Episode 10: Emilie Modaff

Emilie Modaff:
It's called compersion, is something I learned while I was doing my poly research, and it is the feeling of happiness for your significant other feeling and finding love from someone else.

Tyler Greene:
I think it needs a different word. Compersion sounds like a problem.

Emilie Modaff:
It does.

Tyler Greene:
It needs a different word because that's beautiful. 

Tyler Greene:
Hello there, and welcome to This Is My Family, a podcast about building a life with the people you love. I'm your host, Tyler Greene, and I am so glad that you're here. On this show, we talk to people from all walks of life, poets, meditation teachers, iconic drag queens, about how they make their families and how their families make them. This week, we are talking to Emilie Modaff, they are an actor, musician, Reiki healer, tarot card reader, and so much more. I've known Emilie for over half a decade.

Tyler Greene:
We first became friends in Chicago when we were working together in public radio and realized that we have a mutual love for all things dramatic, drag, theater, pretty much anything with a little extra flair. Emilie also has a sort of frank openness about their joys and struggles, and not everyone is willing to go there when it comes to mental health addiction and other tough stuff. But I like to talk about this stuff. It's like all I think about actually. This podcast is in some ways an excuse to have more conversations like this in my life, instead of in my head.

Tyler Greene:
Emilie is not shy about it in a way that I find so freeing. My hope is that you connect to Emilie and maybe even learn something new from this conversation. Just a quick heads up before we start, that there will be mentions of eating disorders and attempted suicide in this conversation. If you or someone you know needs help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at +1 (800)-273-8255.

Tyler Greene:
Emilie Modaff and their parents have been through a lot together. These days, they're all living under one roofing while they weather the pandemic. We'll talk more about that later, but I started my conversation with Emilie by digging into another part of their life that I've been super curious about, a chosen family. That's the family they formed as a part of an addiction recovery program. I've been trying out sobriety for a while now from alcohol and wanted to hear more from Emilie about how being a part of a community that's focused on sobriety has changed their life.

Tyler Greene:
They'd been a part of a 12-step program for a while when they felt ready to take the big step, to be someone else's formal mentor called a sponsor.

Emilie Modaff:
Then, in year four, I was thinking, oh man, I should probably put it out into the universe that I maybe could sponsor someone. I feel like that would be ... That's the next step here. It happened so fast. Someone that I had known for a couple years came to me and said, I'm ready to ... I've been sober, but I'm ready to work the steps, and we had a sort of like first Tinder date where we sat together and were like, what are your expectations? What are your boundaries? How do you like to communicate? We started working together, and then probably, six months later, I was at a meeting and I was giving a lead, which is where you tell your story.

Emilie Modaff:
It was all cismen in the meeting, and so I was being really judgmental, honestly. One of them came up to me afterwards and gave me his number because he said his sibling just got sober and they're also non-binary, would you like to talk to them? Me, being vain, I thought he was hitting on me. I thought he was giving me his number.

Tyler Greene:
I thought that was where this was going too, so go on

Emilie Modaff:
Right. I was like, man, am I even going to text this person? Is it going to be him? It was a sibling. Very shortly after, they became my sponsee, and are now in what I like to call The House of Modaff. That's what our Google calendar says when we meet. Since then, I'm taking about four people through the steps right now. I have my own style. I think it's very friendly and I've become really close with everyone, but it is ... I mean, it's truly the house. It's a little house of my children. I love them. I'm fiercely protective over them, and I get to watch, I literally get to watch them grow up, even if they're older than me.

Tyler Greene:
For those who are listening who don't understand The House of Modaff reference, I'm guessing most of my audience does, but I probably shouldn't assume that actually. Can you talk a little bit more about what that means?

Emilie Modaff:
Sure. If you think about a drag mother and her children making up the house of, whatever her name is, it is a little family. We don't live together necessarily, but there's a sponsorship lineage. I can tell you who my grand, grand sponsor is. I have sponsee siblings. So, those are people who have the same mom as me. I have adopted many sober children because I just like to care of people, sober nieces, sober nephews. It's just very similar to the close-knit supportive, but real and almost sometimes harsh structure of a house of in the drag community.

