So things are worse than I thought, but that doesn’t mean they’re too bad… I think…

I’ve always known our family isn’t the greatest. We can’t go a day without one person arguing with the other. We never eat dinner together. There’s rarely a day where we all sit down together and do something together. When we have conversations, it either contains some nagging or complaints. We aren’t the richest of people. My parents are the stereotypic type of married couple you see on television: work work work, mom does all the cooking and hates it, dad likes to be lazy when he’s at home, mom and dad go out without the other and come back home, then go to sleep. Brother and I are usually at home, doing absolutely nothing and although we’re ashamed of it, we do nothing about it.

But aside from the obvious, it goes in a little deeper.

I never really realized how genuinely unhappy my mother is. She hates life as much as the rest of us do. But for her, there is no “brighter side” or “hey let’s look to the future.” She’s getting old, and I know it, though I don’t like to acknowledge it. The most she wants out of this is for my brother and me to grow up, mature, and live a happy, successful life. But she can’t even get that because we’re letting her down.

My father owns a separate business, aside from his normal day job. Because we need the money. It’s way too much for one person to handle alone, so he got my brother to help him. Here’s the downside: my brother hates it. He never wanted to go into business and he hates what he does. And the result? My brother loafs around and does what he can to delay working. So the laziness seeps into my dad too. Now my dad hates going to work and he too puts everything off until it’s panic time, and when it’s panic time it’s time to blame my brother. When my brother and dad are running around arguing, my mother gets sick of it and accuses the both of them of being deadbeats that leave everything for the last minute. This has gone on for a long time.

There is one option open for my brother: he can quit. But if he quits…the separate business will shut down because my dad can’t possibly do it by himself. So my brother has the burden of deciding what to do. He doesn’t want to let my dad down. But my mother brought up a good point: why bother continuing to work for my dad if he doesn’t want to and continues to do a bad job at it?

I also realize, if my brother does move on to a new job, he won’t be here anymore. No more Keeweepie (one of the many nicknames I give him). Just me. I know I only have less than two years left till I go on to college and turn 18 (and the thought really scares me). But I still want him to be here for those last two years. I guess it’s a little selfish. And I realize many of my peers have siblings too, and they’ve moved away long before they even reached high school. So whatever comes, will come. And hopefully I’ll be able to deal with it.

My brother tore a ligament in his leg a while back and it will never heal, unless he goes into surgery. Currently he has that problem, along with being sick and having two eyes infected with pink eye. He’ll be fine. But it makes my mother even more unhappy. She says this is not the first time he’s had his eyes infected and it’s because he is too lazy to take out his contact lenses before going to sleep. She’s warned him to to (and I even attempted for a while to remind him every time before I go to sleep), but it still happens anyways. And it reminds her the fact that his laziness is affecting his life. About his leg: we want him to go through surgery, of course. So he can walk normally, run, exercise and do everything. But money is a problem again. We’re not rich. My mom said something about my two aunts offering to help pay the debt if he goes through surgery because they know we don’t have money. And like any person, she doesn’t want help and she doesn’t want to take money from someone else.

It’s not fair… MONEY MONEY MONEY. Money is everything. We need money to live. We need to freaking pay to go to the doctor. The sole reason I’m going to school is because I want to make money. Yes, education is important for me to become a well-mannered, intelligent, young woman, but the fact of the matter is, I need to go to school to make money. You need retirement money so you can die without having to work your ass off when you’re old and can barely move. Sometimes I wonder if this is more civilized than the natives we keep learning about in school. They worked hard, but they worked together. Everyone was part of the family. They didn’t try to cheat one another to gain more money for themselves. They didn’t have education, but they could die free… Maybe I’m just romanticizing it. Since I know life gets hard no matter what life style you choose.

Mom’s upset. She’s upset because my brother is twenty five years old. He’s gone through childhood, teenhood, and he’s past the threshold of adulthood. He’s gone to school, and he’s done with college. She’s worried the older he gets, the harder it will be to find a job. People want to hire fresh, young geniuses. Not old deadbeats.

Sometimes, times like these make me wonder, Where the hell have I been? I have such a simple task. Go to school. Do my homework. Study hard. Clean the house. That’s IT. It makes me cry to know I haven’t even been doing these simple, simple tasks. I have a horrible habit. I’m lazy and I procrastinate. It’s been in me ever since I was little. But why do I let myself give in? Why don’t I try harder? I have the motivation. I know what I need to do. Why don’t I do it?

Damn it, I don’t expect myself to change overnight. But I really need to make an effort. I need to start trying NOW.