It is a known fact among most of my friends & family that there is no one I love more than my brother. Maya Angelou once said that "Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at." For us? It didn't take much work. Sure, we became better friends when he lost his holier-than-thou 'I'm never going to touch a drop of alcohol' attitute, and even better friends when he became a huge stoner and lost alot of his angry neurosies... Evan Wilton is a gem. After 10 years in the private school system most are lost into a sea of coke addiction & several moral crises'; I think he probably cut that class. Somewhere in the SJR mud puddle of conformity, he found some great solid friends and the most perfect girlfriend an 18 year old guy could have. I could talk about Maiya for hours; don't even get me started. Her rendition of the Doobie Brothers classic 'Listen to the Music' brings tears to my eyes. He owns a Dolce & Gabbana suit and looks great in it. His golf swing is spectacular.
Pulling in 80s & 90s in his final year of high school this year, I am so proud of my brother. Aiming for an education at UBC, he has really pulled his socks up and seems to have it all. In addition to good grades, he still to this day has the perfect naturally blonde hair that after almost 20 years, I've started to have to fake. After working in a marina parking boats for rich people this summer in Kelowna, he came back with the perfect tan that I can never achieve (sunburn is my middle name between June & September). He has more freckles than I can handle. He may still have a touch of acne, support the Conservative Party of Canada, and he may have gone out and bought Guns N' Roses new album on Sunday (when they haven't put out anything worth listening to since Use Your Illusion I and even that is a stretch), but hey. He ain't heavy, he's my brother. He's still well dressed, mostly thanks to me, and treats his girlfriend like gold, which after observing our parent's failed marriage he must've learned to do all on his own.
I'm glad I was around for a several very important occasions in his life. I was there for 17 of his birthdays, his first homecoming dance, his first time smoking pot, his first Winnipeg Folk Festival, his first mushroom trip, his first girlfriend, his first break-up, his first love... I didn't realise how much of an effect moving & missing his 18th birthday would have on either of us. Two weeks later, I still get a little teary-eyed when I think about how I missed the one occasion I could bring myself to go to a strip club- to this day, I've still never really been to one.
I haven't talked to Evan much since I left for Toronto. He hates talking on the phone, and I hate talking on MSN Messenger, but the internet helped us catch up on Sunday night. We compared stories of how bad our hangovers were (I won.), he talked about the Grey Cup and school and I asked about Maiya and if he had gone to the Nook recently. Even though we live hundreds of miles away now, that doesn't mean we still can't be best friends if we both put in a little effort. We're still close enough to count on eachother and lean on eachother, but we're finally far enough away that we can't tell on eachother. And I've been waiting 18 years for that.
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