.

Dear friends and just anyone reading this really,

Lately I am growing tired of being told to stop being negative or be more positive. I know you mean well and you only want the best for me, but these comments can sometimes get to me a little. While I know for a fact that I have not completely radiated positive vibes for a few years now, I believe the fact that I even continue to function and don’t break down is my way of being positive. You may not understand this as positive, I wouldn’t either if I didn’t understand the way I feel. You don’t know how much heartache I carry inside me every day – I know this isn’t your fault, I don’t openly share this with many people. You don’t realise that I cry myself to sleep at least 4 nights a week. You don’t know that I constantly relive the moment where I was told my little brother was never coming home again, or when I kissed his cold forehead for the last time and had to watch his coffin close and be taken away from me to be buried into the cold hard ground. You don’t know how empty and lifeless I feel at times. You don’t realise that I struggle to focus or feel any real burning passion at times. You don’t know how disconnected I feel from myself and others, I constantly feel like an outsider of my own body and struggle with genuine connections and intimacy. You don’t realise the pain I feel around my family, trying to hold my family together while watching them become different people over the years and watching their heartbreak. You don’t realise the sense of sadness I feel going home to the house my brother and I have endless memories in, and being reminded that his bedroom hasn’t been touched in over 3 years. You don’t realise how much of myself was lost when Ira died. I am slowly learning to be myself with this chunk missing, but you should know that I will never fully be myself again. I am sorry that sometimes I am not the most fun or positive person to be around, I am sorry that I am not always super upbeat or the life of the room. I know there are people who have been through horrendous tragedies and are still the most amazingly positive people, and that is so incredibly inspiring – but that’s them, not me. You may think it’s been 3 years, surely you’re starting to learn to live with your grief by now? Sure, it has been 3 years, and I have grown immensely in this time – I hate to say it but living with the loss of my only sibling has become ingrained as part of who I am today and it has almost become normal. But then I have moments where I remember how it isn’t normal, I get reminded of everything and just simply hearing you talk to your own sibling is enough to break me down again. Grief is a massive journey that never ends, things change over time, you become more resilient and become insanely emotionally aware of yourself, but it never changes your loss and I can tell you right now that it still feels as raw and crushing as it did the very first day. You may not realise for a very long time what it feels like to lose a sibling or a significant other, and I hope like hell that you don’t as it’s a pain I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I am not writing this to say look at me, give me attention, I am just saying that I still need time. It is going to take me a long time and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully be who I used to be again as I don’t know if that is actually possible. Think of it as cutting yourself quite badly and having a massive scar left over, it becomes ingrained in your body and your body never quite looks the same as it did.I know I don’t tell you how I feel a lot of the time, I think I struggle to say how I feel verbally and I also hate to be a burden. I know you don’t think I am a burden and I know you only want to be there for me, and I thank you for that.

 

 

Just another ‘feelings’ post

There’s no mistaking that I have been struggling a lot this year. There’s no real particular reason for it (aside from the obvious), and I honestly can’t even explain these lows myself – which is perhaps why I like to write down how I am feeling so I can try to understand it a bit more. I think we all have these expectations for ourselves as we grow up – get a good job that’s in your chosen career field, find someone you love and want to be with, save money, travel, have lots of friends and be happy. We place so much pressure on ourselves and perhaps think that it’s only through these ‘successes’ that we can truly be find happiness. I think that’s perhaps what has lead me to my incredibly low feelings I have been experiencing lately. When I look at myself I do not see success, sometimes I think the only success is that I’m still alive. There have been times recently where I have really questioned my existence – thought about what it’d be like to just leave the world, and sometimes it seems like all I want to do. Before anyone reading this gets worried that I’m going to take my own life – I’m not so you can stop worrying. I have experienced first hand what death and loss does to you and your loved ones, and I’m not about to put anyone through that hell, even if I do experience feelings of hopelessness.

