give it up for Africa.

This is my younger brother Michael. My family affectionately calls him Mikeypoo-poo. He loves that. Mike is about two years younger than me and he lives in Africa. He always tells me how different him and I are—he is so level-headed, calm, rational and mathematically minded, whereas I am directly his opposite—a 5’9” body of CHAOS! But really, I think we are very similar, he lives in Africa for crying out loud, so it’s not like we are oil and water—we just express ourselves in different ways. He is also THE most considerate person I know—he would give you the shirt off his back, that kind of thing, you know? He rarely has a bad attitude and this quality is infectious when around—I love spending time with him. He also was BFF with Mother Theresa and has the answer to global warming...HA, I'm kidding but that's what I'm making him sound like, huh? But really, my favorite thing about him though is his ENERGY. He absolutely exudes this genuine care for others and he is so refreshingly untainted. Don’t you love it when you are around someone and you can feel their energy, their personality, their vibe, whatever you want to call it? Just by thinking of them you get a goofy old clown grin on your face? Rare, but you know it when you feel it. LOOOOOOVE it.

Anyways, I am so proud of Mike now because he is doing something that initially scared the pants off of him--living outside his comfort zone. It is really exciting to get emails from him telling tales of Africa and the way he is dealing with the once so foreign circumstances and issues that are now a part of his daily life. However, prior to this experience, it was hard to relate to each other even though we grew up practically attached at the hip and share many of the same memories. As we grew up we naturally experienced the world in different ways and spent more and more time apart and this soon led to a veritable Grand Canyon between us in terms of the variance of our experiences. All of the sudden it was like he was speaking Chinese to me because we could not understand one another. But since his journey out into his own life in the recent months, experiencing things in his own unique way, we are able to understand one another again because it is our differences in experience (which once pulled us so far apart) that now pull us together. It is no longer just me telling of the lessons I have learned, but it is also him sharing times when he felt worn-down or lifted up. Africa is helping Mike discover things on his own and find his own way and we can relate once again. Gracias AFRICA :)

ps--someone is reading my blog in the HIMALAYAS--did you see that?!!