I'm not sure how I managed to avoid blogging about this on Sunday. I should have made the time, I know, but I had a mountain of homework to do, and had to do it all in the evening because I was out all day.

You see, Joe left home on Sunday. Over the previous week he'd been packing all that he needed into numerous, HUGE boxes, and on Sunday, me and my parents went with him to Liverpool University, and came home without him.

I was partially expecting it to be anti-climatic, really; not many words were really said, and the whole affair was very subdued. I barely said a word to Joe, and it felt as if we were just dropping him off on a school trip, or something similar.

It was only when we got back into the car and drove back into the centre of Liverpool that I started crying. God, I felt absolutely awful. I mean, me and Joe haven't been hugely, massively close over the last few years, but...he's my brother. He's been here with me my entire life, and now he's moving on to a whole new stage of his life and I'm on my own at home. He's not here anymore; it's freakishly quiet and empty, and it feels a hell of a lot worse than I thought it would.

Whilst I was walking around Liverpool with my parents (which, incidentally, didn't really take my fancy - or maybe we were just in the dingy area), even after I'd stopped crying I felt so sad, because while Joe's build-up to adulthood has been so slow and smooth it doesn't really have an effect, it hit me on Sunday that he really is, to most intents and purposes, an adult now, and soon I will be too. It was the strongest feeling I've ever had of leaving something behind.

Christ, I never expected to feel like this. I haven't cried since I got back, but I get the feeling I might soon enough. It's only been a day, and already the differences are glaring; when I'm leaving for school, his door doesn't crash open and the floorboards squeak, the door's locked and the house is empty when I get home, there's no music, no smell of pizza. I keep expecting to glimpse him around the house, and fleetingly find myself wondering where he is.

I wish I could tell him how much I'm going to miss him. But we've never been the sort of siblings that talk to each other about our feelings. (Well, not counting the consumption of many Cuban rum punches, of course.)

Ten memories:

• Joe and me clutching onto each others' arms and screaming as we ran down a soaking wet pathway in a tropical storm in Cuba,trying not fall over.
• Watching Pirates of the Caribbean on his laptop, and him swearing every time the screensaver came on.
• Endless games of darts that he always won.
• Our first trip to France; playing spies outside the cottage with our torches, and playing cards in our pyjamas and holding cuddly toys on the floor of our bedroom.
• His brief, but absolute, obsession with WWF wrestling.
• No matter how old he was, the huge grin he'd always get when Nana gave him his advent calendar.
• The overly-competitive table football matches, that started off with him always winning. Within a few months, I was the best.
• Finding him smoking in the garden in the pouring rain.
• Drinking with him and Fran in Cuba, and hearing a hell of a lot of secrets coming out.
• His terrible singing when he was in a good mood.

Gah. I could go on forever.

I know I'll probably see him soon. But for now, I really miss him, and I hope he enjoys it at Liverpool.

*sigh*...