A few days ago, Chris’s brother Ben was Whatsapp messaging me about a speech he will be making for Toastmasters on introverts vs. extroverts. He asked me what I thought I was. My response? I suppose I’m somewhere in between, but if I had to slide myself on the scale, I’d probably say I’m more introverted. Contrary to most people’s beliefs, being introverted doesn’t necessarily mean you are shy, are anti-social, or find being around people draining. It really just means that you enjoy thinking, crave alone time to think through thoughts and feelings, and actually feel energized when being alone.

I am certainly not shy or socially awkward. I love being around people, given that they are intelligent and not small-minded. 🙂 I love being the center of attention sometimes, but not all the time. I greatly enjoy being in small groups, but strongly dislike large groups, as I find them impersonal and at times even superficial. I loathe small talk and weather discussions and would prefer to chat about passions and ideas.

And as I look at my 2014 goals list and go to the Books section, I realize I’ve already managed to somehow finish reading seven books, and we’re only in the fourth month of the year. I suppose only an introvert could get through that many books in such a short amount of time.

Today is tax day here in the States. It’s the one glorious day of the year when after spending the last year having taxes taken out of your paycheck automatically, you may have to cut a check to the IRS for even more money! That was me this year, and it was a very miserable moment dropping those into the mail. Little people have to pay big taxes. I automatically hit “delete” on any Tax Day sales emails in my inbox this morning.

As I was writing out the envelopes for the tax vouchers yesterday, I remembered that last year, I e-filed and paid everything online using Tax Slayer, and I told my parents that for the first time, I would not need their CPA’s help (and he would not be getting my fee). Ed was concerned as always and asked what program I would be using. When I told him Tax Slayer, he immediately started doing all these Google searches and found a site that tore Tax Slayer apart with all its harsh criticisms. “You should have used Turbo Tax like I did,” he admonished. I sent him back the same domain with a different page that basically had the same critiques of Turbo Tax. He didn’t say anything in response.

It hurts to remember it now. I never thought then that 2013 would be the last year that my brother would ever do his own taxes, and even worse, that it would be the last year of his life. Ed worried about everything, even the little things like what tax program I was using, even when he was suffering so deeply inside.

It’s like his death is a part of me now – it’s not a devastating shock or even a past tragic event to me anymore; it’s like his death has become a huge part of my identity and how I perceive the world and look toward the future. Not everyone (or maybe anyone) notices it or can see it, but I feel it every single day.

I wish he were here today to scold me about not using Turbo Tax again.

Three days later, I’m still in travel withdrawal. So I’ve been spending bits of free time researching the next place we will be visiting for pleasure – the Adirondacks in upstate New York, and more specifically, Lake Placid. I have TripAdvisor links for hiking trails bookmarked and even have a Yelp list of restaurants that sound promising in the area. Thinking about other things seems so dull in comparison.

I’ve even started thinking about the next trip I want to take my parents on – something that could span three to four days, include good food and cultural sights, and not be too long of a flight from San Francisco since my dad hates flying. Vancouver might be an idea for next year for all of us. Chris and I have never been there, and my parents have never even set foot across the border. And it also helps that Vancouver has lots of Asians, so my parents would feel right at home. 🙂

So today was the big day that my parents, Chris, and I went to Sedona and the Grand Canyon on a long 14-hour day tour trip. We traveled in a group of ten to see the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Like I’ve been told, it’s an astounding sight to see, even if you are well traveled and have seen lots of beauty, natural and man-made. At our first stop along the canyon, as I got close to the edge and observed the layers of colored rock, got a vertigo feeling when looking all the way down, and heard everyone else “wowing” at the depth, for the first time in my life I actually felt proud to be an American.

