Its not my tragedy, even though I will miss her. Being part of a family, of a community, we each have a role to play. Mine is to be there for those who were closest to her.

Pat talked about there being a hole. Something very tangible. A hole in the shape of her. She’s gone now. The hole will remain forever vacant. Nothing, no one will ever fill that hole. This is how we hold on to the ones we love – we never let anything fill that hole again.

It’s weird that we think of other people, of our relationships, as if they were tangibles. There was a shape that Catherine had. There was a form. Like a spot on the shelf. And every time you enter that room, the room of your heart, for the rest of your life, it will always seem out of place. Something will always be missing. A hole in the exact shape that she was. A spot where she should be.

I told Pat that the hole is never filled. It will always be there. Every loss is a new spot. I wonder if the room becomes unrecognizable after a time. If the memories replace the things.

How many holes can a person sustain before there’s simply no more room?

This is why we form our communities. Our families. Because when our friends are in need, we know. We know because we love them, and so we reach out to them, and we support them, and we carry them, and we love them.

This is what I am trying to do for my friends.

And I keep wondering why, when I am in need, instead of being part of something bigger, instead of being with my community, my family, my loved ones …

… instead I just hide away. Alone.

How many holes can a person sustain before there’s simply no more room?

These are just my self-indulgent contemplations. This is not my tragedy. I am carrying a different weight, for those feeling the loss the hardest. The closest. But Catherine was my friend, and I will miss her very dearly.

This isn’t about you. Or you. Or you.

I guess I’ve talked about it enough that I’m not really keeping it a secret. I keep telling everyone: I’m alright. Seriously, it’s fine. They’re going to find out that I have a Q-Tip stuck in my ear. Gas. A Brain Cloud. It’s fine.

I’m alright.

Its going to be terribly embarrassing when it’s absolutely nothing. I had a splinter, and I cried out that it was possibly gangrene.

That doesn’t really matter. I’m alright.

It’s really all the other things. I’m not sleeping enough. There’s not enough time. I’m falling behind at work. I’m not calling my mother enough. I’m falling back into that trap of trying to capture impossible futures. I’m not sleeping enough. I’m not sleeping.

The dizziness has started causing nausea. The dizziness also causes severe anxiety, because I’m incapable of functioning in the overly controlled way I expect of myself. Do you now how finely crafted the words are? Not just these words, but the words from my mouth. Everything is image control. Message control. It is hard god damned work trying to maintain it all. My mask is slipping. Every time the dizzy spell comes on, I fall just a split second behind myself. Words are coming out, and I know they are the words I intend my mouth to form. But I’m not so sure they are the words my mind intended when the whole idea of speaking started. Does that make sense? I’m not so sure that makes sense.

So the dizziness causes nausea. And it causes anxiety. Doctor gave me some pills for the anxiety, and they make me loopy. I walk into walls, literally. I try not to take them at work. They don’t help the nausea. They don’t help the dizziness. They do help the anxiety though.

My coworker, seeing me yet again loopy at work, suggested maybe I shouldn’t take them while I’m at the office. Despite the pills, this created a lot of anxiety. Mask slipping further. I tried to explain to her how I fight it off as long as possible, take them only when I desperately need to feel some relief. But I know it’s fucking with my work. With my reputation. I tell her she’s right. I am embarrassed when I leave the office that day.

Ever ride the Metro and spend the entire time deliberately facing the window? There’s nothing to see in those tunnels.

I’m alright.

I’m seriously fine on most days. At least, you wouldn’t know I wasn’t. The jokes are still there. The food is still cooked. The constant references to Kir. The brewing. The lawyering. The sarcasm. Everything is exactly how I want you to expect it. I’m being stubborn about asking for any kind of assistance. Kate was over, and we started talking about it all. I’m fine, I tell her. It’s just weird. It’s a weird weird thing to be going through, and it’s even kind of funny, you know? And it’s like everything is just overblown, and I’m being such a baby, and it’s just weird when I don’t know what to do or what it is or what’s going on or how I can make it better or why it’s screwing with my life because all I want is for things to get back to normal, you know, and I just … I just … I get home from a Metro ride, staring at the dark walls of the tunnel, thankful for sunglasses and then I get home, and it’s so quiet here and I … I know I haven’t done anything wrong but sometimes, you know … sometimes it just feels like I must have done something wrong because I get home and its just so quiet and the walls of the Metro are no different from a terracota (not salmon) wall with a beautiful photograph of the Dupont Metro Station and a Gentleman Cat and a Gmail with no new messages and no new gchats and its so quiet here, even with the record playing loudly.

And then I lose it. And even though in that moment its the only hug I’ve ever wanted in my life, I push it away, because I am being a coward and a wimp and because everything is fine.

I’m alright.

