Brother Trouble

Last summer I posted about my youngest brother, Tweedle-Dum, and how he had dropped out of college. That was a hard summer for him and for my parents, who struggled to manage their disappointment and find ways to support him without enabling his laziness. Well, in the months since then TD has faced another series of unfortunate events, which now leaves him (drumroll, please!) in the exact same position he was a year ago-living at home, jobless and pathetic. But though we return to his story and find him in the same place, a lot has actually happened in the meantime. Here’s the latest on my brother’s saga:

Though Tweedle-Dum did spend most of last summer moping around and refusing to talk about his problems, he also applied for numerous jobs around our hometown. He got interviews for one or two, but nothing worked out. This was discouraging, and he essentially stopped trying by mid-fall, when he officially decided to join the Navy. We were all generally supportive of this plan, figuring that the military would give him discipline and structure he very much needed. He almost joined the Army Reserves out of high school anyway, so the military had been on his mind as a potential career option for a while. However, joining the Navy turned out to be more time-consuming than any of us had expected. It took weeks of paperwork to get him officially enlisted, and then he found out it would be months before he’d actually ship out to basic training. That left him facing another six months of nothing to do, but he didn’t want to apply for jobs since he would be leaving in May anyway. So, he spent his days sleeping, playing video games, watching TV and movies, half-assing or ignoring the chores my parents asked him to do, and, once a week, reporting to the Navy recruitment office for PT.

If you’ll recall, I was also living at home for several of those months, and it was a nice opportunity for us to bond and spend time together. I discovered a lot of adorable quirks about him during this time; it was almost like getting to know him for the first time, since we hadn’t lived in the same house in 7 years. He loved drinking tea, so when I busted out a stash of loose-leaf tea my husband had gotten in Sri Lanka several years ago, he was in heaven. He was an authority on many movies and TV shows I had missed out on since moving abroad, and we had many conversations about plot, theme, and symbolism as manifested in Vikings, Anna Karenina, and even The West Wing. He was surprisingly sensitive, and loved a good emotional novel or film, something that really gave him “the feels.” He was so excited to finally watch Les Miserables with me (I had never seen it), and he chastised me for not crying (he totally did). Though his lack of motivation in life, social awkwardness, and general apathy towards anything requiring work irritated me, I also loved the times we spent together, the way he made me laugh, how sweet he was when I’d had a tough day at work or was fighting a cold…I discovered so many things I love about this kid, and the day he left for basic training crushed me.

All along, one of Tweedle-Dum’s major issues has been his tendency to internalize things, to hide his feelings, to pretend problems don’t exist. One of my main goals while I was at home with him was to crack open this shell a bit. I so very much wanted him to see that he’d never make friends, never impress a girl, never really be happy, if he couldn’t talk about anything real. Sometimes I was successful in getting him to open up to me, other times he got angry and left in a huff. To minimize the latter, I started taking him on coffee dates, so he’d have to talk to me in a public place and he couldn’t storm off or make a scene if I said something that touched a nerve. It worked well—I actually think he opened up more in a few trips to Starbucks than in all the time we spent in our parents’ house. We talked about his plans, hopes, and fears for the future, what he wanted in a girlfriend, issues we both had with our parents, the struggle to become an adult…I still couldn’t get him to talk much about what had happened during his ill-fated year away at college, but that was fine, I was just glad he was talking to me.

Towards the end of his time at home, we finally got to the subjects closest to my heart—his relationship with God and some of the deep-seeded issues he had with the way our parents and our other brother had treated him at various times in his adolescence. There was pain, doubt, and anger there, and it took me trapping him in the car with me and repeatedly telling him I wasn’t going to judge him before he would even come near those topics. He told me he didn’t believe in God anymore, or at least he wasn’t sure, and he had no interest in being part of any church or organized religion. He said our family (I have to think that includes me) and a few incidents from his teen years were in part to blame for him abandoning his faith. While that was hard to hear, I was so glad to see him finally manning up and being real about what he believed. I told him I loved him, and so did God, and that wouldn’t change. I encouraged him to be real with our parents about this stuff too, that they wouldn’t disown him or anything like that, but that they would respect him bringing his feelings into the light instead of hiding and avoiding. So far, that hasn’t happened, but maybe someday.

All this to say that I’m really, really glad I got that time with my brother. We grew closer, and I realized just how much he means to me. And then, he left. He had been in Illinois for basic training for about 6 weeks when my parents got a call from him. Apparently the military had found out about some red flags from his medical history, things his recruiter had advised him to cover up so he could enlist in the first place. We don’t know exactly how they found out, but regardless, they were kicking him out. After that he spent two weeks isolated from the rest of his recruit buddies who finished basic and graduated without him, while the Navy processed his paperwork. Now he’s home again and beginning the job search anew, but he won’t let anyone help him with his resume, and he thinks sending out online applications is enough, even though we all advise him to do follow-up calls to make himself stand out. He’s talked briefly about going back to school at the community college, but he’s now too late for fall quarter. So, you see, his situation is very similar to the bleakness he faced last year, but he is still the only one that can fix that—the rest of us just have to watch, hope, pray, and support.

In a way, I’m glad the Navy didn’t work out. It meant we got to see each other again this summer, and I’m sure my parents are a bit relieved he won’t be shipped around the world every two years and potentially asked to fight in a war. I’m proud of him for how he’s grown, but I’m also so eager to see more maturity take root. He’s truly a sweet kid who has too much going for him to let life let him down. Here’s hoping this is the beginning of a fresh start and a better year for him.