April 12, 2022 • 46 mins
Emmy sits down with her best friend Dayna and looks back on how they met in recovery, her coming-out as trans, the challenges of dating as a sober person — and the challenges of exploring all these experiences, publicly through a podcast, during a pandemic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
High listeners, it's Emilia. As a special bonus to Crumbs,
I'll be interviewing people close to me that were part
of the journey, will reflect on life, my search for love,
and the impact the show had on them. In this episode,
I'll be talking to my best friend, Dana. Dana has
been with me throughout my sobriety, my triumphs, my heartbreaks,
(00:21):
and everything in between. But there are things even she
didn't know about me until she listened to the show,
things that she helped me process and make peace with.
If you haven't heard the show yet, don't wait. Head
back to the feet and start the journey from step one.
We'll be here when you're done. Okay, let's get started.
(00:47):
Can you introduce yourself to listeners. Hi, I'm Dana and
I'm six and a half your sober. I'm a nurse
and happy to be your best friend. Let's start with
how we it? What do you remember about that? I
don't remember exactly how we met, but I remember seeing
(01:08):
you as someone who myself knew knew in sobriety. I
looked up to you, and I remember wanting what you had.
What did I have? So many things for me? I
mean I had just gotten down to jail. I had
like thirty two something days sober. I remember we went
(01:28):
to a conference and I was lost in the crowd.
You were someone who welcomed me, invited me out to
go to dinner. And your poise, your grace, and the
confidence that you had. I didn't have any of those things.
So in two thousand fifteen, I must have been seven,
(01:49):
about to turn eight years sober. I remember exactly where
I met you. I met you at a twelve step meeting.
I remember you have something about you that reminded me
so much of my mom. Aside from you having this awesome,
bubbly personality, I just remember like you walked like my mom,
(02:10):
You acted like my mom. He had just came out
of jail. You were a heroin adic My mom was
a heroin adict. There was just something about you that
made that was so familiar to me, and I said, Okay,
this grows my people. She's walked through the same things
that my mom has. I want to get to know her.
(02:34):
And I remember, I remember like when we first started
hanging out, you gave me a ride somewhere because you
always volunteered to drive. You love driving I'm not sure
why you have volunteering yourself for driving. And I thought
you were gonna kill me. You were like the worst
driver I had ever met. She drives like a mania.
(02:55):
Actually is gonna kill me. But I really enjoyed your company,
so I just put up with it. Hey, I've been
locked up for so long, how do you expect me
to know how to drive anymore? In your defense, you've
become such a good driver all these years later, and
I trust you wholeheartedly with my life. So who did
(03:16):
you think I was when you met me? Who did
I think you were? The reason I'm asking is because
so many people have this preconceived notion of where I
came from, what kind of lifestyle I've had, just based
on appearances, right, I definitely had that I Um, I
(03:37):
thought that you were someone who was privileged Fuji and
um probably somebody that I wouldn't actually be friends with.
Little did I know most of those things weren't entirely true.
But you just the way you carried yourself. You know,
you carried yourself with confidence, and I think that you
exuded an air of I don't know, just I never
(03:59):
I never out with people like that before. Did you
ever feel like I was pretending to be something that
I wasn't. No, I definitely thought you were who you were.
I mean, you had designer stuff, and you know, for me,
it was like I was just kind of collecting my
belongings one belonging at a time. So I definitely thought
(04:22):
you were who you said you were or you claimed
to be. Oh who did I claim to be? Emilia?
Was there ever a time that I claimed to be
something that I wasn't. Well, I was just getting to
know you, So I had an idea. I had an
idea you or you had an idea of like what
(04:43):
I was, But I didn't directly tell you this is
what I am, this is who I am. I definitely
thought you were someone who was I guess well collected,
you know, someone that had their ship together. Um, like
I said everything that I didn't have, and I definitely
thought you were out of my league as far as
(05:04):
even friendship went. Okay, that was the preconceived thing. That
was what I had wrong, because had I known once
I did know, I realized that you know, we're the same,
You're my people. But I think that's something that everybody
has when they see you. They you're just you're a
person to be admired. I thank you. That's really sweet.
(05:24):
I think you enjoyed that too a little bit. So
let's talk about being trends. Because it took me a
while to tell you. I'm gonna say I didn't tell
you until a few years later, or was it a
(05:45):
year and a half maybe? Okay? What was that conversation? Like?
What do you remember? Because I have an idea of
where it happened, how it happened. I have an idea too.
It was is I believe we were in Chicago and
we were in the hotel room. We were at a conference,
which is something that we did a lot of, and
(06:07):
it wasn't just me. It was a couple of us
that you, I guess, felt close to, and you had
professed it like I have something I have to tell
you guys. And I was like, what the what? I
had no idea what you were going to say. I
had no like, I couldn't even imagine what it could be.
I thought maybe you were going to tell me that
you had cancer, or or that you didn't have long
(06:27):
to live, or something like that. I know, I was honestly,
my heart was pounding when you told me so the
way that you said it was. I just want you
guys to know. I feel like you deserve to know
that I was born a boy. Oh. I do remember
that conversation. I don't remember exactly what I said, but
I remember where we were in the hotel room, sitting
(06:49):
on the bed. Right there was a group of us.
It's like maybe like a handful of us. And what
was your reaction? I was shocked. I was like, what
what are you telling me right now? Like, I just
it took me a second to put the pieces together,
and eventually I put them together. Okay, did you immediately
(07:11):
change your perception of me? No? What did you think?
It made me love you even more because I felt
closer to you. I was surprised that there was something
that you hadn't told me. And just to give you
a little bit of context of why, like it took
me so long too, I guess come out in Los Angeles.
(07:34):
You know, I started my transition in San Diego. I
went to college as Emmy and I'm I mean, people
don't walk around saying Hi, my name is Emmy and
by the way, I'm trance like. People don't walk around
saying that so I always told myself, like, if anyone
ever asked me, I'll just say the truth. But I'm
(07:59):
not going to leave with like, by the way, I'm trance.
Like I thought it was irrelevant why people don't do that.
So by the time I moved to Los Angeles and
I met you and I met all my group of friends,
it just wasn't something that ever came up. Did I
(08:21):
feel like I was living a life? Maybe a little bit, yeah,
because I felt like, well, you know, if they know
out of respect they're not telling me or confronting me,
or if they don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But
I had a sponsor at the time that knew that
I was dealing with these like internal demons of like,
(08:43):
oh my god, I feel like such a fraud. And
so in doing the work that we do in a
top step program, I started taking inventory of myself and
I was assigned or it was suggested that I tell
(09:04):
at least three people because she knew that I was
dealing with shame of living a double life. So I
feel because when I moved to Los Angeles, I was
already Emmy, and I didn't feel like I had to
introduce myself as I'm a trans woman. Obviously, in dating
(09:28):
I always disclosed it, but yeah, I think you know
that's why I never really talked about it. Well, I
think that makes sense. I mean, you spent so much
of your life wanting to be this person. You know.
I think you had this idea of knowing you now,
(09:48):
You had this ideal of who you wanted to be,
and finally I think that you got there and you're like,
why am I going to have to go backwards? Why
am I going to have to take ownership of something
that I wasn't even proud to be before? You know,
I think that's exactly what it was, like, why do
I have to go backwards? I already came to Los
Angeles living as Emmy, and I didn't feel like I
had to introduce you to like someone that I wasn't.