Tyler Greene:
How does sobriety change your relationships to others?

Emilie Modaff:
In every way possible, it can change. The first part of that transformation though, is figuring out who likes you enough to stick around once you don't have the good drugs anymore. That takes some time, but slowly I truly have filtered out everybody in my life who doesn't fill my cup up. I didn't have many harsh falling outs, but I had little trickles and fade outs because some people are just friends because it's fun to get fucked up with them. Maybe without alcohol, I don't click with some people, and that's okay. So, you find out who cares, or who is really, really good for you, and then you learn in the program to be authentic and rigorously honest.

Emilie Modaff:
That's the phrase for me that changes everything, because I used to just tell lies for no reason. Someone would be like, "What are you doing today?" I'm like, "Well, I got a meeting at 3:00 and then I'm free the rest of the day." But I would really be at work all day and then go to a doctor's appointment. I just liked to lie. I don't lie anymore in any capacity. If I do, I immediately apologize. I was not someone who apologize. I apologize every time I do something wrong. I respect boundaries more. Of course, I'm still learning, but when you have to set so many boundaries as a sober person, it's hypocritical for you not to also learn to support other people's boundaries. Everything just feels healthier. You get what you get. I'm not faking it. If you like me, great.

Tyler Greene:
It strikes me too that we become a bit of family to ourselves, maybe in sobriety. Do you think that's true?

Emilie Modaff:
This is a big one. I wish that I could say I have a great relationship with myself, but to be rigorously honest, I am proud of myself, but I'm not always a fan of myself, and that's something that I'm willing to work on and I think I do every day, but I can't come on here and be like, you get sober and everything's great. You love yourself. You don't have an eating disorder anymore. You never were bipolar.

Tyler Greene:
Getting sober didn't fix everything for Emilie, but it has had a hugely transformative effect on their life and relationships. Before we moved on to talk about what all those relationships look like now, I asked Emilie to take us back to the earliest struggles they had with addiction, and the many forms it can take in a person's life. 

Emilie Modaff:
I'm lucky to be able to look back on it and have a lot of humor now. It doesn't feel like too much of an open wound because it does feel like I'm watching a movie. I think I was born an addict. I recognized my mortality and the cycle of life. When I was I think like three or four, I started talking to my mom about it. I'm sure she was like, ah, shit. What did I birth? But I just knew, and I was just born afraid. As you get older, you learn how to soothe yourself. I learned how to soothe myself first, with food, and that almost took my life. 

Emilie Modaff:
I was in and out of rehab in high school. I was that girl, and I was pretty close to not making it. I spent my 18th birthday in residential treatment in Orem, Utah, and that's when I went to my first 12-step meeting, but I was really confused as to why they put me in that group. I was like, well, I'm here for bulimia. I'm here because I tried to kill myself. I'm not an alcoholic. I was. I was just budding into one. The first time I ever got drunk was with girls from rehab at 16, because I had been discharged from inpatient to outpatient, so they decided to take me to the local Cinemark, and we saw the movie Grown Ups, and they gave me vodka and my first cigarette, which was a Marlboro Red.

Tyler Greene:
Ooh, harsh.

Emilie Modaff:
It was the best day of my life. It was literally like, Tyler, it was the best day of my life. I felt like I had arrived. I was here. This is who I'm supposed to be. I'm funny. I'm hot. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings.

Tyler Greene:
Match.

Emilie Modaff:
I invited, like I just called all these people. I was like, "I'm drunk for the first time." We just ate Buffalo wings and I embarrassed myself, and I loved it. I loved it. It was fun for a while and then it just really wasn't. I mean, I have a laundry list of hilarious and very alarming stories I could tell you from my drinking career, but I think the point is, by the time I was considering getting sober, it was truly a matter of either I get sober or I kill myself.

Emilie Modaff:
My therapist said, "Can you just give it 30 days?" I was like, "Sure, and then I'll let you know how much it sucks." My mom was in the room. They encouraged me to go. I checked myself into an outpatient facility, because I wasn't willing to stop acting and working long enough to go in inpatient. So, I went every single day, started dabbling in meetings, and I stayed sober for 30 days. I was so mad because I noticed that I was having less anxiety, my mood swings with my bipolar weren't so severe, so it appeared to be a good decision, and I hated it. I hated it.

