Dear Mom and Dad

(Day Nine)

I found this nice little drawing I made my parents when I was a kid:

You can see from my use of colors and lines that I was a very creative kid. It's like the lines are a multi-colored pyramid that just shot out a pink flower. Clearly a symbolic representation of love. Clearly.

You'll also notice that this paper is stapled to another paper on all four corners. When I peeked inside, I saw this:

"Dear Mom and Dad,

I love you very much.

But why does Matt have

to be so mean?"

A secret message detailing the sadistic nature of my little brother, hidden not-so-well behind my love flower pyramid explosion. A secret message I must have felt guilty about yet still thought necessary, given it's presence despite the scribbling out with black crayon.

My brother's not really mean. I love him. He's just extremely annoying and has an insane ability to pester people to death. It's like a talent for him. That's what brothers are supposed to do, right? Since I seem to remember putting hair gel all over his face when he was sleeping and sneaking out so I could go to the pool without having to take him with me, I'll give him a pass.

I grew up with two younger brothers, one three years younger than me and one eight. There was enough of an age gap between Scott and me that I ended up feeling more maternal towards him, but Matt and I were close enough that we fought on a fairly regular basis. He's also very different from me -- extraverted where I'm an introvert, into sports and beer where I'm into books and wine. But the thing about siblings is that no matter how different you are, there's always a part of you that's the same, that grew up in the same house, with the same parents. You have the same start to your universe. And whenever I go through rough patches, I retreat back to my family, whether it means driving up to Muncie after work just to watch The Office in Matt's college apartment or making Christmas cookies with Scott. No matter how different our lives become, we're always Drummonds.