perfect partner, perfect family, perfect life. What I dreamed
of as a kid. But my story isn't perfect. Even
though I don't love everything that happened in my story,
(38:08):
I realized that I love my story. I love that
I got here, I love where I'm going, and I
love myself. I'm gonna stop searching for perfection, stop hiding myself,
stop pretending to be something I'm not, but I'm not
(38:29):
going to stop searching for love. I'm Emilia and this
is my love story. Crumbs is the production of My
(38:54):
Heart Radios Michael Podcast Network in association with Trojan Horse.
It's produced by Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jazzmind
Rometo and Alex Fumeto. Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt
and engineering by Manuel Executive Produced by Gisevances and Conno
(39:16):
Burn for I Heeart, Alex Bumeto for Trojan Horse, Joshua Weinstein,
Jasmine Rometo, cal And and me Emio Lea special thanks
to Monissa Hendrix, Fernand Estrava and Saramta. Listen to Crumbs
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(39:39):
you get your podcasts.
OK, this podcast has mature content and language that may
(00:03):
not be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Episode six but perfect ending. There's this thing that's happened
to me a few times in my life, the shift
(00:24):
when happiness is easier to come by, Like it's not
that much of a struggle to wake up and feel happy.
It's when I'm being seen, when I'm fully welcomed, when
I'm deeply comfortable, And of course I get attached to
that feeling. Who wouldn't I would do anything to try
(00:49):
and make that happiness last forever. But what if it's
not in my control. I am Emmy and this is Crumbs,
my love story. It's a show about the things we
settle for and the bits of ourselves that make us
(01:09):
who we are. Aftermarks, I was pretty much taking a
break from all dating Emmy thirty, working on myself. Actually,
(01:33):
I need to tell you something this whole time, and
for my whole dating career as Emmy, I've been lying
about my age, shaving off a couple of years here
and there. I think it's because my sex and dating
life as Emmy started late, and I wanted to have
a shot at young love pretend that hadn't spent so
(01:57):
many years through my twenties confused and searching so hard
to find myself. So my age is a lie, but
I'm working on it. I had just achieved ten years
of sobriety, and I felt like there was something missing.
(02:17):
I felt a huge void within me. I felt like
I should be really happy that I just achieved tenure
of sobriety, but I wasn't. And you know, I had
been dating like crazy, trying to fill this void with
someone else. And then somebody asked me, what does your
spiritual life look like? You know, when I first got
(02:41):
sober and I heard about the spirituality component of the program,
I was a little bit turned off and kind of
like hesitant because again, I grew up Catholic, and I
didn't really want to live the Catholic life right because
I was taught in like if you're like, I was
taught to be scared of God and I was taught
(03:02):
that I was going to go to hell for being
who I am. So I wanted none of that. Somebody
put it to me so simple, they said, you know what,
you just have to believe that there's a higher power,
and it's not you. I wanted to higher power that
was going to love and just accept me for who
(03:24):
I am, with no judgment, with no fear. Someone once said,
you know those waves, crashing waves in the ocean, can
you stop them? And I was like no. So there
was like my first tangible example of something more powerful
(03:47):
than me. So I get in my car and drive
to the ocean and I was meditating and just having
conversations with the ocean pretty much about my obsession with relationships,
with dating, with money, you know, shiny objects. I really started,
(04:08):
you know, having conversations and kind of surrendering those thoughts,
and with time, I felt like the ocean was kind
of absorbing all of those things that I was focusing on.
I stopped constantly thinking about the dating apps, the hookups,
(04:30):
just all that noise outside. I just wanted to work
on Emmy. But I still had Instagram and that's where
I got the friend requests from this guy named Dylan
who was also posting about talk Step program. I didn't
think anything of it. I mean, the kid looked so
(04:50):
young I was. I didn't really think that this was
someone that I would be into. And you know how
it goes on social media, you start liking pictures and forth,
and then you start liking their stories or whatever. I
wasn't looking for a relationship at the time, so I
didn't even go there in my mind. But we started damning,
(05:13):
and I learned that Dylan was a year and a
half sober. He had just gone out of a treatment center,
living on his own, he had a job, he went
to meetings, and he just looked very pure right. He
had this innocence about him that was so endearing. Dylan
(05:35):
was a skinny, tall white boy. He is from the South.