Emilie Modaff:
I started smoking weed again, and I immediately started stealing it from people. I couldn't just go back to enjoying a joint with my friends. It was just like alcohol. I want all of it or I want none of it, and it's going to lead me to do any other drug. I can get my hands on. I stopped smoking again about three months after I quit alcohol, and that's what I consider my sober date, on Christmas Eve of 2015, and relapse has not been a part of my story, so I just celebrated five.

Tyler Greene:
Congratulations.

Emilie Modaff:
It was wild. Thank you.

Tyler Greene:
That's awesome. I guess I have this like big question and you kind of alluded to sort of being born an addict. How does this happen? Do you know what I mean? With bulimia specifically, is there anything, do you think, in your generational story, or even your story as a child that may have triggered this, or do you just think that you literally think you were born with that?

Emilie Modaff:
This is where it gets tricky for me. I have a lot of guilt around this because I had a really good childhood. To my knowledge, no abuse, I don't think I've repressed anything. My parents were strong on the same team. I've never, ever seen them yell at each other. I've rarely heard them raise their voice at me. When I try to look for some reason why I have the multiple mental illnesses that I do and all of the addiction, the process addiction, so food, people. One of my favorite phrases is hi, I'm Emilie, I'm an alcoholic. I snort people, money and drugs. I snort all things. I heard that in a meeting and it struck me.

Emilie Modaff:
But I don't know where it comes from, and that's why I think I was born an addict. There was nothing in my childhood besides the pressure I put on myself and the pressure society put on me that makes any sense as an inciting incident. What spurred this, I think was the anxiety and depression I was born with, because I was born with those things, but I was not born with the tools to cope with them.

Tyler Greene:
Maybe a sensitivity too, right? A hypersensitivity to the world around you.

Emilie Modaff:
Oh my God, so imagine being a child and feeling other people's emotions, but thinking they're your own.

Tyler Greene:
Oh God, yes. That's it. 

Emilie Modaff:
Yeah.

Tyler Greene:
That's it.

Emilie Modaff:
Yeah, and it's too much for my little body to handle.

Tyler Greene:
Emilie's journey to self-awareness and their ability to have compassion for themselves had to come first before they were ready to become a sponsor. Now, the empathy they need to be a sponsor comes in part from seeing themselves in others. 

Emilie Modaff:
I see specifically one of my sponsees as almost an exact replica of me at a younger age, one of my other sponsees is just very similar to me in general. I guess, I didn't know that, that's what I was doing, but yes, when I talk to them, let's say they're in the middle of a panic, I'm incredible at dealing with other people's panic. Not great at dealing with my own. I think talking to your childhood self is really powerful, and I always think it's really cheesy in therapy and it makes me cry.

Tyler Greene:
I was literally just going to ask you, as a way of closing out this section, if your younger self just sort of showed up and was sitting here with us, what would you say?

Emilie Modaff:
First of all, I would say you are so queer. Then I would say, don't kill yourself because your life will become something you can be proud of. In the program, there's a really beautiful saying that goes, don't quit before the miracle happens, and it is so cheesy, but it's true, because before I got sober, and I would say this to my younger self, and they would roll their eyes at me, 100% would roll their eyes at me. My life now is a version of what I wanted when I was younger. I am a working actor. I do have friends like, I have had love, but I would not have known that if I had succeeded when I was 17. Don't kill yourself, stop dating cismen.

Tyler Greene:
What is a cisman. Here's what young Emilie would say.

Emilie Modaff:
Oh, honey.

Tyler Greene:
Besides Emilie's sober family, they have also created a life full of queer, beautiful love that involves polyamory. There are lots of ways to be poly, as it's called, so I asked Emilie to explain how that works for them.

Emilie Modaff:
Polyamory, ethical non-monogamy is the term that makes most sense in my brain. Non-monogamy being, we are not dating or loving one person. We are acknowledging that we can successfully love more than one person and in many different ways. For me, platonic soulmates, huge part of polyamory. That's the kind of love that I want in my orbit. Life partner, also want that for me. Casual partners, love that too. Throuple, not for me, because-

Tyler Greene:
Okay, you have to define that, not for me, because I know what it is, but for other people.

