“But also happy 15th birthday in a row without snow.”
Hey, how’s this for a birthday surprise present? I hope it makes up for the fact that part of your actual gift from me ended up being pretty lame, but I want to take some time to wish you a proper happy birthday and write you your own post on here! Not that this blog, you know, means anything in the real world, but I thought it would be fun and I want to tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me, and your birthday seemed like a pretty good excuse to do it. Especially since I already missed international Brother’s Day earlier this year, anyway.
So happy birthday! I can’t believe that you’re twenty now. It’s not like that I’m that much older than you or anything, but it does seem like just yesterday that you were still in high school, or just yesterday I still had to drive you to and from school events, or just yesterday you were in middle school, or just yesterday we were in grade school together, or just yesterday we still lived in Broadview before the move. Time flies so fast, but I’m so glad that I got to grow up with you. You are, without a doubt, the best brother that I could ask for. You’re an incredible, funny, compassionate, kind, empathetic, and awesome human, and you’re an amazing brother. I love you and I’m so lucky to have you in my life. Hopefully this whole thing doesn’t end up being too sappy or embarrassing.
Oh, man, where to begin with this? This is the same issue I had when writing these posts for mom and dad, in that I don’t know how to start these or where to begin or, initially, even what to talk about, and then by the end I don’t know where to stop or what stories to include or what stories to not include because there’s just so much to talk about. So many amazing memories we’ve shared, all the things we’ve done together, all the wonderful qualities about you that you bring to the world and the people in your life, myself included. You’re my best friend, and I’ve always felt like I can talk to you about anything. All the conversations we’ve had about existential dread and the future of the human race, staying up late into the night talking about that or just talking about random bullshit that’s always so funny. They’re some of my favorite memories and one of the things I look forward to most when I come home to visit or when you come to visit me. I miss getting to spend that time with you when we aren’t in the same house.
But I guess I’ll start with one of the most recent; I’m really, really glad that I got to go on that road trip with you back in August. It was super stressful at the time, and I know for a fact that we got on each other’s nerves a bit, but it was such an amazing experience. Being able to spend that time with you, especially in the middle of not just the world changing but of our own worlds changing, was a great break. You’re an awesome travel partner, and there are very few other people I’d be comfortable enough with spending twelve hours in a cramped VW convertible. We got to joke around, cry, see tons of sights, vomit only once or twice, and camp out on the long arm of Massachusetts, not to mention had an extra chance to see Grandpa and Jane before they left magical New England and came to cornland. It was so much fun and I can’t wait to travel with you again to Europe, hopefully when this COVID stuff is all over and we don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s safe to use this gas station, or if we have a cough or the Coronavirus.
But there are so many other great memories, too. Like going to Philmont with me, the second time that I went. I know you weren’t super thrilled about it before, and I know that you ended up loving it, but I’m still very thankful that we got to spend that time together, along with all our other friends and family on that trip. The greatest moment from that trip is, without a doubt, the chorus of Waluigi that you single-handedly began on one of our last days. That moment made the trip for me, I think, and it definitely helped for the other people, too, and it’s all thanks to you. You’re such a funny, genuine person, and you’re always putting the welfare of others in front of yourself, even to a fault. But regardless, it was a moment that I’ll never forget, and one that I’m glad we got to share, and continue to share.
Or moments like that from countless other vacations and trips abroad that we can share. Speaking broken, mangled Spanish to that random Spanish woman in Brussels and finding out that the Belgian police beat statues of dogs, apparently. Or the infamous moment of “Ragdoll.” I couldn’t stop laughing and nearly ran us off the road. Squam lake and climbing up Mount Washington, or you mooning just about everyone around on several different occasions. Going on hikes with me to help finish up a class project, after the pandemic started, or supporting me in making shitty YouTube videos for other class projects, long, long before the pandemic started.
