Sometimes I really just want to strangle him. (I just need to let go).

My brother is definitely the opposite of me. He smokes pot, he drinks until he passes out, he works on cars, he bellows when he talks, he laughs so loudly the entire house shakes, he has fifty friends over each night, he pretends to be the absolute sh*t, he thinks the world will crumble without him, he failed an entire year of school (so now he's gonna graduate college a year late), and he does not give a sh*t for the law. Every day I feel like I just want to scream in his face. You'd think that after eighteen years I'd be used to this, but I'm not. I get so angry when he pulls this sh*t. I hate it when he has huge bonfires in the backyard with his drunken friends until four in the morning on a school night so I can't sleep. I hate it how he doesn't take his boots off when he comes into the house, so it feels like he's breaking holes in the floor every time he walks. I hate it how he "forgets" to do his laundry or take a shower, so he has to do it at 1:30 in the morning. I hate how he always leaves the light on in the detached garage in the backyard. I hate how he never does his homework.

Everything is about how good he is at life. Anything anyone else does is wrong, and anyone who doesn't agree with him is a "f*cking moron". I hate how he can talk so eloquently that he makes me feel like an idiot because I'm horrible at thinking on the spot and I can never come up with a good comeback. Because that's all that's important in his world: making himself look good, or else he's in such a rotten mood that the rest of the house has to reflect his misery.

He thinks I just sit around the house and watch TV. I guess I do do that, but I do so much more than that. I have been working my f*cking ass off at school for the past twelve years so I can go to a good college. Everyday I spend from 7:30 in the morning until 2:10 at school, then from 2:30 until 10 at night doing homework and trying to make sense of everything I have to remember. He doesn't understand that the only escape I have is to watch TV or read a book just so I can pretend to be someone else for a little bit. This lifestyle- eat, school, sleep, shower- is killing me. I'm tired of working so hard at something he never cared about, so he can't recognize what my hard work means. I hate how he'll probably end up not graduating, but still get a great job because he's a professional bullsh*tter.

I sound like a whine-y brat, and I realize this. But this is the first time I've ever admitted anything about what's going on in my life to anyone. I've never said anything about my mom's cancer or her alcoholism. I've never said anything about how frustrating it is to see my parents' marriage fall apart. I've never dared burden anyone with how scared I am that I will just be pushed off to the side and forgotten despite me trying so d*mn hard to make something of myself. Not even my friends know this stuff. I kinda feel alienated from them because they all talk about after school clubs they're in and AP tests they have to study for and the trips to Boston they all took with each other that I wasn't told about.

I need to stop and breathe. I like darkness and quiet. Is it sad that I can only be happy when I'm asleep? Every other moment is just a countdown until I can climb back into bed again and let go of everything.

Hey. This is my first journal in years. I always come up with the heaviest things to write about. Sorry if I wasted your time.