20 Years in the Blink of an Eye

It's 1:15 am on 10/13/15.  As of this date, my brother has been dead for 20 years.  He officially has been dead longer than he was alive.  There are so many things I feel because of that.

How has it been so long?

How can I still feel his absence like it happened yesterday?

Who would he be at age 39?  Who would I be if he was still here?

I've been dreading this milestone all year, worrying about how it would hit my Mom.  I underestimated the impact on myself.

I'm a mess.  How can I still miss him so damn much?  STILL???  I feel so impatient with myself.  My life is completely different from what it was when  he died.  I have a different job (NONE!), home (how he'd laugh at me stuck in the eternally sucky Dorkarware), boyfriend (husband!!!) and uterine status (3 kids! 1 miscarriage!  I like to think he would have been uber supportive when I lost my baby but the rest of the family ignored it so probably not.  However, in my mind he held my hand and cried with me.)  There is nothing I do now that ever involved him.  That should make it easier to move on, easier to forget.

God how I wish it did.

People expect that the more time passes, the more healing occurs.  Heading means forgetting, by the way, to anyone who hasn't experience catastrophic loss.  Even the most well-meaning person wants healing to mean forgetting so they can stop worrying about you.  What they don't understand is that the more time passes, the better you get at pretending to be fine but the more you miss the person who died.  I mean, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, haven't you been punished enough?  Isn't it time for them to come back now?

But they don't and you know they won't but that doesn't stop you from feeling like the universe turned sideways and stayed that way. Every year that passes makes the pain more acute.  How the fuck am I supposed to go on TWENTY YEARS without my best friend?

I don't know how and yet I'll do it because I have people who depend on me. People who won't understand why I'm snappish and weepy today.  I could explain but they still wouldn't understand and thank God or whatever for that.  I never want them to understand bc if they did it means they are walking in my shoes.

I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.