Emilie Modaff:
Okay. I would love to be that person ... I've dated a lot of people like this, who want to have like a queer poly kind of house, community living. I am jealous and I'm controlling. I can't do a throuple because it confuses me where my attention needs to go when we're all together, and how to get my needs met. I'm a pretty domesticated poly person. I like to call myself domestigated. For me, that means I want to come home to someone and I want love in other forms. The reason I need and want love in other forms is because I am an addict and I snort people. So, if you give me one person and you say, this is your person, they complete you, I'm fucked.

Emilie Modaff:
I will get so obsessed and I will make them the other half of me. No human being has the capacity to complete another human being, and that is why I allow love in many different avenues in my life, because I know I can't be everything for one person. That's not to say monogamy is wrong. I don't think that at all. I think all forms of relationships are beautiful as long as they're healthy. My parents have been married like 30 years. They are so straight, so monogamous. They don't understand my brain and my lifestyle, but guess what? All of our relationships are equally important and valid.

Tyler Greene:
What I love about this is that our show, this show, is about redefining family or creating a more inclusive idea of what love and relationships look like. We haven't really had a conversation about polyamory yet. Just very basically, what's good about it?

Emilie Modaff:
I don't make people, my God, I have to communicate so clearly and honestly. I think my mind has opened up to the different kinds of love that I think are important, so not just romantic and sexual relationships, but like I said, a platonic soulmate, your Meredith Grey to your Cristina Yang. Oh, your relationship with ...

Tyler Greene:
Gayle to Oprah. 

Emilie Modaff:
Right? Oh my God. It is so lovely to sit down with a partner or partners and their partner, or partners, and know that y'all are your own kind of little family. Is it hard? For me, sometimes it really is. But there's, it's called compersion, is something I learned while I was doing my poly research, and it is the feeling of happiness for your significant other feeling and finding love from someone else.

Tyler Greene:
I think it needs a different word. Compersion sounds like a problem.

Emilie Modaff:
It does.

Tyler Greene:
It needs a different word because that's beautiful.

Emilie Modaff:
It is so beautiful and it doesn't always happen for me personally. I dated someone who was just compersion city, just loved love. But sometimes for me, there's a jealousy, but sometimes there is like ... If I see a partner of mine hugging their partner or getting a sweet, tender kiss from their partner, I feel so good, because why wouldn't we want people we love to find love, and why does it always have to come from us? That's not to say that I'm good at it always. I have a lot of self-esteem issues. I do not like confrontation. Got to get over it if you're going to be poly. Got to get over it because there's jealousy and there's more than one person that you're affecting. It's a constellation.

Tyler Greene:
Constellation. I love that. Is there anything else that you need to make being poly work?

Emilie Modaff:
Yeah, you need to have a Google Calendar.

Tyler Greene:
Does it have to be Google?

Emilie Modaff:
Logistically, dude, how do you give everyone enough time? I'm an actor. I'm a workaholic. Yes, I need to see your calendar so that I can schedule time to have sex or hold hands.

Tyler Greene:
Or hold hands.

Emilie Modaff:
Google Calendar makes everything way easier for me. Two more things that are really difficult for me constantly coming out to people as poly. You don't have to, but I really live my relationships pretty loud as you know. It's really hard to talk about, specifically with your dad, when you have to have that conversation where the subtext is, I'm fucking multiple people at once. I am in love and have deep relationships with more than one person, and I want you to know most of them. It's awkward. I'm sure we'll get to that and how they responded, but a lot of people are lucky, and a lot of people can't come out as poly to their family, and for me, that would be devastating.

Tyler Greene:
Yeah. Can we maybe get into a little more specifics about what your poly life looks like right now? I know that you have your partner, [Shy 00:23:59], and there's another person that you're dating. Right?

Emilie Modaff:
I have been dating my partner, Shy, for four years. We don't want to live together. We talked about getting married for the benefits, and the party. We want to live in like apartments on the same street, but I want my own house. Then I recently started dating someone who is also been in a long-term relationship for a while, and those are the people I'm seeing right now. I talk to my partners every day. In the middle of a pandemic, that looks like ... About once a week, Shy and I will get on FaceTime and watch The Bachelor.

