Human Emotion is Very Off-Putting

Most people would rather deal with logic than with emotion, wouldn't you say?
Up until my brother's passing, I was always a bit rough around the edges-focused on a tough exterior that hardly allowed for much show of emotion-never wanting to show my cards but wanting to show the sincerity I so often fight for. My childhood also didn't allow for unnecessary tears as Dad would discourage, "crying doesn't help" and Mom would be easily aggravated if my brother or I cried in fear of her consequential lash, "I'll give you something to cry for". Sadness, as it was, had no room in our growing lives so we instead closely reached for each other; serving as a backbone for our lives together.

Losing my brother was a fear I always lived with and losing him to death was an intangible thought that would bring me to tears when I'd think about being alone without him. But I would never lose him to himself-he was much "too" of anything to lose.
There's something to be said about death and how quickly it robs our human space of allowance and control; life is a choice we have until we're left with one of two and then there's clearly no choice at all. My brother had a choice when he felt he had none and I am left with a choice to live or to die. Same choice, similar elements of grief and sorrow, different circumstances but same textbook versions of what control signifies.
Simply put, Charley crashed into himself and what he was feeling was clearly so tumultuous that he fought himself until he saw an end to his sight. I envision him in my mind, swinging and swinging and swinging, trying with all that he could muster to make contact with his inner beast, his inner sensitivity. Bashing with such force that he was sure he'd beaten all the fury, all the hopelessness, all the deception out of himself so that his exasperation was well worth the fight and he'd win. But maybe he did win and maybe his inner demon lost. Maybe his suicide was a feat he conquered.

Just as emotion fuels the bodies we house, closure is also natural motivation to have an answer. With an unexpected loss, closure is a therapeutic need that satisfies the spirit and the mind. My brother's suicide offers lack of closure and ensures the absolution of uncertainty. The only person who is certain of the emotional cause is him. If only preventing it were so simple. Tell me why and I'll dispel you of all reason. If only...

As a society we misunderstand emotion and misinterpret the forgiving need to feel...to feel loved, to reciprocate love, a desire to feel wanted and to be sincerely wanted, to feel important and to feel significant, to be understood and very seldom feared and finally to be loved unconditionally by some one person.
We are thrust into this world as naked and raw as God created but it should be our spiritual responsibility to live beyond the constraints of our human existences. Forget logic sometimes and feel.
I love you just the way you are.

The Pursuit to Live A Life I've Always Wanted

One month after my brother's tragic passing, the notion of newness was planted into the broken pockets of my heart. "This is your opportunity to be anyone you want and everyone you've always wanted to be. You're in a fortunate position to start over", she whispered into my crying eyes and across my sleeping daughter's angelic face.
I had no idea what she meant when all I wanted was to lose myself in someone I never was. Maybe I could take up excessive intoxication and drink myself to death or maybe I could explore the lows of being high and binge on street drugs that would numb me medicated. Or even have meaningless sex in an effort to be close to someone without the strings of being emotionally attached. I didn't want to feel anything but feel him alive.

Yes, I could be someone I'm not. Yes, I could do anything because nothing matters anymore.
I wanted to lose myself and escape the pain and devastation of losing my only brother, except losing myself also meant losing him because he is me and I am him~ one person separated by years. When Charley passed away, I can say that I lost my life. There is no one else in my life that loves so deeply, thinks so deeply and lives at his depth as he. I always felt as though life was bearable because I had someone just like me in this life, and that alone was comforting. I could wrap my brother around my soul and spirit...the thought of him felt like I was wrapped in blanket fresh out of the dryer. It's the feeling of all is right in this world. And when he died, nothing kept me tethered to this life, not even my daughter. I wanted to lash out at something tangible, something I could punch my hand into, shake until it broke, beat until there was nothing left...and do it all over again. But life isn't a person and I had no one to hold responsible but myself. Guilt and remorse was instantaneous and occurred in the same moment that I found my defeated brother, lifeless and beyond a sadness I can never adequately explain. Charley may be gone and took his pain with him, but I'm left here to struggle and deal and manage and hate an anger in my gut that I can't shake.

I'm angry everyday. And man, am I hot and cold. I'm easily agitated, my attention span is shorter than that of a toddler's and I cannot find a happy place.

To be honest, I don't want to define happiness.We live with morsels of happiness- doses if you will. Sip by sip, sometimes large gulps. Sometimes we're gluttonous and and take in all we can only to hibernate like bears do because who's to tell when happiness will feel this good again.  So we take what we can get but no matter how much I try to find life in my life, I don't feel the same anymore because I'm not the person I was when Charley was alive and we'd laugh together at his corny jokes. I loved watching him laugh at himself- his laughter and his smile was soothing.
The weight of my brother's death is heavy and drains me of joy. Yes, it's been a year and a half and I cannot function as I'd like. Yes, he's gone and why am I living against his divine wishes for me? Yes, I agree he wouldn't want me to be in so much pain but I am. All of this is a consequence of losing a life that meant life to me, and all of me is changing because of him.

