Brotherly Love- St. Elmo’s Fire

My brother Jeff said, “Shut the door.”   No trace of light could be found in the downstairs half bath of our townhouse apartment in Gastonia. “Here, hold this” he stated.  Kind of reminds me of the last words of a redneck, “Hey yall, watch this!”  He said, “light this match.”   Maybe, I should preface this story with another story of how our apartment neighbors….(another apartment complex…) would run from their apartments and jump into the community pool fully clothed to save me from my brother who would hold me under the water longer than our good neighbors thought big brothers should… Or maybe I should share the story of how my mom saved his letter to Santa Claus that I found accidentally.  It requested that Santa take me away.  “Dear Santa, I don’t want anything for Christmas but I want you to take my sister with you.”  My brother just thought he wanted Santa to take me away.  Sooooooo…. back to my original story.     I did as instructed.  I lit the match because I loved my brother and he was giving me attention momentarily and plus, I had no idea what I was doing, what he was doing, or why.  The last thing I remember was seeing the words, Aqua Net.  Do any of you know what that means?  Yes, burnt eyebrows and hair.  He laughed his butt off, which incited me to start laughing my butt off.    HA!  So freaking glad Santa let me keep my face  another year.  I forgot to mention I was in 2nd maybe 3rd grade.

Believe it or not, my brother and I have a great, healthy, non-life threatening relationship now.

This post inspired by a blogger I am following.

I love everybody.

This is not really me…

When I am running, I wave at everybody! I wave at the car that moves over to give me way more room than I need. I wave at the car that doesn’t move over, because I think maybe they don’t see me, but possibly at the last second they will see me and think to themselves, “next time I am going to slow down or move over for that runner…” I wave and smile at the creepy person as I SPRINT by. My mother told me that when I was little, she would push me in the grocery cart at Huxley Village;-). She said that I would raise up my hand and wave or say, “hey!” to strangers we passed in the grocery aisle, forcing them to wave back, smile, or speak to me.

I mean, of course, I LUUUUUUVVVVV all of my family members and my friends. But I truly feel like I have a “level” of love for strangers. Is that weird?

No matter their gender, their religion, their origin, their appearance, their preference, their anything…

No matter their anything, their political preference, their vote, I have love for everyone.