so here's the thing about brothers

For the first few years of your life, they're your best friends. Especially if you're homeschooled, and your mom is pregnant and on bed rest. You play dinosaurs, Playmobil, and stuffed animals with them. They always sit next to you during Disney movies, they're your top exploring buddies, and they can always be counted upon to make the very best rainwater-and-twigs-and-dirt-and-random-berries-mixed-in-a-hollowed-out-tree-stump-soup. Basically, from ages four through nine, your brothers are your closest companions.

But then those awkward years, known as the 'tweens,' come around. That's about the time where your brothers get rude and stinky and just plain weird. They think the same about you, and so all confidences are broken. You make new girlfriends, they make new guy-friends, and your brothers become pretty much your worst enemies---always getting in the way, embarrassing  you in front of your friends, and just being stupid. So for about four years, you and your brothers don't get along at all. -insert typical eye roll here-

And one day you wake up and both you and your brothers have grown up overnight. All of a sudden, you're being more polite {to a certain extent} and then you find that they are actually pretty funny chaps! With the brother closer in age, you find yourself groaning over teenage 'love' and wondering together about the feelings of certain special people. The younger brother, then, starts to share your love for Doctor Who and some different books. You squeal over plot changes and how perfect characters are for one another.

And somehow, from Playmobil and Clifford the Big Red Dog to inside jokes and Psych marathons---they become your best friends again. 

'Cause that's the thing about brothers. No matter how annoying or disgusting they are, they're yours. It may take you a lifetime to figure it out, but God really did know what He was doing when He made them yours.

 

to my brothers, Aiden and Owen. I love you more than you'll ever know.
 always yours,
~Lily