I’m not writing this to seek attention, I simply don’t know how else to channel my feelings and thoughts without being a burden – and I really do struggle with telling anyone how I actually am feeling. We all know it’s so much easier to just say you’re okay than admit that you’re actually not doing so well. If I was to be 100% honest to someone I would say – I often feel extremely empty, I want to cry almost 24/7 and there are days where I could easily stay in bed all day and avoid everyone. I have no idea where I’m heading in life, people around me are achieving massive things and doing amazing stuff and I am still absolutely clueless with what I am wanting to do and basically just go through the motions of life without any real passion or zest for anything. I still can’t completely fathom losing my brother and I quite honestly don’t think I ever will. I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help but pick apart every single flaw – I know the exterior is so unimportant but I really struggle with self esteem and poor self image. I feel extremely disconnected from a lot of my friends – I don’t know why that is and I don’t know if they feel it too or if it’s all in my head. I drink a lot to try and hide how I am truly feeling. I almost feel like someone has sucked all of my energy and motivation out of me and I don’t know how to get it back.

Now you see, it is a lot easier to just say “I’m okay”, isn’t it?

Struggles.

How do you admit to people that you’re struggling?

It’s so much easier to just say you’re okay to anyone who asks and keep a brave face on. But deep down, when you are alone in bed at night it all catches up with you.

It’s coming up 3 whole years since Ira was killed this December. People say that you heal more and more as time passes, but I honestly am not sure I will ever believe this. While it’s true that you become more accustomed to the pain and it becomes more a part of your life and who you are – it almost aches and hurts more than it did in the first few months. The first few months are numbness, shock, and endless people surrounding you. They are also still close to when you last saw your loved one. Now, nearly  3 years later I am struggling with the amount of holes I feel in my life that Ira would have once filled. I imagine where we would both be now if he was still here. I imagine what it would be like to still have a complete family and not have to feel the painstaking emptiness when with my parents. As time passes it also becomes so much further away from when we last saw Ira. His presence becomes more and more of a distant memory and more memories are made without him there.

I have numbed a lot of the pain this year but this past weekend really brought up a lot of grief for me. I went to one of Ira’s best friends 21st’s and when it came to the speeches, a few people started by mentioning Ira and the fact that he couldn’t make it – for the first time in a while I bawled my eyes out in public and I couldn’t stop. My mum and I also talked a lot about the funeral, the burial, and what happened to Ira (these are things we normally step around and avoid mentioning as it hurts far too much) and this made me really reflect upon my grief and how much I have been avoiding it. It’s not that I want to avoid it, it’s more that I physically and emotionally cannot cope with fully allowing myself to feel everything and comprehend everything. My body just cannot cope with it at all. We also found some video tapes of Ira as a 1 year old and seeing myself and Ira together as kids broke me down – who would have thought 16 years later that this beautiful little boy who brought so much light to everyone’s lives  would have his life ended by such a tragic accident and we would have to live with this nightmare? It just makes me so so sad. The past few days I have cried so much for what was and what could have been. I have also had thoughts that it should have been me who went, not Ira. It sounds pathetic and attention seeking, but it’s true. He was younger, far more positive, and filled with so much potential and motivation to reach his goals. He would have lived such a full life had he still been here to do so. I wish more than anything in this world that he could still be here today. Words can’t even explain how much I miss him. I dreamed about him the other night and he was cracking up with a big grin on his face, I woke up crying and grasped into the thin air wishing I could give him a big hug. It’s the little things like watching someone you love laugh or just being able to give them a hug that you miss you so much when that person is gone. It’s just so hard looking at photos and videos and knowing that this is the only way you will only be able to see that person ever again. It’s just so final and heartbreaking.