He had a green eyes, dark blonde hair, and very
clear skin. And then the day came when Dylan asked
me if I'd like to hang out with him. I
(05:59):
was a little confused use that first, because you know,
here I am taking time off from dating and not
really wanting to be in the relationship so that I
could work on myself and go through the you know,
the conflicting thoughts in my head. I do I want
to hang out with this kid? Do I not? Do
I want to put energy into this. But I had
a conversation with him about me being trans which I
(06:20):
finally figured out how to talk about with potential partners
without feeling super anxious about it, and I agreed to
hang out with him. We made a plan to watch
a movie, get something to eat, and he came over
and he was just so nice. He's seen me in
(06:43):
person at meetings or at events that I would go too,
but had never really mustered the courage to talk to me.
So then the following day, Dylan wanted to hang out again,
make plans to hang out again, and we made plans
to go on a date, and he wanted to take
(07:06):
me to his favorite sushi spot, and I was like, Okay,
I guess I'm back in the dating game. The fact
that he texted me the next day wanting to hang
out again, it wasn't like something that I was super
used to with my other casual dating experiences. Remember Max
(07:28):
had totally just fucked with me. So we went on
the sushi date, which was terrible sushi by the way, Yeah,
I remember, I even got sick from it. However, the
company and the conversation was so good that that didn't matter.
And I remember a week and a half had gone
(07:51):
by of us like hanging out and I get a
phone call from him and he says, I just you
to know I'm not a fun boy, and I really
want to date you. And I'm like, okay, hold up,
(08:12):
this is too soon. We just met. And I pushed
back a bit. I'm like, I don't think you mean
what you're saying because you just met me. You don't
know very much about me. And he said no, but
I want to m and then this turned into date
(08:35):
after date, him spending the night, me spending the night
at his place, and it just evolved so quickly. And
then one morning we were in my apartment. He woke up,
turned over, looked at me in the eyes and said
(08:56):
I love you. Mm hm. And it just seemed like
such a pure expression coming from him. It felt sincere,
It felt genuine. This felt like a really strong connection
because he had this carrying and nurturing way about him.
(09:19):
I could tell he had a good heart. But I
didn't say it back. I wasn't ready, but it did
feel like maybe I could say it back. I did
feel a connection. I just didn't want to make the
same mistakes, dive into fast and get swept away. Dylan
used to call me his queen, and his actions made
(09:42):
me feel like a queen because he was so attentive.
He would go out of his way to just show
me affection in a way that nobody ever had. You know,
He'd stared into my eyes, he'd caressed my face, he'd
play with my hair. He really put the effort into
knowing what made emmy happy. We started traveling. We would
(10:09):
go to conferences like Top Step conferences. We go to
events together. Then we got a dog together, and he
started spending more time at my place and that his
just to have that experience of getting adopting a dog together,
it was beautiful. I found myself falling in love with
(10:32):
this guy. I knew dealing was from the South, so
that was kind of a That was kind of nerve
wracking for me because I just know how Southern families
values could be right a little bit on the conservative side.
(10:54):
And he would tell me, oh, I want to take
you to South Carolina, or I want you to meet
my family. I want you to meet my brother. There's
I want you to meet my mom. And that made
me feel very nervous because gosh, how was that going
to go. I definitely expressed this concern with him. He's like, Oh,
they're going to love you, don't worry about that. And
(11:16):
then one night, he told me, hey, look, I'm going
to take a family vacation and my mom knows that
I'm dating you. She said, you're welcome to come with us.
We're going to Europe. And I freaked out because, oh shit,
what is this family going to think of me? What's
(11:39):
going to be the reaction when they find out that
Emmy is a trans woman? And I expressed that concern
to him, and when I told him what I was feeling,
he said, hold on, and he picked up the phone
and he called his mom and he's like, hey, Mom,
how are you blah blah blah, you know, small talk,
(12:00):
and then I heard him say, yeah, Emmy would like
to come with us, but there's something that I want
to tell you. Emmy is a trans woman and I
love her, and my heart just sank. I was scared.
