People Don't Change, Seasons Do

I'm really tired of being sick. Four days of aches, stopped up nasal passages, coughing half my lungs out, little or no sleep at all, and that horrible cold medicine head through the day just to get by. It has to end! And soon!

The weekend sounds uneventful, or maybe it's just that I'm feeling so shitty. Tomorrow of course I have to work and then we are having a party for Red tomorrow night. DJ has his first catering job tomorrow. I am psyched about that for him, as he is a great cook, and he loves doing it, and now he can make some money for it.

Last night as I sat on the couch feeling sick, I noticed a picture that my mother gave to me back a few months ago sitting on a table in our living room. I began staring at this picture. Very intently. It was taken in about 1973 at one of those studios set up in the grocery store. My mother took my brothers and me and had our picture taken. As I sat there last night looking at the picture I could remember that day very vividly (maybe it was the medicine I had taken earlier) I could even feel the texture of the shirt I had in the picture. I loved that shirt. I also remember that my brother and I got into an argument on the way home after having the picture taken about who's turn it was to pick out the cereal for the week. We took turns each week as we only bought one box of cereal. It's strange how things like that just come back to you. Then as I sat there still looking at this picture I could see what the three of us would become. So little had changed since that day, but yet so much has happened. There was a time when I couldn't imagine my life without my brothers in it, now we barely talk to one another except at holidays. But as I looked at that picture last night, for just a few minutes it was 1973 again, and our bond and our innocence was intact. But then I thought of that day again. Me trying to be in control, trying to make sure everyone was happy, and not to upset our mother. My middle brother trying to set his own rules and agenda over the entire day, making sure that his way was THE way, and my baby brother sitting quietly by, taking it all in, never making a comment or an opinion (then again he was only 3 or 4)and then once we got home, he went off by himself. It is amazing how some things never change.