da dum dum dum

In one week I leave for my brother’s wedding in Arizona. His wedding isn’t actually until August 19th, but I will be spending 10 days there with my family and friends. On Saturday morning my Mom, Step-father, Aunt and I leave from O’Hare and will subsequently meet up with my bestie Laur at the Phoenix airport to travel up to our Vaca in Sedona. I am excited as Brett will meet us later in the week and my entire family and some very close friends will be there to celebrate!

I am incredibly pleased that my brother and his fiancé (a dear friend of mine since we were kids, actually) have found each other. They will make a wonderful couple and not only will their wedding be a blast, but their life together will be fun as well. They are as perfect together as two people can be and I am sure their future holds good things.

It still freaks me out a little though!

My brother Sean is 29…old enough to get married and ready for it. He is responsible, kind, smart and fair…he has a good job and a life he likes. The same can be said about Tariina, his fiancé. But this is my brother?! When I think of Sean, I see him in varying degrees of ages of our childhood. Never do I picture him as an adult. That is certainly not indicative of him or his current life…it is just what I have in my head. Often older adults say that they have an age that they perpetually think of themselves as being…whether it be 21 or 25 or 30. A time in their past that they feel they have never quite left behind. That is how I feel about Sean. I want to scream “NOOOO he’s just a kid!” I picture him playing wiffle ball in the street or skateboarding down the block. To me still plays baseball on Friday nights at Bowen Park. He isn’t old enough to get married because in my mind he is still 15.

I guess it all seems like such adult things. That once one of us (“us” being my brothers and me) breaks the mold of childhood, inevitably the others will have to follow. Getting married…it is what our aunts and uncles do…not us. We are supposed to be the flower girls and ring bearers, nothing more. When did we get old enough? When did this generation of our family become the ones to celebrate weddings, and soon enough, babies? I’m not ready to be that generation. I’m not ready for that change…I still like relying on the “elders” for everything (mainly b/c it keeps me from having to cook Thanksgiving dinner) but really…they are the core and I am not quite sure I am ready for that shift to begin. But it seems that Sean is…and I applaud that.

So, on August 19th at 4pm my brother will be married. He will be the beginning of 23 first-cousins in our generation. The oldest grandchild, at 29, will walk down the aisle not as a ring bearer or junior groomsmen, but as the Groom. He will set the wheels in motion for our generation and those wheels will continue to churn until the youngest of the cousins-currently age 8-does the same thing some 20 years from now. In our shared joy and happiness of this occasion, Sean will make us all a little more adult and will change a part of the family dynamic forever. Certainly not for worse…most assuredly for the better and a new addition to an already huge family is always looked upon so excitedly!

With that said, his wedding with been fantastic, his bride will be beautiful, and his family and friends will gather to celebrate a truly special marriage. Life will be good for Sean and Tariina and I cannot wait to welcome them into the family as a married couple. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Such a celebration is truly magical!

Cheers!