I don’t know if I’m struggling with my grief for Ira more than usual lately or if it’s just that I’m allowing myself to feel it more than I had been. I have been feeling down and struggling with a few other things as well, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I feel like I have lost who I was and I no longer truly know who I am now. I don’t know what I want or where I’m going in life. Currently my way of dealing with how I feel is to just drink, eat, pretend like everything’s okay, and sleep. I haven’t been very open to anyone about how I’ve really been feeling deep down and I don’t think I’ve been honest with myself either. I feel like I’ve been living my life day to day with no real drive or passion to reach my full potential and actually live  my life to the fullest – and I know Ira would be so disappointed in me for this. But it’s just so hard to know where to start to change how I have been for the past three years. It’s like someone has sucked everything out of me and all I am is the outer shell of my body. I get up every day and go to work, I come home – I sleep, I drink my weekends away, I bottle my feelings up, I avoid situations that make me go out of my comfort zone, I shy away from opportunities, and I don’t go out of my way to meet new people. I know a lot of this is definitely centred around losing Ira and the way I have coped with my grief, but I also know that I can’t make it the reason for everything and at the end of the day this comes down to me. I am scared that I will never come out of this space I have gotten myself into. If anyone else has been feeling this some way I would love to hear from you.

 

Another one of my spiels

This is about to be a big blurb about a bit of this and bit of that. There are a lot of things that have been playing on my mind lately and I guess this is kind of them all squashed up into one hard to understand blog post.

I haven’t written on here in over a year. A lot has changed in a year. I finished my nursing degree, got registered as a nurse in New Zealand, left behind the comforting life I knew as a student and entered the world as a full time working adult who dreads the sound of the 6:30am alarm Monday to Friday. I missed out on getting into the new grad nursing programme and have seriously questioned what the heck I actually want to do with my life. I caught deep feelings for someone who on the surface appeared to feel strongly for me, until 6 months later he told me he was going back to his ex girlfriend and totally broke my heart (which I did not think was possible after losing Ira). We moved from our inner city apartment to a big house in the suburbs. I bought a car. I did my first ever 5 day tramp with two of my favourite people and discovered that you really should not skimp on food when it comes to tramping. The one thing that hasn’t changed however, is how often I think of Ira and miss him dearly.

While time definitely helps you grow and learn to live with the loss of a sibling, it certainly doesn’t heal anything and you most definitely still drown in your grief every now and then. It’s almost like as time passes, you become more immune to the pain and push it to the back of your mind in order to force yourself into living a normal life. I regularly think of how much Ira is missing out on, and how much I am missing him being in my life. You never realise how much you crave for one last hug or mindless conversation when that person is ripped away from your world. The thing about grief is it sneaks up on you at the most random of times, there are times where the tears start gushing out of nowhere and suddenly I find myself in an uncontrollable crying fit on the floor on a Sunday night. Ira is soon to turn 20 in a months time, but in my mind and heart he will forever be frozen at 17. It’s heart breaking thinking of all the great memories he left behind and all of the amazing things he would’ve gone on to achieve had such a tragic accident not occurred. Watching Ira’s friends grow up and get older as time passes by is extremely hard. I can’t help but think that that would be him if his life wasn’t taken away from him.

Watching my parents fall apart time and time again is one of the hardest things about losing Ira. Knowing I can’t possibly fix their hurt or be enough for them shatters me inside. I don’t want to be enough for them, I want Ira to be back with us so everything can go back to the way it once was. But it will never be the same again. When the 3 of us are together it’s so apparent that he is missing, we sit in silence all thinking the same thing: If only Ira was still here. At times it feels incredibly lonely and I can feel so alone. Loneliness is an odd thing. I definitely do have a few close friends whom mean the world to me, but I can’t help feeling lonely a lot of the time. I don’t know what it is or quite how to explain it. I know there are a lot of people who would be more than happy for me to share how I’m feeling with them, but there’s really no one else who can understand quite how I’m feeling. No one else but me has Ira as their sibling. I will never have a replacement brother, nor do I want to. Seeing others with their siblings does break my heart a little. It’s impossible to find a relationship that will ever be the same as the relationship you have with your sibling. I feel happy knowing how close Ira and I were, and I know that if we had had the chance we would have gotten closer as we aged. It’s almost impossible for me to remember who I was before the accident and how my life was then compared to what it is now. I feel like a lot within me has changed, there is a sadness that is deeply set within me that I can’t fully shake. I am trying to find who I actually am as a person without using my loss to define me. It is hard not to let it make up who you are as you don’t want the person you’ve lost to ever be forgotten. You want to keep them alive.

