For my weekend at home, I offered to babysit my neighbor's kids for a while so that I could do some observations for my sibling interaction and birth order effects research paper. As I was walking over to their house this afternoon I was greeted by their dad. The garage door opened and he came out staring at clutter that was shoved against the garage door.

"What the fuck is this?" he said. I find him hypocritical and intimidating most of the time. When I usually slip by saying words like "stupid", "shut up" and my all-time favorite "dammit", he gets on my case but he's usually strutting around throwing out more profane words. Anyway, on with my story.

"I don't get it. I don't understand. Do you get it?" He went on, referring to the pile of plastic bags.
"No I don't."
"Me neither." He went on cursing some other inanimate object. This is probably where I tuned out my hearing, Then he said, "So when are you an Xab going to get married?" I say Xab, but of course that isn't his real name.
"What?" I'm 18 years old and in college. I try not to think about marriage. I think I find thinking about marriage scarier than death for some reason.
"When are you going to get married?" He repeated the question, ignoring my sudden restlessness. "You know what? I think he loves you. I think he really loves you." Jeez, how do people see these things. I'm absolutely blind to seeing stuff like that.
"Uh huh..." It was one of those conversations where you have no way out. You don't want to answer the personal questions and you just can't get out. Espeially by this neighbor. He's so in-your-face persistant.
"Well, what do you think about him?" He asked eagerly.
"I think like him. I think he's okay." I feel like if I proclaim my love for someone, the relationship will be doomed the moment I say those words. It's strange luck I have. And this impermeable reservation I have for myself. And I especially wasn't going to tell my neighbor. Jeez.
"What?! He loves you-" He didn't say he thinks Xab loves me. He said Xab loves me. Where did the sudden conviction come from? "And all you can say is 'I like him' and 'he's okay'." Of course he was imitating me with this squeaky falsetto voice which really annoyed because I'm damn sure I don't have a high-pithed girly voice.
"Well, what do you want me to say?"
"You have to give more. You can't just like him anymore."
"Yeah, I love him, ok." I sputtered, looking around the street, hoping someone would come to drag me away. Like my dad, calling me back because I forgot my house key or something. Or my neighbor's wife. Yeah, there would be more of a chance of her coming out and telling him to shut up and mind his own business.
"Haha! Well, she said she loves him!" He said excitedly. "Well, is there anything more?"
"More what?" What else did he want me to say? I was getting frustrated. At that moment, Marie, his wife came out. I would have breathed a sigh of relief but...
"Hey, Marie!" her husband said. "Tell this girl that she's being an idiot with Xab. She just likes him."
Tell him to shut up, tell him to shut up, I cheered silently in my mind.
"Cal, I think Xab is a great guy." Nooo, they obviously had a conversation about us, pondering what would happen to us in the future. Otherwise she wouldn't have been so eager to speak. There went that chance for retreat.
"Yes," went on her husband. I could see my brother slowly making his way over to the garage and I made signals for him to end the conversation because I didn't want my brother to hear. But of course he didn't pick up on it.
"I think he should give you a ring."
"What! I'm 18 years old. I don't need to get married!"
"Not married. Don't get engaged or anything... just get committed." Commitment. Bwahaha, if he only knew how badly I dealt with commitment and permanence. I'm not unfaithful. I just have problems staying... committed.
My brother came wide-eyed when he began to understand the conversation. "No, no," my brother said. "Xab's already got a girlfriend." He's always gets disgusted when people think that Xab and I are going out. Even though that's the truth. My brother is so good at denying it that I think he's actually convinced that Xab has a girlfriend and it's not me.
"What??" My neighbor was dumbfounded but of course I couldn't explain to him while my brother was there. After I tried to duck into hiding in the garage he turned back to me. "Really, you two have to talk and get things... permanent."
I looked at Marie, making an uncomfortable, embarassed face but this family isn't too good on picking up on hints. She said, "Yep, you're going to come back one day and find him with one of your best friends and you're going to be jeeaaloouuss." My brother and I could only crack up. Xab with one of my friends? Or even with another girl.
"I'm just here to babysit," I complained.
"Fine, but we're continuing this conversation later."

Thankfully, we didn't. Later on the day he tried to get me into talking about it again or getting Xab to sit down and having a "man-to-man talk" about the "birds and the bees". But we successfully ran away. Literally.