(10:11):
You know, I get it, but it got heavy on
me because I knew that I was keeping a secret
and I didn't intend to keep a secret. It's just
I was nervous. I was scared. I will say that
I felt like it was a little bit dramatic. I
felt like, you know, it's like, I don't feel like
it's something that you should have to like quietly disclose right,
like it's like, oh, my dad's in prison, Like you know,
(10:35):
it's just a fact, you know, like okay, I was
born a boy, you know, like it's just part of
the casual conversation in my eyes. But to you, it
was like dune, Dune done what. It was a very
scary thing to do. It was a very scary conversation
to have because I didn't know actually with you, I
did know that everything was going to be okay, but
I didn't know how the rest of my friends were
(10:56):
going to react, and that made me nervous, and just
because I didn't want to lose my friends, it took
me a while to get to that point where I
could have this conversation, you know what I mean. Mm hmm.
I will say that I remember being jealous that I
knew you had told Jesse before me, and I was like,
(11:19):
I wonder what it was about that friendship that made
you feel more comfortable? Did I tell Jesse before you?
I don't remember that. I honestly don't remember having this
conversation with Jesse seeing that's just something that I that
I thought of because I'm jealous. M hmm. Sorry that
(11:41):
you felt that way because you are the one that
I am closest to. Like, I just remember being so
nervous of what other people were going to think, because right,
that's how I was raised. What people think about you
is like you know, you know how it is like
(12:01):
in Hispanic families, and so I always thought that I
was gonna lose some friendships, you know. I was horrified
to talk to Oscar about it. I was horrified to
talk to Nelly about it because I didn't know how
they were going to react. And you spend a lot
of time like working on I think because you had
(12:23):
to go through so many stages of your transition, right,
you spend so much time working on yourself and becoming
this person who you want to be. You try to
get this. You put out this image of who you
want yourself to be, and you work really hard. That's
evidenced by the car you drive, the clothes you wear,
you know, how you speak at meetings and all this stuff.
And it's like whoa Like, I feel like I'm going
to rip the floor out of under from underneath my
(12:43):
friends here, you know, And it's like the same thing
for me. I'm a perfectionist, you know, so one nick
in my my shield of armor, and I feel like
the world is over that people no longer view me
the same way. You know, maybe it was something like that.
I will say that once I had this conversation with y'all,
(13:04):
I was so much freer, and I felt authentic, and
I felt closer to people. The way that you guys
embraced me after this, it was just so beautiful. I
am so lucky to have such supportive friends, my best friends,
(13:28):
my my chosen family that I call it, you know,
not a lot of people have that. I feel like
we're extremely lucky to be part of a fellowship of
people that are just so accepting of everything. I mean,
someone can come in without shoes to the meeting because
they don't have any, and will welcome them in with
open arms, and I feel like that's something that you know.
(13:50):
I'm glad that you I'm glad that you like our reaction.
But all of us are sober, and that's what we do,
you know, and I don't. I don't think it could
have gone any other way, but I'm not you, and
I wasn't carrying around all that weight. Yeah, no, it
was really scary, and and I was embarrassed. I was
(14:12):
ashamed because rejection is never a good feeling, and I
think that I was scared that I might be rejected
by some people, and the reality is that I wasn't
rejected by any one of my friends. Be feeling sorry,
not think it was intergestion here. I am thinking that
(14:37):
you're getting emotional over like our conversation. You said earlier
that I had an armor. What do you mean by that? Yeah,
you definitely have an armor. I think that in a
lot of ways, like what I heard on the podcast,
(14:59):
there was some of that I had never even known before.
And I think, you know, you just mentioned rejection as well,
and I think that you know, given the times that
you've had rejection in your life, I mean it was
like not just plain rejection. I mean there was rejection
from your family and from people that you wanted to date.
And I think that now you are very very careful
(15:21):
with what you share with the world, who the world
gets to see, because I think sometimes you're afraid that
one misstep and people might leave you forever. Recording crumbs,
it was very difficult for me. Yes, I had written
a book, but nobody has read of that yet. Plus
(15:45):
I am recording in the middle of a fucking pandemic,
isolated as fuck. It was really difficult. There were times
that I felt I couldn't continue. And there's some topics
that we left out because they were just too deep
(16:06):
to talk about at that time. But you know, here
I am, I have my producers in my ear and
having to relive everything, and they're asking questions and like
in the nicest way, you know, but they're just like,
go deeper, go deeper. It was challenging. It was rough,
(16:31):
kind of like your sponsor, kind of like my sponsor.
So yeah, I mean, I do have an armor. People
tell me that all the time. People tell me that
I'm so hard to read. I don't mean for that
to be the case. It's just I guess how I am.
But you you know me so well. You know what
(16:55):
I'm thinking before I even say it. You know, that's
how all you know me. So how was it for
you listening to the podcasts and hearing some things about
my childhood or my dating experiences that were before your time? Emotional?
You know, it's like there's a lot of stuff that
(17:17):
I feel like I go through um as a cis
gender bisexual female and in the dating world. I feel
like I've been let down, you know, or rejected, and
I heard this stuff from you, and it was just
it wasn't comparable, you know. I felt like it brought
it to a whole other level that I could never
(17:40):
know or understand. I mean, it was hard because I
thought that I thought that I knew everything about you.
But I definitely feel like and I could see how
some of this stuff was just drug out of you,
because because I don't think that you would freely share
a lot of this stuff. So I feel like we're
very lucky to get to hear such like intricate details.
(18:01):
I felt like I was getting naked for the entire world,
and that's a fucking scary thought. You know me, you know,
I'm like very like reserved, and so for everyone to
hear the good, the bad, the sad like it was,
(18:21):
it was fucking nerve racking. I will say I was
surprised by a lot of it, because you know, I've
heard you share, you know, in the program that we
we program of recovery that we work in or that
we live in. We share our stories and I've heard
you share hundreds of times probably, and I thought that
(18:41):
all those details were in there, but there was things
from this that you know, we don't talk about in recovery,
we don't talk about as even friends, things that were
like hiding in the shadows that probably never would have
crept their way out, Like what the vulnerability from the
dating stuff off? You know, I see you as a
(19:01):
person that you know, I've seen you swipe and I
and I've been a part of that, that moment of
being there with a match, like the titting or whatever
it is, Like I I feel like now I can
see you know, I now I know where that smile
comes from, you know, because it's like you had mentioned
like it was a feeling like no other, you know,
(19:22):
the attention that you got from a match or waiting
for the one text to come, and it was like
I never I didn't have that much attachment to that
kind of stuff. And I feel like it really got
I really got to see like where Emmy became Emmy
an episode one Love Hurts. I'm in this really unhealthy
(19:44):
relationship with someone who I dated in a very early
sobriety right, someone who I guess is considered a newcomer.
What is thirteen stepping to you? Well? I didn't consider
that thirteen stepping. Um, what you let us see I
think in that episode was someone who for the first
(20:06):
time was getting attention back, um, from the attention that
they were giving. And this person just happened to be
in treatment, you know, and you talked about like I
remember you had said, like and then we came home
together and had dinner, you know, and it was like
the it was there was a sense of pride in
your voice from that, Like it was like you brought
(20:27):
him home and you got to like have a normal
dinner with somebody, you know. And so um, I saw
it as like it was the beginning. You know, what's
the big deal about dating in the first year of recovery?
It's a no note? Why? Um, Well, for me, I
(20:49):
know that I had a tendency to go back to
the same kinds of relationships and repeat the same behaviors
over and over again. And um, my sponsor made me
wait year so that I could I actually I didn't
know why, but it's it's so that we can work
on ourselves, and we can do this work that allows
us to see maybe some patterns that we had in
(21:10):
our sex lives that maybe we could do differently healthier
ways of living. So I guess technically it's not called
thirteen stepping what I did. Some people call it that
thirteen stepping is has more of a predatory people at
(21:31):
meeting specifically looking for newcomers who are vulnerable. That wasn't
the case with me. No, And I remember the way
that you painted the picture when he walked into the room.
