#I am venting my pain

[plumppushu]

I am not the kind of person who goes into personal stuff but… 2023 deserve a special note.

This year, I lost my older brother Yves. It was unexpected and it crushed my soul into million pieces. It was not the first sibling I lost but this time it did hit different… Michele, my older sister, died of cancer in June 2017. She had, for over a decade, cut contact with my dad for reasons that I can understand as an adult (and at the same time, me and my closest brother as we were kind of collateral damage). Yet the fact is she did and when she passed away I hadn’t seen her since she went no contact it was painful but still felt kind of an open door that will never close because there was (and still is) no closure… but my older brother, it was not the same.

I was not super close with him (distance between 2 provinces made things a bit difficult) but I was close enough to feel like my soul had been ripped from my body. That my heart was shredded into thousand pieces and that I had to go on with life knowing that he was gone and that I was still expected to be functional, to move on, to be a responsible adult.

8 months have passed and I am still not okay. I still grieve. I grieved and cried for Michele, the sister I grew up with and for Yves that I met in 2008, when he was finally ready to meet his biological family and more importantly his dad. Because back in the 1960’s it was impossible for my dad to have custody, because in the 1960’s, he was given to adoption and laws were different and well… things have changed now. Hoping that the path he was forced to take will never happen to any kids ever again. The sad part is it happened, he did his very best in life but it came to an end in April this year. And I am still so very angry that it came to pass, that he died and that I am bereft of my older brother.

We can say that life isn’t fair and all of that shit but I don’t care. I lost my older brother and I am still so sad that I I can’t properly deal with my pain.

Now. Here I am, with only one sibling left, feeling raw and still unsure of where things will go in 2024 and beyond. There is still so much regret, so much pain, so many things I should have done for myself that I did not in 2023 but it’s too late to go back and try to fix what you cannot. Too late and yet… the only thing left to do for me, for my dad, for my only sibling left… is to move forward. As hard as it is, there is no other issue or solution for us. My older brother is gone and nothing I can do will ever change that fact. I can scream into the void, bang at the Fates’ door and voiced out loud how unfair life is, how it is cruel for his own sons he is leaving behind, for my father who has to bury his second child, for my brother who has to go through a second time that one of his dear sibling has passed away. Loss is an unfair and cruel thing to deal with and sometimes unavoidable.

Here we are, close to the new year and yet, I wish I could go back to January 2023, when my older brother was still alive, when I gave him my last hug, when we missed each other’s calls and laughed about it and made plans to see each other when I would be back to my birth province. When he was still there, still traveling, still very much alive.

But I cannot. And I grieve. And i am not okay.

My life is moving on into 2024, with my own projects and goals and what I have left of my family and trying to heal and get better. It might be the year that will bring change to my life again but whatever pain it will bring, nothing will compare to 2023. Not for me anyways. Grief is a terrible thing to feel and it does not heal or go away no matter how hard we try and how much time will pass.

In 2017, the dying wish of my older sister Michele was that I would continue and make art. I did my BAC in comic books (and it was the best 3 years of my life) and grief made me stop creating and crushed my soul from doing anything artistic for over 5 years (last thing I did was a fanart online of Voltron, a fanzine that helped me for the first 10 days of my overwhelming grief) and did not do anything since. I moved one province over and never touched my drawing pad or did any fanart or OCs. Zero art at all. Now that I am still hurt, that I am still raw, still screaming my loss into the void, maybe I should start 2024 with Michele’s dying wish and channel my brother Yves’s grief with art. I think that would help my overwhelming grief to be channeled somewhere and turn my pain into something visual and to finally start healing my wounded soul.

I am not okay. But maybe I could try and work on making myself heal again? To live again? To at least make sure that both my siblings, through my art, can be alive again and maybe I could heal, tiny bit by tiny bit, and honor them by creating things that would make them proud?

2023 was probably the most painful year of my life but if I grow from this bad year then there could be something to learn from this sad part of my existence.

For those who are still living with sadness at the end of this year, you are not alone. Your feelings are valid, no matter how many months, years, decades it has been. Grief does not care about the passing of time. Life forces us to continue along the flow of our daily life and the world continue to turn, unaware of our deep pain.

But.

For some of us… life pause for an instant.

It stops and we cry and wail to an uncaring sky that continue to turn round and round, day and night.

It goes on for all the rest of the world that are nor aware we are screaming at the uncaring doors of death, trying to keep our loved ones close to us for just one more day, one more hour, one more minute.

