Everybody's favorite

So yesterday I moved the picture board from the edge of the couch to the bookshelf.  I have not moved it back, so I guess that is some progress.

However, there are three emails I need to respond to, a call I need to remember to return before 10p every day, and some Christmas cards to send, and... I can't even complete the emails.  I start, and stop, start, and stop.  It's only email!  I was sitting at work, trying to send them, or really just compose them, and I felt my throat getting raw and I said, OK.  I will give it a rest.  The grief is manifesting and I just can't do it now.  We do what we can, when we can.  All three emails make mention of the death, and/or how we're doing, and I just can't respond.  It bugs me.

The short, shallow, easy answer is that we're all right, we're okay, we're getting by, we're getting along-ish.  I guess people are satisfied with this answer.  Sometimes I don't elaborate on it.  We are past the point of robotically going about our days, going to work, engaging in our routines, trying not to think about it.  At the same time, I know we need a bereavement group, I know we need a counselor, and uh... I haven't sought them out.  It's not the easy thing to do, seeing a counselor as siblings, to try to save or repair our relationship, but we probably should invest in each other since we're all we effectively have of our nuclear family anymore.  I am concerned that Dear Brother is going to pick up and leave me for the other side of the country.  I do not want to live in a state with no family.  So... my thought is to try to work on the relationship and make it less tense or just stiff before he decides he's going.

Even though he has annoyed the crap out of me this year, I wouldn't want to see him go.  Even though he is, to use childish terms, a real pest, he is my sibling.  I fear a great geographical distance will have a chilling effect on our relationship.  I value it even tho it vexes me and I'm currently not getting much out of it.  Blood from a turnip.