In the last few months, it feels as though my awareness to people’s levels of listening, understanding, and empathy has been heightened. My need to observe others taking in what I am saying, doing, and acting has gone up. In general, I’m pretty aware of whether someone loves, hates, or is bored about what I am talking about, but lately, I feel even more sensitive to it.

This isn’t really a good thing because I’ve already become more untrusting of the world and of what people tell me. I’m also not sure whether it means anything when I tell someone something that isn’t positive about my life, and they simply respond, “I’m sorry to hear that.” It sounds too PC, like they want to sound like they care but really just have no idea how to express that (assuming they do).

Ed had a lot of points during his life where he basically thought no one outside of our family cared about him… and thought even people in our extended family didn’t really care (this is probably true of both him and me since our relatives are terrible). Despite his extreme generosity to near strangers, he went through periods where he thought being nice and generous to people just wasn’t really worth it, and he used to tell me this whenever he was thinking about it. I always told him that he shouldn’t look at it that way and he should be kind to everyone, but now, I’m realizing how stupid that sounds. I believe in some form of karma – if you do good things, hopefully at some point, good things will also come to you. But it’s exhausting to be nice to everyone for the sake of being nice. The most important thing is just to be your damn self and to not be phony.

Ed never even knew how to be fake.

I’ve skipped the gym the last two mornings. I feel so unproductive.

The last two days, I’ve felt slightly irritable and just don’t really want to actively do anything… except read about food. I’m not sure if it’s Daylight Savings Time ending or just my moodiness, or just the fact that I was traveling this past weekend, and now, I am not.

Maybe this is about 1/1,000th of what Ed felt. My poor, sweet Ed.

One of the best things about being in the Northeastern part of the United States during the autumn months is seeing the leaves change color. Of course, if you live in Manhattan, it’s easy to miss out on this completely unless you frequent Central Park or Union Square often, but in pretty much every other area, you can’t miss the stunning colors. We spent this past weekend exploring the Cleveland, Ohio, area, and it was far more stunning and dramatic than we had anticipated. The varying shades of red, orange, and yellow were particularly dramatic against today’s cloudy blue sky. It was really any photographer’s dream (or anyone who is leaf-obsessed).

I’m really fortunate that I am able to live in New York given that I was born and raised all the way across the country; I’m even more blessed because I have the luxury of traveling as often as Chris and I do and seeing so many beautiful places and things that really cannot be substituted with a mere Google Image search. The sad part about this is that whenever I feel happy now or excited about something new that I am seeing or doing, I remember that Ed isn’t here to be able to do any of these things. He has never seen the dramatic fall colors in the Northeast; he’s never experienced what it’s like to watch the snow fall from his window and later go outside for a snowball fight; he will never know how great it is to transition from the frigid winter months to the crisp but more promising spring months out here. Bart comes with us, but sometimes, that just doesn’t feel like it’s enough. An empty feeling still lurks in the back of my mind knowing he can no longer breathe the same air as I do.

With the autumn leaves turning and Halloween just having passed us, Christmas is on a lot of our minds now. It’s really crazy to think how the period between Halloween and Christmas zoom by us, and it’s like November is almost a filler month (there’s Thanksgiving, but that even seems to come too quickly).

My cousin texted me earlier this week to ask me and my other cousin (his brother here in New York) if we’d be coming back home for Christmas this year. I will not be going home for Christmas this year. In fact, I won’t even be in this country or this continent for Christmas this year… and if I can help it, any Christmas in the foreseeable future. If Ed is not there, what is my incentive to ever come back home for Christmas ever again?

Christmas is “family time” when your family in some way brings you a degree of happiness and contentment. That is when you look forward to it and just can’t wait to get back to it that one time during the year, assuming you live away from home. But when you have realized after all the years of meaningless hostility, blaming, dysfunction, and lack of gratitude that you actually despise being with them for Christmas, why are you even spending time with these people? As sad as it is to say, I no longer believe that the bonds of family are greater than that of friends. I don’t want to continue to be in touch with a cousin or aunt or whoever *just* because he is of that relation to me. I want to be in contact with him because we enjoy each other’s company and in some way, make each other better human beings for it. As trite as it is, life is too short to be spent with miserable people who make you miserable.