I’ve never been patriotic; in fact, I’ve spent most of my life being embarrassed by being American given how poorly our K-12 system does against other nations, how map-stupid we are, and how little we know about the world compared to how much the rest of the world knows about us and other nations. I get angry about how we make a big stink over pro-choice vs. pro-life and make it about morals, when the rest of the world shakes their head and thinks, what the hell is that about – It’s a medical procedure! I want to crawl into a hole when my crazy aunt and uncle get all NRA on me and compare the danger of guns to the dangers of pencils – if you ban guns, why not ban pencils, too?

So, it’s a big step for me to actually admit out loud that I was so stunned by the sight of the Grand Canyon and reveled in the fact that yes, it’s in the United States; yes, I was born here; and yes, I’m actually proud and happy for once to call myself American and be a part of this incredible country. I’ve admitted it.

I finally went to visit my therapist today after over a month of not seeing her. It’s been difficult to see her regularly given work has gotten so much busier. Having flown out of the state twice for three to eight day spans in the last month didn’t really help that, either.

But I was sad to learn that she is actually leaving in five weeks. She’s not actually a “therapist,” per se – she’s a social work intern who’s finally graduating and moving on to the next big thing in her life. I guess we all have to move on at some point.

So before we began talking about what I came to talk about, she asked me to spend some time in the next week thinking about what I have been getting out of seeing her, what I am taking away, and then compare that to what I thought I would accomplish by seeing her. I can’t honestly say I am better off just because I have seen her – time heals a lot of pain in itself, even if we secretly may not want it to. I do think it has helped to have someone who doesn’t know me personally to reassure me that I’m not becoming a mad woman, and that what I am thinking and feeling is normal. It’s helped having someone non-judgmental. All my friends are judgmental whether they want to admit it or not. They’re human beings who know me. That by default makes them judgmental.

She asked me if I might want to consider continuing to see one of her colleagues. I think the answer to that is definitely not. I don’t want to have to go through my life story with yet another stranger all over again. I will miss her when she leaves.

I’ve had some tension with some colleagues who sit near Bonsai Row as we call it at the office. In January, Chris sent a mini yellow rose plant to my office for my birthday. I originally placed the plant along the row of bonsai plants that get indirect light near my seat, but two guys were being territorial and didn’t want my plant near them. They claimed it was attracting fruit flies, and they didn’t want flies near them. We debated it for a while, and I finally gave in and brought it to the other side of the office. A colleague consoled me and insisted that the other side of the office got better direct sunlight, so the plant would do better there.

Well, two months later, this rose plant is flourishing! It has huge, lush green leaves that look far healthier than any did when it was first delivered, and today, three huge full blooms. It even has four buds on its way. This plant may have been rejected by my male colleagues when it first got here, but now, it gets lots of morning and afternoon light, and is even attracting visitors and gawkers. 🙂

This morning, I had a phone interview with a mentoring organization to which I applied. One question I was asked pertained to how I would handle a situation in which I was assigned to a mentee who came from a very different ethnic/socioeconomic background, who may have spoken another language as a first language, and who also may have zero common interests with me.

I had to think about it for a second, but I suppose I expected a question like this based on what I was told during the initial training session. My general response was this: human beings tend to point out and recognize differences first; it’s almost ingrained in our brains. If you are white sitting in a room, and a black person walks in, the first thing your mind subconsciously registers is, “That person is black. That person does not look like me.” You aren’t aware of it. It’s just how your mind works. Our real challenge is to put all that type of thinking aside and realize that as much as we think we are all different, we are really all the same. We all are human beings who breathe and have hearts that beat. We all were born and raised onto the same earth under the same sky. We all have parents in some form, whether by blood or not, and these are all the things that bond us. All of us have relationships – parents, siblings, cousins, friends, teachers – whatever they are, that we could then share and discuss. These are things that we do share that bond us. It’s just up to us how we want to use that to get closer and know each other better.

It’s my sixth night back home – feels like time has flown since I arrived on Saturday. I guess it helps that I’ve had activities planned with friends and family, as well as work definitely picking up. Some people question efficiency and work ethic when working from home; I feel like I’ve worked harder at home the last three days than I have right in the office.