Sorry this has turned into a massive spiel and I’m not even sure what I’m actually trying to say anymore. I do wonder though if I have truly lost who I was back before losing Ira and my weird non-eating/over exercising phase. That person was determined, outgoing, motivated, hard working, interested, and happy. The person I am now is definitely not someone who is unhappy or anti social, but I can’t help but feel as though I’m lacking any lust for life. When people ask that loaded question “so what do you like to do?” or  “tell me about yourself” I am quite honestly at a loss for what to respond with. I feel like I am a boring person who has nothing interesting to offer and adds no value to anything. I can be completely myself around few people, most people see a very reserved and insecure side of me. I hate myself for it. I want to be that person who is bold and outgoing and the life of the party, but I’m just not. I don’t have many interesting things to say about myself. I feel unsure about who I am and what I want in my life. I can’t picture myself in the future and honestly have no idea where I’ll be or what it is I want to be doing. I can’t help but compare myself to everyone around me. So many friends of mine are in serious relationships and are working in or studying an area they are passionate about. While I am working in a job that is completely unrelated to my degree and don’t have a clue what I’m doing with my life. I do actually really enjoy my job in the contact centre, but so many people have mentioned the fact that I’m not following the nursing pathway and asked me what it is I want to be doing. Is it so bad that I just have no idea? Maybe I’ll nurse some day in the future, maybe I won’t. I don’t know where it is that I see myself. If Ira were here he would know exactly what he was doing with his life, and he would be kicking my ass into gear to figure out what I want to do with mine. But I guess I’m 22 and at 22 it’s okay to have no idea what the hell you’re doing with your life. It’s okay to spend most Sundays in bed dying of a terrible hangover because you drank far too much the night before. And it’s okay to eat everything in front of you then spend the next hour complaining about how much weight you’ve gained. Maybe I just need to stop being so hard on myself and accept the fact that I’ll never have everything truly figured out and for now I can just go with the flow.

 

 

.

Do you ever just feel so stuck in a rut? Like you’re just counting down the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and you don’t even know why? Like all you do is eat, sleep, drink, and somehow make it to the end of the day? Life feels like a chore, a routine, lonely and empty. I want to feel passion and desire, but I don’t know where or how to start. I want to feel a fire and rage. I want to love. I want to be happy and feel free. I want to love what I’m doing and wake up with a smile every day. I want to feel at home in my skin and not beat myself up over my rolls, cellulite, flawed skin, my uneven boobs and my pudgy tummy. I don’t want to hate myself every time I eat something “bad” and feel like exercise is a chore. I don’t want to look at effortlessly slim and flawless women and wish I could be them. I want to look at myself in the mirror and feel proud of who I am, regardless of my flaws. I don’t want to feel this ongoing sadness I feel. I wish this hole where the loss of my brother burns on was not there and everything were still as it were. I wish someone could heal my emptiness and stop the sadness that is in my eyes. I wish I didn’t feel this heavy weight on my soul. I want my family to stop hurting. I want to stop hurting. I want my brother back. I want to feel like I belong somewhere. I want to stop counting down the days and live. I want to stop feeling this way.

Things that are on my mind

1 – How can things be changed forever in just a few seconds?
2 – How can you ever live with the fact that someone you love so dearly will never physically be present in your life again? My heart breaks whenever I fully take this fact in.
3 – The power of the mind to push painful emotions into an empty space and bring it up at the most random times is crazy.
4 – I have been drinking a hell of a lot more than I used to, and a lot more often.
5 – I have been eating a LOT more and am getting out of shape, part of me is freaking out and the other part is like “fuck it”.
6 – I am freaking the fuck out about the future (AKA November). Do I really want to be a nurse, what will I do next year, where will I go, who will I be, will my friends still be here too, when will I travel, will I ever have a family… etc
7 – I keep having these odd urges to self harm that I have never had before, I am not sure why, is it just a weird phase?
8 – I feel empty a hell of a lot. My happiness seems superficial and short lived.
9 – Every boy I develop feelings for either “doesn’t want anything” or just doesn’t seem interested whatsoever, is there something wrong with me?!
10 – I want to be more outgoing, adventurous and assertive but it is so difficult.
11 – I miss Ira so fucking much. I can’t even explain. The loneliness I have felt without him lately has been overwhelming and extremely difficult to voice.
12 – I find it so fucking hard to be around my parents these days.
13 – I am starting to think bad thoughts about my body a lot more often again, I am trying hard to combat them but it is hard.
14 – The real world scares me. Money scares me. Growing up scares me.
15 – I wish Ira was here so so so much.
16 – I am finding it really hard to be motivated and care enough to study. All I feel like doing these days is eating, sleeping, drinking, reading, hanging out, and just generally avoiding the world.
17 – Bleh.

