This personal side of me is a side that not many get to see. I’ve decided to stop holding myself back, holding things in, and share them. I used to do online journaling, I had YEARS in my archive on blurty, does anyone remember blurty?? It was the same time that LiveJournal was a thing and I think there was another really popular one… along with when AOL would let you build your own webpage and people would just fill it with shout-outs to their bff’s, lol. Sad news, blurty has shut down, which I think is very unfortunate because if I had known that would happen, I would have backed up all my years of journal entries I had on there… but there is always time to start fresh, so here I am.

I want to be bigger than myself, I want to help others. I feel like through the years I have developed a callous emotional boundary, where inside, I am caring and genuinely want to help those who seek advice or a shoulder to lean on.. but on the outside I can come off sort of ‘not-my-problem-ish’. It’s not good to compare yourself to who you think you used to be, but I often do, because I remember when I was able to understand what people were going through and I FELT the connection, I could FEEL the empathy, and I feel like I always was able to clearly identify a solution or even just allow the other person to heal. But somewhere along the way, I have buried that.

My life has changed drastically in the past 2 years, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life! 2016 was a huge year for me and 2017 is going to be just as big, but it almost feels like I got amnesia, like I only know my life for the past 2 years. Every now and again I will get into a funk, and memories flood back, and the problems that I hear other people talk about, I can relate to but I don’t open my mouth about it, because nobody likes a know it all. But if I can just post it on the internet and get it off my chest, then maybe I can help at least 1 or 2 people who struggle through certain things, and at the very least, it can be my own outlet to finally release these things from my heart.

I guess I will start off with what burdens my heart the most, most days. My brother. It’s the heaviest weight I carry, day in and day out. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him and miss him more than words will ever express.

This picture was taken at one of our birthday parties, maybe we were… 12? This is my twin brother, CJ. He was my partner in crime since before birth. They way I’m talking about him makes it seem like he’s dead or something… but he’s still alive, and I guess that’s what I’m most grateful for. I have a friend that I went to high school with who’s brother passed away while serving in the USMC. I remember reading about it and balling my eyes out because my brother was also serving at the same time, and getting the news that she got, was my absolute worst fear.

My brother and I were all we had growing up, he was my best friend, but I never really understood that til after he wasn’t around anymore. Of course we fought growing up, we fought a LOT, but he always had my back when it came down to anyone else, and the same was true for me. We grew up in a hectic household, to say the least, and if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know how my life would have turned out. We had such an amazing way of creating our own stable reality away from the fighting and anger, we would tell each other our deepest feelings and he would promise that we would be away from there one day and live happy lives. We had dreams, big dreams, the universe was our limit.. but as we got older, we grew distant, we hung out with different people and the years of growing up in a household full of fighting and anger really took it’s toll on us. I would be resentful because instead of leaving the house, I’d stay and take care of everything to try and prevent arguments, and he would leave and escape and do whatever he wanted. Things eventually got so bad that my dad decided to move in the middle of our senior year, about 3 hours away, to the middle of no where, and it wasn’t long after that my brother joined the Marines.

This was 2007 at CJ’s boot camp graduation. He enlisted in infantry, he did AMAZING while he was in, he made great friends, was great with guns, was super athletic, but he missed his freedoms. I was back in MD doing my own thing, but I really believe I was going through a major identity crisis. I had never known life without my brother. I had never spent more than maybe a week in my life without seeing my brother, and he was gone in what seemed like a blink of the eye. I started to realize throughout the years of being apart from him, how much of a part of me he actually was. I would catch  myself talking like him, using the same mannerisms, almost like I was trying to recreate and fill the void that was left in me. I tried to connect with people on the same deep level that I was used to with him, and it always felt like nobody ever really understood me.

I recently came across a video on my computer that I made for him while he was overseas, of what was on my mind, how I was feeling at the time.. and I had to delete it. It was depressing! I could SEE and hear in my voice how much I missed him and how confused I was. I didn’t know who I was without a twin. I feel like a lot of people go through something similar to this when a parent leaves or dies, or when they’ve been in a relationship with someone for a long time and then it comes to an end and they’ve spent years building this connection full of inside jokes and memories and comfort knowing you can depend on them, and then one day you wake up and they’re gone. I had never really been the most outgoing one between the both of us, and I turned into even more of an introvert. It’s hard to describe what was going on inside of me but it was like I didn’t feel safe to be myself without him there, I felt like I was weird and he was not around for me to have reassurance, to have that ‘it’s ok, I KNOW you’ feeling. I got into a pretty serious relationship to fill the void of missing my brother, but while I was in it I was constantly comparing this guy to my brother. Looking back, I never really wanted to relationship aspect of it, I just wanted to companionship, but guys don’t typically think that way and they often want MORE than that.. if you know what I mean. I knew from the very beginning that I didn’t want to say yes when he [my ex] asked me if we were together, but I didn’t want to say no and end up having nobody. It was selfish, but if I had just been honest from the very start, I would have saved him AND myself 5 years that ended in a real heartbreak for him.

I went through a lot of changes as a person while my brother was gone; it took many, many years to be able to wake up in the morning and feel ok with who I am as a person. My brother got out after 4 years of serving, and he dealt with addiction and mental disorders and that was even more of a struggle for US to deal with. It’s a funny thing that happens when you are trained to kill… they program your mind to feel no emotion.. makes sense… but they never reprogram it back… also makes sense. So, that level we connected on so deeply growing up.. was gone. It was like peeling an onion with no core trying to reach the brother I had always known and loved.

Fast forward (because this is getting lengthy).. to today. It’s been almost 11 years since I have really KNOWN my brother and had him as a part of my life, regularly. Currently he is in another Veterans hospital trying to stay clean and get the help he needs. I’m grateful that he’s alive and is still trying to be a better, happier HIM. But it doesn’t change the hole in my heart. I hear other people talk about their siblings, I see photos of them together on holidays or random trips, and I get a little bitter on the inside. I wonder if they hold those memories dear to their heart like I do, I wonder if they appreciate the bond they share, or their presence or their safety net of knowing you have a family member around who knows you more than anyone else… Everyday I say a silent prayer for my brother and my parents, that we can be together as a family again, before my parents die. It sounds morbid… but it’s the truth. There was a day a few years ago, 2014, that I was able to go pick my brother up and bring him over and a family cook out.. and it was a great feeling having him home, we just need to make it a more reoccurring thing that happens, get him re-integrated into the family… we have to re-learn each other and what it  means to be a family.