All these nights have passed without Ed being here. I suppose it will always be a bit of an adjustment every time I come home and know he isn’t here. I’ve even found myself straightening out his bed before I go to sleep to make sure his side of the room is nice and tidy before bed time. I’ve gone through emotional moments in the last six days – thinking, remembering, wishing. I still wish that we could meet up once in a while, maybe at a midway point between heaven and earth, and we could just sit in the middle together and talk and laugh and hug and even cry together. I could tell him about the latest thing our mother is worrying over (the most recent thing has been that Chris doesn’t want to marry me and is just dragging our relationship out until forever), and he could tell me his latest discovery in his new world. We’d hug and say our goodbye – until next time. Maybe tonight in my dreams, it will happen again.

Ed came to visit me in my dreams again last night. I was in the bathroom at our parents’ house, and I heard someone walking past. I opened the door, and there he was, smiling at me, wearing a white dress shirt. I immediately felt this surge of joy, and I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly and whispered in his ear, ‘I love you, Ed.” He wrapped his arms around me, too, and said, “I love you, too, Yvonne.” It’s the first time I’d ever heard him say “I love you.” It was also the first time since his death that I saw him in my dreams, embraced him, and didn’t immediately burst into tears, both in the dream and upon awakening.

My parents and I went to visit him at his niche today. We replaced the flowers that were there with some new ones that I clipped, and I sat there, looking over all the details of what I had put together for him and trying to see if anything looked different than before. I’m not sure if it was just me, but it felt brighter than before. Maybe he is at more peace than when I last came in September.

I feel his energy all over our house. I feel it when I am sitting at the dining room table, right by his desk where he used to sit, reading his Bible or surfing the web on his laptop. I feel it when I am in the living room reading, where he used to watch TV or nap in the afternoons. I also feel it when I am getting ready for bed. I look over where his bed still is, and wonder if he is getting ready for bed, too. Even though he isn’t here, I can feel him constantly. It’s like he never really left, and I am still waiting for him to walk through the door and throw his backpack or karate bag into the hallway as he would take off his shoes before coming in. I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away. Maybe it will remain with me whenever I am in this house forever.

I feel more emotional this time around coming home than I did in September, and I’m not really sure why. Maybe I’ve just suppressed a lot of emotion because I keep telling myself I need to be strong – not just for myself, but for my parents and even Ed himself. I’ve immersed myself in work and activities and goals and travel maybe as a way to try to escape all of those painful feelings. In my head, it all just sounds like a broken record that just keeps repeating the same questions and scenarios and play-back events over and over again. There is little solace in speaking about it out loud, and the only true comfort I get is when I drift off into sleep and can see and touch him again.

Tonight, my friend and I went to see The Glass Menagerie. This week is its final week on Broadway, so the show was packed. I just finished reading the play using my New York Public Library membership last week, so I was already prepared for the story line.

The moment that struck me most during the play that I didn’t even think much about when I read it was at the very end when Tom is narrating. The “gentleman caller” has already left. Tom has had a fight with his mother, who accused him of misleading her and Laura with inviting his coworker over, believing that he was available (for Laura) when he was in fact engaged to another girl. Tom has stormed out of the house to “go to the movies” as he does every evening. Except this time, he says he has left for good, almost in the same way his father left them 16 years before. “I left you behind,” he says, referring to Laura, “but I am more loyal to you than I intended.” I could feel my eyes fill with tears. He left his little sister behind to be vulnerable in the world with his delusional mother. And now he feels guilt, yet he insists that he is still loyal to her even though he is no longer with her.

It’s like how Ed left me behind in some ways. I’m not as vulnerable as Laura is, but like her, I no longer have my brother around as someone to turn to or speak to or protect me. Her brother is still living somewhere. My brother is no longer living, but I hope that wherever he is that he is also still loyal to me, too.