It was someone that you noticed, you know, not having
any idea that he happened to also live at that
treatment center. But I do see what you're saying, and
(21:51):
I mean that must be hard to come out with now,
given the fact that we are told don't date someone
that's you know, I mean, I wouldn't do it today.
With fourteen years of sobriety, I've learned so much from
from and grown so much since then. You know, I
was only a year and a half sober when I'm
at Jason, and a lot of stuff changes in thirteen years.
(22:14):
If you're doing the work, you change, you grow. I mean,
I guess I'm used to you being hard on yourself.
I mean, you're hard on yourself with everything. You're a perfectionist,
you know, And um, I think that some of the
(22:35):
ways that you described yourself was actually the way that
you thought that other people viewed you, which was a
little skewed. And especially when it came to dating, I
feel like the fear in there was bigger than the
actual reality because it took a hell of a strong
(22:57):
person to walk through all that ship. You know, I,
I guess I am a little hard on myself. A
lot of us are. I mean, you're a little hard
on yourself sometimes too. I have like the privilege of
seeing you in action. You know, you're a badass nurse.
(23:21):
What do they call you, Dana is a badass bitch
nurse or something like that. One of your clients called
you that, and I and I get to see you
in action, and you have this work ethic that's like,
you know, goals. You're so dedicated and I admire you
(23:41):
so much. And I guess because I've had like a
front row seat to like your growth, like somebody who
came from skid row, went to jail, harrow addict, came
straight out of jail to a tough step meeting, got
our nursing license, and just you're a freaking miracle. And
(24:03):
so I admire you so much, and I feel the
same way about you. And that's where I think sometimes
that you don't see yourself the way that I see you.
I mean, that person that I saw when I first
came into the rooms um has only quadrupled today, you know.
And I wonder why you are so hard on yourself,
(24:25):
because it seems to me that it stemmed from like
years of your childhood and people you had tough consequences.
You know, you're alone a lot, and when you weren't,
it seems like there were people putting restrictions, maybe on
the way you danced and things like that, and so
I don't know why you're so hard on yourself. A
(24:47):
lot of the stuff that I learned about image came
from my grandmother. She was just so elegant, always had
her hair do and make up, dress beautifully. She was
my hero, and so I always felt like I had
(25:12):
this responsibility to take care of my family after she passed.
And every time when she hits the fan, when I
feel like my world is falling apart, I think to myself,
what would my grandma do in this situation? And I
(25:34):
get my strength from that. And I knew she was
hard on herself and she was hard on my mom
and and I think it's just something that I learned
along the way to be hard on myself. I know
today that perfection does not exist, but it's sometimes so
hard to undo all those years of of what's it
(26:01):
called conditioning, conditioning? Thank you. I feel like you want
everything to be elevated. And I think that that's something
that I have always admired because I can see how
you look at things and you can see how they're
all going to be like right before your eyes before
they've even happened, you know, like when it comes to
the conference and the visual of how the banquet room
(26:24):
will look or whatever. And I think that that's something
that um, at least for me. When I heard the podcast,
I was like, oh, she gets up from her grandma. Absolutely.
My grandma taught me what a good fabric was. She
taught me what good stitching was. She taught me, you know,
what high quality fabric was. She taught me about shoes
(26:45):
and what good quality shoes were. Those are things that
she taught me. She taught me about sense, about hair,
about product. So yeah, I get it from my grandmother. Alright,
so you know a thing or two about this. What
(27:06):
is it like to date in recovery horrible. Why what
makes it horrible? Oh, it's weird because now I have
a different view on on it. But um, it's horrible
because a you know, when you're going out with somebody
that either drinks or doesn't drink, you either have to
(27:27):
have the conversation, which you know, I've had someone like
try to convince me to have a drink that it
would be fine, you know that sort of thing, or
you don't tell them and then there's this elephant in
the room and you're just waiting for them to change
their mind once they realize that you don't drink. That
was the hardest stuff for me. So you know, obviously
(27:48):
in all of my relationships in these episodes, I'm already sober.
Not everybody ideated was sober, but some of them were.
What do you member, Baldylan, I remember you were in
love and I think as far as like as long
as I had known you, I hadn't seen that before,
(28:09):
and I was so I was so happy, you know.
I remember the first time that you brought him along
and and introduced him to all of us, and I
just like you were glowing. What was it about him?
Because remember, like I have an idea of things, but you,
as an outsider, may have seen something completely different. What
(28:32):
I saw was someone that worshiped the ground that you
walked on. And I think, you know, what I remember
feeling was, Wow, this is someone that Emmy has been
her true authentic self too and with and he's accepted
her for every single, every single footstep along the way.
He was right there with you, you know. And I
(28:53):
think it was the first time, at least in our
friendship that your covers were just pulled, you know, with
the partner, and that partner stuck around. You know. It's
funny that you see that, because my mom said the
same thing when we had this conversation. She said, he
(29:15):
adored you. I thought so too. Not only that, but
you were the same self that you are with me.
I mean, they're joking around the voices, the everything that
you guys did together, and you shared the same lifestyle.
We have our secret love language that you would make
(29:37):
fun of, you know, like super little baby voices like
I love you, like little things like that. And you're right, like,
I really was my authentic self with him. Had you
felt that way before in a relationship? No, I hadn't.
(30:01):
I could see that. You know. The interesting thing is
I wasn't looking for a relationship when I met him.
I remember, I mean, you were around me so much
at that time. Like I remember we went to a
meeting and he texted me and asked to be exclusive
(30:24):
and that you were next to me, and I was like,
oh my god, this guy wants to be exclusive. I
think I had to talk you into it, and I'm like,
I don't know, Like Dylan, really I fell in love
with Dylan because he was so authentic, so pure to me,
he had a heart of gold, and even like areas
(30:49):
that he what's the word I'm looking for, even things
that he lacked. I think that's exactly what it was.
I think that he was inexperienced in a lot of ways,
and especially in the ways of you being trans, Like
I don't think he had ever dated a trans person before,
a trans woman before, and I think that that was it.
(31:09):
You know, Like, if I had to really like define
what it was that made you fall in love with him,
it was that he like purely went into it with
everything that he had in the beginning, accepting everything, and
it wasn't about your gender. It was about Emmy, who
Emmy is inside. That's what he fell in love with,
That's what we all fall in love with. Did you
like to him, Yeah, yeah, I mean as much as
(31:36):
you probably like Chris. I mean, he was your partner,
and of course that we would welcome him with open arms.
And I think that you guys shared a lot of
the same like I said before, like lifestyle stuff. However, um,
I wouldn't hang out with him on my own like
I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider him like a friend that
I would chill with. Right. Were there any guys on
(32:00):
the podcast that you didn't really like Max? Max? I
always thought that Max had left like the door open
for like future things, like a possibility for something in
the future. And that's why I think I hated him,
(32:20):
because I felt like he was stringing you along. And
I remember thinking while I was listening that how much
time has gone by? Here a month, six weeks, eight weeks,
and you're still in Um there's still no closure to
the situation, as if you're even going to have a
second date. And I remember thinking, like, what has come back?
(32:42):
I went looking through social media while we were recording
the podcasts, and I remember seeing him he posted something
in Thailand, a picture of him, like I guess, on
a bike or on some sort of something, and the
caption said just out here looking for lady boys, obviously
(33:08):
as a transphobic joke. Oh my god. That made me
feel so angry. And his friends were all just like
laughing and you know, commenting with jokes, and I thought,
that is so cruel. I couldn't believe it. Somebody who
was encouraging me to be open and to be my
(33:30):
authentic self and then goes and does something so stupid
and shitty. I thought, Wow, what an asshole betrayal? Do
you know what I'm saying? It was just like I
couldn't believe what I was reading, And I guess I
felt like that the effort that you put into and
(33:52):
I know you. I know how much effort you put
into the wording of an email, a text message, the
way they lay out on your Instagram, or our our
job we work at the same place. Instagram is going
to look there's so much attention to detail. So I
know the effort that went into even deciding to make
that phone call. He was the one that he was
(34:13):
the one that you called on his six years sobriety. Yeah,
and and I remember thinking, wow, it took so much
courage for you to work up the will power to
make that call. And then as soon as you hung
up the phone, You're like, wow, why did I do that?
