I am my brother's keeper.

I'm 25 and my only brother is 16, quickly approaching 17. I was 8 when he was born, and I'll never forget how he screamed when I held him for the first time at the hospital. I remember being secretly disappointed that he wasn't born with a facial deformity like I was.

Apparently that was foreshadowing. I didn't realize it. I was only 8.

My memory of our childhood together is spotty--moments of playing with the Fisher Price pirate ship and watching Barney tapes with him interspersed with flashes of me, at 12 and 13 years old, yelling in anger at him for wearing the wrong shoes, or ignoring me when I told him to pick up his toys.

I seem very laid-back to most people, but I'm actually a closet perfectionist. As a kid, I released all that nervous energy in being a little mommy. My parents were around, but my dad had an offshore worker-type schedule and my mom's always has weird sleep habits and this sort of disconnected way of parenting. So I gave numerous baths, read bedtime stories, made lunches, cleaned up little pirate ship toys, helped with homework...I was always my brother's keeper.

But I would get so frustrated when he wouldn't go to bed at his bedtime, and my mom wouldn't wake up to do anything about it, that I would hit him.  Or if I wanted him to wear the blue outfit, and he wore the red one, I would yell and scream. I just wanted to be heard. 

We both grew older. I was in high school, he was in elementary school. I started getting angry that he seemed to be allowed more freedoms and liberties than I had at that age. I had always been outwardly compliant, while my brother has always been "strong-willed." I resented that he could be a brat and still get his way, while I'd always been the good one. It wasn't fair. And I was still angry at him for being cute and leaving me to be the family oddball. Growing up, I thought my parents were so relieved to have a beautiful child that they let him get away with whatever he wanted, because he was what they'd *really* wanted all along. 

I started calling him names, like "stupid" or "idiot" for anything. When he forgot his homework at school, when he got caught doing something wrong, when he didn't listen to me when I told him to buckle up his seat belt in the car. I was trying to make things fair.

I was my brother's keeper, so long as I could keep him under my foot.

Now I'm 25 and my brother is 16. We don't talk. When I visit, he walks through the living room as if I'm not even there. I haven't lived at home for more than two years, so it's not like I'm an everyday sight.

He doesn't hate me. He just doesn't care about me. Over the years we learned to *not* enjoy each other's company, so I guess it's just natural. I can't say I'm surprised.

I checked his MySpace page this week. It's the only way I know what he's doing, but he doesn't know that I know it's there. Even though he's 16, he keeps his page open for anyone to see. I read his post on a friend's page from last weekend, describing his Friday night.

"I just did some bars and went to bed."

Bars = Xanax, for those not hip on their drug lingo.

Add Xanax to the Oxy, Lortab, alcohol, LSD...

So on Sunday I spent hours Googling the side effects of Xanax abuse, what counts as a lethal overdose, how addictive those Xanax pills really are. I am still my brother's keeper, but it's not like it matters now.

I can't tell my mother, because I told her about the Lortab and some of the other drugs, and she under-reacted. She dismissed my concerns and said he was probably just bragging.

I'm afraid if she under-reacts, he'll just learn to hide it even better. He might catch on that his MySpace page is a source of information, and I'd rather know what he's doing than not know. I want to be able to see the downward spiral coming, I guess. 

Sometimes I highlight his name on my cell phone. I really want to call him. I've never called him just to talk to him. Never. I'm afraid he wouldn't answer. Or that he would answer, and he'd tell me, one way or the other, that a big sister is something you need only when you're a kid and you can't make your own lunch or put a Barney tape in the VCR.

I was my brother's keeper for so long that I don't think he ever had a sister.

List of things I really want to accomplish by the end of 2009...

...but I probably won't accomplish all of them. Just being honest. Oh, and this post is semi-serious. Not too entertaining.

1. Read more. 

I used to read books constantly. I used to read more substantial things than a short newspaper article or a copy of Shape magazine. After all, most writers are also bookworms. 

But when I moved here in September 2006, I fell into that kind of perpetual sadness that made doing anything really, really *hard.* I barely dragged myself in and out of the office, didn't eat anything much more substantial than Goldfish crackers and mints, didn't go anywhere unless I *had* to and definitely didn't read anything. 

