Responsibility

I know I don't always act like it but I feel very blessed. Tonight I picked up my brother and went to eat dinner at our church with our mother. My church does this lenten dinner series where every Wednesday night during lent they have a dinner at the church, followed by a speaker. Tonight's speaker was Joe Birch from the news. It was interesting. But that's not the point of my story at all. My brother is 23 years old and is entirely on his own and broke. We're really close, my brother and I, and we started talking about things while I drove him back out to his house after church. He was talking about how incredibly broke he is and thinking back now, I can't remember a time when he wasn't broke. My brother always seems to do things the hard way, which I guess is ok for me because I learn what NOT to do from him. My brother went to Memphis College of Art after high school. In case you aren't familiar, it's a very expensive private art school. He's never been that into school so he partied a lot and didn't go to class and ultimately failed a lot of courses. My parents were paying for things at the time but after that they told him he had to pay for school. Of course, this was very hard for my brother. Needless to say he has yet to graduate from college. Because he has to pay himself now, he has to take time off school to work and make money and once he's saved up enough he'll take a few courses, then take time off again to make money, and so forth. I on the other hand have always been really good with money. I also don't pay for school or insurance or for my cell phone or for rent or for my car; basically I pay for what I want. In that, I feel blessed. I really don't tell my parents how much I appreciate it, nor do I act like it, but I really do. After talking to my brother, I realize I could be paying loans, and tuition, and many other things, but I don't. My brother told me tonight that he hates being an adult. He hates all the responsiblity that comes along with it. I think we're all too quick to want to grow up and be on our own but we don't realize the kind of responsibility that comes with it until we're there ourselves. I remember I used to hate it when my mom would by the store brand instead of name-brand stuff. Now you don't see me buying anything name brand because it's coming out of my pocket. I didn't understand things like that when I didn't have any responsibilities. I guess it's one of those things that comes with age. No one wants it, but it's inevitable.