Where are the lines of responsibility drawn...or, Am I an asshole?

It feels like I'm drowning and I can't even bother to reach for a life jacket. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for a mortgage. I didn't ask to be responsible for a mother and a little sister abandoned by an asshole father who decided he wanted to trade his family in for a younger model. I'm barely in my thirties, I shouldn't have the added pressure of having to support a family I didn't ask for. It sounds selfish but I feel like I've already wasted years of my life on a man who kept me by his side with enough distance to have an out when something better presented itself. I made the mistake I thought I was far too intelligent ever to make. I lost myself in someone else. I didn't need my friends or family. I missed holidays and birthdays and get togethers because I was too busy living my life with him. Now I've been tossed to the side and I realize that I have to work hard to make those connections I once shared with people. But it's hard when all your money is spent on the mortgage and the electricity and the gas and the water and the cable and the internet and cell phones and everyone always wants to go out for drinks or dinner. I can barely afford a goddamn big mac and even when I do find myself in a mcdonalds drive thru I find myself asking how I can better spend these five bucks to make sure everyone at home eats.

Now I'm thirty one years old. Stuck in my mother's basement. Barely employed at a dead end job where I spend absolutely no brain power during my day. I'm a catch, huh? It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel so damn alone. Or if I didn't live with a mother who acts like she's the only one feeling the pressure while my sister drives her brand new 2009 Malibu and they have their weekly shopping sprees.

And if I "abandon my family" again, as all my aunts and uncles saw my moving out the first time around when I was 21 I'd just be proving everyone right. I am exactly like my father. It feels like I have to start over. I can't see myself doing that living in my mother's basement. Maybe I need to stop looking at it as "my mother's basement". My name is on the lease.