And speaking of YouTube, how could I forget our attempt to become YouTube famous with Nuthead1492? Yeah, I’ve talked about it on here before, but making all those awful, awful videos are some of the highlights of that part of my life, and they’re so great because you’re there. You’ve always got such great ideas, and such a drive and passion for creation and discovery, one that you’ve had even from a young age. I didn’t always support your ideas when I was younger (read: like ten), but I appreciate now just the level of creativity and emotion you put into every project you want to do, and how much fun you try to find in everything you can do. Even if you don’t always go through with it, the energy you have is a beautiful thing, and one of the greatest things about you. But you aren’t afraid to switch tracks if it isn’t working, either, and that’s even better.
I hope this isn’t too much dirty laundry to air, but when you made that decision to not to go DePaul university and instead go to community college, I don’t think I ever told you how proud I was of you. That decision, besides being pretty prophetic towards the pandemic, is one of the most mature, life-altering decisions you’ve had to make, and I’m so proud of you for going through with it and making the decision that was best for you and your future. And you didn’t care what people might have said about you, and that’s incredibly admirable, too. It takes a lot of guts to do something radical, something as big as changing colleges on move-in day, or something as small as dyeing your hair and wearing fashion-forward clothes, and you’ve done these things without a thought as to what others might think, knowing that it’s what’s best for you, and nothing else can stop you. It’s a rare thing to come by, and I know you’ll hold onto it.
And I want to thank you for introducing me to crazy new musical artists, too. For getting me hooked on songs and artists that I never would have considered if you hadn’t shown them to me. Tyler, The Creator, who we somehow saw in person, is probably an artist that I never would have ever listened to on my own, so thank you for introducing me to his music. 100 gecs, more recently, is a bad that I find I really enjoy and certainly never would have found them on my own. And there are a couple others, too. So thank you for getting me to get out of my music shell and experience other artists, especially rappers, that I wouldn’t listen to without some extra help.
And, speaking of help, thank you for helping me throughout high school, and into college, with getting through my mental health stuff. Going through depression and anxiety and suicidal ideations and obsessions and compulsions for three or four years now has been incredibly scary, and I have you to thank for surviving a lot of it. I couldn’t have done it without you, knowing that you’d be there for me regardless of what it was, if I needed your help. Of driving around the suburbs with me, looking at houses and finding random restaurants and just kind of exploring in order to get my mind off of things. Thank you for being such an integral part of my support network for all those times, and providing me with someone to talk to when things got rough. You’ve saved my life more than once.
You’ve been such an amazing friend to me, and I know that you always will be, regardless of what happens. I can count on you to the moon and back, and that’s something that seems to happen so rarely in life. From working on writing projects together to dreaming out big plans about the way we want our lives to go, thank you for being so supportive of me, and I hope that I’ve been supportive of you, too, because you have such incredible dreams and I know that you’re going to do great things. And I want you to be happy when you reach your dreams, because you deserve to be happy. You’re worth it, and you matter. If you ever doubt your own self worth or value, you matter. You are one of the most amazing, compassionate people I know, and you deserve to be in the this world. I wish more people were like you.
I could go on with more stuff about you, more memories and more amazing things about who you are and why I love you so much, and why I want your birthday to be special, but also why you deserve every day to be special. You’re an incredible person. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re kind and caring, you’re generous, you’re ambitious, you’re so many great things and you have so many great ideas and skills to share with the world, and I want you to succeed and I want you to be happy. That’s my birthday wish for you, above all else, is that you are happy. I love you, and I’ll always be with you. You’re an amazing person and an amazing brother, and I wouldn’t be anywhere I am today without you. Happy birthday, Nick. You can’t legally drink yet, but you can sure as hell party.
Happy birthday. I love you.
Oh, and one last story before I go; since your birthday is December 21st, your birthday fell on 12/21/12, the day that everyone thought the world was going to end. Clearly the Aztecs were eight years early and the world will actually end today. But it’s funny that in 2012 I genuinely believed, just for a few days, that the world would actually end. And, because I was 14 and correlation is causation to children, I was sure that you were going to have something to do with bringing about the end of the world in 2012. For a few days I was convinced you were the antichrist because your birthday fell on 12/21/12. I don’t think I ever told you that, but now I have. And look where we are now, huh? The world is still going to end but at least I know that you’ll try to save it, not destroy it.
Will 12-21-21 have special significance? Let the stories continue.