This will be the last post in which family is a main topic. I don’t like talking about my family at all, and reading back on past family posts hasn’t been very pleasant. Usually I learn something when I write about a topic, whether it be real estate, women, healthy eating, or even a rarely well-done rant. But the posts about my family just give me a headache when I read them again. I don’t learn enough from them to justify the headaches, so I’d really like this to be the last one. And the only reason why I’m even bringing this up is because it has a lot to do with my 5th REIG meeting. So let’s do a final summary of each one:
Roy
Hmm. Within the next two years, Roy’s glaucoma will probably take his eyes completely and he’ll be blind. It must be a vicious attack on his pride and humanity to have his sight slowly taken from him like this. He’s been trying to get the family together as a last-ditch effort to save whatever he believes our family should be right now. The last family conference was a complete disaster and solidified my belief that we will stay as separate as we are now. It still feels strange when, in the first meeting, he (as a man losing his sight) pleaded for help and we basically told him no. It… it bothered me. It bothered me that he offered his experience in banking to help me in my real estate ambitions and I turned him down, basically telling him that he was useless. It bothered me that he asked for help when I was always raised with the belief that we either learn to swim or drown. But I really hate the fact that I believe he can take care of himself but chooses not to. He made a comment to me last week when we talked about a lady from his church who comes by and does his laundry for free. When he asked her how much he owes her, she said “No sir. Someone of your standing should not have to pay for this kind of help.” Now, bear in mind that I rarely believe a word my father says when he recounts stories. I honestly believe that he has more than enough money to take care of himself, but is holding on to the old culture of children taking care of the parent. Now, if his kids are struggling to make it on their own right and he continuously tries to burden us with financial issues he can easily take care of himself, then doesn’t that make him the selfish one? The extremely selfish one? I don’t know what will happen between Roy and I, but I don’t think our strained relationship will ever change. And I don’t want it to.
Rita
Rita and I are back on speaking terms after a few months of angered silence. There’s something about Rita that I’ve always liked, but I can’t really pinpoint what it is. Anyway, she wants this to be her last year working before she retires, and is working overtime hours to make enough money to pay off property Chi before she retires. With her pension, her social security, and the incomes from her properties both here and in Nigeria, Rita has set herself up quite nicely. I’m still looking for a good property management company for property Chi, and I hope to find one before the end of summer. As far as my relationship with her goes, I think we’ll always be… okay. We’ve always had this strange bond where she would annoy the living shit out of me, we’d stop talking for a while, and then we’re back to normal again. It’s a sick cycle of pain, but not so different from other mother and son relationships. When I look back on my childhood and the job my parents did raising me... I can't complain. Things weren't perfect or even great but, from what I've seen, things could have been so much worse. In a strange way, I feel lucky.
Rana
Shit. Rana has... hmm. Rana is on her way to being evicted from the New Jersey apartment she just moved into November of last year. She moved out of Roy’s house and had to borrow money to pay the movers. Whatever landlord approved her for an apartment was a fucking idiot. Back when she had good credit, she went out and bought a brand new car, only to have it repossessed due to non payment. A few months after it being repossessed, she buys another brand new car only to have that one repossessed as well. She’s been doing temp jobs ever since I started college, which makes very little sense considering she has a bachelor’s in accounting and a couple other degrees as well. She got kicked out of her place and lived with my dad for almost two years before prematurely moving out. She recently tried to get a security job but couldn’t afford the $138 application fee for the security license. I could go on for ages but the point is that there’s something wrong with her. There’s something inside her that’s causing her to make all these irrational decisions and to hold onto her anger that she covers with a thin veil of religious dogma. When she eventually gets kicked out of her place, she may have to go to a shelter. Roy is dealing with his eyes and doesn’t want to handle her yelling at him over every little thing. Rita wants to retire and doesn’t need Rana’s hurricane destroying the peaceful retirement she’s trying to build. Rex is busy with his job and marriage. And I… well, I don’t have to really say anything do I? If Rana does end up in a shelter, it’ll be sad. But the only one who can save Rana is Rana. Anyone could give her a million dollars right now and she’d be broke within a year. Until she starts dealing with her problems instead of using religion to avoid her very real issues, I only see her getting worse. Like with addicts, maybe she needs to hit that “rock bottom” of living in a shelter before she gets better.
Rex
I don’t know the guy, and I think that’s why I get along with him better than I do with any other member of my family. And even then our relationship is akin to good acquaintances than brothers. And I think that’s the best it’s gonna get, and I’m good with that. I don’t know his personality or much about who he is as a person, and I think I want it to stay that way. I get the weird feeling that, if I know him the same way that I know everyone else, I wouldn’t like him nearly as much. So there’s not much that can be said about Rex.
So what does this have to do with the REIG meeting? When Donny talked about using the people around us to make money, it really ticked me off. I come from a mother and father who are both in real estate, and yet I do this on my own. My father has at least 250K saved up in his various accounts. After hearing Donny, I could have just said, “Hey Dad. Let me get 100K. Instead of making some crappy $1000 a year off of the interest through savings account, how about I make you $7000 a year and you don’t have to do anything?!” If I were comfortable with him, I would’ve been sharing my real estate ambitions and stories with him and get his point of view from his years in the banking industry. He would see that I’m at point now where I know what I’m doing and would jump at the chance of making extra money. I would have made money. He would have made money. The path to mutual success would be so much easier if we were different people. Donny started off with the trust of a couple of his military buddies, and then he was off to the races. It bothered me to realize how vastly different our family’s lives would have been, how successful we all could have been, had we not been littered with all these divisions and mistrust and BS. We could have…
Ah, whatever. The point has been made and that should be the end of that. Now, back to Donny…
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