PFC Brenner of My Generation

some things in life are just worth it. like wearing obnoxiously huge sweatpants all day. watching small children sleep. smoking hookah with your parents. planning lunch with an old friend. staying up late because you can. falling asleep next to someone who is smiling at you. eating ice cream before dinner and straight from the carton.

and some things are really hard.

and sometimes there's a very thin line between them.

my brother is in the army. special forces. fort benning i think. he's the last person on earth i ever imagined in the army, and if you know him then you'll understand. but he's there and writing all the miserable bootcamp details in letters to my mum that make her cry. but he'll be home for christmas.
he told me once how close he was to breaking both knees of someone who really really hurt me. it's hard to imagine someone growing up without that kind of a big brother presence. he's far away and he's impulsive and he's poor, but there's a sense of little sister-ship that goes along with motorcycles and broken knees. he's trained me well for this life in which i seem to play everyone's little sister.
on stage and off.