I've had some pretty intense grief waves the last couple of days. I keep writing and erasing ways to express it because I want it to be new and interesting and poignant and well-written and extremely personal but also unobtrusive and small and in no way inconvenient to anyone and not scary to share. Fuck that.
I miss my brother and I want him back. I'm angry that I don't get to make new memories with him. I'm trying desperately to remember absolutely everything we shared these last 28 years but the more I try to cling to memories we have the more they'll change and fade away (which is a real cognitive truth that I only know about because Jason gave me all of the episodes of RadioLab and I listened to them obsessively while I was living in the middle of nowhere in Texas).
I'm mad and I'm sad and I don't really need anything from anyone, I just need to keep living my life while I feel like this because it's never, ever, ever going to go away. I'll get better at handling it, I'll get more used to it, it won't take me by surprise as much, but this is my life now: Waking up from a dream where I can see 10 year old Jason clearly, running barefoot in the thick summer grass catching fireflies with me at Gram and Pop's house, and having to remember. Outright crying in a cafe because I wanted to participate in the "Compare pictures from 2012 to 2017" thing on Facebook and the only pictures I'm tagged in during 2012 were from the last Christmas I spent with Jason. Swallowing the urge to punch people in the face for mentioning their living siblings that they get to see.
I'm trying to make new friends down here but it's hard. I feel like if you didn't already know me before April 30, 2017 you will never really know all of me. Part of me is gone. And how close can you really get to people who can't ever see all of you?
I can't decide how to end this blog so we're going to do a Choose Your Own Ending. You pick:
1.(Shame) But all that being said, I'm being pretty self-involved right now because a lot of other people are hurting and there are so many disasters going on in the world right now that my own pain shouldn't matter.
2. (Optimism) But all that being said, I'm going to be totally fine because I have friends and family and love and graduate school and I know I'll move forward and get better.
3. (Gratitude) But all that being said, I am really grateful for getting to have my brother for the 28 years that I did. I'd rather have the pain of missing him now than never to have gotten to have Jason as my brother. Thank you so much for staying with me as I go through this painful journey.
4. (Defeat/Depression) And all that being said, I'm going to go back to bed to watch Firefly and replay all of the scenes where Simon is real sweet and brotherly to River over and over again and cry.
5. (Guilt) But all that being said, I am going to ruminate on what I could have done throughout the past 28 years if I had had the knowledge and emotional maturity of an adult when I was a child and also if I knew the future so that I could have *both* forced us to be closer sooner and talk a lot more *and* somehow convinced Jason and/or Gaea not to drive that day because if I think about it hard enough maybe I can change the past, even though that is literally insane.
6. (Honesty) All of these endings are a little true and a little not true and oversimplified and unrealistic. I'm glad I wrote all this stuff down. It's good to get it out but it's not really going to help that much. All that's really going to help is time, which is the absolute fucking worst and I hate it. Now I'm going to try to get some work done and then try to relax some and enjoy things and try not to let the grief take over but also try not to go numb because it's easier.
