It’s not the girlfriend.

1) She wasn’t a surprise; I’ve known about her since my birthday.

2) I am pretty realistic about the fact that we make about as much sense together as peanut butter and pickles.

What I am upset about is losing a friend, someone who really makes me laugh, someone who I have no other source of connection to so I will have no idea how he’s doing making this effectively feel like he died and the nagging feeling that this is the punishment I get for not being in Vancouver. And in my logical brain, I think logical thoughts like, “So what if you were there and you two had properly dated and it ended–because it most likely would have–you already know how much worse it could be.”

But loss isn’t about logic.

And my brother’s birthday is tomorrow, so it’s a sensitive time of year to have people walk out of my life.

He would have been 36.

Would have. Conditional perfect tense. The grammar of grief.