I remember back in March 2013, I came back to San Francisco for two weeks to spend time with my parents and Ed. I worked part of the time and also took off about four days. One day, for whatever reason, I had to stay late at the office in the financial district, and I didn’t get back to the Richmond until around 7:30pm. My mom and Ed panicked, and they insisted that they “pick me up” from the bus stop at 20th and Geary. I thought that they were both being ridiculous, but I figured I couldn’t stop them.

I remember my brother calling for updates to see where I was along the 38L line so that they’d know when to start walking down the block. When I got off the bus, they were both waiting for me at the bus stop across the street, and as soon as I approached them, Ed insisted that I shouldn’t be so trusting of taking the bus so late at night, and that there were lots of crazy people in San Francisco now. It wasn’t as safe as I remembered it, he said. “Don’t pull out your iPhone on the bus,” he warned. “You don’t know who’s going to just snatch it from you!” He also admonished me to stay away from the back of the bus and to stay closer to the front and middle as much as possible.

I thought about this tonight when I took the bus home, and after I spoke with a colleague who has lived in San Francisco for over 17 years now. He relocated here from New England, where he is originally from, and he was telling me that there’s about a murder every week in San Francisco now. “It’s unfortunately not getting safer here, Yvonne,” my colleague said to me as we walked out of the office together with his almost 2-year-old boy. “There’s more people living in this city than ever before, and the police force just isn’t keeping up with the increase. There are more crimes and murders here than as long as I can remember it.”

Having this conversation with my colleague made me wish I didn’t brush Ed off as much as I did when he was warning me about the diminishing safety of our home town. Maybe he wasn’t being as ridiculous as I thought, especially now as I walk the streets of this city and wonder why every time I come home, the homeless and druggie situation seems to be worse than the last time I came.

I think I was really cursed. How is it possible that I could really have a family where a) when my brother dies, my cousin makes it all about him, b) that same cousin constantly calls or texts about how “miserable” his life is, and then c) that very same cousin says he can actually relate to my brother for not wanting to live anymore given that neither of them have any support system?

In a perfect world, I would not even be associated with this cousin. I would no longer see him or his text messages (thankfully, I can block his texts and calls now), and I wouldn’t have to invite him to my wedding. Who wants to invite someone to their wedding when that potential invitee explicitly states that he doesn’t care about your wedding? But then there are complicated things to consider, such as making his brothers angry, who would be invited, and even worse, making his mother, who is my aunt, angry. Bridges would be burned. Families would be broken. Well, our family is already broken, so what difference does it make? We’re not trying to be something we’re not. We’re openly dysfunctional.

I’ve had moments over the last year and half when I’ve thought about my brother’s suicide and the lack of note he left. I’ve wondered if I would have felt better or worse if there had been a note. Some people say a last note gives them a greater sense of closure. I’m not sure I quite agree with that because in my brother’s case, I know myself, and I probably would have obsessed over every single word in that note and never would want to get rid of it. I knew he was clinically depressed and spiraling out of control the last three months of his life. It wasn’t a surprise to me, and I could sense it more and more every time I talked to him over the phone in those days leading up to his death.

I did a quick search on how common suicide notes are. In an NIH study done in 1992 (the last year data was collected on this that I could find, which is pretty sad), less than a quarter of those who committed suicide wrote last notes. The majority of them were young females with no history of mental illness or previous suicide attempts. My brother’s not a woman, and he also had a strong history of mental illness with one previous suicide attempt. Ed was so lost in his own pain and suffering to even consider the idea of a note.

I feel an emptiness in this house without him here. I can feel his energy, but he’s not here in the flesh. It’s always the same feeling I get right before bed because I would have always gone to bed after him, and now that he’s no longer here, I can’t expect him to be in the bed next to me sleeping as I turn out the light. I have a strong urge to see him again. It would be nice to see him just once for a few hours, just to talk to him and hear his voice and laugh again. I’d tell him about how he’s going to be missing our crazy wedding in a year and how our mother is trying to control parts of it a bit at a time, and I’d let him know that I’m trying to incorporate him as much as possible because I haven’t forgotten about him — not even a bit. I just want a piece of him, and as the days go by, I feel as though I have less and less of him. It’s as though he is slipping further away from me even though he’s already been gone out of this life almost 19 months.

I look at the big framed photo of him smiling, the same framed picture we displayed at his funeral service, at night before bed while I am back home, and I just feel so hurt. Am I really never going to see you again in this life? Ever? Can’t I just hug you again, just once?

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?