Tyler Greene:
Nice. 

Emilie Modaff:
There'll be some in-person visits, a lot of gay pining, but I'm trying to write letters. I'm pining so hard. That's how it looks for me right now. I don't really have a hierarchy. I really am my own partner first because that's what's healthiest for me. However, less than a year ago, I had a fiance who was everything to me, and when I met that person, I had been dating one woman for over a year, and I had still been dating Shy, and that was going strong, and I found that when I used that hierarchy and gave all of my energy to the person who I would eventually get engaged to, I lost myself and I lost steam in the other relationships.

Emilie Modaff:
That structure might work for me in the future, but it doesn't now, and so that's something that I've learned the super hard way. I kind of wish I could be more casual. I wish I could go on a Tinder date and then be done with it. I did when I was drunk though.

Tyler Greene:
Oh yeah. You're talking about my husband.

Emilie Modaff:
I know.

Tyler Greene:
Seriously. Last question about this. As you picture building a family in your future, you obviously grew up in a very traditional household and were surrounded by traditional representations of family, I'm curious how polyamory fits into That vision.

Emilie Modaff:
I'm still figuring it out because I'm still unlearning traditional concepts around everything, around gender, sexuality and family. But I think, right now, here are some things I know. I would like to have a home with someone. I don't want children, which I think makes it a little easier for me. It's just another thing I'm unlearning and releasing guilt from, is I don't have that desire. I want close, close, platonic love. I want freedom to grow on my own even if that means that I grow away from someone. It's hard for me to envision what I want the future to look like, because at this point, I'm okay with people coming and going, so the only thing that I really need is myself and whatever family is there at the time, and a dog.

Tyler Greene:
Coming up, I talk with Emilie about what it's been like moving back in with their parents during the pandemic. If you are digging this show, please make sure that you are subscribed in your favorite podcast player. Actually, in honor of the fact that a love of drag is something that Emilie and I have bonded over in our friendship, I think you should go check out my conversation from season one of This Is My Family with the iconic drag queen, Latrice Royale.

Dr. Aliza Pressman:
As a parent, do you ever wish someone could just whisper some realistic and trustworthy support in your ear and not make you feel awful for not having all the answers? Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman, developmental psychologist, parent educator, clinical professor, and I'm a mom. My goal is to make your parenting journey less overwhelming and a lot more joyful. Please join me every Friday for new episodes of Raising Good Humans.

Tyler Greene:
Emilie mentioned their parents, Donna and Phil, so many times and so lovingly in our conversation. Through Emilie's struggles with mental health, eating disorders, addiction, coming out as queer, coming out as poly, their mom and dad have been incredibly supportive through it all. Now, during the pandemic, Emilie is living with them. I wanted to know more about how those relationships work too.

Emilie Modaff:
Okay, so we have my mother, Donna. She is the logistical queen. When I was growing up, I did not have a super close relationship with her because she wasn't one to manage my crazy emotions, my overwhelming emotions. That was my dad, sensitive, 6'3" father. I thought mom didn't like it or couldn't handle it. But as I got older and literally turned into her, I realized that her love language is acts of service, like 100%. When I needed to go to rehab, she had already had three or four places lined up just in case. She taught me how to take care of myself.

Emilie Modaff:
I've only started to appreciate that in the last six or seven years. My father, very traditional home as well, actually grew up in the same town that he's in now that I live in. We have major roots here. He is the most honest law abiding genuine man I know. I talk a lot of shit about cismen, and he and my brother are just good people. 

Tyler Greene:
What makes Donna and Tim this way? This is what I want to know. I want to know the secret sauce for these people.

Emilie Modaff:
Okay. First of all, unfortunately, I think that what my brother and I went through, my brother is a recovering heroin addict. I'm a recovering everything addict. What we put them through could have broken them up. It could have ruined the family, but the values they were raised with, kindness, compassion, really strong family ties, and honestly like the type of monogamy where you're on the same team. We're mom and dad, we will never separate.