So now I'm happy, but I haven't started reading again. I'm going to shoot for one book a month. Not a lofty goal at all, so I'm more likely to not fail. ;O)

2. Write more *for me*

The explanation for why I started slacking off here kinda follows the same logic as No. 1. Plus, once I stopped going to church and talking to God, I couldn't write for myself. I have this weird thing--I absolutely can't be fake when I write. If I have a major problem or sin or pain, I can't write about anything else except that thing until I deal with it. So I decided not to write instead of deal with any of life's issues.

I used to keep a journal--haven't done that in two years. The only record I have of my life for the past two years is a sketchy memory and random blog posts in, like, three different places.

Sounds kinda dumb, but I'd like to write a book one day, even if it's just for me. Don't know what I'd write about. I haven't had a super-interesting life, so an autobiography is out. I guess I'll have to get creative. I have one weird experience from my childhood I'd like to write about, just to get it out of my system and explore it from a detached, adult perspective, if that makes any sense. I keep thinking about that, so I have to write about it before I write about anything else.

3. Quit biting my nails, peeling skin around my nails, pulling eyelashes/eyebrows and picking skin.

I collect nervous habits like my grandma collects random scraps of fabric.

I've always bitten my nails and picked at the toenails...which led to picking at the cuticles. My mom bites her fingernails.

One day in 2005, I remember sitting in the car listening to radio coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and I realized I was pulling out my eyelashes and had pretty much pulled them all off. Luckily, I have a facial deformity, so nobody really notices when I suddenly don't have that many eyelashes. Months after that, I'd kinda moved on to eyebrows, to take all the pressure off the eyelashes. Last year I migrated to my actual scalp, but managed to keep the pulling contained so that the bald spot was hidden by the rest of my hair.

Somewhere in all that, I started picking uneven places I find on my skin--apart from my cuticles. Don't ask me where that came in. I particularly like doing that on my face and my back.

They're called "nervous habits," and I guess I might have started them all in nervousness...but now I habitually do them while nervous AND as activities unto themselves, if that makes sense. 

I can sit for 15 to 30 minutes at a time doing nothing but picking at the uneven surface of one of my toenails or pulling eyelashes until I'm "done." I'm not nervous when I'm doing this, but I can't stop until I make the surface of my nail "even." I love to search my back for little skin bumps that I can pick off and make the surface of my back nice and "even." 

If I start pulling hairs, I can't stop until I grab all of the ones that feel "special." It's hard to describe, but some of them feel different than others, and you have to pull out the ones that feel weird. Also, I can't end eyelash pulling on a "failed pull." Like, if I grab for a hair and it doesn't come out, I can't stop until I finally pull one out.

And, for the record, it's hard to pick at your skin or pull hairs after biting your nails, because your fingers hurt and all of your nails are too short to use as scraping devices.

I don't know why I put this up here. I've tried quitting before. I tried all of them cold turkey, and I tried quitting one at a time. It never works. I'll try again, but I'll just fail. It's kinda useless. It just makes me feel kind of worthless as a person to know I can't even stop biting my nails or pulling hair or picking skin. 

I mean, it's not like my nails taste like chocolate or something--there's no inherent goodness about biting your nails. (Yes, I've tried making them taste bad--it doesn't work. I get used to the taste or just use my nails to pick at other nails instead of putting them in my mouth.)

I must have had a nervous childhood. I imagine I did. I used to think everyone was looking at me wherever I went. I remember biting my nails in public so much that they would bleed. But I'm not 5 anymore, and this shouldn't be that hard to quit.

But it is surprisingly hard, so I don't know if this will ever happen. I mean, I'm assuming it's not as hard as kicking a heroin addiction. Maybe I'm just weak-willed.  A few people have suggested that some of the drugs people use to treat depression and/or OCD seem to work, along with behavioral therapy. I haven't researched any of this. I don't want to know what doctors would say about me based on my pathetic combination of bad habits.

Drugs...behavioral therapy...

Sounds a little drastic. I wouldn't go to that length, I don't think. I really, really want to quit, but not if I have to take Zoloft and see a shrink to get there.

4. Start running again.

I haven't ran in two months (I hate cold weather--anything below 60). I feel like a slob, health-wise. Cardiovascular exercise is important for people of all sizes.

I think that's good for now. I think I had a couple of others, but I can't remember them anymore.