I was nervous. Was this going to tear our relationships?
(12:22):
I had to keep that a secret from my boyfriend's parents,
rise I wasn't going to be accepted. And then he
hung up the phone and he said it's all good,
and I'm like, what does that mean? And then my
phone rings and it's his mom. He said, answer, and
(12:44):
I started freaking out. I'm like, oh my god, Oh
my god, what am I going to do? So I
answered him like hello, and I heard this woman's voice
with a Southern accent, and she said, Honey, I just
want you to know that what you are doesn't matter
to me. What matters to me is that you love
(13:04):
my son and you treat him right. And I'm so
looking forward to you coming with us to Europe. And
I felt like I've never felt before, seen loved, accepted
what Dylan had done. It was something that no one
(13:28):
ever had. Dylan really presented me as I was, no hiding,
no shame, just love that phone call. Those amazing months,
they were just filled with joy. And as amazing as
it was to feel safe and loved and taking care
(13:50):
of it was also scary because this wasn't the first
time that I felt this way, and I knew that
this feeling it doesn't always last. When I was six,
I had felt just like that. It was a time
before pain. I was living with my grandmother, my mom's mother, Mommyda.
(14:28):
My grandmother had stepped in as a maternal figure in
my life. She gave me love, acceptance, She was encouraging,
she spoiled me. My mom had been in and out
of jail, of detoxes, freehabs, so I'm almost always coming
(14:49):
in and out of my life. I mean, I knew
she was my mom, and I had some sort of
relationship with her, but I kind of always saw her
like an older sister because my grandm other was you know,
I called her mommy mommy. She always said that I
was the light of her eyes, and I always felt
very accepted and not judged by her. I remember music
(15:16):
being such an important part of our life. The record
player was in the dining room. It was on this big,
long console, and I remember just the records were stacked
next to each other, and she'd take out a record
and you know, on the cover of the record was
the beautiful face, and we'd seen, she'd seeing, I'd sing.
(15:41):
I was allowed to dance however I wanted. I don't
think I knew what dancing was or that there was
for nation with it. I just moved. I listened to
the music, and I just moved however I wanted, and
I was allowed to. My grandmother and my aunt would
(16:02):
always dress me kind of like an adult. I'd wear
button down shirts, short sleeve tucked in. They wanted me
to be super elegant. Even at that age, I didn't
mind it. I just remember Mimilica always being dressed up.
She loved being dressed up. I remember she'd wake up
(16:25):
in the morning and started putting together her outfits. She'd
put her lipstick on. She loved wearing poop earrings. She
had a big hair. She used to get it done
so she had this really nice golden updu she had
golden hair. She just looks so elegant. I knew that
(16:56):
my Modi Chat would attend business meetings right She'd beat
on and I'd stay at the house. But sometimes she
invited me to come with her if I wanted to go,
and she kind of hesitated to take me with her
because they were long drives, so she said, okay, if
you want to go with me, let's go. My grandmother
loved her car. She had a Chevy Caprice Classic Longhood.
(17:22):
It looks very elegant. It had a chrome accents, this big, boxy,
shiny brown car. I jumped into the passenger side, put
my seatbelt on. Sometimes we drive for a few hours
and I would get so impatient, but she would say,
(17:45):
if you're a good boy, wat take you to McDonald's
after we're done. That was her way of rewarding me.
She turned onto music and you drive m I remember
our drives being so long, and the scenery was just
kind of boring. There wasn't a lot to look at.
(18:09):
It was kind of an isolated area that we would
drive into. He basically pulled into another house in the
middle of nowhere, and there were other cars around the house.
She had knocked on the door, we'd go inside. I'd
sit in the living room and she'd tell me to wait.
(18:31):
She'd go into a room with a few people, and
I'd stay outside, kind of in a waiting area, playing
with my toys, whatever toy I took with me. And
then it seemed like an eternity, like she was gone forever.