Ed is coming with us to Australia this year. He’s finally going to have a happy Christmas, even if he isn’t in his human form anymore.

I had a moment at work today that would be classified as a “geeky moment.” I was working on a quarterly performance template and creating graphs with fake data, and I wanted to create a bar chart showing media spend with a line graph overlaid on top of it showing gross profit. Since my current work computer has Microsoft Office 2013 installed, I wasn’t used to this new version, so it took some time before I realized that the way I was trying to create this type of graph was outdated, and the multiple steps I had taken before have now been replaced by the click of a “Combo” button. I was in Excel heaven for the next ten minutes.

Last night, we went to see Gravity. Sandra Bullock’s character, Dr. Ryan Stone, is sent on a mission to outer space, and while there, she realizes that she could die; everyone on the mission has died except for her at that point. She doesn’t think it would be that bad because back on earth, she doesn’t have anyone she cares about who cares about her. Her daughter reached a tragic death at the age of 4, and since then, she just drives, as she says. She thinks she will commit a painless suicide in outer space until she has a hallucination of George Clooney’s character, Matt, coming back to make her snap out of it. After she wakes up, she realizes she has to continue to go on no matter what.

In the moments when I learned of Ed’s passing, that’s how I felt; it wouldn’t be that bad if my life ended because since Ed is gone, I’d get to see him again. We’d reunite and continue in the next world together. I wonder what Ed would have thought if he had watched Gravity and seen Ryan Stone survive. Would he have felt hope, or would he think, I’m not strong enough to do that?

I wish Ed had hallucinated that someone came to him on the Golden Gate Bridge before he jumped, and that someone gave him all the tangible reasons why he should continue on. I wonder if that would have been enough to prevent him from leaving us. He did bring his keys with him, after all.

I spent this afternoon organizing a lot of old cards and letters that have been given to me over the years from family and friends. While organizing, I re-read a lot of the messages and was brought to tears. Some messages were for congratulations and thanks, while others were for birthdays and Christmases where my friends had realized exactly how long our friendships have lasted. My longest friendships have endured for over 16 years now. That’s how long it’s been since Ed first tried to end his life.

No one in my circle of friends knows me pre Ed’s first attempt. You could even say that no one in my family ever understood me pre Ed’s attempt and post. Yet somehow, I’ve managed to keep most of my thoughts around his and our family’s situation at bay and wear this mask as though I have always had it together. Then I’m sure people think, wow, it must be hard to go through something so difficult like this now. The truth is that it’s been difficult for over 16 years, and no one else has realized how difficult it has been until he decided to leave us in the dramatic way that he did. No one else will ever really know the full truth, and frankly, most people probably don’t want to know. No one enjoys pain.

I also found the gift note that Ed wrote when he had flowers delivered for my 21st birthday. “Yvonne, Happy 21st birthday! You’re officially an adult now. -Ed.” He always was a man of few words.

The cold is coming. I actually had to whip out an autumn coat and scarf yesterday, and the heat has also kicked in at the apartment. It’s gradually darker and darker when I leave the apartment in the morning to hit the gym, which has been a bit depressive (and a poor excuse for me to only have gone once this week. I even skipped yoga yesterday, which was pathetic).

As winter slowly creeps up on us, I am reminded that the year is quickly coming to and end, with November coming next week, and Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner. I think about all the goals that I’ve set for myself this year – getting in shape and being aggressive about morning workouts, a new job with a higher salary and a happier work environment, trying to meet more people, travel, Wellesley alumnae club involvement, reading a book a month, and as always, trying new things. For the most part, I’ve checked off every one of these boxes, and while that seems great, I still feel like I am in a lull.

