One Year

Jason was supposed to turn 33 today. It always felt weird that between the beginning of January and the end of April our ages were off. For a few short months we were three years apart instead of four. When I was younger I liked the feeling of catching up for a little while, but it always felt like resetting to the way it was supposed to be when April 30 rolled around and I made fun of Jason for being old. I keep remembering a conversation we had on his 30th birthday. I was 26 and 30 sounded far away and vaguely scary. Jason was so excited to turn 30. He said he had enjoyed his 20s but was glad they were behind him. He said he felt like he had figured some things out and was ready to move forward and be in his 30s. A new and different kind of adventure. It made me feel glad and hopeful that he felt that way. I hoped that would be how I felt when I turned 30. Then I made some more jokes about how he was old and he'd always be the old one.

He only got two years of his 30s. It's so goddamn fucking unfair. The only person I knew who wasn't on some level freaking out about getting older but was instead excited to start a new decade and he only got two years. I am so goddamn angry. I'm angry that so much time was stolen from him. I fucking hate the people who did this to him. Hate is a strong word and blah blah blah but I do. I hate them. I don't really believe in God or Fate or any specific higher power but I hate all of them, too. They took my brother. They took his life. He had so much left. He and Gaea lived in their new house for six days. They took his future. They took their future. They took our future

I wanted so much to be different between Jason and me. We talked about it the summer before. He came to Florida for work and we each drove two hours to meet for dinner. We wanted to be more honest with each other. We wanted to be more involved. We wanted our relationship to be more real and deep and we vowed to work on that. It was off to a slow and bumpy start and I was unhappy about that at the beginning of 2017. I was frustrated and feeling hurt and a little angry but for the first time ever I was starting to feel like it was okay to feel angry. After all, Jason was the safest person in the world to feel angry at. We had literal decades to work all this out. He was the only person I felt confident I wouldn't lose.

Fuck this whole goddamn world.

And now for the first time the balance isn't being restored. Jason isn't turning 33. Next year I'll turn 30 and I won't get to ask my brother how to feel excited instead of scared. How to treat a new decade like an adventure. In three years, assuming I'm still here, I'll be older than my brother. That was never supposed to happen. If I live a long life I might be decades older than my big brother who, no matter what, was always supposed to be the old one.

I am so angry at reality. I am so angry at everything. Nothing was ever supposed to be like this and there's nothing anyone can do to make it any better.

I miss my brother. I am so scared of a long life without him. I would say that I want just one last hug from him but that's a lie. I want at least 50 more years of them.