This is by far the moodiest Christmas season I’ve ever had. My mood has gone from very high and happy while in New Zealand to depressed and sobbing on Christmas Eve. I’m still not sure if it is linked to Ed leaving me this year or if it’s just because I can’t get over how dysfunctional my wider family is, especially when compared with Chris’s.

I’ve found myself really missing my parents, especially when I’ve spoken with them over the phone the last several days. Even though my mom doesn’t celebrate Christmas anymore ever since she converted to being a Jehovah’s Witness, the last Christmas and this year, I can tell just by the sound of her voice that she’s very sad that I am not physically there for her. Pre-2012, I had been home for Christmas every year except 2008, so she still isn’t used to my being away at that time of the year.

Home isn’t the happiest place for me, but it’s still home. I love my parents and miss them. I love Ed and am still grappling with the fact that I will never see him again. Even though I am not home for Christmas and would not expect to see him at home, it still feels as though he is missing.

Why am I so moody, Ed?

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last five months reflecting on my life in general and what the heck I am really doing with myself. Why do I do anything that I do, and why have I chosen the friends I have chosen, and why do I continue to want to associate with the people I associate with? Nothing is perfect, and with every choice, there seems to be negatives associated with it. I suppose when you lose a significant someone in your life, it makes you question your own existence and purpose, and you start asking “why” about everything.

When I tell others I meet that I’ve known my three best friends since I was 11, they often express how amazed they are that I’ve managed to maintain these friendships for over 16 years despite time, distance, and of course, our own personal changes over those years. The truth is that over the last year, I’ve felt some growing pains with a couple of them, and it’s resulted in a lot of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I’ve been encouraged to do things like seek therapy, yet when I’m ready to discuss the therapy sessions, I don’t seem to get much of a response… or, there is the case where if the therapist said something, they agree, but if I say it on my own without the therapist affirming it, I get reminded of things like how much my parents love me despite what they do, which doesn’t really help. I don’t know how empathy in a person can decrease over time, but it seems like this is what I am feeling in one of them.

With time differences and physical distance, there isn’t a glut of time that we have to share the important things, so if we are already aware of our limited time sharing, why are we choosing not to share the important things and to instead share what is superficial and not important in the long-term?

Ed loved Christmas. He loved everything about it – Christmas trees, ornaments, and lights, gift giving, apple cider and Starbuck’s peppermint hot chocolate, Santa Claus – you name it. He was always extremely generous in his gift giving, even for those who gave him nothing in return. And during the Christmas season, he would give back to those less fortunate to him by volunteering in homeless shelters and serving food for them. It’s still hard for me to believe sometimes that he is gone forever. The world has lost one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known. I still wake up in shock occasionally when I realize that the last several months were not a nightmare and it was all a reality. My brother is dead.

I guess this is what it feels like to get depressed around Christmas. So many songs have been written about feeling empty and lonely on Christmas, and before I could never fully relate to it because I’d never really lost anyone I loved so deeply who I associated with Christmas. And now I have. Maybe this feeling will be the worst this year because this is the first Christmas for which Ed hasn’t been around. Or maybe the feeling will continue to creep up on me every year around November and December; I can’t be certain of it yet.

This world wasn’t good enough for him to continue to live in, so I hope that the Christmases he celebrates in heaven are exponentially happier than any of the ones he ever had on earth. I promise I won’t get jealous that he is having a better time celebrating Christmas with angels than with me here.

Today, we spent our first full day in Queenstown jet boating, canyon swinging, and hiking on two very steep trails, the Queenstown Hill trail and the Skyline trail that goes up to the gondola. It was an action packed day, and the entire time, I was constantly being overwhelmed by all the natural beauty that this country has. How is it even possible that any country in the world could be this awe-inspiring? It’s no wonder Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were shot here.

During our canyon swing, which is a 60-meter free fall and a 200-meter swing, I stalled a lot during the first jump I did individually when I was looking down at the canyon and the water below me. It was so high up, and the thought that any malfunction could happen immediately made me think, if this harness isn’t working, I could die. Right now. In the minutes before jumping, I thought about Ed and what he felt like before he jumped. Was he calm? Was he committed to ending his life? Did he close his eyes right before he climbed over and jumped off? Did he fall at the same exact speed I did? What did he see last before he blacked out and left this world that we once shared? It’s the other sinking feeling I had when I jumped – the first time and the second time.

It was our second day back in Melbourne today, and it is Chris’s tradition to have his second night’s dinner at his dad’s sister’s and husband’s house. Several of his cousins also came, and we sat around their dining table for most of the evening, bantering (and yelling) away over Australian pizza (tandoori chicken on pizza!), mango apple juice, and Jacob’s Creek red wine.

As I get older, I am starting to realize more of my own inner dysfunctional side, like the fact that when I am around families that seem very put together, functional, and happy, I’m not completely sure I belong in that moment, or even in that picture, at all. Sometimes, as everyone is raising their voice over each other to be heard and laughing hysterically, I find myself sitting there, thinking, is this actually real, and what place does someone like me really have at this table? Am I not fully enjoying this because I really cannot fathom what a happy family is? Maybe I secretly want no part in it because I am somewhat of a masochist and I have conditioned myself to almost enjoy the constant battles and hostility of my own family and expect some elements of it to exist in other families with whom I meet and interact.

If Ed were at that table, he probably would have drifted off into oblivion. And mentally, I may have joined him.

