My father set boundaries in our house. He started talking to my brother and me when I hit 17 years old and my brother was 16. He wanted to remind us that when we were 18 we were out of the house.
So when I hit 18 years of age my father received transfer papers for Minot, North Dakota. This was God's land, home of the silo missiles and our family had been chosen to head back to the cold. He was willing to have me spend another year with the family, but I reminded him about being 18 and leaving the house. I was not going to leave California and go to North Dakota.
At the same time my brother put up a rather strong argument to stay with me. Now he was 17 entering his senior year in high school. We filed the paperwork and took the steps and suddenly I was his guardian during that senior year. It was rather strange. I was the one who wrote notes at school for his field trips and for class events. I wanted to give my brother some freedom and at the same time try to make sure he didn't go too far off the rails.
My favorite story is when my brother decided he would drink for the first time. He had it all planned out. He had a contact person over 21 who bought a bottle and he and some of his friends were in the process of sneaking it into our apartment. They thought I didn't know what was happening, but I wasn't going to miss my chance to harasss them. Apparently they got to the front door and in the process of unlocking the door, they dropped the bottle on the concrete steps and watched helplessly as alcohol was absorbed into the soil below. They had some verbal feedback that was not the cleanest language in the world! It was a night filled with sadness.
That year we supported each other, as I did my first year of college and he did his last year of high school. We again learned how to make appropriate decisions, set house budgets, and do self-care with proper meals. I worked at Chicken Delight and he worked at the best steak house in town, so we ate very well indeed. It was a great year to start our grand adventure away from home.
We learned family was not important to our parents, but family was the essence of life for my brother and me. What is family for you?
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