Oh my god, did I do the wrong thing. I
made a mistake. I should never have done that. And
(34:33):
I'm like you were. You were wishing him a happy
six years, you know, And you know I'll never I'll
never forget because I was in Nashville, you know, and
I saw the date June tenth, it's his birthday. I
(34:57):
went outside of my comfort zone to do something, you know,
because I kept thinking in love and in war, everything's fair, right,
And I took a leap of faith to do something
that I normally would not do because I'm so reserved.
I think that's like one of the areas where your
heart on yourself, you know, because the like I said,
(35:20):
the amount of energy that you put into working up
the courage to send a text or to make a call,
you know, and it's like, I don't know what drives that. Well,
you know what it is. This is what it is.
I don't want to come across as crazy. We talked
about this with it with um Zach's episode, because of
(35:42):
how we've been conditioned. So I don't want to send
an impulsive text message. An impulsive email creates something impulsive
that I might later regret. Has anyone ever told you
that you're crazy? Jason? So maybe that's where the fear
(36:02):
comes from. You know, you want to just keep it cool,
and we try to mold ourselves into something because we
don't want to be rejected. We're seen as crazy. I
know I fltered myself a lot, but even then it
took him a whole day to respond, right am, I
(36:24):
correct a whole day to respond, and then he ghosted
you over a mention of a woman. Yeah, to this day,
who knows what the funk that was about? What does
that make you feel like you can't say what's on
your mind now, especially in getting to know someone. I
(36:45):
think I've gotten a lot better at that. I mean,
what do you think? I think so too. I definitely
think that I don't know what private conversations you have
in the beginnings of meeting people, but I do think
that maybe sometimes you're afraid you'll say the wrong thing.
I know I am that way. I'm you're always afraid
(37:05):
of I've gone to a point where I'm just like,
funk it. This is who I am, to take it
or leave it today, this is who Emmy is. And
I'm gonna say it. And if something's bothering me, I'm
going to bring it up. I'm not going to live
just in fear of like what he's going to think
of me if I ask him this, what's the point
(37:26):
of that? So I think I've come a long way
in the last few years, you know, after my relationship
with Dylan ended, you know, like we're cordial, I guess,
but there's always like that question in my mind, does
he have any fucking regret because the years and I've
(37:50):
never even gone an apology from him. I remember you
talking about that in your podcast in the episode, and
You're like, I have no idea if any of the
things that I want to happen will happen, And I
remember wondering, I wonder what it is that she wants
to happen. At this time, when I finished recording the podcast,
(38:11):
Dylan stuff was still at my apartment, and so the
way we left off when he went into treatment was
that he was going to come back in three months,
that didn't happen, right, He came back a year and
a half later and he didn't even send you a message. Okay,
(38:31):
I'm going to be here a while longer than I thought.
The way I look at him today, it's different. Do
I still think he has a heart of gold and
is innocent? You know, I still think he's a good person. Yes?
Is he innocent? No, obviously not. Is he an asshole
for never making an amends? Absolutely, but that's on him.
(38:56):
Do you think that your relationship with Dylan had any
effect on the type of love that you're looking for today?
Do my really show with Dylan but I thought was
picture perfect and then like he fucking blindsided me? Has
made me feel like I can't trust anyone. It really
(39:17):
has because if someone like him, who was so innocent,
so pure, so authentic, so in love, who called me
his queen, who did anything for me, did what he did,
anybody else could do that. It's scary. I know I
can't live like that always. But you know, he's moved on,
(39:38):
like he's online dating, and I'm just thinking to myself, like,
what an asshole? Like, how can he potentially start looking
for something when he never even like finished what he
started exactly, but that goes to show the kind of
program that he's working. Maybe he's ashamed, ashamed of what
(39:59):
leaving you in the arkness. I remember thinking that, and
I think that it's what your friends what happened is. Okay,
he might be ashamed. I don't know, But I just
don't understand how people can carry on and live freely
without any fox, not giving any fox of like what
(40:23):
you did to somebody, the harm that you caused in
someone's life, because it was not just you know, emotional,
it was financial, it was you know, everything. My world
kind of fell apart. You know. At the time when
I when that happened with Dylan, I was making pretty
good money, right and I was able to continue paying
(40:48):
everything on my own because I didn't get off till
the end of the year. But I resented it. Yes,
he left me, fucking he left the big hole and
(41:11):
seeing all his things there for that fucking year and
a half was so difficult. It wasn't what you signed
up for. It was not what I signed up for.
I guess we're swaying a lot of time on Dylan
because you were so present for that. I remember thinking
(41:33):
that he was such a fucking asshole, and I couldn't
believe that he would do that to you. Some of
them I loved so much. But knowing what I know
about the program and people that relapse, as we are
not ourselves in that moment, you know. And so I
think the bigger thing is how has he not been
able to make any kind of amends to you by
now now in sobriety, because I feel like when we relapsed,
(41:55):
everything is unpredictable. Whatever is going to happen next, who knows,
But now there's no excuse. Yeah, no, I agree, and
I feel the same way. And you know, maybe I'm
a little resentful now. Maybe I went from being hurt
to like a little resentful because the least you can
do is own up to it, especially since that's what
(42:19):
the twelve steps tell us to do. You think, you know,
if he can sleep well at night, then is there
any anything anyone could do to sweep you after your feet? Today? Man?
(42:41):
I just want to admire. Oh, I don't know, Dana.
A lot of people think that I'm hard to please.
I mean, you've said it, my mom has said it.
But is there any anything anyone can do to break
down that armor and make you feel vulnerable enough to
(43:03):
share a relationship. Okay, I don't know how to answer
this because I have an idea in my mind of
like what would sweep me off my feet? Tell us, well,
it's bullshit. It really is, like I just want to
admire someone. I want somebody to get excited about me.
I want to get excited about them. I want someone
(43:25):
to be proud of, like what I do. I want
to be proud of what they do. You know, it
doesn't sound like bullshit. This is a thing with Dylan.
I was so like I was like his cheerleader. There
were certain areas where he wasn't my cheerleader, Like when
I finished writing my book, he didn't want to read it,
(43:48):
and that should have been like a red flag for me.
I just want to be excited about somebody who's equally
excited about me, and the sound corny, maybe a little
bit o. I don't want to have to censor myself
around someone and vice versa. I want someone to let
(44:08):
me be either traditional Mexican housewife. I remember the last
time that I talked to Dylan in person, he said
something about no when I told him like I cooked,
I cleaned, I washed your clothes, and he replied, I
(44:29):
fucking hated that. That was so hurtful. Yeah, fun that.
So I want somebody to let me play the role
that I want to play, all right. That's my way
of being me. I enjoy doing those things for someone.
(44:54):
If someone sweeps you off your feet after this, I
get the credit that was me and Dana, and that
was Crumbs. Thanks for listening and being part of my journey.
Crumbs is the production of I Heeart Radios, Michael Dura
(45:17):
podcast Network, and in association with Trojan Horse. It's produced
by Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jazzmine Rometo and
Alex Fumeto. Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt and engineering
by Manuel Executive produced by Giants and Conno Burn for
(45:37):
I Heeart, Alex Bumeto for Trojan Horse, Joshua Weinstein, Jazzmindrometro
and me Emio LEA special thanks to Monissa Hendrix, fernand
Estrava and Sara Mota. Listen to Crumbs on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whereever you get your podcasts.