I went to Astor Place Hair tonight after work to get my haircut by my Sicilian hair stylist whose crazy facial expressions could rival my own, just with a cute Italian touch. She was asking me how my Thanksgiving was and marveled at the fact that I just came back from Germany and its intense Christmas markets. She insisted that I should have come in for my cut before the Germany trip so that I could show all the German men there how hot I was with the new light and bouncy look that she gave me. I was about to tell her that I actually came in tonight to get my hair cut before my next trip to Australia/New Zealand for this Saturday, but I caught myself because I felt guilty. She had just shared with me that she could only afford to go back to Italy every two years to visit her and her husband’s families, and they were getting priced out of their Astoria apartment. And here I was, taking three international trips in the span of one month.

I came from a childhood where I was taught that if you travel at all, you must be extremely wealthy. Once in college and in the working world, I realized that all that teaching was wrong, and as long as you have some money (hence broke college students backpacking through Europe or Asia), you can travel the world one bit at a time and not run into massive debts if you didn’t have deep pockets. But I do acknowledge that I’m extremely privileged to be in a position to do the travel that Chris and I have done together; I never take that thought for granted because I know there are people around me who need to save just to go on a trip to the state next door.

The part that makes me the most sad, and will continue to make me sad, is that my brother will never have the chance to do any of this travel. I don’t think I will ever get over the fact that he never had the chance to leave this country (well, he did in 2008 when my parents and I went to Vietnam, but he refused to go) and see the world outside of the U.S. My sweet, naive brother’s view of the world was so limited because he thought that was what life was supposed to be based on our upbringing, and he wasn’t able to push outside of that narrow view to think about the “what ifs” outside of even the city limits of San Francisco.

Wherever I go now, though, I will think of him lovingly and always ponder what his facial expressions and words might have been if he were traveling by my side. I really miss him.

I can’t believe it’s already December. Most of this year feels as though it just went by so quickly that when I look back on it, it’s one big blur. Maybe that’s a sign that I did too much this year, or maybe it’s just a sign that I am exhausted by the many events that happened, particularly the more painful ones.

Looking forward has been hard in a lot of ways because I think of what the future will be like without Ed. I’ve thought a lot about potential future events, such as moving to another city, getting another job, getting engaged, married, pregnant, and giving birth, and it feels empty whenever I think of him not being there. He’s been an integral part of my life forever, and now it’s like that “forever” has been taken away from me. The truth is that I know that no one else in this world will ever be happy or proud of me the way he was. But I hope he is still proud… somewhere up there.

After four and a half days in Germany, we are back home in New York, back to reality. Going back home after we’ve had so many new and interesting experiences is always sad because for the most part, that constant daily new discovery is somewhat gone, and instead, you are back in your semi routine doing similar things at similar times. Sometimes, routine is comforting, but other times, it tends to get bland.

Defining “home” has been weird for me in the last year. Earlier this year, I realized I actually felt comfortable saying I was from New York when traveling because… well, I do Iive here now and have been for over five years. Although San Francisco will always be my original home since that is where I was born and raised, it feels a little less like home every time I go back. And now that Ed isn’t there anymore, there’s an almost cold, sterile feeling I get every time I even think of going home. Home without my brother doesn’t feel right.

I don’t eat my apple in my hand. I actually like to have it sliced up and most of the time, even peel the skin off. The waxy texture of most non-organic apples has always annoyed me, but I’m trying to get over it by cutting off just some of the skin. And then other times, I buy organic apples.

Now, I cut fruit for Chris and me every day. He won’t eat fruit unless I cut it up for him (leaving it in the fruit bowl isn’t enough. He barely notices it). While cutting fruit today, I thought about how Ed used to also peel off apple skin and slice up all of his fruit. When I was home, we used to cut each other fruit and leave it there for each other if we were both there. I guess that’s another thing we have in common; we both continued eating fruit the same way it was served to us when we were kids. And then I was reminded of how our mother said that in the last couple of months before he left us, he stopped cutting up fruit and eating it altogether unless my mom cut it and put it in front of him. That must have been how little he cared at that point.

It would be nice to cut up fruit for Ed again.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death. The entire country remembered him today in many different tributes and TV specials and mentions across all major news sources.

Today also marks four months since Ed left us. It’s funny when I think about it – whenever the anniversary of his death comes each year on July 22, the rest of the world will be celebrating another birthday for the son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, while my parents and I will be mourning the fact that I will never see my brother again. And now today, when everyone else is celebrating the life of JFK, I am thinking of my brother’s ashes sitting in his niche at the San Francisco Columbarium and why life had to be so cruel to him.

I suppose JFK has had a legacy in my own life. Chris actually mentioned this when we were watching the JFK mini series months ago. It sounds twisted, but if JFK had never been assassinated, he would have opposed being a part of the Vietnam War, which meant that my dad would never have been drafted to go. If he were never drafted, he never would have met my mother, so therefore, Ed and I never would have been born. It’s strange how things work out.

I’m not crying as often as I was months ago, but I still miss you, Ed. And as Thanksgiving and Christmas get closer, it feels a little worse and worse knowing you aren’t around anymore. Even if others aren’t thinking about you as deeply, I definitely am. I even took the big Macy’s Snoopy you gave me out of the closet against Chris’s “anti-clutter” wishes. He’s sitting on the bean bag in the living room now. He reminds me of you and your love for all things child-like.