About a year ago, for the very first time, my brother did not acknowledge my birthday. Ed was always very loving and generous, the kind of person who gave too much to people who didn’t always care for him as much. So it was surprising when my 27th birthday passed, and he didn’t even give me a call to wish me a happy birthday. It’s not so much the gift that I really cared about; it’s the fact that he didn’t even reach out to me that day.

So on the 18th of January last year, I called him and asked him why he didn’t call me the day before. He sounded sheepish and said that he knew it was my birthday, but since he wasn’t making much money anymore, he didn’t send a gift. I told him I didn’t ask him about why there was no gift; I was asking why he didn’t call me. I guess that should have been the first sign to me that something was seriously not right with him at that point. I just didn’t think about it that deeply then.

Now, he’s never going to wish me a happy birthday in any way ever again. It’s not even when holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas pass, or even his date of birth or date of passing; even on days like my birthday, I will think of him and feel a little guilty that the last birthday of mine that he was around to see, I gave him a hard time. I think about all the pointless “what ifs” regarding things I may have been able to do to have helped him more and how I failed. I think about his 34th birthday that I was trying to plan that never happened, and how he won’t be here for my 28th, 38th, or 78th birthday.

I wonder if he is in heaven looking down, wondering what kind of birthday cake I am going to eat tomorrow. He probably wants a piece of it if it’s chocolate or mocha. Maybe he actually is wishing me a happy birthday in his own way now. I guess I will never really know for sure, but I do miss him.

Today, I went to see my therapist for the third time after a long period of not seeing her at all due to travel, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We talked about the trips I’ve taken and spoke in detail about my feelings around Christmas time with Chris’s family. We also discussed why the idea of marriage does not seem to excite me the way it used to.

We came to the conclusion that in the same way that being around Chris’s happy, functional family is a reminder of how dysfunctional and miserable my own family is, perhaps the idea of planning my future wedding would also be a reminder of how happy his family would be for me, whereas my extended family probably wouldn’t care much and would be too cheap to go to whatever location we decided on. It’s kind of twisted since I should be happy that this family I am being welcomed into is so loving and accepting of me, but I can’t just be “normal” and just accept how easy this all is so quickly, right? Sometimes when you might want something, when you get it, you may not have your arms as wide open as you originally thought. But it takes another level of self-understanding to accept it. It will take some time, but I think I deserve to be happy.

I had a long chat with one of my best friends tonight, and she was telling me the story of one of her friends, who is our age and hasn’t dated anyone past the first (and usually blind) date and has had no one she could call a “boyfriend” this whole time. As a Christian, she’s been surrounded by people her age who have been getting married year after year since we’ve graduated from college, and she’s gone to countless weddings and been a bridesmaid more times than she can probably remember by now. She says that she’s come to terms with the fact that she may be single the rest of her life.

The funny thing about hearing this is that while she has no idea what it is like to be in a relationship and think and discuss marriage, I can’t really remember much time in the last ten years when I wasn’t in a relationship. I’ve discussed marriage so many times, yet given the previous failed relationships, it never happened. In some ways, we are on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet I can completely relate to her feeling pressure about marriage when she’s surrounded by married people and babies. It doesn’t really matter whether you are in a relationship or not – the pressure is still there whether it’s overt or not.

I’ve either experienced or heard of quite a number of deaths this year. Ed left me. Two colleague’s parents passed away. Another colleague’s grandmother passed away. And because of the circumstances around Ed’s passing, I am just that more cognizant of suicides and everything suicide-related. Our lives have to go on, though, and we don’t have that much time to feel sorry for ourselves when death happens.

I asked my colleague how he and his family were doing in light of his mother’s passing. Although we aren’t close, it was good to hear him be open about how he felt and all the emotions that he’s been feeling over the last couple of weeks. As he was telling me about the moments leading up to her finally leaving their family, I could feel myself sensing my own inner pain at just hearing another person’s experience of losing someone special in their life. I’m not sure if he felt that I understood, but sadly, I understood exactly what he was talking about.

Volunteering gets a bad wrap when you are from an Asian immigrant family. When you volunteer, especially when you still live at home during your high school years (or during college summers), you will most likely get asked, “Why are you volunteering for [insert X organization] when you could be [insert some mundane household chore] at home for your parents?” They cannot understand for a second why on earth you would do unpaid labor for anyone outside of your family.

Volunteering is one of those things that helps everyone, though. It will usually help other people, whether it’s a child in need, a homeless person, someone with a lesser skill set than you, or just a lazy office worker who can dump some of their load on unpaid you. However, it also can help you, too, because it makes you feel like a) you are doing something with your life, and b) you are doing a good deed, which selfishly (ironically) usually feels pretty good. “It makes me feel good” is even a check box on the list of questions I looked at that asked, “Why are you volunteering?”

I thought about volunteering last year, particularly with either mentoring children or helping less fortunate adults, but with Ed dramatically leaving me (thanks, Ed), I figured 2013 wasn’t the best year to start it. 2014 is a new year, though, and this year, I actually do want to do something for others. I attended a Wellesley alum-hosted volunteer event tonight that gave me some ideas. Let’s see what I find.

Over five years after I have graduated from Wellesley, I finally decided to volunteer my time to interview local prospective students and write evaluations for the admissions committee. I figured that if I am not giving back by donating money (yet, anyway) that I should at least volunteer a bit of my time to helping my alma mater.

