My Brother Ryan

Growing up in a large family has both its advantages and disadvantages. My brother Ryan falls into both of those categories.

Ryan was the goofy kid, the class clown, and he always seemed to garner attention towards himself by, well, being him. I, on the other hand, was fairly introverted, the studious one, and would try to deflect attention away from myself by any means necessary. We were, by nearly all accounts, complete opposites. This meant we got along well… most of the time.

Anyway, today is his birthday. His thirty-second one to be exact. And he has done a lot of living in those years, which sadly as his older brother I haven’t. I definitely can take a few cues from his life, though to be perfectly honest, he’s too much of a partier and I’m, uh, just not. He’s never been afraid to look at anything that life threw at him and regarded each instance as an adventure rather than an obstacle. He’s fearless when it comes to doing stupid-human-tricks, like when we were in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota (okay, so it was in Custer, but still) and our mom and stepdad were looking at property to invest in and he decided to jump on this old rickety trampoline completely rust-laden and no padded guard around the edges and flipped just a little too close to the edge where he promptly fell against it and started bleeding ferociously, leaving me to run after the adults who had taken off in a car to look at the various properties for sale. Yes, things like that. If they could somehow capture the fearless gene he no doubt has and combine it with the common sense gene I possess, that person would be destined for greatness. Of course my brain is still focused on the fat kid (me) running through fields that were quite reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie and I was secretly praying I didn’t pull a Carrie and fall flat on my face while anyone may have been looking.

My brother no longer lives here in the rainy Pacific Northwest but in the sunny warmth known as Southern California. I have serious doubts he will ever return as he absolutely loves it down there. His two kids do too. And I’m sure the third who has yet to be born will as well. We’re not as close as we once were, but alas, it’s because none of us keep in touch unless we live in the same general region. I don’t know what that is all about, but I think it may be because we all are more face-to-face interacters than long-distance. I don’t know if interacters is a word, but my word processor is screaming at me that it isn’t and I don’t give a damn. It should be.

So happy birthday, Ryan! I hope your day is great and your future is greater.

p.s. – I’m planning on doing a birthday post for all of my siblings, so this is only the first of six, so be afraid Brandon, Ryan (yes, another Ryan), Ashley, Kassidie and K.C.!