a short word on family

In my more hurt moments (I'm trying to avoid anger here), I try to extract some kind of lesson. The context is this. My younger brother made a comment and responded in the following stream of text. You can follow from bottom to top:

Now as for my need to "have something to say", it's things like "I'm feeling [insert negative emotion here]" to which I say "[insert encouraging thing here]". "Why do you have to say something? I don't say anything when you post things like this."

Mind you, I have no problem with people trying to be encouraging and help me feel better if it comes from the heart. He seems to hate this with all of his heart. I don't know why... but maybe this second part helps, again, bottom to top:

The fact is that all of my friends know that if I see them in trouble, I try to help. Sometimes, that is saying nothing, sometimes I give them money or time or an ear or a shoulder or my raw unadulterated thoughts. In any case, it's not a matter of me being opinionated (how many people see me that way) as much as having (1) the will to help and (2) the experience or insight to make my will possible.

This is met with what equates to an elaborate version of, "Fuck off."

Oh, okay then.

Maybe he feels like I'm trying to be his dad by offering the simplest of encouragements or advice. I don't tell him not to drink. I don't talk to him about drug use or his sex life or any of his personal affairs aside from the ones he posts and that infrequently and usually a relatively "safe" topic.

It seems that there isn't a subject safe enough. He just wants me to be around or nearby and call now and then. I guess he's content to know that I'm alive, but wants me at further than arm's length away and that's as much of a relationship as he wants with me. He can call and ask for money if he needs it (have done before), or just to shoot the breeze (have done that), but I can't ever let it be more than that. I suppose the lesson here is to be spoken to and not speak.

At moments like this, I can only pray that he never requires any true strength from this familial relationship, because the way he behaves, if he ever did need that strength, it would fail him and it would be no one's fault but his own.

I can't go back in a time machine and live with my dad. The parent I lived with was not my choice and life took its course accordingly. If I'm just someone with an "older brother complex" and not an older brother to him, then I'll just be some person on the periphery of his life and be content with that.

It sucks, though. Essentially, I'll end up treating him like TJ, David, Willie, and so many other people that have passed out of my life up to this point and, from what I gather, I should feel nothing about that.

I suppose that's what I should do. Be my own person and ignore the fuck out of him...

Okay, as he wishes.