Erin The Great

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. Standing in the rain dumped. I don’t know if any of you have seen or read Stephenie Meyers’s ‘New Moon’ but if you have, she nailed it on the head! Somehow I got home after that, because a vaguely remember the next few months. June…July…August…September…October and so on. I was basically coasting through the months with a fake smile on my face and a deep aching hole where my heart used to be. I remember the first few months feeling like I was in a black abyss.

It was summer time so I had the apartment to myself. Occasionally one of my friends would stop by to see if I was still alive if nobody had seen me in a couple of days. I owe a lot to my friends. They were my true saving grace. They were patient, kind and understanding to the best of their experience and ability. They let me hide and made sure I surfaced every now and then. On one occasion I had been hiding for a while when I heard a knock on the door and voice bellowing ‘where is she??’, ‘I think she’s in her room’ my roommate exclaimed a little offended. ‘Of course she’s in her room, why hasn’t anyone dragged her outside? Oh nevermind!’ It was my friend Jenny. All of a sudden my door bursted open and my tiny friend jenny stood in the doorway… all 5’3” and 95lbs of her. ‘What are you doing?! And what is that smell?? Why is you window not open? When was the last time you bathed? Oh my gosh! Please tell me you’ve been eating.’ She said forcefully. ‘Go away’ I mumbled, not really caring that my clothes were still piled on my bed from 2 weeks ago and that weird stench she was wondering about was most likely me since I wasn’t really caring about my hygiene at that point. Jenny walked over to the window and yanked the blinds up and opened the window revealing a very bright sun and some much unwanted fresh air. ‘oooooouch, do you mind?’ I yelled. ‘This is ridiculous! Erin! It’s been a month! You cannot live like this! Jenny said with a hint of worry in her voice. ‘Why not? It’s been working for me so far’ I sad rather rudely. ‘ok, that’s it! She said, ‘you have an hour to throw your butt into the shower, put your laundry away, throw away the empty food cartons and come down to my apartment for dinner. I’m not asking you to out on make up or even dress nicely. You can stay in your sweats. I just want you clean and fed. You can go back to dying after I’ve fed you! ‘fine’ I said. ‘1 hour!’ she exclaimed.’ Or I’ll come up here and throw you in your shower myself!’ ‘yeah yeah’ I said.

I felt loved at that moment. I was lucky. Even though nobody I knew had ever been through what I had gone through or even the extent, I was incredibly blessed to have the friends that I had. My roommates thought I was crazy or possessed and I think everyone else did as well. With the exception of my close group of friends, most people just kept their distance. After the ‘I’m going to throw you in the shower’ incident I started putting a fake smile on my face so as not to worry my friends. I was completely broken and I knew this was something I wasn’t going to be able to fix over night. After that I tried dating but it only ended up with me running for the hills anytime they tried to get me to commit, and the poor guy standing there wondering what It was that he has said or done. I truly and honestly feel bad for all the guys I ‘dated/used’ during what I refer to as the ‘Great Depression’. I know it’s a terrible play on word but it’s the only thing that comes close to describing how It was for me. I was completely numb and empty inside. I didn’t feel anything after a while. I threw all the anger, hurt and paralyzing fear into a compartment and locked it’. I was merely there. Somewhere in the limbo of living and death, my eyes were open and I was breathing but I was nowhere near alive. I was searching for anything that made sense and that would help me understand what had happened and if this was just the universes way of saying ‘screw you Erin!’. It didn’t help that for the next year I watched most of my good friends get married to men that loved them and that would never hurt or leave them. Men that promised them the sun, the moon and the stars and gave it to them without hesitation. I tried to be happy for them. I wanted to be happy for them, but It felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest every time I received a wedding announcement. Every time I received a wedding announcement it was the same MO. Drive to the grocery store, grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream and dive in like a pig at a trough while wrapped up in my comforter watching Pride and Prejudice or Gilmore Girls. I was an absolute wreck. Something had to be done! This was ridiculous and it had to stop. I had to get to the root of the problem before my butt turned into a helipad and my roommates had to grease the door just to get me to walk through. After 2 years of digging deep, analyzing, walking with friends while analyzing and a lot of prayer, it hit me.

It wasn’t the actual person I was mourning the loss of. I don’t mean to be insensitive but it wasn’t the person so much as the ‘idea of the person’. It’s a funny thing when you have your life planned out, you’re in love and that’s that right? Boy, at the time I felt that the fairy tales had that crap wrong! They don’t tell you about if Prince charming came up to Snow white and said ‘dude! You didn’t tell me this chick was dead! I’m out of here’. Or Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty, when he comes up to the fire breathing dragon would have said ‘Oh hell no! This is not what I signed up for, I’m outta here!’ After a year or two of complete bitterness against anything semi-romantic, I wanted to stop hating him because I realized he wasn’t who I was mad at. Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the on again, off again crap but I could have said no and stopped it the first time. I realized that my pride was so bruised from being dumped the first time that I wanted to make it work so I could inevitably be in control and chose my own fate. It didn’t occur to me that we both were meant for other people and that those ‘other’ people would make us both happier than we could have ever dreamed of than if we had married each other. I was mad at myself for not having the faith that I would find someone just as good as him if not a whole heck of a lot better for me. I was mad that I let myself be destroyed by control, pride and sheer stubbornness. I didn’t listen to anything I didn’t want to hear, even when most of the time, everyone else was right. I was mad at the situation and mostly I was mad at myself for letting it spiral out of control.

I think the Fairy tales do have it right. I think real love does exist. The question is, are we unselfish enough and whole enough to find it?