Once upon a time, there was a scrawny, gawky, and terribly egocentric fourteen year old named Brittany Anne. Brittany was the oldest of three siblings, Alex, Ben, and Hanah. Though she loved all three of them very, very much, she did grow weary of fulfilling her role as the older sister and, in her own contrived imaginings, the “live-in indentured servant”. When Brittany’s diabolical mother told her that she was going to have another sibling for Brittany to watch all the time, you can imagine Brittany’s immediate repulsion: “ANOTHER kid to watch?? What kind of hotel is this?” In other words, she was utterly annoyed and overwhelmingly stressed. For nine months, while this alleged Sibling #4 was being gestationally baked, all Brittany could think about was how dreadful her life was going to become once the little dirtbag was born. By the time the fated day, April 30, 1998 finally arrived, Brittany’s mind had been well made up that this baby was on her own. Brittany had washed her hands of the entire affair. No more diapers, no more bottles, no more filthy rice cereal and baby food and baths. That would show her mom- the baby factory/slave driver. Even though it wasn’t the new baby’s fault that Brittany wasn’t utterly thrillified to have another sibling, there was really nothing she could do about it. All of these sinister thoughts surfed through Brittany’s brain all the way to the hospital. When Brittany finally saw her new baby sister, her first thought was, “Boy is she ever HUGE!” That new little baby was practically the size of a kindergartner. But she was cute. Brittany still wasn’t convinced though. After a couple days, the new little life-ruiner was allowed to come home. Brittany had no idea what she was in for. Upon arriving home, Brittany’s mom asked her to hold the new baby for a few minutes while she got settled. With much adolescent and estrogenical disdain, Brittany agreed. She took her new baby sister in her arms and sat down in a rocking chair in the family room. By some miracle, the house that was usually loud with chaos fell silent. Not a peep did Brittany hear as she sat there rocking her new baby sister. And it was in that rocking chair that something truly miraculous happened, and it took no more than three seconds. As Brittany rocked her brand-new, straight from the wings of Heaven, fifteen pound baby sister, her little black heart unleashed it’s stubborn grip and actually melted right into her toes. All at once, every feeling she had ever had of animosity was disintegrated and all she could feel for that new little person was love, love love. Her plan was foiled- she loved her new baby sister and there was no getting around it. All her previous feelings were diminished, and at that moment all she cared about was loving that new baby and being the absolute most legit big sister there ever was.

I love you Emme- I wasn’t completely a sister until there was you.

Peace and Love.

Recently I heard myself voicing this to one of my peeps: “I don’t seem to write my brother as much because my life is so good now that I have nothing to talk about.” Just days before this word vomit, I ran into one of my good friends whom I hadn’t seen or talked to in months. As we tried to figure out an explanation for this, he outted us: “It’s because we haven’t had any drama in our lives. Our lives have been so good that we haven’t needed each other!” Wow. That dreadful realization made me ache. Why is it that only when my life is seemingly pitiful do I feel the need to proclaim it? Why don’t I feel that need when my life is M. Poppins-esque in that it is “practically perfect in every way”? This proclivity of mine to vehemently declare my life’s despondencies and merely whisper my life’s little thrills is utterly disgraceful! Yesterday I drove right under a rainbow. A fully arched rainbow… In all my years I’ve never actually seen a WHOLE rainbow. I’ve only ever been able to witness HALF a rainbow. I couldn’t help but compare this to my life and how, for so long, I’ve only been able to see “half the rainbow”, hypothetically speaking, let alone anything at all through “the stormy clouds of my existence”. How can one lead a happy, fulfilling life, if they fail to see the rainbows through the storm, or, I guess, after the storm?

Thank goodness for that rainbow (BTW i’m fully aware of how utterly… gay… all this talk about rainbows sounds, but just humor your girl…), because it was just what I needed to change my perspective and compel me toward a life of Optimism. I used to say that optimism was boring. More word vomit. Because… in all sincerity, I’ve always sort of been an optimist in a pessimist’s clothing. This is making me sound like a contradictator, I know. First I say I’m Negative personified and then I promise that no, I really was a proponent of optimisticism. But, I say optimist in a pessimist’s clothing because, even though it was effortless for me to complain, and bemoan, and condemn, and be all estrogenical all the time… Sometimes, deep down, I still had this little flicker of hope that things were going to be just fine. So it is true what they say. Beauty is only skin deep because my ability to find the beauty in situations was always there, just buried deep down beneath the surface. That little flicker, try as it may, never really surfaced. But the fact that it flickered at all under such circumstances is kind of inspiring, right? Let that little deep seeded flicker of optimism surface, and it can change everything. Suddenly, everything is rosy, your Pepsi glass is always half full, there’s no such thing as a cloud without a silver lining, no tunnel without a light at the end, and all that jazzy jazz.

I heretofore pledge that I will now not only broadcast all the marvelousness in my life, but search tenaciously for it when it seems to be on holiday. There’s nothing like a rainbow to make you switch sides. Pa ha. Peace and Love.

“You look like a… Something.”

Like I don’t?

Chris Farley, circa 1978. When he was a baby. Girl.