I get a text. A long text. Its one of many I get recently. It is simply out of nowhere. “Hey! Remember me? I’m sorry we lost contact, but when I was talking to you I was talking to someone else, and I started seeing them, but I am not anymore! We should get together!”

This isn’t about you.

It’s weird being me sometimes. I guess at some point I grew a little self respect. Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah, we got along. And you wanted to be with someone else. That’s fine. But the thing is … I would have chosen you. You didn’t choose me. There’s a whole world of people out there. There’s only one me. I wish you’d chosen me. But you didn’t. I still believe in very naive things. Knowing how we were, I don’t think you’re going to find someone better for you than me. But now neither of us will get that chance. But I sincerely appreciate the text. It’s sounds like you’re doing well.

I think you were wrong. But I’m alright.

I’m working on a project with Nathan. We’re harvesting yeast from Oberon bottles. We’re going to make our own clone. I have 4 carboys of brews going right now, and plans to brew two more next weekend. I’m reading two fascinating novels and an unpublished manuscript of poems and a collection of short stories. The new season of the Doctor just started. Bioshock is as profound as they said it would be.

I had a great hair day today.

I’m alright.

I’m always alright.

The thing is, my mom is from Philly. She was born there, raised there, lived there well into her 20′s, and has gone back probably hundreds of times since then. And we were going back to her neighborhood, Roxborough, which is on top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill is the poor part of town; Manayunk. That’s where my dad is from.

That’s where Aunt Mare’s funeral was being held.

Mom was busy in the back of the car bragging about her new phone to my brother and me in the front. At the moment, she was showing off the fact that she’d downloaded the Pandora app. It blared, loud and tinny through the shit speakers on the phone. Which might have been fine if I hadn’t been exhausted from no sleep the night before, and if we hadn’t been simultaneously listening to music from the actual car stereo. Suffice it to say, I was growing annoyed.

“Mom, do you want us to plug in your phone so we can listen to your music instead of this?”

“Oh no,” she replied. “I don’t even like any of these songs!”

Then why the hell are you playing them so freaking loudly?! I thought to myself.

She continued to screw around with her phone, barely responding when Drew asked her if she wouldn’t mind taking a minute to help us with directions. “Where the fuck is the internet on this thing?!” was her response.

“Mom,” I reiterated, “We could really use your help with directions. We don’t especially know where we’re going here.”

She again barely looked up from her new toy. “I haven’t lived here in 30 years! I don’t know the way!”

10 minutes later, when we were lost, she started teasing my brother about how we were headed towards Jersey now instead of the church. My annoyance boiled over. “Well we ASKED you to help us give directions, but you were too busy playing with your new phone, so don’t go making fun of him for getting us lost!” I had raised my voice.

The next few minutes passed in uncomfortable silence.

I used the time to pull up GPS directions on my phone. I let the robot lady’s voice direct my brother while I looked out the window. Mom remained quiet in the back seat for a while.

As we got closer to the destination, Mom was paying more attention. Whether or not she was upset that I had raised my voice at her, she nonetheless opted for casual conversation. “You see those stairs there? That was the place we’d go when we were 14. Great place to drink a quart of beer … if the cops came, you’d just toss it over the stairs!”

At one point, passing the boat houses, Mom affirmed: “This is a silly way to go! This GPS is wrong!”

“Yeah,” my brother said, “Well you haven’t lived here in 30 years, so what the hell do you know?”

We actually all started laughing. The tension was broken entirely.

That’s how things were at the funeral service for my aunt. I sat between my mom and my dad, now 25 years divorced, and we cracked jokes under our breath about how mom got into a fight with the GPS, how Drew couldn’t find the car keys because he hasn’t lived in Philly for 30 years, how this parking lot or that Apple Store was a great place to drink quarts of beer when you’re 14. This is the way my family operates: drive all jokes into the ground; never take life seriously, even at a funeral.

At the reception after, I saw some family members I hadn’t seen in 20 years or more. Cousins I grew up with, whose lives had gone in separate ways, down darker paths of drug addiction and run-ins with the police, alcohol and employment problems. None of them even recognized me, and to be honest, I was fine when they didn’t say hello. Yet the cousins I know, the cousins I see a few times a year, the uncles I have remained in touch with … we all drank to Aunt Maryclair and the joking began, and I heard about a lot of good places to drink in Manayunk when you’re 14. This was my family, coping with grief and loving one another. The brief discontent in the car … no one cared. This is what it means to be part of a family.

