People sometimes ask me how long I spend editing these things.  Not much.  A cursory glance, a few changed words, and then it's done.  I tend to call my drafts "finished," which isn't really accurate, because I'll find myself going back over them days later, changing little things here and there, even if no one will ever read the edited version.  So, I guess the answer is that I write it out and then I'm done with it, but I don't ever stop thinking about it, and I don't ever stop trying to improve it.  Whatever it is.

“I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.”

Today marks the second anniversary of my brother’s death.  There is a vocal part of me that does not want to recognize this, wants to ignore it, wants to get past it and move on.

This is the first time I have ever written about Hart since he died. I do not like it.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, or that I’m struggling for words.  No, I have too many words, too many disparate thoughts that I don’t want to acknowledge.  It feels strange to even type out his name.  This is the worst I have ever felt while writing.

I think that it’s probably important.  To speak, I mean.  Or write, in this case.  Even if I don't ever do it, even if I'm not good at it. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve made it to speaking yet.  I talk about Hart, about what he was like, about the things he did; I even occasionally talk about our relationship.  I don’t talk about his death.  I’ll give facts, snippets of useless information to anyone who asks – and no one asks - but I don’t talk about it the way you’d talk about something important.  I give suitably morose “too bad” statements, lay it out as if it were nothing more than a macabre timeline of unfortunate events, and then end my story with a joke and a chuckle.  It is a self-defense mechanism that I am not sure I understand. 

When I was in high school, I wrote an essay about my brother’s struggles with depression.  I’m not sure what I did with it; it’s probably long gone by now, victim of numerous hard drive wipes and catastrophic computational failures, but I may have even included it in my undergraduate applications.  I’ve rarely thought about that essay, and I don’t remember what was in it, other than that I titled it “Blankets.”  I think it made my parents very sad.

February ninth is the date that I remember.  Not the fifth, which is today.  I’m not sure what significance the ninth actually has, other than that which I’ve ascribed to it – I don’t know if that was when I learned he was dead, if that was when he died, if that was the day I flew to San Francisco, or if it has some other, even more disconnected relevance.  I don’t think it matters.

The ninth is next Thursday.  I know this because the gourmet foodstuffs my father and I ordered will be arriving on Tuesday, the seventh: Four quail, fifteen quail eggs, a pre-made container of duck-and-veal demi-glace, two large sections of duck foie gras, and some sort of caviar selection that my father has designed.  It feels strange to me to be celebrating.  Last year, I think I spent most of the day in my car, driving up and down the canyon roads near our house in Boulder.  This year, I am in Summit County, skiing at Copper Mountain and Arapahoe basin. 

My father told me yesterday that he thought Hart would approve of our plan of stuffing ourselves with expensive, decadent food.  I don’t know what Hart would have thought.  Hart is dead.  I don’t usually like ascribing emotions or opinions to him.  Josh is probably right, though.  There are things that Hart liked, and pigging out was one of them. 

At some point in the last several weeks I reminded myself that it was February, which meant that it had already been two years.  I must have blocked it out again, because yesterday, when my father reminded me, I realized I had forgotten.  I think it would have come back to me as we got closer to the ninth.  February fifth holds no meaning for me, although it apparently does for my parents.  That’s up to them.  Mostly, I find that reality is what you make it.

The second year has been worse than the first.  When I came back from school, I felt as though I had some sort of purpose.  I was not pleased to be back in Colorado, but I could tell myself that I was doing my part to keep our family together, and that, at least, had some sort of meaning, some sort of importance.  Working at my father’s company was just a temporary thing; it helped him get back to work and it kept me from losing my mind.  Now, it has been two years since I graduated, and the only progress I have made is, finally, completing a set graduate school applications.  I haven’t even decided if I want to go back to graduate school in English.  Some days I think that I should go to culinary school.  Or get more serious about cobbling, sewing, tailoring, even biology.  Even law school.  Once again, I’m working at Stratus, feeling more out of place than I ever did during my first stint, feeling as though I ought to be doing something else, feeling as though I’m somehow gaming the system and stifling my own growth, but also feeling relieved at having a job. 

People ask me, “How are you doing?” Or, “How are your parents?” I always tell them, “OK.” Usually, I don’t want to talk to them.  I don't know what they're asking.  Do they mean, "How are you doing?" Or do they mean, "How are you coping with the death of your brother?" Most people don’t ask, though; they’ll ask me what I’ve been up to, what I’ll be doing next year, if I’m planning on staying in Colorado.  I’ve been here for two years.  Two years is a long time.  Have you seen Finding Nemo? You know how the Ellen Degeneres-fish repeats “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” to herself, over and over again?  When I got back from school, that’s what I would tell myself to do. “Just keep swimming; Stop, and you’ll sink.  You’ll drown.  You’ll die.  You’ll wallow, you’ll be stuck, stuck somehow somewhere someway.

I knew that the first year after Hart died would be a bad year.  I didn’t think that the second year would be worse. The first year was survival. The second year is uncertain, vague, gelatinous, lacking in gravity.  What do you do when you realize that you are alive?  That you are alive, but that nothing will ever be the same again, ever?  It felt like someone had accidentally hit “pause,” that Hart had just stepped out for a minute, and that soon enough he’d step right back in.  I spent a year keeping my head above water.  I don’t know what to do now. 

I have nightmares about Hart.  Not that he’s dead, but that he’s alive.  He’s alive, and he’s just been pretending, or hiding, or there’s been some terrible misunderstanding.  I’m always angry when he reappears: “How could you do this?! Why did you have to die?  Why can’t you stay dead?”  My dream-identity can never cope with the double-shock of learning that he died, acclimating, and then learning that he’s alive; and so I wish that he were dead still, that I didn’t have to (once again) re-map the world in my throbbing head.  I feel very guilty about these dreams.

I have a few things of Hart’s.  They’re mostly unrecognizable now.  I have a pair of black, coated jeans that I bought with him while we were in Gothenburg.  I tailored them with my sewing machine, and now they’re like leggings.  I have a pair of APC jeans that I gave to him after I purchased a better-fitting pair.  Those were bleached, and worn, and now they’ve been dyed black.  I also have his Gameboy.  This summer, when my parents and I went to the family cabin on Lake Sunapee, I brought the newest Pokémon game with me.  Hart loved Pokémon, and whenever we went on family trips he’d bring it with him.  It was often infuriating at the time, but it felt right to bring it with me and slog my way through the game.  

I do not have enough time to have any time to waste.  I do not have time for bland foods, bland movies, or bland days. I do not have the patience for bland people.  I do not like to kill time, waste time, or pass time.  I don’t like it when I catch myself doing it.  It’s difficult to quantify that, to know how things fit into such a heavy-duty hierarchy.  I think, though, that it is most important to not stop having fun.  Surviving is not living.