Loneliness

Here I am in a foreign city with no friends and I have never felt so lonely in my life. Loneliness is a dangerous thing, being alone doesn’t always bother me – it’s being lonely that I can’t handle. Being alone in my thoughts is not a good thing. Lately my mood has hit a low, I put this fake act on but inside I feel nothing but emptiness. It’s like I numb everything out so I don’t have to feel the pain that is surrounding me.
I’m so scared for the future, my direction in life doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel passionate about anything. I don’t LIVE I just breath and get through the days. My body image has gotten bad again, I look at myself and only see flaws. Cottage cheese thighs, cellulite, stretch marks, pudgy tummy, red toned skin.I feel this intense self inflicted pressure to exercise everyday, when I don’t I feel like a lazy bloated whale. I know that’s ridiculous but the mind is a very powerful thing. Whenever I’m around others I feel this heavy insecurity weighing on my shoulders. I think so much about everything I’m doing. I just want to be, but I don’t know how. I can see that my negativity and emptiness is drowning me, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it.
It doesn’t help being in a different city where I can easily shut myself away without anyone asking if I’m okay or making me get out of my room. My diet has been poor, my motivation to exercise has gone down the drain, all I want to do is sleep the hours and days away. I feel like being back in Napier a lot of the time, but whenever I go back it’s like a weird mix of happy, warm and secure feelings and a deep sadness with the realisation that home can never ever be the same again. Seeing my parents is both happy and draining. Instead of doing something about myself and making some changes, I’ll end up just trying to fix my internal problems with food and alcohol. It’s a vicious cycle.

Nearly one entire f’ing year.