I'm going to submit a story to a literary contest sponsored by my university. I think I have a knack for writing stories. I just have to work on the craft and actually finish more stories... and actually have people read those stories instead of locking them up away forever. It was actually Xab's idea. I didn't really care. I'd probably lose anyway but what's the harm in trying? I had a friend read and critique it since all Xab could say was "It's fine." This friend practically said the same thing.

Ever since I came here, I kind of gave up on writing as a past-time. Maybe I didn't have the time anymore, or I was wasting my time dreaming up these fantasy worlds and nonexistant people. Then I took humanities. It made me hate English, my only fluent language. But I dropped out of that course series. Maybe writing will come back to me. The story I'm submitting isn't new. I was going to write a new story but I just didn't feel like it so I dug up one I wrote in high school and fixed it up a little bit.

Hmm, what else? I love my new room. It's like having my own little house. No one can ever bother me. Well of course the guy that lives above walks a little too loudly and it bugs me a little but I talked to him about. My friends know where my window is, but I never mind a visit. I'm just really grateful for the peace and quiet. I'm no longer plagued with misery, which probably why I feel bored and uninspired, but I like not being stressed out. I can actually focus and talk to my friends about non-roommate stuff. I almost love my school. Almost.

I give up. I'm going to spend the rest of my life living in a shell, in a false, deceptive facade that masks my intellect and awareness with dullness and emptiness. I think it's worth it. Everyday I have to deal with being ignored and interrupted. I hate that feeling. It makes me feel inferior. I don't want to return the treatment by ignoring and interrupting others because people, being egomaniacal creatures, probably don't even realize what they're doing and they'll probably push me off as being bitch for interrupting all the time. Sure, there's nothing wrong with being a bitch. It's just not me. There are a few people that listen to me but there are others of whom I want to be heard.

I've recoiled back into this shell. There's nothing wrong with being quiet and not outgoing. Sure, I think things in life will be harder to do without a vocal voice. Maybe I'll try again. I was so upset after meeting a friend of a friend that kept brushing me off to speak. It was annoying. Maybe it's just college freshman, who are novices to this new world. Most of the time college just seems like high school but maybe it's because these people make it that way. I think it's because students have a new way to empower themselves. College encourages you to voice your opinion, instead of just listening to the same old high school history teacher ramble about something boring. Students have a new voice, but they seem to lose their ears. It just really puts me off.

Sometimes these people talk so much that they don't hear others' input. I don't even think they hear themselves because they end up telling me the same story about five times. I'm not a good actor. I don't like being false, but I try to be polite and hide the bored look that's curtained by my formal smile. But even that's getting hard to do.

Today, my younger brother called me. He usually gets annoyed when I call and I talk to him on the phone or he ignores me on the instant messages. He seemed really depressed and lonely and kept asking me over and over again if I was going to come home next weekend. Poor kid. But he tends to do that when someone died. My parents left him at home to go to the viewing and he didn't want to go because he didn't want to hear people crying and get depressed.

They left him in the company of twenty seven new playstation games. My uncle from the Philippines came and brought us a bunch of playstation games. (Of course, in the Philippines, it's all pirated.) I would think that my brother would be content and distracted enough with 27 new video games but he sounded so lonely and asked me if he could call Xab over to play Playstation with him. Then he started asking me again if for sure I was coming home next weekend.

I'm starting to feel really bad for him. I always read about kids who have parents that don't spend enough time with them and then they become delinquents or something. I never realized that my own brother was one of these kids. He sort of has a hard time making friends. He doesn't really talk about people making fun of him because of his disability anymore and I don't think he doesn't make friends because of his disability. I think it's just because he's different. Not handicap different. Just simply different. Or maybe it is because of handicap. I've never met his friends but I tend to like the ones that he talks about that say "Hey, what's the matter with your leg?" My brother would tell them and then they would simply nod and go on to a different subject. It makes me feel better that some kids can see past all that and be his friend. As for my parents, I know they have to work and they aren't exactly young anymore so they don't have a lot of energy by the end of the day to spend "quality time" with my brother. My dad thinks taking him to R rated movies counts.

And then I had to leave for college. Sometimes it feels like a mistake but everyone told me to do what I had to do for myself, not for anyone I was going to leave behind. I don't know. I hope my brother comes to terms with himself before he becomes just another statistic.