Letters To My Little Brother: Misadventures In Growing Older by McKinney Matt

Author:McKinney, Matt [McKinney, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2015-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Love,

-Big Boy

CHAPTER Nine:

How to survive living at home

Dear Squirrel,

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself moving home with my parents after college. And even in those wildest dreams I never once expected that I’d stay at home for over a year. I thought that kind of “relying on your parents for your daily bread” spiel was for the Norman Bates’s of the world, for the over-loved kids whose mothers cut the crusts off all their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’d always felt it’d be an indignity if I returned to my childhood abode. I felt like I was overqualified for it. I thought I was a young hotshot with tons of skill and the resumé to find a job, wealth, and fame at the snap of my fingers. Our sister lived at home for two years after college and I swore up and down that I never wanted to be like that. I wanted independence. I wanted to wag my middle finger at the world and gloat about how I wasn’t one of those pathetic little peons forced to act like oversized children at their parents’ dinner tables. I love Will Ferrell, but Step Brothers was only funny when I didn’t actually empathize with it.

And then I moved home. I was pretty depressed at first. I was consciously giving up my independent, employed life to do, well, I had no idea what I was going to do. I was worried I’d start fighting with Dad just like I had in high school and college. With us, a simple disagreement over an unwashed pan in the sink would rapidly escalate into something about manhood, disappointment, and responsibility. I also worried I’d have no social life. Mom’s best talent (aside from making waffles) is wheedling personal details out of me, so I feared she’d be watching over my shoulder.

Most of all I feared I was wasting the talent I’d worked so hard to validate in my previous 23 years.

Who moves home like that? What kind of person willingly forces this upon themselves? Someone trying to save money? Someone taking care of their ailing parents? Hell, Peter Parker didn’t move back in with Aunt Mae after she got attacked by the Green Goblin. (Don’t fact check me on that…) He loved her and all, but he still had his own space, no matter how crummy it was. But me? No. I was at home with good ol’ Mom and Dad.

The first thing I tried to establish after I moved home was mental boundaries. I didn’t want to necessarily communicate them to anyone, but I felt the need to erect barriers for my own sanity. Otherwise the throes of inadequacy and low self-esteem would start to seep in and ooze through my veins with every bleating beat of my heart. See, living at home is kind of like hanging out with your old high school friends after college and feeling like you’ve regressed into a high school version of yourself. Maybe you redeveloped the goofy mannerisms you tried to grow out of during college.

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