Too much expectations, not enough privacy.

     Freshman year, I had gotten my own room. The garage. Which I clung to. Finally having my own space, my own walls to decorate. I buried myself in it, I finally had somewhere to be, a place where I was genuinely able to tell my younger siblings to get out. To leave me alone. To shut up, or come back later. I had the room to myself for a couple of months, until my older sister and her boyfriend needed it when summer was practically over,  as they went through withdrawals and lost their apartment, and had problems at the boyfriends moms house. I was happy to let them use it. 

     Then we moved, and I was stuck cleaning it alone. Where my older sister and her boyfriend should've been helping my parents move and clean, after everything they've done for them, I did instead. I tried to watch over my siblings, clean, pack, move, take apart and rebuild, because that's what my parents needed at the time. And after we moved, my room was mine. Until one night I ended up sobbing in my moms arms.  Because I didn't want to.

      I didn't want to have to be the emotionally mature sibling, or have to be able to pick up and take care of what my parents couldn't. I wanted everything back. My siblings. I cried for my older sister, and my older brother. 

     A  month later, my older brother moved into my room. At first, I was happy. Until I realized that he was exactly the same. He hadn't changed, not one bit.

     Where I had grown, even more emotionally, physically, socially, and had adapted to my environments. He couldn't. His brain was practically the exact same way it was when he was in eighth grade. All the drugs and alcohol, my father had happily provided him with. Slowed his brain development. He can't pick up social cues, and he only has three umbrella emotions. Anger, Annoyed, and Boredom. And for all of those, his response is to either get physical, or to cry.

     Along with that, my space was no longer mine. But as he would say, anything that was mine, was ours. He was messy, didn't clean up after himself, always smelt like sweat, weed, or gross cologne, and he didn't understand the basic boundaries I set nor did he respect them, or anyone. I went from being happy that he was home, to being annoyed, then it switched to being sad. I was sad for him. He wasn't able to grow up the right way, our father had let it get this bad. But he was the one who chose to leave. 

     Eventually, I did get my own room back. At the cost of my younger brothers now sharing the room with my older brother.