I was planning to be out and about today, but it was raining quite hard with a lot of thunder, so I ended up staying in. It’s been a week of introspection for me, a lot of reflecting on the last several years, if not the almost nine years I’ve been in New York City. I suppose this is normal every time you reach a pivotal point in your life, whether it’s about a new life circumstance change like marriage, a move, or a new job. You never know what’s going to happen next, but while you are waiting for that “next thing” to begin, you think about how far you’ve come that’s led you to this point.

I noted yesterday how sad this last job made me because it would always be tied to my brother’s death, and today, I thought about how everything that happens to me now, I’ll never be able to share with him. It’s been nearly four years since I lost him. That’s four years of never sharing, of never hearing his voice or seeing his face. I wonder how he would have reacted. I can imagine him asking me ten million questions about why this last job wasn’t amazing or didn’t meet my expectations. I can also imagine him thinking the new benefits package is borderline excessive. But I can also imagine how proud he’d be for me. I only wish he could have had some of that pride for himself.

But these are the moments, the pivotal and happy moments, when I think of him and really miss him. I miss my Ed. I wish he were still here in a happier and healthy form.

I hate to say this, but as hard as it is to believe, our mother is far calmer now than she had ever been when Ed was around. Even when she’s at her worst these days, she’s never as crazed or out of control the way she was when Ed was here. It’s like he was a constant physical reminder to her that she wasn’t perfect, that she didn’t do enough for him. I know she thinks about him constantly through the day now even with him gone. But she doesn’t have anything or anyone staring her in the face anymore.

I told her about the new job. She kept glowing, saying how proud she was of me. “You’re all I have now,” she said. “I have to be proud. I only have one daughter… I had two children, and one came out wrong, but one came out very well.”

Ouch.