March has started and so have the what-ifs.

That’s because this Easter Sunday will mark the fourth anniversary of me picking up the phone and being told my big brother had killed himself.

So while most people will be eating chocolate and/or celebrating Jesus rising from the dead, I’m likely to be much more maudlin.

Even if I promised myself I wouldn’t, it’s hard not to think about what was going through Matt’s mind in the run up to March 30, which is when he executed (because in the end he did exactly that) his detailed plan for death.

What if we had known about his despair? What if he had realised how much he was loved? What if he could have foreseen the ripple effect that his suicide would have?

Would he still have hung himself or was death something he actually craved?

But these questions that don’t have answers, no matter how much I search for them, aren’t limited to understanding my brother’s final act. Recently, they’ve been spilling over – uninvited - into my own life, too.

I’ve never been one to dwell on paths not taken, preferring instead to concentrate on the opportunities I’ve grabbed: the options I’ve said ‘yes’ to instead of ‘no’. Teaching English on a sun-drenched island in the Med is a wildly different life to the one I had envisaged as the features editor of a national newspaper and I know more than a few people are confused I gave up a career I loved to go into something that I might not have been so passionate about.

And yet, I’m glad I made the switch. In the UK, I was in debt and would never have been able to pay off my massive overdraft or student loans or even get a mortgage for my house. As it happens, I’ve discovered I love teaching, too.

Chiding students because they don’t want to relinquish nights out in order to revise for an important end-of-course test isn’t that fun, admittedly, but having eight-year-olds doubled up with laughter while I attempt to rollerblade during a lesson is.

Nevertheless, ‘what-ifs’ from way-back-when have started to rise to the surface of my consciousness, begging to be heard. I don’t know why I’ve suddenly become concerned with different outcomes from events that took place decades ago, but I have.

Being a different person – a nicer person – around my brother when I was a horrible, hormonal teenager is the obvious one but all kinds of other questions have been whirling around inside my brain, demanding to be answered.

No aspect of my life has escaped the scrutiny. Instead, work, love, money, health and happiness have all been subjected to my barrage of one-way questions and mental flow-charts.

And that in itself is strange because this strange process of analysis has nothing to do with being sad or upset at the direction my life has gone in. I’m satisfied with the way things have turned out and, while I may not be quite back to my pre-31/03/2009 levels of happiness, I’m getting there.

That hasn’t stopped the relentless soul-searching, though. However, maybe that’s the point. I’m meant to be questioning the big choices in order to confirm that I really am on the path I want to be. It’s been a ruthless process of turning away students I don’t want to teach, turning down articles I don’t want to write and turning back people I don’t want in my life. I’ve seen how easily sadness and stress can spiral into depression with seemingly no way out and that’s not a place I intend to go.

March is always going to be a difficult month - this year, especially. There’s no point fighting it or pretending otherwise, but that’s not to say I have to be passive: I have two choices. I can either focus on the dull ache of grief or concentrate on the positives. Needless to say, I’ve chosen the latter, which is why I’ve made sure the next 31 days are overflowing with fun things I can’t wait to do.

In addition to three sessions a week at the gym, walking 15-20km every other day in the run up to Just Walk and going out for aperitifs and pizza with friends, I’m also managing to squeeze in one weekend to Lake Garda and another to Milan, along with a trip to a tiny island that I’ve been longing to visit for years. What that means is that in the future, whenever I reminisce about March 2013, I’ll smile at all the happy memories that have been created.

Whichever way I look at it though, there’s only one ‘what if’. If Matt hadn’t killed himself, I would never have discovered how much strength I have. I’m now only £740 away from reaching my fundraising target for Winston’s Wish, ensuring bereaved children in the UK get the professional help they need. You can sponsor me here