My Little Brother

I have a brother 10 years my junior. He has always needed help from either me or our other sister. Wow, I kinda wish I had two older siblings that would have helped me out growing,,,but that is not what this is about.

Sort of not.

My younger brother borders on the genius mentality. He is damn smart and damn likeable, except he only knows about the smart part. I think it has something to do with our upbringing (none of us think we are that likeable, we all try too hard or too little). He does both.

I took him in to raise when he was 14. I was 24. Not exactly a good nurturing environment for him. I was sooo not ready for a teenager so I wasn't good at being a mentor. My husband at the time was much better at mentoring. He made sure he had a good job that paid well at a young age, 19 I think. We helped get him an apartment and a car at that age as well. As you might expect, he fell "in love" and left the apartment to run away with his new love. Left his good job behind and left me stuck with all the bills he owed (about $2500). I carried a grudge for years.

Then I got over it and when he was in his mid twenties he came to me again. I gave him a place to live, a job and a lot of other stuff including pretending to like his girlfriend that was a year older than me.

Big surprise here, they broke up after 3 years.

When they broke up he needed a very small amount to move from their mutual home, $100. I loaned that to him.

Now he won't contact me at all. Today I sent him an email with my new phone number and a plea to not let that $100 come between us.

Let's see how this plays out. Hope he understands I can live without a $100, I just don't want to live without another member of my family...that circle is dwindling fast.