Intervention.

Perhaps it's a flaw that I find my own opinion so important that I often insert myself and apply my opinions to situations that honestly do not concern me, but in this case, I think I ought to have a say because quite honestly it concerns two of the most important people in my life. My younger brother and my mom have been coming to this same argument all summer. It finds itself erupting during dinner, family vacations, and in passing, at home. All summer long my brother's schedule is: wake, eat a bowl of cereal in front of the TV, move onto violent video games, TV, workout, eat lunch in front of the TV, back to video games, dinner, workout, Scrubs, sleep. REPEAT this schedule for all that days we weren't in Chicago, the cruise to Alaska, the week we were in norcal, and the couple days he went to the movies, or hung out at a friend's house. Honestly, it's true that I cannot say that I didn't have a couple of lazy days myself, but as a whole, my downtime had given me the opportunity to develop a new outlook on life, to really think about what it is I believe in, and at this cusp of a new beginning, what life is really all about.

This summer I was able to travel a little bit, getting out of the house and spending a lot of time with the closest people I have to me. Though on the trips, I'm sure we've had our share of disagreements, as a whole, I only remember the good times, the laughs, and the rare opportunities to share our opinions, thoughts, and ideas. This summer, I've come to see that, wow, parents are people, too :) In addition to the new relationships I've built with my mom, dad, and brother, as well as the family members we visited along the way, I am so thankful for the things that I got to see while traveling. I walked in the urban area of historic Chicago; I sailed past the glaciers of natural rural Alaska; I relaxed and biked up and down a quiet cul-de-sac in Northern California suburbs with my niece and nephew (hey, you Norcal people have something to brag about); I rode the Amtrak down from San Jose to LA (too long, though) and saw the farms, the valleys, the mountainsides, and coastline of California--all these experiences were amazing times with family that I could never recreate with anyone else, and for these times, I am so blessed and so thankful. I used to, very naively, sit and compare my life with other people's, wishing that I could go to the places that they went to, see the things that they saw, and imagining how great my life would be if I could just do what they did. But now, I know better. I see that every mind is different and every thought-process beautiful. And though the physical make-ups of every human eye are similar, what is perceived by them may be totally different in comparison. This mind cannot generate much profoundness--no ground-breaking technologies, no mind-blowing theories on math, but it is mine. With it, I can detect the beauty in the world around me in the form of tantalizing kale leaves (this one's for you, Donna), face-numbing Alaskan breezes, friendly-to-tourists Chicago natives, indescribable waves of laziness, and the even more beautiful ability to follow through and really do nothing on a lazy day. My brother's poor argument against my mom's challenge to think about what we've done this summer, he said that he found "Chicago boring" and that Alaskan scenery was "sure, pretty, but that's about it." I cannot describe how much that hurt. I realized that no matter how I could attempt to describe what made each experience a life-altering one, what I enjoyed at each end of every block intersection, pocket park, or street cafe scene, he could never fully comprehend what it is I saw and enjoyed so much.

Now I'm not tooting my own horn, trying to say I'm an oh-so-deep thinker or anything; I'm just saying that I'm enjoying what I see--a lot, this summer, and I wouldn't trade it for the world :)

Haha, and what started as an attempted counterargument to my brother's argument for watching TV all summer, I've realized is no more than another opportunity to think about what I'm doing with my time. The actual disagreement is not my fight to fight. And who knows, maybe my brother is perfectly happy with his mind and his way of thinking. To each his own, I guess.