wrasslin'.

So, as basically no one knows, I jetted out for that one holiday and came home for the weekend to watch my brother compete in the state tournament for an unpecified sport in which boys grapple each other while wearing leotards. It's been interesting. I laughed, I cried. (What's new?) Here are some highlights.

1. "No po-po? I go-go." --my mother
2. After hearing my life plan to become an audiologist, CA asked me what I was going to do about sex. I'm not sure what worries me more, her assumption that I will be single for the rest of my life or her thinking that intercourse is crucial to a healthy lifestyle.
3. My mother's only thoughts on the 4-time state champion referred to his shoulder blades and surrounding musculature: "He looks like he has boobs on his back. I mean, if you were to take a picture without his head there, he'd look like some deformed woman!"

Sometimes, things happen. Like losing. My brother lost. Predicted to place, and he lost before the quarter finals. Pinned in 30 seconds by a boy he'd beaten the week before. But that's not what made me cry. (Yep, me. Tearing up in the middle of a sports event.) I went to give him his food today and he said he didn't want to eat until he had warmed up with AP. AP was wrestling for the championship. It's every little boy's dream to come down those stairs when they call your name and stand on the mats with the rest of the boys competing to be state champ in each class and weight. And AP got to do it. But he asked my brother to come out on the mats with him and help him warm up. And he stood out there on the mats, waiting to warm up until my brother came down. My brother, out there with the rest of the state champions. As I drove him home today, he told me that afterwards, AP had said to him, "I couldn't have done it without you, brother." Bless AP's little heart. (And someone did, since he was indeed crowned state champ.) Sometimes things suck. Refs make bad calls. You get put on your back when you never see it coming. And it sucks. It really does. But there are beautiful moments through every single one of the hard times. Sometimes you have to look hard. Sometimes they are staring you in the face. But the fact of the matter is that you have to get up. You have to keep going, and you have to keep hoping. And you have to keep looking, because the sun will always rise again.