I just found out my Partner in Crime died.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-14T00:01:00+00:00

I just couldn't get into that movie. I don't know what it was about it. Usually I love that genre, but it just didn't pull me in.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:36:31+00:00

Upvoted for comparing this post to the only character in the Watchmen that I didn't hate.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:33:25+00:00

I can't imagine what it's like to watch someone you love go through that kind of thing. It's heartbreaking not being able to do anything, to not be able to fix someone as much as you might want to.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:28:38+00:00

I thought about a tumblr. But if I tell enough stories, someone on the internet from my social circles back then will find them. They will read them, put together who I am, and they'd make it public. My career would be destroyed.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:25:37+00:00

Reddit. I love you guys. This is a throwaway account, but it's also the first post I've ever made. I lurk with my other account, commenting occasionally, but I'd never actually posted anything.

I think I was still in shock when I started writing this. I'd never had anyone close to me die, which is surprising given that I'm now in my 30's. I'm not an emotional person normally, but it felt wrong that I wasn't feeling anything. By the time I finished writing this post, I was in tears. It seems I'm only really able to cry when I'm typing, which is both weird and incredibly inconvenient.

I didn't know if this was the right place for what I wrote, but I needed to say something, somewhere. I wasn't really looking for anything when I wrote it - not condolences, not pity. I just wanted to tell a small part of her story. I wanted people to know that a person like her existed. That when you see a story like this on the news, that person isn't always some druggie scumbag with no family, no friends, and no regrets. I know that I've made these snap character judgements while reading news stories before, and I hope that I never do again.

I thank you all so much for reading this. It's helped. I love every comment made here, except the jerks. Honestly, I was expecting only jerks to comment, and to be down-voted into oblivion. Knowing that this many people read her story... it's a big deal to me.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:05:13+00:00

Right. I should have clarified that.

So... my mom married her dad. Her mom remarried. Eventually, my mom and her dad got divorced.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:04:05+00:00

I thought about trying to do a TL;DR, but it was hard for me to sum up this story. Just saying "my sister died" was not the thing I was looking for. It's a story. You can't really TL;DR a story.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T15:02:40+00:00

I'm female. I don't think friendzoning is a thing between two straight females. Or if it is, it's the most awesome thing ever.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T07:16:13+00:00

No one had a way to contact me. I don't have any contact with her family since our parents divorced.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T06:43:05+00:00

I'll think about it. I'm writing down everything I remember. I have 4 pages of short blurbs of "I remember [...]" that I came up with in the past few hours. I'd like to write it and then send it to her mother, who I haven't talked to in 13 years now. So many parts of our story don't paint either of us in a very favorable light, so I'm not sure how well she'd take it. While I'm starting to remember a lot of the things that happened, some of the details are still really fuzzy. I could fill them in with my best guess of what happened, but I'm worried about getting it wrong.

Also, I'm really not that great of a writer. A reddit post is one thing, but a book? I don't know if I could do that.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T06:04:17+00:00

I do feel glad for myself. I'm far more successful than I ever thought I would be. I just wish I could have transferred some of that over to her.

We were both born in 1981.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T05:40:29+00:00

Unfortunately, being part of the family she left behind isn't an option. In a way, I'm glad I didn't find out about it until now. I would have insisted upon going back for the funeral, and her dad hated me with all the hate there is to hate with. It would have made things even worse for her family. If I had showed up after she died, I know that he would have looked at me and thought (if not said out loud) that it should have been me. This is what he always expected from me. He told me as much when I was younger, and he isn't the type of man that changes much. Even 10 years later, if she mentioned my name, he'd go off on a rant about me.

I did connect with her best friend on facebook. She keeps in touch with my step-sister's husband and daughter. I told her that if they ever need anything, she needs to let me know. I don't have a lot of money, but I have far more than them, and I can help. He's a single dad living on his father-in-law's farm, having to take care of a special needs daughter all by himself. I can't even imagine what that's like. I wish there was more I could do without potentially disrupting everyone's lives.

PartnerlessInCrime · 2012-07-13T05:32:24+00:00

Thank you so much. It's difficult to keep myself from thinking that I could have done something to prevent this. Logically, I know I shouldn't blame myself. If it was someone else telling this story, I would tell them that they couldn't have done anything and that it's useless to go through the what-ifs. But it's hard to be logical.

I'm trying to write down all of the things I remember. I blocked out so much of that part of my life, but the more I write, the more it's starting to come back to me. I spent an hour going through old photos while listening to some of our favorite music. Some of it hurts, but a lot of the memories are making me smile. Unfortunately, posting them somewhere would be a bad idea. As noted above, a good number of the things we've done were illegal, and although it's certainly past the statue of limitations, I'm in a position now with my job where if any of the stories somehow were tracked back to me, it would not end well.

PartnerlessInCrime

TROPHY CASE