Tyler Greene:
Friday Night Lights.

Emilie Modaff:
Friday Night Lights. They loved that show. That must have just seeped into them so deep, because instead of throwing us out or blaming each other, they decided to be on the same team, they got us the help we needed, and then most importantly, they eventually learned to get themselves the help they needed, because if you love an addict, you need to be taking care of yourself. That's why we have Al-Anon. So, one of my parents-

Tyler Greene:
For those who don't know, Al-Anon is the support group for people who grew up with or live with addicts.

Emilie Modaff:
Yeah, or have loved an addict at all. One of my parents does attend. Another of them goes to therapy. They both take really good care of themselves, and I just don't think that we would become this strong if my brother and I didn't go through what we went through. But now, it's like, I will do anything for them because they did anything for me. A couple days after I got into treatment after my suicide attempt, when I was 17, both of them lost their jobs in the recession, and insurance wouldn't cover me because I wasn't underweight so I didn't have any visible, it's infuriating, visible medical issues.

Emilie Modaff:
I was throwing up 20 times a day and tried to kill myself, but insurance didn't care, so they cashed out their 401k. They cashed out their 401k, and I still relapsed when I got home. I've been to rehab three times since then. I went to rehab last year for mental illness. They don't take it personally. I see so many parents taking on the child role and I've never experienced that. They've never played the child with me, and it has to be because of their parents. Right?

Tyler Greene:
Talk about a miracle.

Emilie Modaff:
A true miracle, and I do not downplay how lucky I am because a lot of the people in my life, especially queer and trans people come out about unsupportive parents, and I just haven't experienced that. They've had a hard time. They had a hard time when I came out, probably have a hard time when I talk about poly stuff. They've never not been supportive. They're amazing.

Tyler Greene:
Yeah, how did your dad respond to that conversation?

Emilie Modaff:
I took him on a walk, which is where we usually have our hard talks. We were in the park and I said, "Okay, well, I know you like my girlfriend. I really like this person I just met and I think I'm going to marry them, and I just need you to know that because you're so important to me." I cannot date people without telling my parents. The conclusion he came to, that he's still at is, I really don't understand, but you're sober, you work, you run a business, you're an actor, and you're in a healthy relationship, so okay.

Tyler Greene:
I feel like they would have been good friends with Mr. Rogers. 

Emilie Modaff:
Oh my God.

Tyler Greene:
That's what I feel.

Emilie Modaff:
Breakfast will be lit. I keep telling them to write a book.

Tyler Greene:
Please. [crosstalk 00:34:19]. Speaking of breakfast, so I think a lot of people, well, not a lot of people, everyone is going through a global pandemic right now, but a lot of people are living with people that they weren't anticipating living with at this point in their lives, so I want to end on that sort of like, how you're navigating pandemic life with your biological family. 

Emilie Modaff:
I'm going to start off with why I moved home. I was in a play that was my dream show. We were canceled on opening night because of the rise in cases. So, I decided to go home and spend some time with my brother who was home from college, and my mom and my dad. Lock down happened and I made a choice to stay a little longer, and I ended up not returning to the home I shared with my fiance, and we broke up, and I didn't have a job. There's no entertainment really right now. So, I asked crying, if I could move in, and they were like, "Yeah, why are you crying? We'll just set up the basement."

Emilie Modaff:
I have been here since March healing, and we hang out every day. On the beginning of quarantine, I sleeping all day because I was heartbroken and I was having health issues, and I was very close to relapsing. But in the past couple months, because hearts and bodies are resilient, it looks a little like everyone wakes up before me. My dad is leaving for work, I don't know, 6:00. I come downstairs, I actually come upstairs because I live in the basement, my mom is already working. We usually meet up for some morning TV while we drink our coffee, and then we just go our separate ways, and I have a Reiki client or two, I have a tarot client.

Emilie Modaff:
Then dad gets home typically around 5:00 and he makes the dinner. When I move out, I don't know how I'm going to feed myself. I am regressing a bit. When I am home, I regress because this is where I was little.

Tyler Greene:
I was just going to say, how does it feel different now? So, you're doing all of these sort of domesticated things, but your roles have shifted, so a little bit, or have they? I'm sort of curious what feels different now that you're an adult living with your parents.

