Erin

The truth is, I've been broken so many times.  And I've come out of each stronger. Everything started with her.  I remember meeting her.  It was a sweltering summer day, the crickets chirped and the creek that ran through our country neighborhood bubbled musical laughter.  I was a young girl then, helping my dad on his big summer project: a tree house for us kids.  Erin told me later how startled she was to see me for the first time, shoulder deep in a hole in the ground, as i helped with the construction.  We had been introduced by a mutual friend.  The three of us spent the day together, and soon Erin and I were talking like we'd known each other for years.  By the end of our time together we had shared whispered secrets and poured our hearts.  The vulnerability of sharing these things with a stranger is kind of like the vulnerability of being in love: we expose these soft parts of our heart, because we are all so alone, and we just want feel like we're not.  First we would share that one day together, later, she would change my life.  After our summer day, I didn't see her again for years.  When we began going to the same school, I would see her sometimes in the halls.  Things had changed; we were older, more afraid, but still young, and we felt drawn to each other.  I admired her unusual hair colors and her boldness.  Over the years we grew close.  We laughed.  We developed inside jokes.  We shared more secrets. We grew into teenagers, and were plunged into the darkness of our teen angst.  Even then, she was my light in that darkness.  
As I struggled to grow up, I decided I wasn't going to let myself love her, and risk losing her just as i had lost my childhood, my sanity, my life as it once was.  It was easier said than done.   My muddled head told me to run; away from love, from vulnerability.  So I left her, and broke her heart.  And she would later break mine.  We failed each other.  And it took hell and heartbreak and these enormous failures to create the kind of love we share.  
The time we spent apart however, was painful for both of us.  She dealt, she later told me by silence, locking herself away behind sealed lips.  And I was the opposite: a loud, sobbing mess.  I remember people would always ask me why I was crying; I should be happy, I should be over it.  And I couldn't answer them, because I still couldn't let myself love her, wouldn't let myself need her.  
Through my tears I found a means of expression: writing.  I wrote poem after poem, some not directly relating to Erin, but some full of sorrow and anger toward her, like letters I was never brave enough to send.  I always think about how the thing that helped me find my passion of carving words onto a page, was everything that happened with Erin.  I learned about struggle, and to trust myself, my resilience and ability to make it through.
I remember learning about love when I was just a little girl, with a happy heart, bare feet, and sweet whisps of honey-colored hair.  I was sitting on my mother's bed, spreading my hands over the cotton sheets and talking to her.  To this day I remember the exact words she spoke; "Your dad," she said "thinks that I am completely beautiful in every way."  And I remember thinking that I was excited to grow up and  find someone  like that.  Erin wasn't exactly what I would have expected back then, but it's always those you least expect, who change your life, and people who you're afraid could have a huge affect, they're just a blip on the screen.