About two years ago my “Pseudo Single Parent” journey took a new twist after one of my younger cousins moved in with us a few months before I left Venezuela, marking a radically different chapter of her life after years of abuse. Since then, she has continued to study at a nursing school in Caracacas, which I’ve been bankrolling on my own in its entirety since January after my family bailed on her.
I’m a broken mess of a man, full of regret, and I keep failing over and over at achieving my own dreams. I’ve never been in a relationship, let alone on a date, or even done normal things like hanging out with friends to like, a movie night at a cinema or what have you — and yet, I have to perform parental duties for both my brother and my cousin.
Like I said two years ago and back in 2018 after my mom passed away and I started taking care of my brother: I wasn’t given a handbook on how to be a father. To expand upon that, I have no actual normal father figure reference to draw from, between my father, his brothers, and my mom’s three brothers there’s not a single proper “normal” father figure. The closest would be one of my late uncles, my cousin’s father, who was the closest I had to a dad in Maracaibo, and a man who fundamentally shaped the way I treat and don’t prejudice others, as he was a man who was subjected to mistreatment and scorn because of his neurofibromatosis.
And yet I think I somehow am able to pull this off, in a way. Look at me go, the absolute disaster of a man, having to be a stand-in dad for his brother and cousin, bankrolling tuitions like a father would, taking care of my brother, and trying to find ways to help and motivate them despite me being a broken, depressed mess.
Over the past two years I’ve seen my brother and cousin go through so many good changes.
When it comes to my brother, he’s been far more outgoing these days. He’s now capable of cooking basic meals, continues to express himself more beyond simple answers, and has taken more and more initiatives.
I used to simply mask it all up, but there’s been days when my depression relapses get the best of me, and I get consumed by it. Between being stuck at publishing Sword for the first seven months of 2025 so far, other woes such as my USD part-time remote job income being impacted by the ongoing EUR/USD conundrum, isolation (more so now that I’m a stranger in a small town where I struggle to communicate with others) and me being bereft of fulfilment all around, just to name a few (but not all) of my present mental burdens.
He reprimanded me in a way for not being open with him on my own woes, and has, for the first time, been the one to offer words of comfort and not the other way around. A few weeks ago he said to me he wished he was able to express himself better because he struggles at saying words. I told him not to worry, because he did his best, and that was enough for me.
I still gotta find something that he’s passionate about so he can find his own path in all of this mess that we call life. Baby steps, I guess. One year ago he was not capable of cooking but now look at him go.
When it comes to my cousin, who I also have to be a father (or cousin/father figure in her case), she’s become exceedingly independent and capable, and I’m very proud of her. I’m a fat loser that’s never been in a relationship, so I could not give her advice in such matters — that much I let her know through the three breakups that she’s been through these past two years, lol.
But I am an outcast, and that means I could at the very least, give some advice when others have brought her down, such as one incident with “da sisterhood” of normie women in the classroom, and when a teacher lashed out at her using words very similar to words my family used to when they verbally abused her, which justifiably caused her to have a breakdown.
Two years ago, she was this skittery nervous 23 year old that looks younger due to developmental issues. Today, she’s a 25 year old that has a job, friends, and A-grade scores all around. She’s one year away from graduating from nursing school. A few weeks ago, on the 2nd anniversary of her moving with us, I told her I was proud of her, because she’s closer than me at any other of our fellow cousins from graduating, something all of us failed to do for different reasons.
Like my brother and myself, she has a long way to go still, but I hope she finally gets the happiness she deserves. I don’t make much, so the only thing I can do right now is balance my budget so that I can pay off the final year’s worth of tuition every month while the selfsame relatives that put her through so much (and who now reside in the U.S. and allegedly promised to help her) gorge with the latest favor of the month slop they saw on TikTok.
Even though I don’t make much right now (barely around the average income per person in this region unless I’m mistaken) I somehow make it work and can take care of my brother and bankroll my cousin’s education. I’m very good with budgeting, one of the perks of living through the collapse of a country, I suppose.
Funny how my life is seemingly destined to be far from normal, with many of the “normal” events one goes through life happening out of order — even parenting-related ones, such as changing my brother’s diapers when I was 8-9 or putting someone to school before ever being in a relationship, lol.
The only reason I keep going, despite how broken and hopeless I feel right now, is those two. There is a third case, my cousin’s brother (who happens to be my godson), that’s another of my major unresolved worries, but right now, there is nothing I can do.
-Kal