Emilie Modaff:
What feels different has to do with me being an adult and me being sober because I'm more able to communicate my boundaries and my needs, so we can talk to each other as if we were actually roommates. If I take the nail clipper from my parents' bathroom and I misplace it, this happened, my father can come downstairs and be like, "Emilie, can you just not do that?" Instead of me throwing a tantrum, because I'm 16, I'll be like, "Yeah, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I should just buy my own." Or, "Hey, when you guys talk over me when I'm doing this, it sets off my anxiety, or mom, I need some alone time, I'll be in the basement."

Emilie Modaff:
It's more peer to peer, but they will always be in charge. They are my parents, and I, specifically, when I came home and I was heartbroken, it was like, "Mom, can you make me dinner? Can you make sure I'm up by 2:00 PM?" Now, it just feels like I'm living with my parents and they're also my best friends, and I never thought I would be someone to say that my parents were my best friends. I thought it was so stupid, but I love hanging out with them. We watched TV every night. My dad and I have been playing Scrabble pretty intensely, very intensely. We have a running tally.

Tyler Greene:
What's it like watching them grow and change into a new phase of their lives?

Emilie Modaff:
I literally realized my parents were going to die when I was like three, and it is my greatest fear. It is, to the point where like, even they joke about it, I have to leave the room, because I want all the time to get to know them to make up for all the time I spent hating them, and making them miss out on their lives because I couldn't be left home alone because they thought I might hurt myself. Selfishly, I just want all the time, and I'm scared that I won't know how to take care of myself. So, when I see them getting older and you see the lines on their face, or you realize you have to talk a little louder because Donna can't hear.

Emilie Modaff:
I want it to just be charming and special, but I am a really morbid person, and it sometimes really upset. I think about watching them watch their parents get older and how painful that was. I just don't know if I'm ready for it. You never know when it's going to happen either. I'm in a lot of fear, but I am so happy to be living with them. I'm pissed off that it took a global pandemic and like losing the love of my life to move back with my parents, but I would not want to be anywhere else, but with Donna and Phil.

Tyler Greene:
Donna and Phil, those are some amazing Mr. Rogers level, calm and compassionate parents. Not all of us have that kind of relationship with our caregivers as we grow up, but it is so cool to hear how Emilie and their parents are making it work. The pandemic has shaken the snow globe pretty hard on how we relate to the people closest to us, whether that looks like moving in with your parents, hunkering down with a partner, or maybe just watching Netflix by yourself. The snow globe has a way of ending up settling though, right?

Tyler Greene:
What has been emerging after the settling is this collective clarification of what's important and sustainable and what's hard and needs changing. As I reflect back on what I've learned from Emilie over the years, their relationship with themselves sticks out. Sobriety seems to have created space for Emilie to nurture and heal a really important relationship we don't pay enough attention to, that relationship to ourselves. I quit drinking alcohol in 2012. It's been almost 10 years.

Tyler Greene:
Since then, I've spent a lot of time trying to just be with all of the hard feelings that booze was numbing for me. I'm grateful for my sobriety and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't truly painful sometimes, but my friend Emilie inspires me to keep my eyes on the prize, to feel my feelings fully, to be compassionate towards myself in the process, and then to use that strength wherever possible, to be able to be there for others too. 

Tyler Greene:
Thanks to Emilie Modaff for joining us and sharing their story. The show is a production of thestoryproducer.com, and it is made by me, Katie Clarkson, Tricia Bobeda, Jackie Ball, Bea Bosco and Adam Yoffie who also edits and mixes the show. Our music is by Andrew Edwards. Social Currant takes care of our social media and show administration. You can find them at @socialcurrant, C-U-R-R-A-N-T, and last, but certainly not least, our art director is my handsome husband, Ziwu Zhou.

Tyler Greene:
If you liked the show, please help spread the word. Tell someone in your life today about this interview. Do it on social media, text somebody, give somebody a call, however you do it, please let people know how much you like this show. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Tyler Greene. Until next time, stay beautiful, and messy.

Tyler Greene:
Is the podcast all done, Sam.

Sam:
All done.