Spring Break 2000

There isn't really a good way to describe my relationship with my brother-in-law. I've tried before to write a sort of tribute to him, or to somehow explain what our relationship is like but I Think it sort of baffles people, even people in our family. I actually met him before I met my husband, back my freshman year of high school and I feel like he's always kind of looked out for me like a big brother does. Some how we became friends while he was away at college. It's just hard to explain except to say that he's my brother and I think of him like a brother, and if he were my real brother he would be a model big brother. The kind that gives you wet willies and kicks you and then manages to offer sage advice about some profound problem in your life all in the same afternoon. That's what makes you what you are. We have lots of really great memories, and truthfully, they come from broken places in both of our hearts, and I think that's what made us friends anyway. We sort of "get" each other in some way not everyone does. It was really great that I actually got to marry into his family and have him as my real brother.
So spring break my senior year was pretty great. I think it was the kind you'd call "the glory days" when you look back on it. Just me, my boyfriend and his big brother, bumming around town, staying up all night playing Nintendo and drinking mountain dew. Epic in the true sense of the word.
Now that it's spring break here in town, I started thinking about it. And I wrote this, which is the first time I've felt content with the tribute aspect of it, the first time it's sort of explain the relationship we have.

Spring Break 2000

If there were pictures of us then, we’d look back and see

A wounded soldier’s healing heart standing there with me

Squinting against the sun, putting patches on the scars

Asking questions to the lonely stars

And I never figured out why you made time for me

With all of my quirks and immaturity

But I’m glad you did because I needed you

While I navigated my way through

Romance and God and moving forward

And whatever I was heading toward

On those spring break nights just us three

Driving at dusk down highway thirty

And we stayed up all night playing games and drinking mountain dew

It wasn’t until later that I knew

What God was making me into

In the quiet slow days of my favorite spring break

That spring break came right as the cold snap broke

And we could go outside without our boots and coats

So we took off toward downtown in your beat-up car

We hit the skywalk and the used bookstore

And I found myself there in the music and fresh air

We rode out on the gravel roads and sang along

To some of your favorite songs

There was a kind of freedom there with our hearts on our sleeves

Becoming who we were going to be.

And there was strange communion in our lonely souls

Figuring out how friendship goes

While we drank tea and talked about dreams

Sometimes I miss it, mostly I don’t

But whenever the spring wind blows

I look back at those memories with you as my friend.

We’re longer away from lost than we were back then

Still grasping toward the light

Still looking for a fight

But found at the door of God’s mercy

Wrapped in the grace by which we’ve always stood

And you were one of the ones who walked with me as I grew

While His riches of grace came into view

Through a haze of self-doubt seen by few others

You were my friend. Now you’re my brother.