I am thankful…3 older brothers.

Today is Thanksgiving, or it will be by the time I post this. So, I want to take the time to mention a few reasons why I’m thankful.

I am extremely thankful for my family. Over the last few years I have realized how lucky I am to have such fantastic relationships with my three older brothers. We are closer to each other than I could have ever expected.

I am thankful for:

My oldest brother, Shawn.

He has always been a strong figure in my life. He has always been a steady person, with a heart of gold and a saint’s patience. I can only count on one finger the amount of times I’ve seen him really mad. And at that time I was a bitchy, know-it-all tween, (thus, it was my fault), and he was recently re-adjusting to being around us after 6 years in the air force. So, if you ever see Shawn mad, then there is a real justifiable reason for it. Otherwise, he maintains a calming persona and reasons his way out of arguments, or deftly switches the subject to avoid confrontation (where did he learn this, I wonder?). We’ve always connected on the same Geek level, with a similar sense of humor and an ability to confidently make utter fools out of ourselves. (Just watch us dance.) Thanks to a book he once bought me, I can say, “where is the chocolate?” in Klingon. I still have several 20yr-old shirts he gave me that portray our similar humor. One says, “Live well, eat right, and die anyway.” The other one says, “If you love something - let it go free, if it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.”

I am thankful for him in my life, and I’m glad I moved to Salt Lake. Spending time with him was a big part of my reasoning in moving here since he was in the air force for a majority of my childhood and in Utah for the other part. I am also more recently thankful that he and his wife, Marie, have opened up their home for me to stay at while I attempt to direct my life down a more focused wayward-journey.

I don’t know how well I’ve expressed to you both how much I appreciate the help you’ve given me emotionally and shelter-ly, but Thank You. I love you.

My middle brother, Shane.

Shane has always been the other positive geek influence in my life. :) When we were kids we fought tenaciously, him being an angsty teenager and me being the annoying kid sister who wanted to be his shadow. (But what kid sister wouldn’t have wanted to be his shadow? He was a genius, a gnarly skater, and in several rockin’ bands with cute friends! HA!)

As we grew up, we gained many similar interests and, I think, a great respect for each other’s opinions. I’ve always valued how something I could say to him would actually affect his decisions, and it has always worked in reverse. I can actually trace back my decision to finally go to college after several weeks of inspiring conversations with Shane, about an anthropology class he was taking. His passion for learning, and his faith in me, was a catalyst in my choice of furthering my schoolin’. For that I am very grateful.

Some awesome memories of growing up with Shane encompass; countless games of War (card game) and Tetris, appreciating the music of his band (Space Hustler), sitting on his floor in a sparse-minimalist apartment, eating his famous stir-fry while watching him make homemade hardbound journals for Christmas gifts. The inception to my current opinions of materialism and simplicity started in that empty apartment. Shane kind of remembers that time as a dark period where he was struggling and financially challenged, but I saw it as a different, more meaningful way to live. Kind of odd, huh? I’m grateful for that experience.

I am thankful that Shane is not only my brother, but also one of my best friends. He has always been a great person to talk to, whether our conversations are light and dorky, insightful, or serious with sharing of our feelings. We can geek out with web design talk and excessively throw in “dude” into all our conversations. He also introduced me to several of my still-favorite books, among them Dune, 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s stories.

Shane, I love you and hope you realize how thankful I am to have you as a brother, dude.

My last older brother, Todd.

Todd and I are barely a year apart in age. Growing up, that meant we were sparring partners for our formative years. As latch-key kids we would start a fight, bloody one-another, revenge the wrongs we did to each other, cry and be over it by the time anyone else got home. :) I believe those experiences taught me how to stick up for myself. That, and to always call my seat before leaving the room, and to lick my food before leaving it unattended, and to hide my Barbies from Todd. Seriously, dude, finding them in inappropriate positions wasn’t funny that many times! Plus, they never did work right after you pulled their heads off, hung them in the tree and covered them in fake blood. Or what about the time you shot me, close range, with your Daisy Bee-bee gun? Or the time you read my journal and taunted me for months about my crush?

All fun memories aside, I am thankful in so many ways for my brother Todd. He has always stuck up for me when it was important. I can’t count how many times I would fake like I was drowning at the local pool, when we were kids, and Todd would jump in to save me. There was never one time that he gave up in the off chance I really was drowning. Also, when I switched high schools, after moving, and regretted it miserably, Todd was the one who went to the office and took care to help me get back to my preferred school. And even in the short period I was at his school he invited me along to lunch with him and his friends every day. That has always meant something to me that he wasn’t embarrassed of me around his friends.

I am so grateful for my brother Todd. He has always been the one focused on our family and us supporting one another. I can confide in him about stuff and know he won’t judge me on it, or at least not seriously, he may throw in a few uncouth jokes to make me laugh. Laughter. That is Todd’s language. He laughs when he is happy and he laughs when he is nervous. I remember a few years ago when we decided to float down the river with his less-than-stellar inner-tube. After his inner-tube totally deflated, we went through some slight rapids while hanging on to mine, he boomed with laughter the whole way. Then, after the danger was over he said, “well maybe that was stupid.” :)

I am thankful for all the experiences, feuds, and lessons learned from my brother Todd. He is the light-hearted, big-hearted, jovial brother who’s laughter permeates almost all my memories and thoughts surrounding him. Thank you Todd for being such an awesome brother, I hope you always know how much I love you.
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Well, this post was originally meant to show my thanks to many more people. But I think a good detailed account of my gratitude for my siblings will have to do this time. It’s 2:30am and we’re eating at noon.

I can at least mention that I’m very thankful for: my Mom, Rod, Julie, Susie, Jonah, Seth, Adam, Carrie, Cliff, Tyler, Autumn, Ian, Zoe, Grandpa, Theresa, Luke, Cedar, Heather, JT, Brett, Lillie, Bruce, Warren, Mark, Frances, Jessie, Brad, and many, many people I’m probably forgetting in my sleepy stupor. I love you all.

Happy Thanksgiving!