Saying goodbye.

I don't know why I'm writing this, really. I hate splashing my private fights and feuds all over Facebook; why should I be any different with a blog? But it is different, I guess. This is my online diary; if I can't be truthful here where can I be? But I don't think that's why I'm writing this. I think I just need to write it. I need to get it out of me before it drowns me.

This post is about family. I am a family girl. I’m really, really close to my parents. I think that even if they weren’t my parents and I just knew them as random people I’d think that they were pretty brilliant. My Dad is smart, funny and a genuinely kind person; my Mum is sweet, sociable and the strongest woman I’ve ever met.

I also have four brothers. They all live far away and I don’t see them very often; we only really keep in contact on Facebook. One of them I was very close to — he looked after me from birth until I was about nine or ten, when he moved out. He was always like a second father to me, and we spent so much time together. He was like my best friend as well as a brother, even though he’s 18 years older than me.

Note the past tense.

He moved out, got married, had five children. You’d expect us to drift apart when that happened and we did; I had my life, he had his. But I always knew that if I needed him or wanted to speak to him I could. I used to be safe in the knowledge that even if we hadn’t spoken for weeks he was there. We thought we would always be close.

Again, note the past tense.

Things got awkward. I won’t go into much detail, but essentially over the many years my brother and his wife have been together, things have happened that have really upset my Mum and I. To the point that my Mum felt that she couldn’t see my brother’s wife anymore because of the upset and pain she’d been caused. She sent an e-mail removing herself entirely from the situation so she didn’t have to make my brother “choose” between his wife and his Mum. She cut herself off and, seeing how upset my Mum was, I cut myself off too.

We still spoke to my brother, however. This continued until last week when a row over, as always, something ridiculously stupid meant that my brother, his wife, my Mum and I were arguing over Facebook. Yesterday I received a message from my brother that was unlike anything I’d ever had from him — angry and upset. I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to make things worse.

Today I found that he and his wife had deleted me, my boyfriend and my parents from their friend lists. This may seem like a small thing but it’s not. He wouldn’t have done this unless he was really, really serious. I genuinely do not believe that I am ever going to see my brother or his five children again.

When I first found this out, I felt sick. Genuinely, physically sick. It was like someone had punched me hard in the stomach and hit me hard over the head. I felt dazed. I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or think. I was just...lost.

He’s my brother. Whatever has happened, he’s my brother. No matter how much we have grown apart or how much he has changed since those long hours where we would eat junk food and watch films I was probably a little too young for, he’s my brother. And now I’m not going to see him or his kids again.

In some ways, if you completely take emotion out of it, this is better. I won’t have to worry about upsetting him. I won’t have to worry about being upset. He can get on with his life and be happy; I can get on with mine and be happy. Rationally I know that everything is going to be alright.

But I can’t take emotion out of it. And right now I feel like things are never going to be right again.