Has anyone ever really looked at all the fine print in all the contracts that they sign? How much of it do you actually question, and what do you let go because you know that no matter what you say, the rules won’t change anyway? Chris was reviewing the catering contract for our wedding venue the other day, and he pointed out that in the event of an unforeseeable disaster, i.e., earthquakes, fires, or one or both of us dies (they call these cases “force majeure” or “Acts of God,”) our catering vendor still requires that thirty-five percent of the total contract value still be paid and/or forfeited to them. This is to “protect” themselves. Well, what about us? How are we not protecting ourselves in this situation, or why are they not thinking about us in a situation like that? It makes sense to have a policy like this if we decide to either not get married or to screw them by eloping, but how can we ultimately be partially held responsible in the event that we die or that the entire venue burns to the ground?

Even our venue’s contract says that in the event that something like this happens, the full amounts of deposits are due back to us, as long as legitimate documentation is provided. It sounds pretty absurd to both of us, and though clearly none of us want these events to happen, it stinks that a policy like this is in place.

One of the articles I read about “how to save money for my wedding” discussed telling vendors that you just wanted to hire them for a “special event.” Don’t tell them you are hiring them for a wedding, otherwise the price gets marked up to a ridiculously high rate. Weddings have a markup in this country… really, in this world. The rest of the world is slowly adapting to how expensive weddings are in the U.S. I only had to take a look at a few photography packages in Melbourne to get a quick comparison of how much the markups are traveling out of the U.S.

Realistically, I don’t think you can actually do that. How can you hold a wedding and not tell your… officiant that? What about your photographer? I really don’t think it can be done.

I think I have a pretty good hold of what needs to be done to plan our wedding, but to be completely frank, the one task I need to get done that every woman on earth seems to think I will enjoy.. I already have a feeling I will hate. And that’s trying on and choosing a wedding dress. I hate trying on clothes, so I’m not sure why trying on a wedding dress would be “fun” for me. And to make matters worse, I know these dresses are massively overpriced for what they are, so it’s only going to make me feel worse. Chris’s cousin’s fiancee said her dream dress costs 3,000 euros. Well, my dream dress costs in today’s dollars about $11K USD… but I could potentially get it for $5.5K pre-owned. That is still a ridiculous amount to spend on a dress I will only wear for about four hours ever.

This damn industry.

My mom was surprisingly pretty excited when I told her that Chris and I had chosen our date and location for the wedding. Of course, she also had to ask how much this was going to cost even though she’s offered zero times to pay for anything (I didn’t give her a straight answer, but she responded, “well, you don’t need to have a fancy wedding — just something simple!” Yes, because she knows how much weddings cost).  She always used to tell me when I was in college that when I got married, she and my dad would chip in “because parents should do that.” However, since I’ve gotten engaged, she’s made sure to repeat a number of times, “Well, you and Chris make a lot of money (note: my mother thinks everyone makes a lot of money except for her and my dad, which clearly is not true), so you will have no problem paying for the wedding. And I’m sure Chris’s parents will offer to pay.”

I never thought I’d ever have a wedding where my parents paid for everything, or my future husband’s paid for everything, or that there would even be a 50/50 split between the bride and the groom’s side. I’ve always just assumed that the groom and I would pay, and of course it would be great if both sides’ parents contributed because they wanted to and were excited for our marriage. I feel like I am at an age where I can’t really just “expect” parents to shell out money for me for whatever I want. It may have been more acceptable to me if I had chosen to marry straight out of college, but I’ve already been working for quite some time now.

Either way, she also surprisingly said that she and my dad would pay for the “welcome dinner” for guests since people would be traveling a long way, and that “it’s the tradition” for the bride’s side to pay for the rehearsal dinner. Actually, it’s the bride’s side to pay for the wedding…. but no need to tell my mother that since she has her fixed way of looking at things… which is usually wrong and only in her favor.

Tomorrow, I turn 29. That’s one year closer to 30 for me, and the first full year gone by of being 28 and without a living brother. I spent about half of age 27 with Ed, none of age 28, and none of any future year will be spent with him alive.

It’s a weird feeling, to think that every year I am getting older, but every year, he stays the same age. Yes, in my head, each year I celebrate his birthday. Last year, I wished him a happy 35th birthday. But we all know he’s not getting any older. His age will remain the same forever. Thirty-three years and about 11 months, just one month shy of turning a ripe old 34 is him. Each year, my face will change, my body will change, and my hair will change. In four years, I will be the age he was when he died. I already know I will feel sick. I will think, Hey, Ed! It’s me! We’re the same age now! Who would have ever thought this would happen?!

Well, no one. It’s not normal to reach the same age as your older brother. It’s a void that always resurfaces when we get to his birthday, his death date, Christmas, and my birthday. Sadly, my birthday is another reminder every year that Ed is no longer here, and he’s the one person I know for certain will not be reaching out to me to say “happy birthday” ever again.

My dad has felt progressively better since he had the excess liquid dispelled from his lung. The procedure was non-invasive, and in fact, he was awake the entire 15 minutes that they did it. That part of his chest was just numbed so he didn’t feel any pain. He said he felt relief immediately after the liquid was emptied out (about three cups of liquid total). He’s even said that the physical therapist he’s been working with as well as his cardiologist have cleared him to drive again, so he’s recovering far quicker than the average person who has had bypass surgery.

