Today was a great day. Despite the fact, I lost my house keys and convinced myself that someone had taken them out of my front door and would steal all my stuff while I was at work, felt completely out of place in the office surrounded by college students in painstakingly planned-out, Halloween costumes while I was sporting jeans, a red hooded sweater, and flip-flops, or that I was tasked with consoling a dear friend who had found himself heartbroken while not being allowed to inform the heartless girl that her decision was truly ‘her loss’. Nope, my happiness wasn’t about to be lessened but such trivial occurences. Instead, my glee… my cheerful anxiousness came from the simple fact that my brother would be coming to town tomorrow. Zac was returning to Flagstaff, and nothing could ruin that.

You see, my brother is my best friend. He’s my ‘bff’ in an unexplainable but eternally blessed kinda way, and he’s been gone from Flagstaff for nine weeks. (Hush, nine weeks is a long time in brother/sister years.) After fleeing the nest, we’ve both lived in Flagstaff for the last five years and had lived in the same apartment for the last year or so, until recently when he returned to our hometown to spend time with my parents and just regroup. As important as that time has been for him, I’ve missed him tremendously. I don’t think I could have ever comprehended how much I’d miss having him in my day-to-day life, but now I do. I’m sure if he’s reading this now, he’s rolling his eyes at his overly dramatic big sister… but just so you get the point, I missed him.

The past few months have been full of personal, emotional, and spiritual growing pains in my life, and it seemed weird to not have Zac beside me to talk to, lean on or just ignore ‘adultdom’ with. I could always count on him to make life interesting and help me forget my worries and obsessive need for order. Whether it was a midnight drive to ‘a corner in Winslow, Az’ or a 3 hour Office marathon, he always knew how to make it seem all-better. One of my favorite stories to tell is the night/morning he woke me up at 2:07 am to watch his favorite episode of ‘The Cosby Show’ with him, only to realize at 2:29 am that this wasn’t the right episode. It was that randomness that added color to my life and disrupted the boring and dull plans of my day/night. He was spontaneous; I was structured. I was black and white; he lived in the compassionate shades of gray. Together, we were ying and yang. Peas and carrots. Lamb and tuna fish.

Who really knows what will happen this weekend. He’s too ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ to construct a “Zac’s Reunion Tour” agenda. Maybe we’ll catch up and reacquaint ourselves with the current affairs of the Crothers children or maybe we won’t need to know. You can bet there will be laughter, harassment, contentment, questioning, divulging, joking, arguing, and love. I’m sure details of this weekend will find their way onto this blog in the near future… grand tales of Philly rolls, Harkins theatre, and Dwight Schrute. But as I analyze my excitement to spend the next three and a half days with my brother, I question if when I had him nearby every day, I treated him as if he was important to who I am. I wonder if he knew how having him in my life made all the ugly stuff that much more bearable. Did he know my world was a better place with him in it? If he didn’t, there’s not better time than the present to remind him.