(46:11):
M
High listeners, it's Emilia. As a special bonus to Crumbs,
I'll be interviewing people close to me that were part
of the journey, will reflect on life, my search for love,
and the impact the show had on them. In this episode,
I'll be talking to my best friend, Dana. Dana has
been with me throughout my sobriety, my triumphs, my heartbreaks,
(00:21):
and everything in between. But there are things even she
didn't know about me until she listened to the show,
things that she helped me process and make peace with.
If you haven't heard the show yet, don't wait. Head
back to the feet and start the journey from step one.
We'll be here when you're done. Okay, let's get started.
(00:47):
Can you introduce yourself to listeners. Hi, I'm Dana and
I'm six and a half your sober. I'm a nurse
and happy to be your best friend. Let's start with
how we it? What do you remember about that? I
don't remember exactly how we met, but I remember seeing
(01:08):
you as someone who myself knew knew in sobriety. I
looked up to you, and I remember wanting what you had.
What did I have? So many things for me? I
mean I had just gotten down to jail. I had
like thirty two something days sober. I remember we went
(01:28):
to a conference and I was lost in the crowd.
You were someone who welcomed me, invited me out to
go to dinner. And your poise, your grace, and the
confidence that you had. I didn't have any of those things.
So in two thousand fifteen, I must have been seven,
(01:49):
about to turn eight years sober. I remember exactly where
I met you. I met you at a twelve step meeting.
I remember you have something about you that reminded me
so much of my mom. Aside from you having this awesome,
bubbly personality, I just remember like you walked like my mom,
(02:10):
You acted like my mom. He had just came out
of jail. You were a heroin adic My mom was
a heroin adict. There was just something about you that
made that was so familiar to me, and I said, Okay,
this grows my people. She's walked through the same things
that my mom has. I want to get to know her.
(02:34):
And I remember, I remember like when we first started
hanging out, you gave me a ride somewhere because you
always volunteered to drive. You love driving I'm not sure
why you have volunteering yourself for driving. And I thought
you were gonna kill me. You were like the worst
driver I had ever met. She drives like a mania.
(02:55):
Actually is gonna kill me. But I really enjoyed your company,
so I just put up with it. Hey, I've been
locked up for so long, how do you expect me
to know how to drive anymore? In your defense, you've
become such a good driver all these years later, and
I trust you wholeheartedly with my life. So who did
(03:16):
you think I was when you met me? Who did
I think you were? The reason I'm asking is because
so many people have this preconceived notion of where I
came from, what kind of lifestyle I've had, just based
on appearances, right, I definitely had that I Um, I
(03:37):
thought that you were someone who was privileged Fuji and
um probably somebody that I wouldn't actually be friends with.
Little did I know most of those things weren't entirely true.
But you just the way you carried yourself. You know,
you carried yourself with confidence, and I think that you
exuded an air of I don't know, just I never
(03:59):
I never out with people like that before. Did you
ever feel like I was pretending to be something that
I wasn't. No, I definitely thought you were who you were.
I mean, you had designer stuff, and you know, for me,
it was like I was just kind of collecting my
belongings one belonging at a time. So I definitely thought
(04:22):
you were who you said you were or you claimed
to be. Oh who did I claim to be? Emilia?
Was there ever a time that I claimed to be
something that I wasn't. Well, I was just getting to
know you, So I had an idea. I had an
idea you or you had an idea of like what
(04:43):
I was, But I didn't directly tell you this is
what I am, this is who I am. I definitely
thought you were someone who was I guess well collected,
you know, someone that had their ship together. Um, like
I said everything that I didn't have, and I definitely
thought you were out of my league as far as
(05:04):
even friendship went. Okay, that was the preconceived thing. That
was what I had wrong, because had I known once
I did know, I realized that you know, we're the same,
You're my people. But I think that's something that everybody
has when they see you. They you're just you're a
person to be admired. I thank you. That's really sweet.
(05:24):
I think you enjoyed that too a little bit. So
let's talk about being trends. Because it took me a
while to tell you. I'm gonna say I didn't tell
you until a few years later, or was it a
(05:45):
year and a half maybe? Okay? What was that conversation? Like?
What do you remember? Because I have an idea of
where it happened, how it happened. I have an idea too.
It was is I believe we were in Chicago and
we were in the hotel room. We were at a conference,
which is something that we did a lot of, and
(06:07):
it wasn't just me. It was a couple of us
that you, I guess, felt close to, and you had
professed it like I have something I have to tell
you guys. And I was like, what the what? I
had no idea what you were going to say. I
had no like, I couldn't even imagine what it could be.
I thought maybe you were going to tell me that
you had cancer, or or that you didn't have long
(06:27):
to live, or something like that. I know, I was honestly,
my heart was pounding when you told me so the
way that you said it was. I just want you
guys to know. I feel like you deserve to know
that I was born a boy. Oh. I do remember
that conversation. I don't remember exactly what I said, but
I remember where we were in the hotel room, sitting
(06:49):
on the bed. Right there was a group of us.
It's like maybe like a handful of us. And what
was your reaction? I was shocked. I was like, what
what are you telling me right now? Like, I just
it took me a second to put the pieces together,
and eventually I put them together. Okay, did you immediately
(07:11):
change your perception of me? No? What did you think?
It made me love you even more because I felt
closer to you. I was surprised that there was something
that you hadn't told me. And just to give you
a little bit of context of why, like it took
me so long too, I guess come out in Los Angeles.
(07:34):
You know, I started my transition in San Diego. I
went to college as Emmy and I'm I mean, people
don't walk around saying Hi, my name is Emmy and
by the way, I'm trance like. People don't walk around
saying that so I always told myself, like, if anyone
ever asked me, I'll just say the truth. But I'm
(07:59):
not going to leave with like, by the way, I'm trance.
Like I thought it was irrelevant why people don't do that.
So by the time I moved to Los Angeles and
I met you and I met all my group of friends,
it just wasn't something that ever came up. Did I
(08:21):
feel like I was living a life? Maybe a little bit, yeah,
because I felt like, well, you know, if they know
out of respect they're not telling me or confronting me,
or if they don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But
I had a sponsor at the time that knew that
I was dealing with these like internal demons of like,
(08:43):
oh my god, I feel like such a fraud. And
so in doing the work that we do in a
top step program, I started taking inventory of myself and
I was assigned or it was suggested that I tell
(09:04):
at least three people because she knew that I was
dealing with shame of living a double life. So I
feel because when I moved to Los Angeles, I was
already Emmy, and I didn't feel like I had to
introduce myself as I'm a trans woman. Obviously, in dating
(09:28):
I always disclosed it, but yeah, I think you know
that's why I never really talked about it. Well, I
think that makes sense. I mean, you spent so much
of your life wanting to be this person. You know.
I think you had this idea of knowing you now,
(09:48):
You had this ideal of who you wanted to be,
and finally I think that you got there and you're like,
why am I going to have to go backwards? Why
am I going to have to take ownership of something
that I wasn't even proud to be before? You know,
I think that's exactly what it was, like, why do
I have to go backwards? I already came to Los
Angeles living as Emmy, and I didn't feel like I
had to introduce you to like someone that I wasn't.
(10:11):
You know, I get it, but it got heavy on
me because I knew that I was keeping a secret
and I didn't intend to keep a secret. It's just
I was nervous. I was scared. I will say that
I felt like it was a little bit dramatic. I
felt like, you know, it's like, I don't feel like
it's something that you should have to like quietly disclose right,
like it's like, oh, my dad's in prison, Like you know,
(10:35):
it's just a fact, you know, like okay, I was
born a boy, you know, like it's just part of
the casual conversation in my eyes. But to you, it
was like dune, Dune done what. It was a very
scary thing to do. It was a very scary conversation
to have because I didn't know actually with you, I
did know that everything was going to be okay, but
I didn't know how the rest of my friends were
(10:56):
going to react, and that made me nervous, and just
because I didn't want to lose my friends, it took
me a while to get to that point where I
could have this conversation, you know what I mean. Mm hmm.