First of all, I know it’s been a long time since I last wrote in my blog, unfortunately nursing school and general day to day shit got in the way. Although I have not spoken of my grief for a wee while now, it is still very raw and very overwhelming at times. It is fitting that I write this a week and half out from the one year “anniversary” as there is a large amount of dread, anticipation, and emotions that lead up to the horrible day. First of all I would like to discuss the so called ‘stages’ of grief. Now I don’t know who decided that grief has stages, but whoever it was has painted the idea that grief has a beginning and end point. I can tell you right now that this is so far from true. While the factors of anger, denial, etc are a part of grief, they are most definitely not in set stages. They can come at any time and do not follow any typical pattern, they also never fully stop. After nearly a year of carrying my loss with me I can say that it is something that will never leave me. While it may ‘ebb and flow’ like waves, it it still always present. It is rooted within my soul and at any time it can suddenly overcome me and paralyse me with intense emotions of pain, longing, heart ache, and depression. I believe that our grief comes a part of us, it is something we can not move on from, leave behind, or forget. Although I carry on functioning, loving, living, learning, and growing – I still carry Ira within me and I am forever thinking of him, remembering, and grieving his absence in my life. People often ask “how do you do it? you seem so okay”, ‘okay’ is a word that is thrown around a lot – seeming okay is the art of bearing the strength to wake up and face the day when inside you are aching for your loved one. I think people often expect that after the ‘year anniversary’ you are just going to be okay again and carry on with life as if nothing happened. Also as the first year passes we get further away from Ira’s presence, voice, smell, and life. As I age, Ira doesn’t, and that breaks my heart to millions of pieces. I’m afraid as the time passes people will forget to talk about Ira, and as I continue to grow I will not be able to share my experiences with Ira. I think what I have found the hardest is knowing that no one can ever fully share the same intensity of your grief as you do, and even when others are around – you are still very much alone in your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Death is still dumbfounding to me. The thought that our life can be taken from us within seconds, and just never return again. You expect to lose you elders in time, but you never expect to lose your younger sibling. Siblings are meant to be there always, they are always the people you can count on and fall back on no matter what. You believe they are indestructible and will be around forever – I certainly believed Ira would be with me forever.  It is unnatural for a family to lose someone so young to such a tragedy, especially when they had just gone to work for the day and you didn’t say goodbye because you knew they would be coming home at the end of the day – or not. I still have flashbacks of Ira’s lifeless body in our lounge, it is the most crushing and horrifying thing to physically look at your loved one looking as they were before the passed, but feeling the absence of their presence. For the 5 days we had Ira at home I could not leave his side. It absolutely crushed my soul holding his cold limbs and face. Having to say goodbye and watch as the dirt covered his coffin in the intense December heat is an agony I will never forget. To this day I sit at his grave and still can not believe that he really is gone and that I am mourning at my own brothers grave. I think our minds do their best to protect us by numbing things which are too painful to fully take in. I know he is gone, but I still don’t want to believe it and part of me still looks for him in crowded places. Every tall lanky blonde boy with sharp bone structure, short hair, and tan pants is Ira. Every boy on a red scooter is Ira. The repeated sound of a bouncing basket ball is Ira. It is so weird being an only child when I know I am not really an only child. It is incredibly lonely. I long for Ira every day. There are so many things that happen and I think ‘I so need to tell Ira this’ – and then I remember I can’t. It’s hard having so many childhood memories, private jokes, and just stupid little things that only he would get. Being with my family now leaves a wounding reminder that someone very important is missing. It’s like trying to make a jigsaw without one of the main pieces – the picture will never be the same again. Days such as Christmas no longer mean anything without you Ira. We function as a family but we are not the same, and we never will be. I love my parents dearly, and I know they love me more than anything – but I know that I can never complete them without Ira here too. A year later I still can only think ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘what the fuck’. It really just is not fair. Not only do I grieve for Ira’s past, I grieve for the what would have been. I constantly wonder who he would be today, in 5 years time, in 20 years time, what kind of dad and uncle he would be. Instead he’s stuck at 17 and I have to continue to age every second of every day. I miss everything about you Ira. All your annoying little habits, your voice, your laugh, your wit, your humour, your sensitivity, your kind heart, your ability to lift people, your determination and motivation, your pestering, your charming ways, etc. I miss you looking up to me and asking for my advice. I miss texting you, facebook messaging you, and skyping you. I refuse to remove you from my contacts because then it will seem real. I miss the play fights, the pushing around, the banter, the witty remarks, the name calling. I miss the bonding times. I miss our silly little tiffs and arguments over ridiculous things. I miss you being a sore loser at absolutely every game we would play. I miss hearing you yelling at your games on your PC. I miss your sayings. I miss you calling me fat and ugly. I miss the constant reminders of your tallness. I miss your basketball obsession. I miss hearing you sing along to QOTSA. I could say so much more but it is making me cry too much and I’m getting tears all over the keyboard. I miss you so fucking much, it really is quite overwhelming. I wish I could talk to you and hear your reply. I never thought things would be this way, nearly a year later and I still don’t understand how my little brother could be gone. It tears me up inside. I wonder what you would think if you knew you weren’t here, I reckon you’d be super pissed off. Life is so cruel and unexpected. This time last year I had just got home for the summer, happy as I could be, and so were you. It was your ‘summer buzz’, but less than 2 weeks later your summer buzz was abruptly ended without any warning. What the fuck. How the fuck. But I’m not gonna go off on that tangent because it’s a never ending circle. What I’m trying to say is, I miss you more than anything right now (and just all the time) and I really can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s nearly been a whole year since you last graced our presence. Not a minute goes by that you aren’t on my mind. I love you more than anything and every new year that passes I will long for you and wish you were still here.

7 months.

