I'm not sure what my goals are anymore. Definitely finish school but after that I can't even begin to think.

Anyway, I can't recall if I've expressed this before but sometimes I get that distinct sensation of living a "double life" or maybe its more like living a life far away from that of other people.

Anyone could say that cause like everyone acts different around different people, but I mean more than that. It's weird looking a Raul's social media these days. I've tried to stop logging in on Facebook to stalk his page but I can't help and be intrigued.

Once upon a time I was younger than him, and I still am by age but by what I can measure, that feeling of 'knowing more' I get around certain people in my old life, I also feel when looking at those Facebook / Instagram posts of him. Which sounds dumb because social media can only tell you so much about a person, but it's all I can use to measure because really I haven't talked to him in more than 5 years.

And that factor also keeps me from losing all hope. Because really all I know about him at this point is what I've recently gathered from his social platforms. But of course there has to me more to him than that.

I do feel like he's a bit uhhh """normie""" if I have to use a word to describe it. And by that I mean he doesn't seem to have that inner conflict I see in people I associate with today. Like the inner conflict my brother has as a result of our life out here. Which makes me wonder how his encounter with my brother went. Cause really Raul considers my brother a friend way more than say, me.

I remember my brother being particularly quiet and sullen when he returned from the trip back home (where he met with Raul before the kid's departure for college). That Im very interested in: My brother is older than Raul by a few years, and one could even say he was a role model to Raul, but here is Raul settling in Florida in a private college that focuses on aeronautics, while my brother comes home after a hard day of working at the old people home, depressed and disenchanted with everything. I wonder what the tone of their conversation was.

And not for the first time in my short life, I sympathize with my brother, because I have a feeling that if me and Raul were ever to "actually" talk again we would not relate on a distinct level. We might even lose the already thin connection we forged in our childhood. Or at least the connection I hope we mutually forged, because while Raul was most definitely more concerned with impressing my brother back when we were kids, we still played with my cousin when our families would get together.

It break my heart a bit, the part of my heart that romanticizes childhood memories. It breaks my heart cause I genuinely liked the kid, and when I saw his face via Facebook after so many years, I was reminded how much fun it was to hang out with him and how much time had really passed since then. He's graduated and we never played again, for a last time. And the time where I did see him again briefly in within those 5 years, we didn't talk. I was going through a fairly cringe emo phase so he probably thinks nothing of me at this point. But I guess I could say the same about him if the stuff I saw on Facebook and his other social was anything to go by.

The kid isn't shit-tier normie, I mean he likes South Park which has been my obsession for what is honestly like a year now (wow its been a year since last fall) but he did like Amy Schumer? And Fousey Tube? Like lol, what? And I got to thinking, seeing as he's older and everything, he might not know about the cringe history behind those people, since yknow, after you hit a certain age you stop focusing on petty drama and focus your time on valuable things.(like college) Which makes me wonder if in reality I'm still the kid and he's the adult. Because physically yes, but mentally I'm still not sure which one us is more 'mature'

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was expecting the type of grown up that I am. The type of grown up thats hyper-aware of everything and overwhelmed by just the thought of existing. The type the kids I like are accustomed to. Like Caitlyn and the rest of em. The kind that comes when bad thing after bad thing keeps happening. So I guess I was looking for the cynical type of grown up? Now that I think about it. And really it's good that he's not like that. Its sad for me, cause I don't have a a lot mind for people who are "normal" in the basic sense, which I'm sensing he is ( haha). And therefore, we might not ever connect again, not the way I am with my cousin and some of my closest friends (like Caitlyn).

I guess me and those people just know too much. Which sounds pretentious, but really that sounds like something an old person would say. The kind that my brother has to deal with. So after gaining some admiration for him I kind of quickly lost it because I demonized him in my head without even truly knowing what he's like anymore. Which might be for the best, cause the odds of us ever rekindling a relationship like the one me and Raul had as kids, is very slim in the big picture of our lives. He's in college and Im off to who knows where after this. Im younger, and widely more disillusioned that he ever will be if I had to guess, so really I don't think we'd ever seek each other out in instances that don't involve my family.

Thats very disheartening, because while I kind of made him out to be shitty to myself once I reeled in my wishful thinking, I would still enjoy catching up with him. And maybe recreating something like that of when we were kids. Maybe thats more wishful thinking, but can you blame me? When I saw him on those photos, old and moving on, I felt alienated and left behind all over again.

Really only time can tell I guess.