I will say that I remember being jealous that I
knew you had told Jesse before me, and I was like,
(11:19):
I wonder what it was about that friendship that made
you feel more comfortable? Did I tell Jesse before you?
I don't remember that. I honestly don't remember having this
conversation with Jesse seeing that's just something that I that
I thought of because I'm jealous. M hmm. Sorry that
(11:41):
you felt that way because you are the one that
I am closest to. Like, I just remember being so
nervous of what other people were going to think, because right,
that's how I was raised. What people think about you
is like you know, you know how it is like
(12:01):
in Hispanic families, and so I always thought that I
was gonna lose some friendships, you know. I was horrified
to talk to Oscar about it. I was horrified to
talk to Nelly about it because I didn't know how
they were going to react. And you spend a lot
of time like working on I think because you had
(12:23):
to go through so many stages of your transition, right,
you spend so much time working on yourself and becoming
this person who you want to be. You try to
get this. You put out this image of who you
want yourself to be, and you work really hard. That's
evidenced by the car you drive, the clothes you wear,
you know, how you speak at meetings and all this stuff.
And it's like whoa Like, I feel like I'm going
to rip the floor out of under from underneath my
(12:43):
friends here, you know, And it's like the same thing
for me. I'm a perfectionist, you know, so one nick
in my my shield of armor, and I feel like
the world is over that people no longer view me
the same way. You know, maybe it was something like that.
I will say that once I had this conversation with y'all,
(13:04):
I was so much freer, and I felt authentic, and
I felt closer to people. The way that you guys
embraced me after this, it was just so beautiful. I
am so lucky to have such supportive friends, my best friends,
(13:28):
my my chosen family that I call it, you know,
not a lot of people have that. I feel like
we're extremely lucky to be part of a fellowship of
people that are just so accepting of everything. I mean,
someone can come in without shoes to the meeting because
they don't have any, and will welcome them in with
open arms, and I feel like that's something that you know.
(13:50):
I'm glad that you I'm glad that you like our reaction.
But all of us are sober, and that's what we do,
you know, and I don't. I don't think it could
have gone any other way, but I'm not you, and
I wasn't carrying around all that weight. Yeah, no, it
was really scary, and and I was embarrassed. I was
(14:12):
ashamed because rejection is never a good feeling, and I
think that I was scared that I might be rejected
by some people, and the reality is that I wasn't
rejected by any one of my friends. Be feeling sorry,
not think it was intergestion here. I am thinking that
(14:37):
you're getting emotional over like our conversation. You said earlier
that I had an armor. What do you mean by that? Yeah,
you definitely have an armor. I think that in a
lot of ways, like what I heard on the podcast,
(14:59):
there was some of that I had never even known before.
And I think, you know, you just mentioned rejection as well,
and I think that you know, given the times that
you've had rejection in your life, I mean it was
like not just plain rejection. I mean there was rejection
from your family and from people that you wanted to date.
And I think that now you are very very careful
(15:21):
with what you share with the world, who the world
gets to see, because I think sometimes you're afraid that
one misstep and people might leave you forever. Recording crumbs,
it was very difficult for me. Yes, I had written
a book, but nobody has read of that yet. Plus
(15:45):
I am recording in the middle of a fucking pandemic,
isolated as fuck. It was really difficult. There were times
that I felt I couldn't continue. And there's some topics
that we left out because they were just too deep
(16:06):
to talk about at that time. But you know, here
I am, I have my producers in my ear and
having to relive everything, and they're asking questions and like
in the nicest way, you know, but they're just like,
go deeper, go deeper. It was challenging. It was rough,
(16:31):
kind of like your sponsor, kind of like my sponsor.
So yeah, I mean, I do have an armor. People
tell me that all the time. People tell me that
I'm so hard to read. I don't mean for that
to be the case. It's just I guess how I am.
But you you know me so well. You know what
(16:55):
I'm thinking before I even say it. You know, that's
how all you know me. So how was it for
you listening to the podcasts and hearing some things about
my childhood or my dating experiences that were before your time? Emotional?
You know, it's like there's a lot of stuff that
(17:17):
I feel like I go through um as a cis
gender bisexual female and in the dating world. I feel
like I've been let down, you know, or rejected, and
I heard this stuff from you, and it was just
it wasn't comparable, you know. I felt like it brought
it to a whole other level that I could never
(17:40):
know or understand. I mean, it was hard because I
thought that I thought that I knew everything about you.
But I definitely feel like and I could see how
some of this stuff was just drug out of you,
because because I don't think that you would freely share
a lot of this stuff. So I feel like we're
very lucky to get to hear such like intricate details.
(18:01):
I felt like I was getting naked for the entire world,
and that's a fucking scary thought. You know me, you know,
I'm like very like reserved, and so for everyone to
hear the good, the bad, the sad like it was,
(18:21):
it was fucking nerve racking. I will say I was
surprised by a lot of it, because you know, I've
heard you share, you know, in the program that we
we program of recovery that we work in or that
we live in. We share our stories and I've heard
you share hundreds of times probably, and I thought that
(18:41):
all those details were in there, but there was things
from this that you know, we don't talk about in recovery,
we don't talk about as even friends, things that were
like hiding in the shadows that probably never would have
crept their way out, Like what the vulnerability from the
dating stuff off? You know, I see you as a
(19:01):
person that you know, I've seen you swipe and I
and I've been a part of that, that moment of
being there with a match, like the titting or whatever
it is, Like I I feel like now I can
see you know, I now I know where that smile
comes from, you know, because it's like you had mentioned
like it was a feeling like no other, you know,
(19:22):
the attention that you got from a match or waiting
for the one text to come, and it was like
I never I didn't have that much attachment to that
kind of stuff. And I feel like it really got
I really got to see like where Emmy became Emmy
an episode one Love Hurts. I'm in this really unhealthy
(19:44):
relationship with someone who I dated in a very early
sobriety right, someone who I guess is considered a newcomer.
What is thirteen stepping to you? Well? I didn't consider
that thirteen stepping. Um, what you let us see I
think in that episode was someone who for the first
(20:06):
time was getting attention back, um, from the attention that
they were giving. And this person just happened to be
in treatment, you know, and you talked about like I
remember you had said, like and then we came home
together and had dinner, you know, and it was like
the it was there was a sense of pride in
your voice from that, Like it was like you brought
(20:27):
him home and you got to like have a normal
dinner with somebody, you know. And so um, I saw
it as like it was the beginning. You know, what's
the big deal about dating in the first year of recovery?
It's a no note? Why? Um, Well, for me, I
(20:49):
know that I had a tendency to go back to
the same kinds of relationships and repeat the same behaviors
over and over again. And um, my sponsor made me
wait year so that I could I actually I didn't
know why, but it's it's so that we can work
on ourselves, and we can do this work that allows
us to see maybe some patterns that we had in
(21:10):
our sex lives that maybe we could do differently healthier
ways of living. So I guess technically it's not called
thirteen stepping what I did. Some people call it that
thirteen stepping is has more of a predatory people at
(21:31):
meeting specifically looking for newcomers who are vulnerable. That wasn't
the case with me. No, And I remember the way
that you painted the picture when he walked into the room.
It was someone that you noticed, you know, not having
any idea that he happened to also live at that
treatment center. But I do see what you're saying, and
(21:51):
I mean that must be hard to come out with now,
given the fact that we are told don't date someone
that's you know, I mean, I wouldn't do it today.
