mybrothersdiary

[mybrothersdiary]

Entry One

*Disclaimer: I got permission from my brother to blog about this. For privacy’s sake, no real names will be used.

My parents were making my brother and I go through some of our old stuff because they were trying to clean out the house. My brother’s current girlfriend found this little green notepad with his writing on it. It turns out that my brother, we’ll call him Fabio (which was the actual nickname he had in high school), had used this notepad as a diary for a few months because he didn’t have an actual journal. 

Some backstory, Fabio moved to Minnesota back in 2016 for a couple of years to go to school for music engineering. While he was there, he met this girl who we’ll call Alice and he dated her for a little over a year. I never met this girl, but it’s probably a good thing because I’ve ended up despising her. Fabio became so depressed while dating her, our family was scared for him. This depression was mainly caused by Alice. She was the only support Fabio had for a long time as he didn’t really make friends in Minnesota, and from what I know, she was very distant and unaffectionate. Trying to be fair, I recognize that a big part of the problem was probably that their romantic languages did not align. Fabio is what my mother calls a “lovebug”; Very physically and verbally affectionate, dedicated to a fault, and falls hard and fast. Alice was...I’m not sure, but not that. She was young at only 18 (Fabio was 22) and seemed to enjoy her space and her freedom. However, I’m very close to my brother and this chickpea caused him pain, so I still despise her regardless of the circumstances. 

Anyway, lets get started and dive into entry one:

Only Two Ciders in and Buzzed Alone

“I guess this is what love does to you. I want to treat you like you’re my world and give you everything I have. And it makes me happy to do that. I get frustrated when you don’t say thank you or give the responses I would like. But now I understand. You don’t have to; I’ll continue to give you gifts anyway. God, is this how Jennifer (ex-girlfriend from high school) felt? I just hope, pray, and say my pleas that I don’t screw it up.”

Lets pause here. Another thing to know about Fabio is that he’s always been a very reserved type when it comes to his emotions. He did not express himself much when we were growing up and always appeared cool and aloof. To read about his feelings and how strong they were...it was a bit jarring. I started to understand that Fabio felt his emotions so strongly, but never expressed it.

“You may not be what I expected, but you are the one I want. I’m giving up family and friends for you. I don’t include money because I don’t care enough about it. You are worth all my time and effort. I just need you to understand that I need to make you happy too. And I myself can only do so much. You need your friends too, and if I want you to move back home with me, I need you to see your friends as much as you can. Because I wish I could have seen mine more, and I saw them a lot. I love you. I know you know that. I will give you a break from myself. Please enjoy your time with your friends. I miss you.”

That is the end of the first entry. This reminded me of one of the few stories that Fabio told me about Alice. He called me one day to talk about something that had happened with her recently. He would ask Alice to hang out a lot. As they were dating, this doesn’t seem that unusual, but Alice told Fabio that she felt like he was suffocating her. I can understand needing your space, but here’s the thing: Fabio was okay if she said ‘no’. He would have free time, he wanted to see her, and he’d ask if she wanted to hang out. If Alice had other plans or just felt like staying home alone, Fabio was okay with that. No obligations were there. What had happened was Fabio had asked Alice if she wanted to hang out, and she told him that she was having an “introverted day” and wanted to spend alone time at home. Fabio was cool with it and let it go. As an introvert myself, I absolutely understand the need to take days to myself. However, Fabio was checking out his Snapchat, looked at Alice’s story, and she posted pictures of her hanging out with her friends that day. To this day, I thank the lucky stars, every god conceivable, that Fabio did not bring this girl home with him.