But then she'd come out and the men followed behind her,
and they'd asked me, how are you doing? Were you
a good boy? And then one of the men would
(18:54):
pull out his wallet and a hading me a bill,
whether it be a dollar bill or a five dollar bill,
and he'd said, here you go for being a good boy.
The men that would have greet my grandmother were always
very kind. There was a strong respect there in the
way they interacted with each other. And I've seen these
(19:19):
people before, they'd come down to our party. Sometimes they
weren't complete strangers to me. I don't know that I
ever put thought into wondering what she was doing, or
if I was too involved in my toys. But yeah,
I don't think I had any idea of what those
business meetings were. I just lived in this blissful ignorance.
(19:59):
Dylan and I had just added to move in together
about a year after we started dating. It was one
of those situations where it just made more sense to
just have one apartment. You're spending all your time together anyway,
and by this time we had two dogs and not
enough space. This was a huge deal because it's something
that I've always wanted, right, I always wanted to be
(20:22):
the perfect housewife. So we started looking for apartments, and
he wanted to live somewhere where he could be closer
to work, and at this point I was working from home,
so I was open to moving anywhere with him, and
we found this amazing apartment closer to his work that
(20:43):
we just fell in love with. We started furnishing it together.
We celebrated our anniversary. He took me out to this
really nice dinner. Because I always wanted to fulfill this
role of the housewife. I would cook for him, pack
(21:03):
him lunch, to his laundry. I was so happy to
do those things for him. I'm happy. I think he's happy.
And then his workships started becoming longer. He worked kind
of a swing shift, so he'd leave here around two
(21:24):
pm and get back around midnight. But then he started
coming home at two am or three am, and so
I was a bit confused at first because I said,
I thought, you know, living closer to work, you were
going to be home sooner. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm
so sorry. You know, we've been really busy and there's
(21:44):
been overtime, and I don't know. I kind of felt
like maybe something was off. But I kind of quieted
those thoughts, those negative thoughts that we get. I'm like,
I'm not going to obsess over something that's probably not real,
because Dylan would never. Dylan would never. I kept telling
myself that one Sunday, we had a normal day, just
(22:10):
like any other. We ran errands, we went to the meeting,
we walked dogs, and then after dinner it came time
to watch TV. He was pretty adamant about us starring
type of show he wanted to watch, and I was like,
I don't want to watch that. Can you please watch
something we both enjoy? And that kind of turned into
an argument. Finally, you know, he went upstairs and watched
(22:33):
his show and I stayed downstairs watched my show in
the bedroom, and then he came downstairs a few hours
later and he gave me a kiss on the cheek
and he's like, I love you. And he kept kissing
me a bunch of little kisses on my mouth, on
my cheeks, and he just said I love you, I
love you. And I was like, you know, kind of
(22:55):
petty when I said, do you really we can't even
agree on a show? Mhm? And honestly, I was just kidding.
I wasn't being serious. But then his face kind of
changed and I was like, what's wrong? And he just
stood there in silence, and I was like, oh, Ship,
(23:19):
something's wrong. And he looked at me and he said,
you're right, I don't love you anymore. And my heart
just sank and in my mind I'm like, oh shit,
oh shit, oh Ship, what do I do? Let said
(23:40):
sit down, let's talk about this. He sat down, and
I told him, look, Dylan, I would never force you
to stay in a relationship that you're not happy. And
if you're not happy with me, that's okay. I'm dying inside.
(24:03):
My heart shuttered in a million pieces, but I want
to have a clean end with him. And if he
doesn't love me, like, what's the point of keeping somebody
around who doesn't love you if they're just gonna end
up resenting you? That's what I thought. You know, we
(24:23):
had just signed a lease together on an apartment, but
I was trying to keep my cool and I didn't
want to attack him or make him feel bad. I
was trying to be supportive. I guess the word is
even though it was like so much pain inside, even
though he had just ripped the rug out from under me,
(24:45):
I still wanted to be his support I felt he
deserved it. I thought he was worthy of it, and
you know, I guess I didn't really stop and think
about what I deserved. And then he just closed his
eyes m and tears just started flowing down his face.
