I wrote previously about the situation with my youngest brother, The Listener. He worked for us for 17 years. I hired him out of college at 24. I fired him seven months ago. A lot happened in both our lives during the time he worked for our company. He got engaged, moved from Portland to Salt Lake City, got married, had two kids, learned our business like a champ, then started resenting us. At least that’s the way I see it.

The Listener was my first real confidant after discovery. He knew everything. He shows up on this blog a few times. Blue Eyes and The Listener met when my brother was 2 and my then boyfriend was 20. The Listener doesn’t remember a time when Blue Eyes wasn’t in his life. Blue Eyes loves my baby brother. Unfortunately, Blue Eyes fucked him over just like he did the rest of us and that took a toll. I think that The Listener is having some serious personal issues and we have become the scapegoats. As previously mentioned, I’ve been a scapegoat quite a bit for the people in my life. I’m getting pretty tired of it actually.

In our numerous conversations about him needing to leave the company, he mentioned how nothing could break our brother-sister bond, even me firing him. Well, as it turns out, not true actually. He is no longer speaking to me. I chatted him a couple months ago. He and family were doing well. Shortly after being let go last October, he started consulting for a start up in Salt Lake. I found out from LinkedIn, and then “weirdly” we were suddenly no longer connected on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn reminds me of this fact every day. Turns out his concerns about being out in the job market after 16 years were overblown. Truth is, we trained him well. We paid for his master’s degree. I know he no longer wanted to work with us. He orchestrated his leave of absence. He complained incessantly about working with Blue Eyes. He couldn’t believe I purchased a third house. Ironically, he’s the one that has said numerous times that real estate is a great investment and that we should purchase an office building in Salt Lake. His motives were always self-driven. Anyway, I’m just venting.

End of March we were in San Diego at the same time he was. His kids had spring break. He was visiting his twin brother who currently lives in San Diego with his young family. They knew we were there. I had reached out. He never responded. Being in the same city as 2 of my siblings and not being invited, was hurtful. My son was going to contact his uncles, but he decided not to. No one reached out to us. I’m over it now, but I was pretty sad while we were there. I’m metabolizing the fact that another of my siblings could be so immature. Reminds me of the time my sister de-friended me on Facebook after her then husband quit working for us suddenly. We were the root of all evil until the husband came home one day and told my sister he was leaving her, for a man, and sued her for full custody of their child. Turns out we weren’t the bad guys after all.

We have one family member still working for us, another brother. My guess is he will be with us for the long haul and if not, so be it. I’m over selfish people who take and then bite the hand that feeds them.

On the bright side, all those hours last spring spent hiring new people has really paid off. We have a solid, hard working team and Blue Eyes is doing a pretty good job of staying focused and training his new troupe. It helps that they all think he’s a genius.

My role as big sister and family caregiver has been a thankless one. I give, a lot. This is a job that was hoisted on me at a young age by my parents. I did the best I could. All these siblings are of course adults now, the twins are going to be 42 this year! Time for me to ride off into the sunset and leave the burden behind, especially emotionally.

I chatted my step mother on her birthday a couple weeks ago. I haven’t seen her since my Dad’s funeral three years ago. She said her son probably just needs some time, licking his wounds, etc… yeah yeah yeah. What about my wounds? Nobody really thinks I have feelings I guess. Unfortunately by the time he comes around, I just won’t care anymore.