I was telling Spain about this after dinner on Sunday night, explaining the difference between being lonely, and feeling lonely. See, I might feel lonely sometimes, but I also have that rare, lucky thing of knowing I am not alone. Between my large and ridiculous actual family, and the family of friends I have cobbled together in my life, I don’t think I ever get to say I am actually alone. I was saying to Spain that a few weeks back, facing a (I’m sure but we’ll know when I see the neurologist this week) minor medical issue with larger implications, I contemplated what I would do if it weren’t minor. The major problem with living alone is that when something goes wrong, there’s no one there to take care of you. For instance, The Window Incident. (Ask me about it sometime. It involves prospective face-eating by a less-than-helpful cat.) In this particular, it meant being worried about something that is 99% likely to be nothing at all, but not having anyone to remind me of that fact. Instead, I spent a lot of time researching my symptoms on the internet, and thus far have diagnosed at least 4 cancers, 3 tumors, and 6 different jungle viruses. I mean, honestly, what’s more likely? Dehydration, or a Brain Cloud?

Aside: Yes, I do love Joe Versus the Volcano.

But if it were actually something serious, the thought occurred to me a few weeks back that, beyond my actual family, I don’t believe there was more than one person I would actually tell about a major health issue. Because? I don’t know why … I certainly don’t want to burden anyone with my Brain Cloud, but that’s not really it.

I sat there telling Spain this, and it occurred to me that there are a few people I would tell. Because Aunt Mare didn’t tell anyone about her illness, and now I see how in some ways, that wasn’t … fair? Good? Anyway, I realized there were some people I really would tell if something major was wrong, and those people are the same people I would call my Friend Family.

And the reason I would tell them, the same reason I wouldn’t tell others … trust.

Should a Brain Cloud begin descending on my brain, I wouldn’t want to be treated any differently by people than I had been before. This means not wanting condescending sympathy from people who had never treated me that way before. There are very few people in my life I actually trust. People who have never let me down, who know me profoundly, and care about me, who think I am wonderful just as the person I am. And I would want them to treat me the same, too.

While this final piece of the puzzle fell into place Sunday night after dinner with Cynji, it actually came into play a few days earlier.

I was a second pick again.

I don’t feel a need to get into it too much, other than to say that we all have to make our choices in life to the best of our abilities. But choices have consequences. Whenever I am someone’s second pick, I think to myself, “That’s a terribly disappointing ending.”

Because the truth isn’t just that I believe I should be their first choice, though that’s true. Nor is the truth that “they always regret.” Though that is true too.

It’s a disappointing ending because, in a certain way, I don’t think I ever get over it. Because when you don’t trust new people easily, and when you already have a mountain of people who have earned trust, who don’t make you insecure and don’t make you doubt, when you know forgiveness and acceptance and love from other, actual human beings,when you have people in your life who have never made you question your hard-earned faith in them; where is there room for people who you can’t trust?

As a practice, I don’t hate. It kills me that right now there are two people in my life who have active animosity against me. And while I can espouse morality here, I really don’t know what happens to the people in my life who have only once broken my trust, but who I find incredible and wish to have as part of my life. The last two years has been full of tough new lessons in trust, and I don’t believe I am succeeding when, instead of anger, I simply feel detached from deeper feelings for those people.

And yet these people have certainly remained in my life. I only know what I feel, not what I do. I am not made of tougher stuff than that.

Last night I got a phone call from Mom, inviting me to the beach this weekend. Henri sent me a text about how good the leftovers from the dinner I made were. Dad emailed to check up on my health and to make sure I’m still seeing the neurologist on Friday. XYT gchatted to say he had watched a scary movie and was doing laundry and he was sure someone was going to spook him in the laundry room (SPOILER: they did).

I’m very lucky to have the family I have, both inherent and curated (snicker). I know that, should I actually have a Brain Cloud, or should the window fall out of its frame and onto me (again), or should I end up disappointed at being someone’s second pick again, that there are people there who will be there for me. The continuing lesson of my life in these last two years is certainly this: you can live a life of not trying, and you will never fail; or, you can live a life trying all the time, and you will fail a lot. But you will learn a lot too.

Having family means someone will always be there to pick you up and to help you get better from every screw up, every disappointment, and every lesson learned from a failure.

But part of failing is learning that not everyone you invite will become part of your family.

Aunt Maryclaire died on Saturday night. Cancer had apparently rocked her body. This will happen when you don’t seek treatment. There was no chance for any emotional cushioning for any of us. We received word on Friday night that she was headed into the hospital, wasn’t expected to make it through the evening. No one had any idea she was even sick.

This will happen when you don’t tell anyone you have cancer.

I don’t blame her.

My father went to see his sister on Friday night. Here the five siblings would meet one last time together in this world. Dad hadn’t seen Aunt Chris, Mare’s twin sister, in 12 years. She showed up with a case of Old English “slammers.” Together the siblings sat in a hospital room, slamming malt liquor next to the sleeping form of Aunt Mare. Together they laughed and they reminisced and they drank, all while Mare tossed and turned and groaned until the morphine kicked in and she was finally at peace. I’m guessing she was pissed not to be able to have one more beer with the gang. With the family.