(25:05):
And I knew that told me that there was someone else,
So I asked him, is there someone else? And he
can't stop crying, and I could tell that he's in pain,
and all he muttered was like, it's nothing serious. Well,
(25:31):
it was serious to me. Who is it? I asked.
I demanded that he tell me. He said, why does
it matter. It's not going to make things better. I said,
you better fucking tell me who it is. That support
that I had for him just seconds before? What's gone? Right?
(25:54):
It turned into anger because I was betrayed. He betrayed
my us. He responded, it's just someone from work that
I've been hooking up with. And then it made sense
to me right him coming home at two or three
o'clock in the morning, him saying that he had to
(26:15):
work on weekends. He went upstairs and he said, I'm
gonna give you some space, and I said, no, you
need to get out. I can't be under the same
roof with you. Knowing this, he grabbed his phone charger,
his car keys, and he walked out. What happened? This
(26:45):
reality that I was living wasn't real. I was betrayed.
This relationship that I had put so much effort into
being the perfect partner was a sham. M A few
(27:05):
weeks passed by, and then Dylan reached out to me
and he had another confession. He wasn't sober. He hadn't
been sober. He had been using behind my back before
our breakup. I asked him to come by, and he did.
(27:27):
He stopped by and he looked terrible. He was skinnier
than ever. He looked like he hadn't slept. And I said,
what do you want to do and he's like, well,
I'm going to drive to South Carolina. I was like, well,
that's insane because you haven't slept. I said, do you
want to stay out there or do you want to
get sober again? And he said, I don't know. After
(27:53):
talking and talking and talking, I finally convinced him that
treatment was the best possible option. OK. I called his friend,
I called one of his mentors, I spoke to his mom,
and somehow we all got him to go into treatment again.
(28:14):
I don't know if necessarily it was like a way
to prove my love to him. I just knew that
I loved him and that I didn't want him to die.
He was only supposed to go to treatment for a
few months, and then when he was going to get out,
we would revisit. The situation. That turned into years. Really,
(28:38):
I didn't hear from him until about a year and
a half after he had left. So I had to
continue with my life, but I never got closure, to
be completely honest, that was dreading recording this episode because
(29:00):
it's the most recent experience that I've had, and things
are probably not going to end up the way I
would like them to end up, you know, which I've accepted,
and I guess I realized that no matter how perfectly
I fit the part, didn't always mean that someone else
(29:21):
is going to treat me perfectly. You can't write the
happy ending by being perfect. The morning everything changed. I
remember that morning. My grandmother was not going to take
(29:45):
me to school. She had some work thing to tend to,
and she seemed a little preoccupied. We had a family
visiting from Texas that week, and I remember it was
a full house. My grandmother was there, two of my
aunts were there, the maid was there, two uncles that
(30:08):
were visiting from Texas were there, and then my mom
and Geico. My grandmother told me that one of the
uncles from Texas was going to drive me to school
because she couldn't that she would pick me up later.
I got ready for school and my uncle took me
to school in my grandmother's car. So we're driving to school,
(30:32):
which is not even very far from where we live.
It was probably about half a mile away, and we're
getting close to the school entrance when all of a sudden,
this black car pulls up behind us and demands for
my uncle to stop. Immediately, the car was surrounded by agents,
(30:53):
like fifteen agents surrounding the car with their guns drawn.
One of them pools my uncle out of the car
and pats him down, and I'm just gripping my seat terrified.
Then another agent came and opened my door, brought me
down from the car, asked me my name, and said, here,
(31:16):
let's take you to school. I looked up and all
I could see was everyone who was standing in front
the school was just staring at us, because this happened
right at the entrance of my elementary school. I turned
around and I see that my uncle's being arrested. The
(31:37):
asient walked me into the school office, and the secretary
immediately took me into the principal's office, and then they
took me to class without saying anything else. The school
day went by so slowly it was like everything was
happening in slow motion. Spelling tests math class and kids
(31:59):
singing songs. I couldn't move all day. Before the school
day ended, they pulled me out of class and brought
me back into the office and said, you need to
wait here. Your grandmother's picking you up. And of course
I assumed it was my milch I was picking me up,
(32:20):
but to my surprise, it was my Nana, my dad's mom.
