The Story of Erin’s Life, Part 1

So far on this website I’ve talked a lot about Erin’s death, but not enough about her life. I want to try to tell the story of who she was, to try to describe her and the life she lived. It’s honestly a very daunting task. I just don’t feel capable of really expressing the beauty of her personality, but then that’s not really a new feeling. Throughout our life together, I always struggled with this. I was acutely aware of how she felt about herself, that she just couldn’t see her own value and didn’t believe she deserved to be loved or happy. I spent years and years trying to convince her that she was an amazing person, trying to express my love for her and to show her the beautiful person that I saw when I looked at her. The combination of her own self-loathing and my inability to express my feelings always led to my failure.

Now that she’s gone, the need is the same but for a different reason. Instead of trying to convince her, now I want others to know what I saw in her. I find myself constantly talking about her, even with strangers, every topic that comes up in conversation is related to her. I’m sure it’s getting old for the people that I talk to, but I just don’t want to stop. There’s this feeling that the more I talk about her, the more present she still is in this world. Even though she’s gone and will never be able to meet a new person, to give love or care or insight to anyone again, I feel like she’s still affecting new lives and still somewhat participating in the world because people are constantly hearing about her and her story. More and more people are getting to know her, albeit through the very limited lens of my perspective and my ability to describe her. It’s not enough, but it feels good. This website helps a lot, too. I’ve had people tell me how deeply her story has affected them, tell me that they’ve sent the link to others in their life that they felt could get something from her story, tell me that they feel like they knew her better, or at all, because of this website. I love that she’s still touching people in this world.

Erin was a very emotionally-driven person; sometimes I say it was like she was made of feelings. She had this amazingly gigantic heart and was so sensitive, which led to this profound ability to connect with and understand people on an emotional level. Despite her emotional sensitivity, she had this very tough, sarcastic exterior which was quite endearing because it could never hide her sensitive side for long. When I met her, she was pretty much always wearing baggy black clothes, just recently having gotten past her “goth” phase. She had a very jaded, I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and a dark sense of humor. In our first real conversation, we laughed together at a joke about eating dead babies… I know. She cussed a lot, talked a lot of shit, and was always willing to tell you what was pissing her off. Underneath all of that was this sensitive, loving person who had been forced to adapt to a painful world where sensitive people get hurt. She liked animals more than she did people because animals were innocent. They had no ulterior motives, they didn’t want to hurt others for their own selfish, dysfunctional reasons.

Erin could be bitingly sardonic and irreverent, either making fun of those who were lucky enough to have gotten close enough to her that she felt comfortable doing it to their face or making jokes to me about random strangers we saw on the street. We used to play this game where we’d see somebody doing something inane and we’d make up a song that they would be singing to themselves in their head. Like we saw this guy watering his lawn and she sang this song about how he had a buttplug in and was getting this weird sexual pleasure from taking care of his grass. Kind of a strange example, I guess, but sometimes it could be downright mean… and I loved it! Because it wasn’t mean, not at all, it was just funny and was made even funnier by how actually sweet and harmless she was. This girl would do anything to help anyone who hadn’t proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they weren’t worth it.

Nurturing by nature, Erin never passed up an opportunity to help or care for someone. Our pets, whether our two cats Rambo and Bambi or our dog Layla, always felt so loved and got plenty of treats, pets and hugs. When friends, family, coworkers or whoever approached her with their problems, she always had a sympathetic ear, offering advice or commiseration or just a shoulder to cry on. When we moved into our apartment building in Palos Hills, IL, she instantly made friends with the downstairs neighbor, an elderly lady with medical issues who had trouble getting around and running errands. Erin would go down there all the time to keep her company, having a cup of coffee and chit-chatting, and would drive her all around town to pick up this or that, go to doctor’s appointments, or other such things.