With fourteen years of sobriety, I've learned so much from
from and grown so much since then. You know, I
was only a year and a half sober when I'm
at Jason, and a lot of stuff changes in thirteen years.
(22:14):
If you're doing the work, you change, you grow. I mean,
I guess I'm used to you being hard on yourself.
I mean, you're hard on yourself with everything. You're a perfectionist,
you know, And um, I think that some of the
(22:35):
ways that you described yourself was actually the way that
you thought that other people viewed you, which was a
little skewed. And especially when it came to dating, I
feel like the fear in there was bigger than the
actual reality because it took a hell of a strong
(22:57):
person to walk through all that ship. You know, I,
I guess I am a little hard on myself. A
lot of us are. I mean, you're a little hard
on yourself sometimes too. I have like the privilege of
seeing you in action. You know, you're a badass nurse.
(23:21):
What do they call you, Dana is a badass bitch
nurse or something like that. One of your clients called
you that, and I and I get to see you
in action, and you have this work ethic that's like,
you know, goals. You're so dedicated and I admire you
(23:41):
so much. And I guess because I've had like a
front row seat to like your growth, like somebody who
came from skid row, went to jail, harrow addict, came
straight out of jail to a tough step meeting, got
our nursing license, and just you're a freaking miracle. And
(24:03):
so I admire you so much, and I feel the
same way about you. And that's where I think sometimes
that you don't see yourself the way that I see you.
I mean, that person that I saw when I first
came into the rooms um has only quadrupled today, you know.
And I wonder why you are so hard on yourself,
(24:25):
because it seems to me that it stemmed from like
years of your childhood and people you had tough consequences.
You know, you're alone a lot, and when you weren't,
it seems like there were people putting restrictions, maybe on
the way you danced and things like that, and so
I don't know why you're so hard on yourself. A
(24:47):
lot of the stuff that I learned about image came
from my grandmother. She was just so elegant, always had
her hair do and make up, dress beautifully. She was
my hero, and so I always felt like I had
(25:12):
this responsibility to take care of my family after she passed.
And every time when she hits the fan, when I
feel like my world is falling apart, I think to myself,
what would my grandma do in this situation? And I
(25:34):
get my strength from that. And I knew she was
hard on herself and she was hard on my mom
and and I think it's just something that I learned
along the way to be hard on myself. I know
today that perfection does not exist, but it's sometimes so
hard to undo all those years of of what's it
(26:01):
called conditioning, conditioning? Thank you. I feel like you want
everything to be elevated. And I think that that's something
that I have always admired because I can see how
you look at things and you can see how they're
all going to be like right before your eyes before
they've even happened, you know, like when it comes to
the conference and the visual of how the banquet room
(26:24):
will look or whatever. And I think that that's something
that um, at least for me. When I heard the podcast,
I was like, oh, she gets up from her grandma. Absolutely.
My grandma taught me what a good fabric was. She
taught me what good stitching was. She taught me, you know,
what high quality fabric was. She taught me about shoes
(26:45):
and what good quality shoes were. Those are things that
she taught me. She taught me about sense, about hair,
about product. So yeah, I get it from my grandmother. Alright,
so you know a thing or two about this. What
(27:06):
is it like to date in recovery horrible. Why what
makes it horrible? Oh, it's weird because now I have
a different view on on it. But um, it's horrible
because a you know, when you're going out with somebody
that either drinks or doesn't drink, you either have to
(27:27):
have the conversation, which you know, I've had someone like
try to convince me to have a drink that it
would be fine, you know that sort of thing, or
you don't tell them and then there's this elephant in
the room and you're just waiting for them to change
their mind once they realize that you don't drink. That
was the hardest stuff for me. So you know, obviously
(27:48):
in all of my relationships in these episodes, I'm already sober.
Not everybody ideated was sober, but some of them were.
What do you member, Baldylan, I remember you were in
love and I think as far as like as long
as I had known you, I hadn't seen that before,
(28:09):
and I was so I was so happy, you know.
I remember the first time that you brought him along
and and introduced him to all of us, and I
just like you were glowing. What was it about him?
Because remember, like I have an idea of things, but you,
as an outsider, may have seen something completely different. What
(28:32):
I saw was someone that worshiped the ground that you
walked on. And I think, you know, what I remember
feeling was, Wow, this is someone that Emmy has been
her true authentic self too and with and he's accepted
her for every single, every single footstep along the way.
He was right there with you, you know. And I
(28:53):
think it was the first time, at least in our
friendship that your covers were just pulled, you know, with
the partner, and that partner stuck around. You know. It's
funny that you see that, because my mom said the
same thing when we had this conversation. She said, he
(29:15):
adored you. I thought so too. Not only that, but
you were the same self that you are with me.
I mean, they're joking around the voices, the everything that
you guys did together, and you shared the same lifestyle.
We have our secret love language that you would make
(29:37):
fun of, you know, like super little baby voices like
I love you, like little things like that. And you're right, like,
I really was my authentic self with him. Had you
felt that way before in a relationship? No, I hadn't.
(30:01):
I could see that. You know. The interesting thing is
I wasn't looking for a relationship when I met him.
I remember, I mean, you were around me so much
at that time. Like I remember we went to a
meeting and he texted me and asked to be exclusive
(30:24):
and that you were next to me, and I was like,
oh my god, this guy wants to be exclusive. I
think I had to talk you into it, and I'm like,
I don't know, Like Dylan, really I fell in love
with Dylan because he was so authentic, so pure to me,
he had a heart of gold, and even like areas
(30:49):
that he what's the word I'm looking for, even things
that he lacked. I think that's exactly what it was.
I think that he was inexperienced in a lot of ways,
and especially in the ways of you being trans, Like
I don't think he had ever dated a trans person before,
a trans woman before, and I think that that was it.
(31:09):
You know, Like, if I had to really like define
what it was that made you fall in love with him,
it was that he like purely went into it with
everything that he had in the beginning, accepting everything, and
it wasn't about your gender. It was about Emmy, who
Emmy is inside. That's what he fell in love with,
That's what we all fall in love with. Did you
like to him, Yeah, yeah, I mean as much as
(31:36):
you probably like Chris. I mean, he was your partner,
and of course that we would welcome him with open arms.
And I think that you guys shared a lot of
the same like I said before, like lifestyle stuff. However, um,
I wouldn't hang out with him on my own like
I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider him like a friend that
I would chill with. Right. Were there any guys on
(32:00):
the podcast that you didn't really like Max? Max? I
always thought that Max had left like the door open
for like future things, like a possibility for something in
the future. And that's why I think I hated him,
(32:20):
because I felt like he was stringing you along. And
I remember thinking while I was listening that how much
time has gone by? Here a month, six weeks, eight weeks,
and you're still in Um there's still no closure to
the situation, as if you're even going to have a
second date. And I remember thinking, like, what has come back?
(32:42):
I went looking through social media while we were recording
the podcasts, and I remember seeing him he posted something
in Thailand, a picture of him, like I guess, on
a bike or on some sort of something, and the
caption said just out here looking for lady boys, obviously
(33:08):
as a transphobic joke. Oh my god. That made me
feel so angry. And his friends were all just like
laughing and you know, commenting with jokes, and I thought,
that is so cruel. I couldn't believe it. Somebody who
was encouraging me to be open and to be my
(33:30):
authentic self and then goes and does something so stupid
and shitty. I thought, Wow, what an asshole betrayal? Do
you know what I'm saying? It was just like I
couldn't believe what I was reading, And I guess I
felt like that the effort that you put into and
(33:52):
I know you. I know how much effort you put
into the wording of an email, a text message, the
way they lay out on your Instagram, or our our
job we work at the same place. Instagram is going
to look there's so much attention to detail. So I
know the effort that went into even deciding to make
that phone call. He was the one that he was
(34:13):
the one that you called on his six years sobriety. Yeah,
and and I remember thinking, wow, it took so much
courage for you to work up the will power to
make that call. And then as soon as you hung
up the phone, You're like, wow, why did I do that?
