happy birthday kid bro

Actually he's no longer a kid... for some years now, but I can't shake calling him my 'baby-bro' or my "lil-bro" because he is. He's (more accurately stated) my younger bro. Though we grew up in some what of a competition for the 'baby-of-the-family' status, and there was a time when I was actually taller than him, and weightier too... (I would sit on him and pin him to the floor and start tickling him... sweet-loving torture, of course), it wasn't long before he was taller than I and had me out-weighed... so my being the big sister in figure was short lived... It didn't help that I am more youthful looking than he, and so our 3.5 yr age gap started to take on new dimensions and people were asking if I was younger, and sometimes worse, if we were 'together'... Thankfully we never really hung out together at the mall... Lord forbid I be called his girlfriend, because that would be, uh... wrong! In so many ways... with one reason being enough. We weren't always kind to one another, that I'll admit, but we grew from the typical sibling rivalries and eventually after time had passed and we have spent a good number of years apart: me away in college, then at post college, and now living in another state, and his finally stepping out on his own (out of our parent's house) our relationship as adult siblings has begun, and communication without competition has finally been enacted. I am finally beginning to see him for the man that he is becoming. So today is my brother's birthday. He's 23. He's a man... in so many ways, but still a boy in quite so many others. I love him. I miss him. And I wish him the very best.