My mom, though, as per usual, doesn’t see his recovery as quick. In fact, she blames his surgery for the reason her own health has supposedly gone downhill “extremely,” as she says, and she says she has absolutely no energy left, and her back and neck have been acting up even more. She yelled at me for taking my Europe trip the week after my dad was discharged from the hospital and said she expected more from me, and then insinuated that Chris wasn’t thinking of our family when he didn’t encourage me to extend my stay in San Francisco to help out my parents. “Nothing is ever enough for you,” I finally told her today. “So I know no matter what I do, you will never be satisfied.” That was when she started screaming and told me to stop instigating arguments. I never realized I was an instigator in arguments with her.

She also expressed sadness that Ed wasn’t here to help her out with things like cleaning and buying groceries. “He would have been a big help if he were here,” she said wistfully. It’s sad when she wants him back not just for wanting him back alive and healthy, but just because she knows she could tell him what to do at any moment of the day. Ed doesn’t need any of that.

Tonight, we went to Ivanhoe, the well-known neighborhood in the Melbourne area for its Christmas tradition of decking out all of their private residences in Christmas lights. Everyone seems to know about the neighborhood, and people come to park their cars early and walk over and do the street walks to admire and take photos of these Christmas decorations and lights, some of which take an entire week or two for families to put up.

What I wasn’t anticipating during this walk was that the mosquitoes (or “mozzies,” as Australians call them) would come out from the bushes and grass and feed on my vulnerable feet and ankles. The entire walk around the neighborhood resulted in about nine mozzie bites for me, and I was itching like mad the entire time. It doesn’t seem to matter where I go, whether it’s Malaysia, Cambodia, anywhere in the U.S., or Australia – these blood suckers are always attracted to me, and never even once has Chris been bitten in my presence. What does it say when mosquitoes are always attracted to you and never the person next to you?

We will have been traveling for 24 hours, including transit and layover time in JFK, LAX, and Sydney due to a delayed first flight from JFK. I slept for a good amount of time on the LAX to Sydney leg, and when I thought for a moment about foregoing my mouth guard during my sleep, I thought that would be a pretty terrible idea given that my mother has hung up on me twice and tried to blame me for all her suffering, and I’d probably end up with chipped or broken teeth by the time we arrived in Sydney if I didn’t wear it. At this point, I can’t really mentally afford any broken parts of my body.

For my conscious time during these flights to Melbourne, I wondered a lot about parent-child relationships — what makes them work, what makes them not, and the constant blame game that seems to happen in even the most functional parent-child relationships. I wondered about what led to my brother’s untimely death, and all that I wish he had from our parents that he was deprived of. It’s easy for me to blame them, but how can I really blame them when they had inadequate love from their parents, as well, which led to their ultimate inadequacies in raising us? All they are doing is continuing the cycle of dysfunction, criticism, and emotional abuse that they endured as children. They are only doing what they know. It’s sad, but it’s all they know.

My dad’s appointment with his cardiologist today has resulted in the discovery that his left leg is inflamed from the graft taken, so they’re recommending that this be treated intravenously. This means he will need to stay at the hospital.

They’ve also found that he has too much excessive liquid in his left lung, so they want to drain it by inserting a small tube in there.

How did I find all this out? My mom calls after over a week of refusing to speak to me, and she says in an angry tone, “Your dad has to go back into the hospital. That’s all I am going to say. That is all.” Then, she hangs up before I can say anything.

My dad calls back later to let me know the details. As he is trying to talk to me, he has to stop every now and then to tell my mother to calm down and stop being so excitable. Finally, she grabs the phone from him and angrily tells me not to tell anyone because no one cares and everyone has only caused her to suffer, especially me. “You went ahead and told everyone Ed died. You made me suffer so much you wouldn’t even believe!” She tells me spitefully to enjoy my vacation, as she knows I’m leaving today. As I try to respond, she yells “Shut your mouth!” and hangs up. I wonder who was lucky enough to witness her yelling at me like this in the hospital.

It’s amazing that I still want to keep calling back. I guess that goes to show how much I love them despite how sick in the head they are.

It’s Christmas time again, and the second Christmas when Ed won’t be around. Although Christmas is my favorite time of the year, it’s now always going to be one of those bittersweet times because he will never be here again. Even if I ever wanted to spend Christmas at home with him, the option is now gone. This season, it’s even more frustrating and conflicting for me given my dad’s recent heart surgery and his recovery, and my mother trying to make me feel guilty for not being home during this time and instead flying off to Australia. Ed’s void is even more painfully apparent to me.

For so many people everywhere, Christmas and this entire “holiday season” is such a source of stress because they have to “deal” with family that they don’t particularly get along with that well. It’s a time when all your frustrations start coming to the surface and you finally have to face them head on. It’s a really sad thing because in theory, these holidays are supposed to bring people together to be thankful and ultimately show their love for one another. Although I haven’t spent Christmas with blood relatives in now three years, I always am reminded at this time of year of all of our tensions, the things Ed and I expected our mother to explode at us for, the arguments she and my dad would pick at us for participating in meals with my cousins, some of which they said acted like “kings and queens” because they would never help with the clean-up or the dishes. None of those things are an issue anymore because those events no longer happen, but the ghost of those events still continue to haunt me.

When I look back, I wish I could have had just one really happy Christmas with my brother — just one. It would be one Christmas where no one yelled at us for anything nonsensical or overly sensitive, no one put him down and told him that “people look down on us because of you,” where people gave him gifts that they really thought he’d enjoy, not just gifts for the sake of giving that had no thought. It would be a Christmas where we actually had a real tree again, fully decorated with rainbow colored lights and all the gorgeous Christmas ornaments he so tastefully used to pick out for me.

Christmas is Ed’s favorite holiday. I feel him a lot around this time, and it hurts. It hurts that the world doesn’t stop to remember him.