"I'm kind of surprised I don't feel so bad when I think about the kind of week I had..." -Big Wreck, Breakthrough, The Pleasure and the Greed

Thank you, Ian, for saying exactly what I feel.
Goddamn, what a week, I'm telling you. I'm so exhausted at this point, I can hardly believe I made it through.
Being at work is strange. The people I'm used to seeing...the people who were my friends...they're all gone now. On unemployment. Just gone. It's strange, there only being five of us downstairs. Finding a parking space on the first try. Going to lunch at 1pm. It's so quiet.
I had to babysit for my brother this weekend. He's seventeen years old, and for some reason, my parents, who are visiting my sister at college this weekend, decided he needed a chaperone. Now, I love my brother, I truly do. He's a wiseass, but basically, he's a really, really, really, REALLY good kid.
Well, at least, I thought so.
I know he gets into trouble in school, with his mouth and all, but he really only plays Playstation 2 and plays sports. Everything. Soccer. Basketball. Baseball. Paintball. He's smart, doesn't apply himself and would rather be playing guitar than homework. Reminds me of me. Well, anyway, I figured I'd get to my parents house and he's be upstairs, surgically attached to the Playstation, I would make dinner and go to bed.
Wrong.
He calls me as I'm walking into my apartment at 8:30, after one hellishly horrendous week, and tells me that he's calling to let me know he's got people up. Now, my parents live in the middle of NOWHERE. Seriously. We didn't have a phone until I was in second grade, for crying out loud. Very grass roots, very hick-ish. My father raised sheep and chickens when I was growing up. It's a beautiful house and I love the solace and serenity of knowing I'm really the only person for miles (the solace which is being pierced by the booming God-like voice of Mr. Ian Thornley. I love their stereo.). When I was younger, I hated not having anyone to play with. As I got older, I realized we could friggin' drop a nuclear bomb up here and no one would ever know. Volume is not an issue. No one can here us and if they can, they don't care.
His "people" were about 12 kids, all boys except one, all seventeen or eighteen. All extremely drunk/high and both. Imagine my surprise. My innocent little brother telling me I didn't need to bring beer because they already had a 30 pack of Coors Lite. Yick.
Needless to say, I got HAMMERED with a bunch of highschool kids in my parents front yard. Kids I've known since they were five or six years old. Kids I was doing tequila shots with.
Kids.
Now, I know I'm not THAT old, but I really felt it. They're seventeen. I'm almost 22. There's an age gap. Maybe because I realized that THAT'S what highschool was. They're seniors and they have their whole lives ahead of them. They have no clue what it means to have no money for food, what working 60 hours a week feels like, what layoffs mean...they have no clue. Their innocence amazed me.
I was jealous.
I wanted to be 17 years old again.
So...here I am. In the house I grew up in. Making brownies, listening to Big Wreck and typing the 30 pages of delicous, wonderful shit I wrote in the last week into the computer, trying to convince myself I'm not hungover.
So maybe the week wasn't that bad.

"Am I using my own words now?
Or is someone beyond
Just waving their wand?"
-Big Wreck, Defined by What We Steal, The Pleasure and the Greed