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.