And yet it is too late for us, for them, for it has passed and we are helpless to stop the sun to dawn on another day without our dear departed one that has left this world.

I lost my brother in April. I still grieve. And no matter how many months it has been I am still at death’s doors, banging, screaming, pleading for him to come back and to talk to me once more, to say “I love you” to his sons, to talk to my dad, to call me…to leave me a message on my phone so I can listen to his voice once more so I can never forget the sound of it, how it was filled with unsaid feelings of kindness and compassion.

I am still grieving. But I hope from the bottom of my heart that 2024 will help me heal from this deep and overwhelming pain i have in my soul.

********

May 2024 be soft and kind to anyone who are still in pain. Your grief is valid. Your pain is real but also reflect the deep love you have inside of you. And from one deeply wounded soul to another, may love and kindness come to you and heal your wounds with their compassion.

[impure-as-a-lamb]

genuinely fuck all my family members that made fun and keep making fun of my pain and don’t take me seriously. then something bad happens or i get finally diagnosed and they’re like “omg why didn’t you tell me sooner???” YOU ALWAYS TOLD ME I WAS EXAGGERATING.

[denszuu]

a burning hill // mitski

[catamations]

*i inflict soul crushing pain onto the positive character yet again* <- he cannot keep getting away with this

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i’ve talked about this before but a bpd symptom i absolutely HATE is the lack of emotional permanence.

no matter how many loving people i have in my life, the second they are gone it's like i was never loved and that it's all in my imagination but as soon as they come back, it's like i've never been sad

[hdra77]

i hate feeling this way and i'm not even sure what's the cause of this but it's been a recurring issue for like, a while now. getting stupid brain numbing headaches that makes me throw up everytime and had to take meds to stop myself from vomiting

the feeling on my chest tightens and it hurts really bad. is this some health issue i should be worried about?? no matter how many meds i take i always end up vomiting and getting sick again and again

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

me stubbornly forcing myself to drink green tea and rest from my THIRD COLD THIS MONTH

[corvid-canidae-art]

bloodsick

[0xeyedaisy]

Aw man...

[lostmf]

[pienhime]

seeing twitter weeb bros talking ab some "menhera girls r my type" and wanting their vtuber oshis to get "landmine outfits" but knowing theyre lying and wouldnt actually put up w a real jirai kei girl is. rlly fucking sad. i want a partner who shares my interests but weeb guys think menhera means yandere uwu babygirl and landmine clothes r a sexy costume and weeb girls think menhera is "problematic" but dont know its original meaning and that "landmine type is a clothing style w a reclaimed name!" so ik ill likely never find a partner who both shares my interests and is willing to be there for me when im mentally unwell

[bamsara]

IM HOME and god that was. something.cool festival my leg hurts

[milkweedman]

Made another spindle. It's very small. Also very irregular and lumpy due to the wood (I wanted the raised brown lines to stay and erred on the side of caution in how much I cut away...but that did lead to a very irregular spindle).

It also wanted to crumble as I carved, so pretty much all the fine tuning I just did by sanding it, which helps to compress the fibers down as well as remove material without crumbling or splintering.

It really came to life when I oiled it. Probably will be best after a few good coats and some time. My woodburning kit seems to be totally gone, which is a bummer. So I'm not woodburning anymore.

Spins well. Obviously being so tiny and light it was always going to be a fine spinning spindle, but effortless thread from an unprepped piece of fleece is pretty indicative as well. I seem to find myself carving mostly thread spindles at the moment. They're always so small and light in the hand, they remind me of holding baby birds.

[dinkbear]

what is it about using a mobility aid that makes people forget you’re human? 🤔

[waywardsou2]

Just finished watching The Clone Wars.

My heart is in a million little prices and I have tears staining my face.

I will never recover from that

Jesse, Thorn, Kix, Fives, Tup...fucking all of them. They are gone...

My boys...my brother's. They are just gone...

And Rex, I couldn't stand to watch him cry. What he said about not existing if it weren't for the war was true but it's so so sad. He still deserved to be a person.

They all do... I am so glad that the Bad Batch helped tie up a few lose ends in terms of the clone but God fucking damn it this hurts

I'm going to re-watch the Bad Batch now cause myself more pain 👍

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

feeling very grateful for the cute barista today who clearly clocked a) my fontaines d.c. tote, and b) the fact i was stuck on a spectacularly bad date, and proceeded to play me an entire playlist of fontaines d.c. and sneak me extra vegan marshmallows with my hot chocolate