I was and still am a melancholic broken loser loner that’s never been in a single relationship his entire life. I’m nearing 40, I completely missed out on living life, and there’s no fixing that. It’s sad and pathetic, yeah, and I’ve been on the internet for far too long to know that acknowledging it is a surefire way to get you exposed to comments, but it is what it is, what honesty is one of the few things I do have in life.
Yet, God, in His mysterious ways, made it so that I’ve now gone through almost all aspects of parenting, just not in chronological order.
A little over eight years ago, this broken loser loner became a sort of pseudo-single parent for my brother after our mother passed away in 2018. A lot happened in the following years, but in 2023, this personal facet of my life expanded after one of our cousins finally moved in with us a few months before my brother and I left Venezuela. Since then, and broken as I am physically and mentally, I’ve continued to function as the closest thing those two have to a father figure.
Although I’ve failed at achieving any of my goals, such as getting interest in my passion project novel only to get mixed reviews on the current iteration of the draft, I’ve still had to function as a parent for them over the past year. This, in turn, has allowed me to experience aspects and responsibilities inherent to being a parent — without actually being one, and not in the right chronological order, like I said.
Either way time to self-asses myself and see how I did in this third year of the Pseudo Single-Parent Experience™
When it comes to my brother, I keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing every day since our mom passed away: ensure that he’s safe and has food on the table every day. I’ve kept trying to get him interested in pursuing passions of his own in the hopes that he finds his own place in the world and is more self-capable, but no dice yet. This is a failure of mine that weighs heavily upon my shoulders because it was a concern of my mother too.
That said, he is slightly more outspoken when he wants to, and is now more independent in other things, like being able to go get a haircut on his own — but due to his mental condition he’s still mentally a kid in other stuff.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he’s been installing emulators on his own in the laptop that I got him two years ago (which he was supposed to use for studying, but still). This, I think, is a sign that he’s capable of taking initiative in trying things because I’ve tried over and over to get him to have more initiative in doing stuff, so he doesn’t just depend on me asking.
He continues to cook for himself (and for me on weekdays when I’m busy working, which is great). At this point, he’s the one that chooses what to buy to cook on our weekly grocery runs, my way of delegating some responsibilities on him without outright imposing anything on him. We still function as a team when it comes to chores.
But that key missing element (getting him to pursue his own ambitions and passions) is where I keep dropping the ball over and over.
Also, I can give him a treat, buy the stuff he needs, and surprise him with a video game here and there, but there is something very important that I, being the failure that I am, can’t provide him: a social life.
Last year, October 2025 to be more precise, we started the lengthy and excruciatingly bureaucratic process to get his disability status in Italy with the help of one of the Venezuelans that helped us settle in this small town and the area’s assigned local worker. The goal of this process is not to get him Neetbux, so to speak, but to get him under collocamento mirato, a special part time job placement/pathway for individuals with disability in Italy.
It took almost a whole damn year, but he has a 50% disability recognition from the Italian social security institution — the bare minimum threshold for collocamento mirato. About two weeks ago he went with one of the Venezuelans that are helping us to a job center appointment in a nearby town. He received unemployment status recognition, and the mirato certificate.
But that’s not the end of the road, there are other steps that he’s gotta go though, and that’s where we’re at as of mid-October. It’s just one paperwork after the other, and after all the years of bureaucracy that I went through in Venezuela, well… I’m tired, lol. Additionally, the social worker that we started the process with has been reassigned, so we also had to go through a mini transitory process of his case with the new one. Can’t say anything bad about either of them, both have been very receptive and understanding of him and our situation.
The whole goal of this disability paperwork labyrinth process is simple: To get him into a part time job so he gets to socialize with others and get out of that inner world/shell of his that he spends most of his daily time in. That is the explicit goal that we’ve been working with the og social worker ever since the process started, and that has not changed.
Sure, if he starts earning some money on his own that’d be great. I’d still cover all of his expenses regardless, but him having his own money hopefully will lead to him having more initiative in life, buying stuff for himself and whatnot.
Now, as for my cousin, she just recently culminated one of the greatest milestones in her troublesome life: she graduated as a nurse. Going from a heavily abused woman to holding a diploma in her hands in just three years is amazing. I’m proud of her, but more importantly, I’m thankful to God that it allowed me to have the means to fund her education, because without me it is likely that she wouldn’t have been able to pay for the tuition fees — as no other member of our family helped her these past three years.
Bankrolling her education is the least I could do even if I had to steeply adjust my budget and sleep on a couch these past years cause I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes I did when I flunked college and further ruined my life. After my family screwed her out of a scholarship I told her I’d treat all of this as one just to push her to study hard and get good grades. It worked, she never suspected a thing, though I did come clean about it in the days leading to her graduation. She had her suspicions proven true about it, lol.
I failed to graduate 20 years ago when I had opportunities that she never had, so I wasn’t going to let that happen, had to break the cycle in a way, and that way was just paying for her fees. That diploma she now has in her hands was all 100% the product of her hard work, and no one else’s.
I wish I had been able to be there in her graduation ceremony (Oct 10), but alas. I’m not the first Venezuelan abroad that’s had to skip a relative’s graduation ceremony, and I sadly won’t be the last. Although I can come and go as I please, there are a series of logistical limitations that prevented me from arranging a timely trip to Venezuela to attend the ceremony, including, but not limited to, transportation, and the fact that two of my debit cards won’t work there (long story)
She will continue her studies for at least two more years, and she already knows that I’ll keep helping her pay for it, she deserves that much and more. I’ve never been in a relationship, and I’m not a woman, so I can’t give her advice when it comes to relationships. Still, she’s doing well on her own in that regard, and without disclosing much of her personal life, she seems happy with her boyfriend. I don’t personally know the guy, but he seems like a nice fella.
Her journey these past years also led to her attaining her own “found family” (if I’m using the term right), which I’m grateful for, although our relatives do not approve of them for reasons that I will not disclose, but I don’t care. They’ve treated her with affection and kindness, and that’s all I care for.
Those moments of joy that she’s been experiencing on her own, little by little, will hopefully erase the roughly two decades of physical and mental abuse that she went through — even if said relatives keep trying to stir more shit and drama to this day.
My mom tried for years to get her and her brother out of that abusive household, even during her final years, so it’s a task that, beyond family blood ties, was something that I had the moral duty to carry out alongside trying to make some sense out of my life, leave Venezuela, etc.
That other cousin, my Godson, is the one case I the moral duty to help, but I just don’t know how yet — other than, maybe, somehow hitting it big and having enough fuck you money so I can relocate him to somewhere where he can socialize, study, develop skills on his own, etc.
I’m no role model of anything, I’m just some broken dude that has to take care of his brother and cousin cause life dealt them shitty hands. I try my best, but they deserve more than what I can provide as a pseudo-parent.
Suffice to say, those two deserve better, better than what they’re stuck with, aka me.
Nevertheless, they remain the only reason that I have to wake up every morning, work, and exist, because it’s no secret to anybody that I’m mentally at my worst, keep failing over and over, and I just feel like a complete hopeless failure right now.
God nevertheless allowed me to keep those two safe and happy for another year, so that’s something to be grateful for.
