When I was about 6 years old my mother told me that I would be getting a baby brother or sister. The idea grew on me. My initial thought was that I enjoyed being an only child, and the time has passed for having a brother close to me in age. I did want a brother or sister when I was younger.
Later, when the sex was determined, I was told that I was having a baby sister. I was young, but I was old enough to know there was a big difference between having a brother and a sister. All the way up until my brother came out, I was convinced I was going to be a big brother and have a little sister to help take care of. Instead, I had a little brother to help take care of. The first night he was brought home the air conditioning was running in the apartment. It was a memorable evening.
I watched my mom and dad both with the baby, intently. I quickly became a helper with feeding, helping with the car seat to watching and playing with him until dad got home from work and of course, changing diapers. It wasn’t long before I found out I was having another sibling. This time, when the sex was determined they told us it would be a boy. The doctor was right, so all the blue new baby stuff worked just fine.
My brothers are one year apart from each other and about 7 years apart from me.
Watching 2 baby brothers every day during the week got more difficult as we all got older. Playing with them wasn’t really interesting or stimulating for me anymore so I balanced watching them with doing my own things on the computer or watching tv. Once they were old enough to watch themselves, things got better for a little while. Until I got my license and they were old enough to want to stay at friends houses.
At 15 and a half I had my permit and 16 I had my license. I mostly drove my parents vehicles and I usually drove my brothers wherever they needed to go when asked. I graduated high school early and moved out, that stopped the help I was providing for their entire lives.
I struggled for some time mostly on my own. When I did move back home, things never seemed to improve. Everybody seemed static. Ever since I was a kid I liked the idea of always being open to changing, being wrong and growing or even just learning other perspectives. My parents always struggled with money, even when it was just us 3. My parents and I differed in opinion on how to manage money and I moved out again with my current partner 7 years ago.
When my parents went to South Carolina in 2021, I moved back into the house expecting to own it within a few years of paying the mortgage. I knew I would have to shoo both of my brothers out eventually, but immediately the concern was just keeping the house. At first I worked remotely and either cooked dinner or ordered out every night. My 2019 Kia Forte which I had just signed for a loan after finishing the lease got repossessed during this time. My partner worked full time and paid to uber herself to and from work, while I struggled to get my car back.
My grandpa helped me get the car back, but within about a week I got notice via voicemail of my termination after 7 years of hard work and determination to get my position. With no formal discussion before my dismissal, I was instructed to bring my work laptop and any other work belongings into the office. My supervisor requested I open my work laptop in front of him and show him where all my work projects reside on disk. He wrote down and a yellow post it note these locations as I showed him one by one. In all, I was in the building for less than 30 minutes. Before I left, I told my supervisor that because I just moved all of my belongings unexpectedly, there may be some things still lost from the move that I would return as I found them.
After I was fired, I started getting regular assistance from grandpa to keep the utilities on and food at the house. The older of my two younger brothers used this as an opportunity to get a job and move out on his own. I encouraged this, still expecting one more to move out on his own within a few years.
Things got worse for awhile. My car got repossessed again. I kept requesting help with specific things that needed done and was consistently met with resistance. When the garbage cans got picked up, and the garbage accumulated in the house and garage we started getting small flies in the house. Right before I put my foot down and cleaned the whole thing myself, my mom and dad came home. First thing they did was clean and complain. At this time my grandpa was sharing his car with me. I had it most of the time and would go pick him up every morning and get him into work and then pick him up at the end of the day and take him home. I then had the car to get my partner to and from her job.
As the house started looking nicer, things started getting better for me. I was receiving more financial assistance and the bills were all paid by me and my partner. I started getting new clothes for the first time in a very long time. I even bought a matching zip-up sweater for my mom and my partner. I upgraded my computer equipment and bought a few things the people around me needed. My partner got a laptop for school, one brother got a new monitor and the other got a new computer. My mom received financial assistance from me and received the biggest chunk of the money that I shared.
Grandpa bought me a new car. It was the same model as the car that I lost just a newer year. Not having to share a car and do the extra driving around was an immense relief. I finally started to decompress and focus on other things. It was around this time I started learning about LLMs and AI image generation and upscaling.
Things started to get to be too much living in that house, and I left with my partner to move into my grandpas house. I couldn’t impose on my grandpa to spend the majority of his wealth digging my mom and dad out of debt. I absolutely needed the help and was going to take it and use it wisely. My parents were in a state of constantly being negative and having absolutely no respect or boundaries for us.
I toyed around with ideas like creating a family business, starting small and cheap and seeing if we could get enough business to support ourselves. I spent the most time in front of a computer stuffing knowledge into my head in my family. I spent entire summers having fun learning about things most people would never care to learn. I consider learning about sysadmin, reverse engineering and programming my lifelong hobbies.
It wasn’t long after I moved into my grandpas house that the harassment started. To this day it is ongoing and there are no conclusive answers. I have been taking notes, photos and video for 10 months. No one really cares to review them. Most of the discussion going on inside my head was regarding my employer who terminated me years before.