Oh my god, did I do the wrong thing. I
made a mistake. I should never have done that. And
(34:33):
I'm like you were. You were wishing him a happy
six years, you know, And you know I'll never I'll
never forget because I was in Nashville, you know, and
I saw the date June tenth, it's his birthday. I
(34:57):
went outside of my comfort zone to do something, you know,
because I kept thinking in love and in war, everything's fair, right,
And I took a leap of faith to do something
that I normally would not do because I'm so reserved.
I think that's like one of the areas where your
heart on yourself, you know, because the like I said,
(35:20):
the amount of energy that you put into working up
the courage to send a text or to make a call,
you know, and it's like, I don't know what drives that. Well,
you know what it is. This is what it is.
I don't want to come across as crazy. We talked
about this with it with um Zach's episode, because of
(35:42):
how we've been conditioned. So I don't want to send
an impulsive text message. An impulsive email creates something impulsive
that I might later regret. Has anyone ever told you
that you're crazy? Jason? So maybe that's where the fear
(36:02):
comes from. You know, you want to just keep it cool,
and we try to mold ourselves into something because we
don't want to be rejected. We're seen as crazy. I
know I fltered myself a lot, but even then it
took him a whole day to respond, right am, I
(36:24):
correct a whole day to respond, and then he ghosted
you over a mention of a woman. Yeah, to this day,
who knows what the funk that was about? What does
that make you feel like you can't say what's on
your mind now, especially in getting to know someone. I
(36:45):
think I've gotten a lot better at that. I mean,
what do you think? I think so too. I definitely
think that I don't know what private conversations you have
in the beginnings of meeting people, but I do think
that maybe sometimes you're afraid you'll say the wrong thing.
I know I am that way. I'm you're always afraid
(37:05):
of I've gone to a point where I'm just like,
funk it. This is who I am, to take it
or leave it today, this is who Emmy is. And
I'm gonna say it. And if something's bothering me, I'm
going to bring it up. I'm not going to live
just in fear of like what he's going to think
of me if I ask him this, what's the point
(37:26):
of that? So I think I've come a long way
in the last few years, you know, after my relationship
with Dylan ended, you know, like we're cordial, I guess,
but there's always like that question in my mind, does
he have any fucking regret because the years and I've
(37:50):
never even gone an apology from him. I remember you
talking about that in your podcast in the episode, and
You're like, I have no idea if any of the
things that I want to happen will happen, And I
remember wondering, I wonder what it is that she wants
to happen. At this time, when I finished recording the podcast,
(38:11):
Dylan stuff was still at my apartment, and so the
way we left off when he went into treatment was
that he was going to come back in three months,
that didn't happen, right, He came back a year and
a half later and he didn't even send you a message. Okay,
(38:31):
I'm going to be here a while longer than I thought.
The way I look at him today, it's different. Do
I still think he has a heart of gold and
is innocent? You know, I still think he's a good person. Yes?
Is he innocent? No, obviously not. Is he an asshole
for never making an amends? Absolutely, but that's on him.
(38:56):
Do you think that your relationship with Dylan had any
effect on the type of love that you're looking for today?
Do my really show with Dylan but I thought was
picture perfect and then like he fucking blindsided me? Has
made me feel like I can't trust anyone. It really
(39:17):
has because if someone like him, who was so innocent,
so pure, so authentic, so in love, who called me
his queen, who did anything for me, did what he did,
anybody else could do that. It's scary. I know I
can't live like that always. But you know, he's moved on,
(39:38):
like he's online dating, and I'm just thinking to myself, like,
what an asshole? Like, how can he potentially start looking
for something when he never even like finished what he
started exactly, but that goes to show the kind of
program that he's working. Maybe he's ashamed, ashamed of what
(39:59):
leaving you in the arkness. I remember thinking that, and
I think that it's what your friends what happened is. Okay,
he might be ashamed. I don't know, But I just
don't understand how people can carry on and live freely
without any fox, not giving any fox of like what
(40:23):
you did to somebody, the harm that you caused in
someone's life, because it was not just you know, emotional,
it was financial, it was you know, everything. My world
kind of fell apart. You know. At the time when
I when that happened with Dylan, I was making pretty
good money, right and I was able to continue paying
(40:48):
everything on my own because I didn't get off till
the end of the year. But I resented it. Yes,
he left me, fucking he left the big hole and
(41:11):
seeing all his things there for that fucking year and
a half was so difficult. It wasn't what you signed
up for. It was not what I signed up for.
I guess we're swaying a lot of time on Dylan
because you were so present for that. I remember thinking
(41:33):
that he was such a fucking asshole, and I couldn't
believe that he would do that to you. Some of
them I loved so much. But knowing what I know
about the program and people that relapse, as we are
not ourselves in that moment, you know. And so I
think the bigger thing is how has he not been
able to make any kind of amends to you by
now now in sobriety, because I feel like when we relapsed,
(41:55):
everything is unpredictable. Whatever is going to happen next, who knows,
But now there's no excuse. Yeah, no, I agree, and
I feel the same way. And you know, maybe I'm
a little resentful now. Maybe I went from being hurt
to like a little resentful because the least you can
do is own up to it, especially since that's what
(42:19):
the twelve steps tell us to do. You think, you know,
if he can sleep well at night, then is there
any anything anyone could do to sweep you after your feet? Today? Man?
(42:41):
I just want to admire. Oh, I don't know, Dana.
A lot of people think that I'm hard to please.
I mean, you've said it, my mom has said it.
But is there any anything anyone can do to break
down that armor and make you feel vulnerable enough to
(43:03):
share a relationship. Okay, I don't know how to answer
this because I have an idea in my mind of
like what would sweep me off my feet? Tell us, well,
it's bullshit. It really is, like I just want to
admire someone. I want somebody to get excited about me.
I want to get excited about them. I want someone
(43:25):
to be proud of, like what I do. I want
to be proud of what they do. You know, it
doesn't sound like bullshit. This is a thing with Dylan.
I was so like I was like his cheerleader. There
were certain areas where he wasn't my cheerleader, Like when
I finished writing my book, he didn't want to read it,
(43:48):
and that should have been like a red flag for me.
I just want to be excited about somebody who's equally
excited about me, and the sound corny, maybe a little
bit o. I don't want to have to censor myself
around someone and vice versa. I want someone to let
(44:08):
me be either traditional Mexican housewife. I remember the last
time that I talked to Dylan in person, he said
something about no when I told him like I cooked,
I cleaned, I washed your clothes, and he replied, I
(44:29):
fucking hated that. That was so hurtful. Yeah, fun that.
So I want somebody to let me play the role
that I want to play, all right. That's my way
of being me. I enjoy doing those things for someone.
(44:54):
If someone sweeps you off your feet after this, I
get the credit that was me and Dana, and that
was Crumbs. Thanks for listening and being part of my journey.
Crumbs is the production of I Heeart Radios, Michael Dura
(45:17):
podcast Network, and in association with Trojan Horse. It's produced
by Margaret Catcher and and edited by Jazzmine Rometo and
Alex Fumeto. Original music by Daniel Peter Schmidt and engineering
by Manuel Executive produced by Giants and Conno Burn for
(45:37):
I Heeart, Alex Bumeto for Trojan Horse, Joshua Weinstein, Jazzmindrometro
and me Emio LEA special thanks to Monissa Hendrix, fernand
Estrava and Sara Mota. Listen to Crumbs on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whereever you get your podcasts.
(46:11):
M
Host
Emmy Olea
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