About (and to) my brother, who is out there somewhere

I realized today that it's been almost seven months since the last time I heard from my brother. The last phone call I received lasted for 30 seconds - long enough for him to ask something of me and for me to say no. I haven't had an actual conversation with him for over 9 months. I don't know where he his, how he is, what he's doing. This is the way he wants it to be.

It's an incredibly weird thing. Our relationship was always oddly complicated by the parenting role I was forced into with him. I'm not his mom but I'm more than his sister. I was forced to lead him but not empowered to teach him. I did a very poor job of the whole thing and it's a great example of how teenagers struggle to be good parents without help from more mature people. All of which is neither here nor there, sort of, but goes a long way to hint at my complicated connection to my brother.

 And now he's gone.

 Some days, I want to whine about the whole thing. I'm supposed to just keep going as if nothing has really changed. He removed himself from my life voluntarily and (I assume) is moving along in his own journey. He didn't tragically disappear and there's always the lingering possibility that one day he'll call me up to say hello. Having lost my mom I do understand what that possibility can mean, what hope it carries. But the circumstances regarding his absence don't really make everything all OK. I've lost something, and it's pretty big.

 A part of me is so very angry with him for creating this division. I think that it wouldn't be so hard for him to email me sometimes, just to let me know he's alive. But that probably wouldn't be enough either.

I'm trying to mourn my brother, knowing he's out there somewhere. It's surreal and confusing. A part of me needs to grieve for the loss of him but the rest of me sees that need as self-indulgent. After all, I say, he's not really gone. I can't help but wonder how many times I'll think that and for how long before I'll cry.

If all this sounds like going around in circles, it's because that's where I'm stuck. Circling the absence of a person who meant so much to me. A person who's gone but isn't, a grief that's real but denied.