Posted by:
puck
(
)
Date: December 16, 2010 04:51AM
My kid brother has been on his mission since mid-September. I have gotten 5 letters from him. I write every other day or so. He's in Colorado.
My cat died a couple weeks ago. My brother and I had raised these 2 cats since they were found in an abandoned box. One of them died a year and a half ago from a respiratory infection -- and he was my brother's cat. Mine died all of the sudden, apparently from a mosquito bite that transmitted some form of heartworm that can't be protected against...of course, he lived with my parents so I hadn't seen him in ages. But it'd be easier to deal with if I could talk to my brother, too.
Last week, I got an email from my dad that was basically a criticism on my way of life. He hates what I'm doing. He hates where I go to school, he hates that I'm applying to law school, and he thinks I'm living a life of sin. I called him in response and asked him to please not send such emails during finals, as it is kind of distracting. He got really, really mean. Like, it's times like that where I just don't understand how my brother and I are his progeny. I swear we're adopted (and on a side note, I'm very seriously considering changing my last name away from my father's. After this somewhat traumatic conversation, I want nothing to do with the man, including his name).
But it would have been nice to been able to call my brother and say, look, this is terrible, we shouldn't be treated this way!
The hockey season is underway, and I want him to be around the corner to play some shinny. It's effing cold -- we could have a drive-way rink like we did as kids. He taught me to keep my glove up in the net and I taught him how to trick the butterfly goalies. Why did he have to leave that?
I haven't seen him for almost 2 years exactly. I last saw him Christmas Day, 2008, right before I left for Ireland for an academic tournament. So partially it's my fault -- I didn't go to my parent's at all for christmas last year, as once again I went to Europe for break, but he SWORE he'd come to Boston before he got his mission call. But he didn't.
Sometimes I put my facebook statuses in Irish. He'd transliterate them into english and make fun of me. I was okay with it.
I guess I'm really just whining at this point, but it's the first time I've gone through the stress of finals (which isn't quite over yet) without a good-luck call from him. I'm about to make the biggest decision of my life, that is, where to go to law school (which school? USA, Canada, or UK? What program is more important? What the hell am I doing?) and he's not available to see through my BS and help. And this isn't fair.
At the same time, the rest of my family seems to be celebrating his absence. I don't understand it. I mean, I don't really get along with the rest of my family, so maybe there's some hidden agenda there that I don't know about, but why would you be happy that he's not allowed to normally communicate?
My older brother came back from his mission totally changed, and not in a good way. I don't want that to happen to the awesome person that is (was?) my little brother.
Sorry for the lame-ass post. It's late and I can't sleep and I really just wish I could call him and have someone to talk to.