Tonight, I met with a prospective student here at a Starbucks just a few blocks away from my apartment. She was an enthusiastic, confident, bright-eyed high school senior who pretty much appeared to have had all the opportunities in the world available to her. We discussed her strengths, weaknesses, and interests, and how she envisioned college life to be. It was honestly a fun experience to see someone about ten years younger so excited about the future, about the unknown in front of her that she can’t yet see. It made me even more aware that I need to continue investing time and energy into people and activities that energize me… not exhaust me.

On the night of New Year’s Eve, I found myself tearing up because one of Chris’s friends asked me about how my family and I were doing in light of Ed’s passing. It was unexpected since I normally never think anyone will ask who isn’t that close to me. She said that she didn’t understand but admired how strong I was because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it if the same thing happened to her brother. Her brother actually came to our gathering that night, and right away, I could tell he was sweet, fragile, sensitive, and kind-hearted, just the way Ed was. She said that she saw a lot of similarities between her brother and mine, and it broke her up to see the photo album I had posted on Facebook of my memories with Ed over the years, knowing that he was gone. She says it’s her worst fear that she could lose her brother in the same way.

Sadly, I know what that is like. That was my worst fear, too, for so many years. And then my worst fear became my reality.

It hurts terribly to think that this has happened to other people and will continue to happen. It hurts to know that hurt itself has to continue.

In three days, 2013 will be over.

This year, I finally crossed the border and entered Canada to see Ben in Toronto and visited the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. I traveled to Seattle, Portland, St. Louis, Springfield, Hannibal, Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, Milwaukee, Newport, Providence, and Cleveland. I took a business trip to Los Angeles to do training, went home to San Francisco four times (which has never happened before in a single year), and spent Thanksgiving in Germany and Christmas in Melbourne, with a side trip to New Zealand while in the Southern Hemisphere. I hosted two visiting friends from other states, had Ben and my in-laws stay with us multiple times, and prepared coffee at 5:30am for them most mornings. I hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment. I lost between 10-14 pounds after taking up rigorous morning workouts, committed to writing on this blog every day, read one book a month, and started the 1 Second Every Day video project. I left my job of over four years to join a tech company that offers a social media marketing platform, took up Bikram yoga, saw a lot of theater, and jumped off a cliff. I discovered delicious Cambodian food in Cleveland, ate one of the best burgers of my life at B Spot, and achieved my personal culinary goals of making pad thai, appam, and empanadas – all from scratch. I helped reunite my dad with his high school best friend. I lost my beloved Ed this year and wrote and delivered the most painful speech of my life. I got mad at my entire family and decided that I would stop investing as much time in people who were ungrateful to me and the things I have done for them. I decided to start seeing a therapist to deal with my anger. And I made a promise to myself that I have the right to be happy.

A lot has happened this year, and a lot of pain will continue on. But the only choice I really have now is to continue moving forward with my life despite the tragedies I’ve experienced and the pain I endure. Every day is hard in its own way, and there are moments during the day that hurt more than others. I know I’ve been very fortunate in ways that Ed never was, and so for him, I will keep going. I will try to be happy for his sake and his memory. And Bart will keep me company along the way.

During this trip, I met the baby that most parents dream of. This baby is sociable, runs up to anyone and everyone to play, and eats “exotic” foods that most babies either reject, or their parents are just too scared to expose them to. I love Frankie.

Frankie is about 16 months old and eats pretty much everything his parents eat – pita, olives, feta cheese, tzatziki, hummus, brownies, fruit cake. To our knowledge, he hasn’t rejected any food to which he’s been introduced. During a grocery trip at the supermarket, while out of his mother’s sight for just a second, he ran up to a display of cherries, stole one, and popped it into his mouth. He devoured the cherry, pit and all, and tried to go back wanting more. Now, he just eats whole cherries with pits. While that would normally be the nightmare of most parents due to the potential choking hazards, Frankie giggles on and eats more.

I hope one day that my future children can eat everything the way Frankie does. And maybe if I feel good, I will even introduce ketchup to them (but it better not have any high fructose corn syrup in it).

Boxing Day is an official day off here in Australia. Americans don’t know what it is; I never knew what it was until Chris told me. I personally think it’s a weak excuse for another federal holiday, but I’m never going to complain about an extra day off from work..

Boxing Day is a happy day at the Jacob house because it’s another day to feast on great food prepared by the family and another day to continue the games and madness that occurred on Christmas just the day before. In some way, though, it’s a sad day because it is a reminder that Christmas has ended, which means that the peak of happiness and highness is over, and soon it will be time to go home, back to reality and back to work. The days for Loaded Questions and Balderdash are now numbered.

Three weeks seems like a long time to spend for the Christmas season in the Southern hemisphere, but it always tends to fly by so quickly. I almost want it to last longer, but then I think that would be bad because it’s like I am stalling regular life from happening.

Once Christmas ends, it’s also time for me to start thinking about what I want to do for the new year – what my goals will be for work and life, where I want to travel to, what books I want to read, what new activities I want to invest time in. 2013 was exhausting, frustrating, and dramatic, yet at the same time, it was also extremely productive in many ways. This year, my family and I lost my Ed and our family friend Bob, my best friend from college was diagnosed with cancer, I left my miserable job to start a new one, and I experienced a lot of personal growing pains with different people in my life. I’m not sure what will happen in 2014, but here’s to hoping that it will bring fulfilling experiences that will help make me a better, more well-rounded, and happier person. Life is too short to waste a minute of it.