I spoke to my brother about this. He said the same thing I felt as soon as I heard this scene: this is what we ever were. This is our family. This is exactly what we do. Growing up, it was the back room at my grandmother’s place. The kids would run around, crazy, breaking things and screaming and fighting and being generally misbehaved kids. The siblings would gather in the back room, eating tomato pie, drinking and drinking and drinking. Cigarette smoke would block out the lighting. The sounds form the adult room were always the sounds of laughter. Storytelling and practical jokes. The sound of fresh cans of cheap beer being opened.

I hope someone brought tomato pie to the hospital.

I didn’t get to see Aunt Mare much as an adult. She and my father had feuded for much of my adult life, but a few years back they got the fuck over it. I remember the first time I saw her, after all those years. The last she had seen of me, I was some snotty, nerdy young kid, nose stuck deep in some Dragonlance novel or other. Now I was there, an adult at the table. She couldn’t get over how funny I was. She couldn’t get over the fact that I was an adult, hanging with the other adults, giving shit with the best of them. Somewhere in the absence, I had become one of the clan. I remember her making an extra effort to grab me a beer every time she went for another one herself.

For Christmas one year, just a few back, she gave each of her brothers a black coffee mug. Only, when you added hot liquid to the mug, a picture showed up on the outside: Aunt Mare, making a goofy face and waving from the side of the cup. Each of the brother thought this very funny, and very dumb. I told her I thought it was just about the funniest gift I had ever seen. And truly, I did. It was this weird realization of how hereditary sense of humor truly is.

A few weeks after that, I got a package in the mail. Aunt Mare sent me one of the mugs.

I don’t know where else to go with this.

I’m really going to miss my aunt, who was one of my favorite adults to be a child with.

It hadn’t occurred to me. Perhaps it was the last thing that had to heal over; the last vestige of being hurt, of mourning.

The other parts were so obvious: sadness, anger, frustration, fear, overindulgence in everything. When I got here, I decided that the best way to leave the past behind was to run forward, full steam. I had to change everything. I had to make a new life. Make new friends. Take new chances. Learn new skills. Build things with my hands. Build a life. Become something new. Phoenix from the ashes, right? So trite.

But it was important to keep moving forward. The Year of Saying Yes. It helped me to distance myself. And that helped me to start to heal.

Yet in the back of my mind, for so long, the past was still there. Being here, in this apartment, in this city, in this job, with these friends … I never admitted it before, not even to myself, but I knew. All of it felt like a visit. Everything felt like a station. A transition. A period of my life before things got back to where they had been. I guess I only realized it now, but I really think I kept looking at this apartment as the place I lived before I moved back to Baltimore. The city just a layover. The job just preparing me for getting back to the professional community I had always planned on being a part of, somewhere else. The friends? Did I really look at these friendships and think, “I’m so glad these people took care of me during the time I was with them, before I headed back home.”

Some part of me looked at all of this as the trappings of pleasantness I used to get myself right.

I still use the name of a scraggly, timid, bossy, bullheaded, pompom-tailed dog as a password. Tonight was the first time I felt disconnected from it. She’s not my dog, and she won’t be again.

And that’s okay. Sincerely, it’s good.

Before I got up to jot this down, I was sitting in bed, reading The Walking Dead. An open pack of Sour Patch Kids sits on the night stand next to an empty glass of water. I got up to refill the glass, and found Kir sleeping on the top of the couch. “All good boys and girls are going to bed!” I said. She squinted back at me, annoyed to be woken from her slumber. “Mer-Ow!” was her only response before nuzzling her face back into the cushion and returning to sleep.

Everything in the apartment is in its place. These things are mine; they have no resonant memories. The fridge is covered with artwork from my nieces, magnets from my various visits to cities across the country since I started the job, a drawing of a demonic cat face made by Hoob, a pictographic golf scorecard, and a graph I drew for the Sailor. The fridge is packed with leftovers from recipes I’ve recently learned to make, the door lined with bottles of homebrew. My records are all lined up on a shelf, except the one I have on the turntable, and its sleeve, which always rests on the same spot on my desk. Beside it are notes and scribbles and shopping lists of beer ingredients. On the coffee table, the remotes sit exactly where they always sit, and a checklist for collectibles in Dead Space 3 rests beside. My glasses are exactly where I put them every night before bed. From my seat, I see the edges of a box underneath my bed, housing a collection of heartbreaks and keepsakes, all from the last year of my life. A layer of dust lays on top of everything in here that I do not touch often. I think it was the dust that really got me; the knowledge that I’ve been here long enough to collect dust on my things.

I simply went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and the clutter on the counter, the dismissive cat, the things being exactly where they should be … it overwhelmed me, and still I cannot stop smiling.

Tonight, for the first time, I actually felt and knew: I am no longer running. This is where I want to be, and this is a life I really have made.

Tonight, for the first time, I actually felt that this was my home.