Let me tell you a little bit about my brother, M. He has problems. He uses illegal drugs. He drinks heavily. I'm pretty sure he's an alcoholic. He is covered in stupid tattoos. I see him maybe a couple of times a year. Whenever he shows up, he is in long sleeves and pants to cover the tattoos, regardless of the weather. I always think, "Hey, M. we can still see the ones on your hands, Dummy!"
He writes a monthly article for a magazine that is published online and in print in Salt Lake City. In his writing he likes to talk about how drunk he gets, what drugs he uses, how he likes to close the toilet seat at a party and poop on top of it. (That's called an upper-decker, by the way.) CLASSY. He also writes about his "big Mormon family." He swears like a sailor, but if you can get past that and the crass content, some of his writing can actually be pretty witty and funny. He has a pretty big following in SLC. He is pretty well-known. M. doesn't know that the whole family knows about his writing.
I know that this sounds harsh, but when I think of my brother, I think that he is a waste of space on the planet. He had every opportunity to have a successful life. My dad paid for him to go to college. M. failed math 1010 four times and then just dropped out. My dad even hired a tutor for him. The thing is, M. is really smart. What a waste. In 3-5 years he will probably die of cirrhosis of the liver and his funeral is going to be a big joke with a bunch of low-lifes who don't really care about him. As far as I can tell, he hasn't made any positive impact on society, or in any one's life.
But he is my brother, and I love him anyway. I want a relationship with him. I want to see him more often, even if that means he smells like cigarettes, or he's all hung-over.
His Facebook page wasn't set to private. So I would often go and check up on him, and see what was going on in his life. He truly is a disgusting person. Always talking about masturbation, or putting, "Mom quit sexting me!" for his status update. (My mom would be utterly horrified by this.) But it was nice to see that he was doing ok, if nothing else.
So at Thanksgiving I casually asked him about something, which basically indicated that I have seen his FB page. He seemed totally fine about it, no problem. We talked about the thing I had asked him about. I was actually really excited that he was so cool about it. I thought, now he knows that I have read that, so maybe we can have a more honest relationship; even if I don't like the person he has become.
The next day I went to check his FB page again. Private.
I seriously have hurt feelings about this. I guess he really doesn't want me to be a part of his life at all.