Erin’s willingness to help others and to lend support was frequently utilized because she was just so damn good at making friends. Everywhere she went people just gravitated toward her. She had this great combination of being funny, genuine, open-minded and understanding that just put people at ease and made it so easy to become friends with her. I’m talking about all types of people; young or old, rich or poor, uptight or carefree, conservative or liberal… they all loved Erin. She had very new-school, progressive and sometimes militantly liberal ideals, but she was so well-spoken and respectful of people that she got along really well with super old-fashioned people that normally would never associate with someone that held her views. Our downstairs neighbor that I mentioned earlier, some older women that she worked with at Trader Joe’s, and my grandma are all examples. She was so sweet and kind but got along really well with kinda trashy, bad-ass types that had hearts of gold. I could give dozens of examples, and those are just the ones that I witnessed… but I’ll suffice it to say that the girl just plain got along with anyone that was even remotely worth getting along with.

Not to hurt your feelings, but if you’re reading this and she never liked you… well then, you’re probably a complete piece of shit. Notice I said, “never liked,” because Erin always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt. She would try to like you because she had this ability to see the good in people, even when it was covered with an outer layer of garbage (hence her giving me a chance). If you ruined your chance, though, her reaction could be severe. She opened herself up to people, but of course that made her vulnerable to getting hurt. Like I said, she was sensitive, so sometimes it was easy to hurt her, but that’s okay because she was usually willing to give you a few chances. Once she figured out that she couldn’t trust you, though, you would often get to know a very different, much sharper and more stabby side of Erin. I don’t know about you, but I like and respect the reactive form of defense rather than the proactive form. Sure, Erin could get mean when hurt, and sometimes she could be overly sensitive and overreact, but at least she started out open and gave you a chance. Other people, myself included, start out much more guarded and often fail to ever open up to people that really deserve it.

She was also very creative and expressive. With her degree in English from El Camino college, she always dreamed of being a writer… and she really had the talent for it. I don’t think anyone knows as well as I do, thanks to the hundreds and hundreds of letters she must’ve written to me in our years together. Erin had this amazing ability to put her heart and soul into the things that she wrote. It was a natural and unassuming style that could tend toward prose when she was trying to express something ethereal or emotional or hard to define. I always admired and, in truth, somewhat envied her writing talent. She had what I always wanted, this ability to effortlessly pour her heart into what she wrote, to express these large complex feelings and ideas in these simple ways with a perspective that only she would have. I always loved reading the things that she wrote but felt bad that her dream of being a writer never materialized. There are probably several complicated reasons why it never happened for her, but in my opinion, it mostly comes down to fear, a lack of faith in herself and just the hard realities of the real world getting in the way. She struggled with this quite a bit, and you could see it in the decisions she made for her life as far as her future. She felt ashamed that she was never able to find a purpose for her life that she was passionate about, particularly writing. I really wish I’d found a way to support her more to push for this, but of course that’s something you must do for yourself for the most part.

I know that what I’ve written here doesn’t even come close to scratching the surface… Erin was this amazingly complex, larger-than-life person. Even after 12 years with her, I was still learning new aspects of who she was. I’m sure that some of you are thinking that I’m putting Erin on a pedestal, here. I know it’s common to do that when someone dies, to deify them as if they were perfect and holy and could do no wrong. I won’t lie that I tended to put Erin on a pedestal, even when she was alive. She really was the most amazing, kind person I’d ever met and I told her constantly how special she was. Often, I would even tell her that she was perfect, but of course she would protest and of course I knew that she wasn’t… but what I really meant was that she was perfect for me. Oh yes, she had her flaws… and like all the beautiful things about her, I’m sure that I knew the ugly things better than anyone else, as well. Even in what I’ve just written I’ve shared some aspects of her personality that convey some weakness and shortcomings. One day I hope to write something about how her BPD affected her life and mine, and I’m sure a lot of the negative stuff will come out in that. This was really just an outpouring of some of my thoughts about her. It’s by no means comprehensive or even coherent, but I just wanted to share with you all a little bit of the beauty that I experienced in this woman that let me spend 12 years of my life with her.

If anyone else would like to contribute their perspective to this, I would GREATLY appreciate it. This website is about celebrating our memories of Erin and I feel drastically underequipped when it comes to that task. But thank you for reading this and please let me know if you have any questions about Erin or what I’ve written.