Infect Me With Life

I collect pieces of people like I collect books-hoping to be inspired with a new wealth of knowledge or fill myself with the magic I know others have to offer. Their lives reflect much more motion and routine; absent-mindlessly going through their lives untouched and unscathed by deep sadness. I take as much as I can listening to the way they speak their words and the watch the speed of their eyes in quiet wish to be like them someday...or maybe never be like them- living life in robot fashion. 
There's a large, vacant hole in my family and in my heart that refuses to be refilled or repaired, for the hole belongs to my brother in all his existence both alive and un-alive. I've made room for this sadness that moves around my other emotions like vinegar with water; they don't mix but they maintain their own space. And it's okay that I'm not okay because I don't have to be. It took a lifetime for my brother and I to build the bond we actively nurtured, so it makes sense (to me) that it would take the second part of my life to work through his loss. There is no time limit for grief nor acceptance but what I have accepted is that I don't need to accept to make others feel better about me or to help myself feel better. 
The pain of my brother's death is long-lasting and very prominent- maybe I should accept the confusion...as my friend suggested last week. This tip, I absorbed and thought through, Accept the confusion of losing him and not the acceptance of losing him. 
Another person offered up, "Maybe if you do you, you'll feel better" in an attempt to offer up an alternative to embracing life again. Hmmm, I think I'll try the former. 

Keeping busy is something I've become a master at- occupying my time with life's errands and to do's, hoping that I lose myself in so many things that I have no energy or time left for love...because love hurts. Whether it's exercising, dance class, my daughter Mia, work or grad school, I leave myself in those places each time I touch them and walk away so that I can come back around and pick them up like the bread crumbs of Hansel and Gretel. In short, I know that I am lost and I have no idea how to get back home, a home that includes Charley very present and alive. So instead I wander with aim knocking on the doors of new experience, new lives, and opportunities in an effort to find something or someone's to help me feel semi-alive again. 

People compliment me with words of strengthening encouragement, "You're one of the strongest people I know" or "How do you do it all" and even, "From the outside you look like you have it all together. You make it look easy". 
But what's IT? Life? The emotional turmoil I'm managing? Raising a child on my own AND all the other stuff typical life has chucked at me? Just when I think I can't handle anything more, the stars smile down at me and add another load of heavy dust...and as I think God won't give me more than I can bear, he gives me more and I shrug my shoulders and resign. This is life. This is life. This is life. 

I seem to think that Charley's passing is mine and only mine and I'm affected in this way because he's Charley. And there's never been a Charley without a Yolie or a Yolie without a Charley. I'm participating in my own loss without agreeing to do so, and learning to navigate this solo self with my brother's spirit riding close to my heart. Lost is an okay place for me and it feels safe because you see, being lost means that love will find me again while I'm searching for a way to live. 

Living Parallel to Time

I took more than a hiatus from writing here, knowing very well that my readership severely dropped as has my desire to accept reality. In fact, I make conscious efforts to deny time and the encouraging words, "it's almost been a year and a half since he passed..."  and instead cradle my brother's loss as though it's been a week and a half. 

My brother, young in age and also in spirit, passed into tranquility during the early morning hours of September 17, 2013 while I simultaneously slept in peace. He closed his eyes hours before my Mom called to invite him over for his favorite Mexican breakfast of chilaquiles. His last breaths of human air were desperate and emotional, as they are forgiving and empathetic, and resigned at the devil's hour of heartache and darkness. The world around him unknowingly slumbered at a level he couldn't achieve for weeks, and as a consequence of insomnia, his brain and body also severely suffered from lack of rest and thus, production of healthy chemicals.

The suppressed and judgmental refuse to face the realities of severe suicidal depression, turning their memories off and their eyes away in conscious attempt to forget that their friend Carlos, an honorable and intelligent Firefighter Paramedic, took his own life. He is gone. Just as quickly as my brother surfaces into a happy memory, a sad and awful reminder shoves in and the thought of Carlos is quickly shooed away. 
I know this because I sometimes do this. I think of him, I smile, and I almost simultaneously "remember" he's dead as though I "forgot". I don't forget, I don't suppress, I don't put off or distract myself and I surely don't convince myself "I'll always remember him" as though I won't. C'mon, he's my most favorite person and my only brother. 

My brother was robbed of a lifetime of love and opportunity and happiness and life. He was disregarded and emotionally abandoned time and time again, like a misunderstood foster child who is used and dumped when convenience has worn off. His pain ran deeper than anyone could feel or even attempt to feel. Obviously. 
There is no medication or guaranteed amount of time that would soften his wound as though it were artificial. His love for love ran hard and was far from being juvenile love. His love, my brother's love for anyone and everyone he loves, was unconditional and selfless, like that of the Ancient Greek. 
Love was my brother's grace and also his downfall. He attracted people that needed saving or needed to be rescued, and maybe, if he felt needed he mistook that need for love. I can't speak for him but I suppose I try to think as though I'm him so that I can make sense of his suicide and ultimately, find closure for him. 
Every situation is different but the end result is the same; no matter how much I go over his last few weeks like a movie reel- pause, rewind, play, pause-he still dies and I can't change it.