I think I’ve had group birthday dinners or events for the last four years. But this year, I didn’t really feel up to it. Part of the lack of desire was due to friends who I’d normally invite and consider close who have moved away. But I think a bigger part of it is because the age of 33 is weird for me. It’s weird because that’s the last year that Ed got to see before he passed. He was about three weeks away from turning 34 when he ended his life. So to think that I was 27 at that time, and now, nearly 5.5 years have passed since then, and I am now at the age that he was is so jarring to me. It doesn’t feel right. How can you be the same age as your older brother? Your older brother… is supposed to be older, right? So this doesn’t make sense to me.

From a purely rational perspective, it does make sense because he effectively is either gone forever and no longer has an age (depending on your perspective), or, he stays 33 forever. Even though we celebrate his birthday every year, in my mind and heart, he will be 33 forever to me. He will barely know what it is like to experience real wrinkles beyond the tiny fine lines on his forehead. He won’t know what it’s like to go grey and even white. He won’t experience dental issues with age because he’s never going to age even a minute again.

That just makes me sad and feel hurt. I don’t want to be his age. I want him to be older the way he is supposed to be. What am I going to do with this year and the next and the year after that that will be worthy of him?