Because even though I might have done all these things this year and done whatever it is I have done in the last nearly 28 years of my life, the one area where I have completely failed is saving my brother. 2013 will be the year in my life that will always stand out as the last year my Ed lived, the last year where I hugged my brother and spoke with him in the flesh, and the last year where I could speak about my Ed in present tense. It is an intensely lonely feeling.

Since the age of 12, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating relationships and the roles different people play in my life. That sounds a little crazy for someone that young, but it’s just something that I have always pondered. What makes one relationship close while another is distant, and what distinguishes an acquaintance from a friend? For a lot of people, particularly in today’s social media driven world where we “friend” everyone on Facebook as soon as we meet them and then immediately forget about them and think this is “normal,” there really isn’t a huge distinction between “acquaintance” and “friend,” and I’ve always found that a bit tragic. We consume ourselves with knowing people superficially and pretend in our heads that we have lots of “friends” – but those relationships are empty in the long run (e.g. when someone in your family dies, do you expect all your Facebook “friends” to send their condolences and come to your relative’s funeral?). I’ve always hated it, and maybe for that reason, I am guarded when it comes to labeling people my “friends,” and even more protective over those whom I would call “close.” I’ve been accused of being overly judgmental and too cautious, both of which have their bits of truth, but the bottom line is that I refuse to live a superficial life. I refused at age 12. I am still refusing at age 27.5. I want meaningful relationships with people I respect who genuinely, deeply care about me. Is that so much to ask? A lot of the time, it feels like it.

So, that’s why I have this recent conundrum, in which I have a colleague who is trying to befriend me, and I’m doing my best to keep my distance as much as possible without being rude. It’s not as though I never gave her a chance. Shortly after I started, she started at my office, and she asked me to lunch. I went to lunch with her, and for the first time ever, immediately got a sour taste in my mouth, and concluded this wasn’t going to work. The odd thing about this happening is that I rarely have lasting first impressions with anyone. In fact, most of the time when I first meet people, my first impression is neutral, and then as I spend more time with her, I realize gradually whether or not we mesh.

If we were to be friends, it’s almost as though I’d be violating my morals. She has a child who is over one, who spends Monday through Friday with her in-laws, days and evenings. She and her husband go over for dinner in the evenings, which her in-laws cook (they even pack them lunch for work!). She and her husband are basically child-free Monday through Friday with the exception of spending ‘family dinner’ time in the evenings with their daughter, and then on the weekends, they finally are parents and take care of their child. She constantly talks about wanting to do things like cook and sign up for a gym and go running, but insists that it’s too difficult with so little time working full-time and being a mom. What is wrong with that statement?

I can’t be around people who make people of my generation look lazy and as though they are not taking full responsibility for the life choices they have made. Ed might get mad at me and start scolding me the next time he visits me in a dream for this, but “I feel what I feel.” I need to surround myself with people who are proactively trying to do things to make their lives better, not dumping their responsibilities on other people and then lamenting that the world is unfair and that they don’t have time for (fill in the blank).

Then in my head, sometimes I think, “You think your life is hard? Did your sibling just commit suicide?” It’s a mean but easy card to pull if I really have to.

Yesterday night, I went to a Bodhi Meditation Meetup. It’s the second meditation Meetup I’ve attended in the last month; the first one was a Sahaja meditation, which I found a bit boring. Bodhi meditation was a bit different and instead focuses on visualization. One of the things we had to visualize was standing still and being nearly transparent atop a crystal lotus. As I closed my eyes and began to imagine this in my head, the image of Ed walking around the crystal lotus appeared, and he tried to step on the lotus I was standing on. I got really distracted at this point and decided to leave the room. I ended up leaving 15 minutes before the class was supposed to end. Who would’ve thought that attending a meditation class would leave me feeling even more distressed.

He’s just everywhere, even in the meditation room with me.