I felt like something was off. I remember going to
my nana's house and everyone was just so secretive. I
could hear them talking, mumbling, but I couldn't really make
(32:42):
out what they were saying, and everyone just seemed worried.
That night, it was explained to me then my Miles
I was in jail. I learned that night, that's seven
years old, that my queen, my hero, was probably going
(33:05):
to be put away for a very long time. The
very next day, the San Diego Union Tribune printed an
article four dred and seventy five pounds of alleged cocaine
sees that the Border six are arrested. They called Mymdica
(33:26):
the ringleader. The newspaper called it the largest cocaine seizure
at the point of entry in San with an estimated
street value of thirty million dollars. Oh my god, why
am I crying? I needed to shut on them. In
(33:49):
talking to my aunt, she explained to me that once
my Milicia knew that they were going to come and arrest,
her first thought was to come and get me from
school so we could leave and get away. She didn't
make it in time. Our family had been watched for
(34:13):
a very long time. This had been an ongoing investigation,
and they knew everyone's schedule. They knew exactly what our
daily routine was. She didn't really have a chance. This
(34:34):
is the day that my life changed completely. The stability
that I had, the structure that I knew, was taken
away in the blink of an eye. My Militia had
always been the protector of the family. She took care
of everyone, and she could no longer do that. This
(34:56):
is the day that I lost my Militia as my mother.
Everything that I knew that was warm and comforting was
suddenly taken away, and it kind of set me up
for the terrible things that happened to me after. I
had no idea of the things that I was going
(35:18):
to experience from this loss. I was living in a
really happy childhood and this reality that was presented to
me the next day was not the story I thought
I was living, and I felt that I had no
control and how the story of my life was going
(35:41):
to play out. This was the beginning of my sadness,
of a lot of suffering, the beginning of a story
that I never thought was going to be my story.
For a long time, I tried to be the person
(36:02):
who didn't have the suffering of what happened to me
on this day. I've tried to figure out what my
life would have been like if I would have had
a normal childhood, What I would have been like if
I would have had a normal childhood. I wanted to
be that person, but that's not me. I don't have
(36:31):
the perfect TV family, but we've come a long way.
I remember the day I visited Mammilicia as Emmy for
the first time, and when I walked into the door,
she got it from her table, gave me a hug
and told me I was beautiful, and my big crazy
family accepted me for who I am. I don't have
(36:55):
the perfect romantic love story, but I do have a
really important relationship that's new, and that's the relationship I
have with my mother, My mom has been clean for
about six years, and that's just a fucking miracle. I
get to have this relationship with her that I've always wanted.
(37:18):
Our Christmas is looks so different than that Christmas we
spent in that seedy motel. Today she makes sure that
we all get together on Christmas and make the modest
as a family. That we were matching pajamas, that wants
her kids together on her birthday, that wants to celebrate
family unity, and I love that. For as long as
(37:47):
I can remember, I've been looking for love, looking for
that perfect partner, perfect family, perfect life. What I dreamed
of as a kid. But my story isn't perfect. Even
though I don't love everything that happened in my story,
(38:08):
I realized that I love my story. I love that
I got here, I love where I'm going, and I
love myself. I'm gonna stop searching for perfection, stop hiding myself,
stop pretending to be something I'm not, but I'm not
(38:29):
going to stop searching for love. I'm Emilia and this
is my love story. Crumbs is the production of My
(38:54):
Heart Radios Michael Podcast Network in association with Trojan Horse.
It's produced by Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jazzmind
Rometo and Alex Fumeto. Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt
and engineering by Manuel Executive Produced by Gisevances and Conno
(39:16):
Burn for I Heeart, Alex Bumeto for Trojan Horse, Joshua Weinstein,
Jasmine Rometo, cal And and me Emio Lea special thanks
to Monissa Hendrix, Fernand Estrava and Saramta. Listen to Crumbs
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(39:39):
you get your podcasts.
Host
Emmy Olea
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com