I'm not sure where to start, with this story or my feelings. Jim is 2 years older than me and I looked up to him pretty much throughout our entire childhood. I wanted to do everything he did when we were little, I wanted to build legos with him, I wanted to play instruments like he did, I wanted to understand math the way he could. As we got into middle school and eventually high school, it was slowly becomming apparent that he was slightly more of a social outsider than I was. Coming from the same household, I didn't always understand this, and just thought he was not as socially inclined as I. He went on to college and this was the beginning of a downfall. One that I thought was over, but looking back, it appears it has just begun.
My brother was on his college swim team, but it didn't take long for his life to begin to fall apart. Jim began experimenting with hallucinigins, and very heavily. It was years later he informed me he was tripping on mushrooms on a regular basis, and I know there was use of acid mixed in there as well. Jim was fascinated with alternate realities, I even recall a picture of Louis Wain's progessively delusional illustrations of cats tacked on his cork board. He dropped out of college his sophomore year and was working a near minimum wage job at a hookah bar. This devasted my parents, as anyone always wants the best for their family. To me at this time, I blamed it all on his irrisponsible plunge into abusing drugs. The Jim I grew up knewing was too intelligent to not be able to pass his classes.
I am not sure what influenced my brother at this point, but after some time of the drop-out minimum-wage lifestyle, he decided to join the Marines. This was probably in about 2004 or so, when trouble in Afghanastan was still heavily on everyones mind. Making it through boot camp and whatever kind of schooling they do, my brother graduated at the top of his class, allowing him to pick the location of his assignment. Jim picked Fuji, Japan, where he would be a Legal Specialist. Things were looking bright from our family's perspective, Jim would be safe, and his life was getting back in order. He was overseas for about 2 years, and finished the remaining 2 years with the Marines in the deep south of Georgia, where I heard interracial dating is frowned upon.
The recession was just beginning to take a nose dive at the end of 2008, when I made my decision to move from Michigan (where I grew up) to Arizona, for a change of scenary. The first time I saw my brother out of the Marines was Memorial weekend of 2009. He looked great, and we spent our holiday weekend at the Detroit Techno festival. At this point I trusted my brother was making the right decisions. He was eager to return to school and pick his life back up from where he left off. This weekend is sadly one of the last memories I have being around my brother and trusting his judgement and sanity. I returned home for Christmas in 2009 as well. This too is one of my last fond memories. I recall bringing him around my friends, in normal Jim fashion he was mostly quiet, but didn't seem to mind being my sidekick as I caught up with everyone. 2009 was a rough year finanically for myself and many others, however considering where Jim is now, I wish I could go back in time and bring back the brother back that I shared those memories with.
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