I was lazy this morning, so I slept in until almost 10:30. So much for being productive on the weekends.

One reason that I’ve felt like sleeping in on the weekends lately is because I know that in dreams, I have a chance of seeing Ed and being with him. That sounds kind of ridiculous because as a living person, I should be maximizing awake-time, but in this world, I know I have no chance of ever seeing him again. In my subconscious when I am asleep, there is always a chance, so that excites me and makes me hopeful that he will come.

Well, he came again this morning. I’m walking on a long, wide street, and I notice him standing in front of a big building across the road. As soon as I see him, I run up to him to embrace him, and I begin sobbing because of how happy I am to see him again. The seconds before I actually get my arms around him feel like they are happening in slow motion; my legs get weak, so every step forward I take seems heavy, and his mouth curling into a smile when he sees me seems like it takes minutes for his smile to form. As we are embracing, he says to me, “Yvonne, I just want you to shine. I’m so sorry I hurt you.” I keep crying during our embrace, and the world seems to fade away.. at least, until I wake up.

Ed, I miss you too much to shine right now. All I feel this week is pain.

A few nights ago, Ed came to me again in a dream. He probably decided to pay me a visit since I’ve been emotionally all over the place this week and thought it might perk me up a bit.

I was going home to San Francisco, and when I opened the door, I saw him sitting in the dining room watching a TV on the table. I ran up to hug him, and as I had my arms around him, I noticed that he was actually watching old home videos of all of his adult birthdays and times when he was receiving gifts. There’s one scene where I am bringing out a huge chocolate cake with a candle on it, and he has a big smile on his face. I asked him where these videos came from and who took them, but he was so mesmerized in watching that he didn’t respond.

The funny thing about this dream is that no home videos exist of us as adults celebrating any of our birthdays. We rarely even took photos unless it was just my taking photos of the cake or the food. In retrospect, I wish I had taken photos of us, but it’s too late now.

In the last few months, it feels as though my awareness to people’s levels of listening, understanding, and empathy has been heightened. My need to observe others taking in what I am saying, doing, and acting has gone up. In general, I’m pretty aware of whether someone loves, hates, or is bored about what I am talking about, but lately, I feel even more sensitive to it.

This isn’t really a good thing because I’ve already become more untrusting of the world and of what people tell me. I’m also not sure whether it means anything when I tell someone something that isn’t positive about my life, and they simply respond, “I’m sorry to hear that.” It sounds too PC, like they want to sound like they care but really just have no idea how to express that (assuming they do).

Ed had a lot of points during his life where he basically thought no one outside of our family cared about him… and thought even people in our extended family didn’t really care (this is probably true of both him and me since our relatives are terrible). Despite his extreme generosity to near strangers, he went through periods where he thought being nice and generous to people just wasn’t really worth it, and he used to tell me this whenever he was thinking about it. I always told him that he shouldn’t look at it that way and he should be kind to everyone, but now, I’m realizing how stupid that sounds. I believe in some form of karma – if you do good things, hopefully at some point, good things will also come to you. But it’s exhausting to be nice to everyone for the sake of being nice. The most important thing is just to be your damn self and to not be phony.

Ed never even knew how to be fake.

I’ve skipped the gym the last two mornings. I feel so unproductive.

The last two days, I’ve felt slightly irritable and just don’t really want to actively do anything… except read about food. I’m not sure if it’s Daylight Savings Time ending or just my moodiness, or just the fact that I was traveling this past weekend, and now, I am not.

Maybe this is about 1/1,000th of what Ed felt. My poor, sweet Ed.

One of the best things about being in the Northeastern part of the United States during the autumn months is seeing the leaves change color. Of course, if you live in Manhattan, it’s easy to miss out on this completely unless you frequent Central Park or Union Square often, but in pretty much every other area, you can’t miss the stunning colors. We spent this past weekend exploring the Cleveland, Ohio, area, and it was far more stunning and dramatic than we had anticipated. The varying shades of red, orange, and yellow were particularly dramatic against today’s cloudy blue sky. It was really any photographer’s dream (or anyone who is leaf-obsessed).

I’m really fortunate that I am able to live in New York given that I was born and raised all the way across the country; I’m even more blessed because I have the luxury of traveling as often as Chris and I do and seeing so many beautiful places and things that really cannot be substituted with a mere Google Image search. The sad part about this is that whenever I feel happy now or excited about something new that I am seeing or doing, I remember that Ed isn’t here to be able to do any of these things. He has never seen the dramatic fall colors in the Northeast; he’s never experienced what it’s like to watch the snow fall from his window and later go outside for a snowball fight; he will never know how great it is to transition from the frigid winter months to the crisp but more promising spring months out here. Bart comes with us, but sometimes, that just doesn’t feel like it’s enough. An empty feeling still lurks in the back of my mind knowing he can no longer breathe the same air as I do.

With the autumn leaves turning and Halloween just having passed us, Christmas is on a lot of our minds now. It’s really crazy to think how the period between Halloween and Christmas zoom by us, and it’s like November is almost a filler month (there’s Thanksgiving, but that even seems to come too quickly).

My cousin texted me earlier this week to ask me and my other cousin (his brother here in New York) if we’d be coming back home for Christmas this year. I will not be going home for Christmas this year. In fact, I won’t even be in this country or this continent for Christmas this year… and if I can help it, any Christmas in the foreseeable future. If Ed is not there, what is my incentive to ever come back home for Christmas ever again?

Christmas is “family time” when your family in some way brings you a degree of happiness and contentment. That is when you look forward to it and just can’t wait to get back to it that one time during the year, assuming you live away from home. But when you have realized after all the years of meaningless hostility, blaming, dysfunction, and lack of gratitude that you actually despise being with them for Christmas, why are you even spending time with these people? As sad as it is to say, I no longer believe that the bonds of family are greater than that of friends. I don’t want to continue to be in touch with a cousin or aunt or whoever *just* because he is of that relation to me. I want to be in contact with him because we enjoy each other’s company and in some way, make each other better human beings for it. As trite as it is, life is too short to be spent with miserable people who make you miserable.

Ed is coming with us to Australia this year. He’s finally going to have a happy Christmas, even if he isn’t in his human form anymore.