Today it has been 7 months since my brother was taken from us – yet it only seems like the other day that we were shooting hoops on the driveway. Never in a million years would I have thought I would be coming home to visit my brother’s grave rather than hanging out with him, it’s just a sobering reminder of how drastically life can be changed within a few short minutes and that nothing and no-one is ever permanent. I always assumed I’d have my brother by my side forever, and although I know he is still with me it is heart breaking that I can never truly be with him in a physical sense again. It’s all still surreal and I still see tall, lanky, sandy blonde short haired boys and have a glimmer of hope that they’ll turn around and it’ll be Ira’s face I see – yet deep down I know I never will again. I still think of how incredibly unfair it is that someone so significant can have such a short time on earth without a chance to grow up, yet the 17 years he did grace the earth have had such an impact on so many people’s lives. People constantly say to me “your brother was such an amazingly wonderful guy” and I smile and say I know. I feel so lucky to know he is my brother and that I got to grow up with such an amazing human being as my own brother, but I also feel so much sadness knowing what could have been if he was still here today. There are times when I feel so down and all I want is Ira to be there helping me up like he always did, but instead now I have to know that somewhere he is out there telling me to smile, be happy and live life for the both of us. His absence has left such a large hole in everyone’s life, and it’s a hole that can never be fully filled by anyone else. Every day I continue to think of what a beautiful person he is, and every day I cherish the time I did get to have with him. I miss everything about him and I will always miss him terribly for the rest of my life. You have taught me so many things about life, I am trying hard to be the positive, determined and confident person you always tried to be and I am making an effort to get out there and live life. I miss you and love you more than you could ever know, I hope you’re having fun out there man xxxxxxxx

Half a year.

I realised the other day I hadn’t written a post in quite a long time so I thought it was about time I wrote an update on everything that has been going on. First of all, I can hardly believe it’s now been over 6 months since the worst day of my life. It seems like a lifetime, yet at the same time – time has just flown by. I’ve just finished my exams and my first semester and am currently on a three week break. Coming home for the holidays has made me realise just how much I have grown in these 6 months, it has also made me realise how glad I am that I pushed myself to go back to Wellington this year. In the first few weeks after my brother was killed I remember people saying to me that “time would help” and I would learn to live again – when I heard those words then I felt angry and thought there was no way I’d ever feel the desire to live and be happy again. I now realise they were right. While I am obviously still grieving, and I will always be grieving, the grief is deeper and is starting to become a “normal” part of who I am. Don’t get me wrong I constantly miss Ira and I feel an ongoing sadness, but those feelings are deeper set within me now –  and while I have not ‘accepted’ them, they have become my new normal. My love and lust for life and happiness is shining through my sadness, and I have an urge to live for both myself and Ira again. I got through my first semester with many ups and downs, and I have learnt a lot about the person I am. The relationships I have with Ira’s (my) friends have grown stronger and our connection means everything to me. I can just imagine Ira looking down on us smiling. At the 6 month mark I realise how good Wellington has been for me and my grief, not only has it been a great distraction and escape, it has also grown my independence, strength, will, and determination. A few months ago I would have said that I didn’t want to continue on with my life, and that I’d never want to live again – but so much has changed since then. I still am scarred with the imprinted image of my brothers lifeless body in his coffin and the fact that he’s gone is still so fucking surreal, but I am also learning to live on for the both of us. There are days when I just miss his so much and my longing to see his smiling face again overwhelms me, but I also have an internal strength in me that rises me above and keeps me from being dragged under by my grief. I am learning to live with my grief, it is deeply set within me now, and although it still resurfaces often I have learnt ways of dealing with it. Coming back to Napier is very draining now, seeing my mum is incredibly hard – it’s almost like I’ve lost my mum too in some ways. While I’m hurting deeply over the loss of Ira, she seems to have gotten worse in the 6 months and makes constant remarks about not wanting to go on and she simply just “doesn’t care” about anything anymore. She’s lost all interest in anything in life and it hurts me to see her that way. As bad and selfish as it sounds, I am so glad that I didn’t stay here this year.