Happy Birthday to Aaron & Dad.
Today, my brother and my father share a birthday. Twenty-nine is somewhat of a “lucky” number in our family. Myself and my grandfather were born on June 29th, and Aaron and my dad on August 29th. Pretty cool, right? So since today is such a big day, I thought I’d make a post honoring them. This “post down memory lane” includes both my brother and dad being an alien, the Elephant Man, and battle wounds. What else would you expect when living with a big brother and single dad?
My dad and my brother (Aaron) were my male influences, my role models, who I looked up to. I remember when I was a kid I wanted to do everything that Aaron did; we even have a home video when I’m about 3 years old and mimicking every move and sound my 7 year old brother is making. Even later on, when Aaron wanted to take down a hornet’s nest in our front yard, I volunteered to be the person who runs and picks up the ball that is flung at the bee’s nest after it has been hurled towards it. This, of course, led to me being stung… But while my big brother was putting aloe vera on my “battle wound” he asked me “Are you ok?! Does it hurt??” to which (fighting through the mist in my eyes) I said in my toughest voice, “Nah, doesn’t hurt that bad.” Basically, I wanted to be as tough, strong, and fearless as my big brother.
Tough skin was just one of the many things I learned to have while living with two guys for 18 years. Aaron and I are best friends now, but believe me, having a big brother SUCKED a lot of the time growing up. His idea of “rough housing” was a lot different than mine, and we would butt heads a lot like all siblings do. One of the many things he loved to torture me with is fear. The first time he ever really explored this is when he and my dad thought it was appropriate to watch “Alien” when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I was trying my best to fit in with the guys and watch this terrifying film, but I when we arrived at the infamous “chestbuster” scene, I excused myself to the bathroom. No, I didn’t have to pee. I just went in, sat on the toilet and tried to think happy thoughts until I felt like I was raising suspicion. I walked out of the bathroom and there was Aaron, spewing the Alien sound loud and shrill, out from his throat and coming right at me. But I didn’t see my crappy big brother, I saw a full blown Alien coming right for me. So, like anyone would rationally do, I turned around and attempted to literally climb up the wall, which was ended by Aaron’s laughter when he noticed I was also peeing my pants in the process. There were scratch marks on that wall until we took down the wallpaper, and I tried to watch Alien about 3 times after that but couldn’t until I was 18 and ironically, living with my brother.
But it wasn’t just Aaron who liked to indulge in these little “scare tactics”. My dad is a kid at heart, which makes him a really fantastic screenplay writer and director. It also made him great at scaring me to death. My dad wrote, directed, and starred in a production of “The Elephant Man” in 1998. For this, he had both a head and arm created for him to look (very realistically) like John Merrick; with many deformities. I got to be a part of this play and I was completely touched by not only Merrick’s story, but my father’s portrayal of him as well. However, after the play ended, Dad might have used some of those costumes for a not-so-greater-good. This brings us to 2002. My best friend and I had just got done watching “Signs” in the theater. It was late at night, and we were scared, so we decided to take our minds off of it by taking a dip in my jacuzzi which was on our outside porch. Nervously, we watched all the trees and the roof to my house for activity, rather than taking our mind of off the movie. Every breeze that came through and rustled a branch would cause us to jump. All the sudden, I see a figure with an unusually large head, run from one of our trees to the other. I quietly tell Trey that I saw something, and we feed off of each other’s emotions which led to running in the house 5 seconds later to my brother telling him there was an alien in our backyard. He was, of course, in cahoots with my dad and told us everything was fine and to go downstairs and calm down. As we rushed downstairs, we were face to face with a hybrid Elephant Man-Alien. Let’s just say we slept in a fort that night with about 50 glasses of water and various other ‘weapons’.
My father and my brother’s imaginations and pranks have scared me and entertained me my whole life. I know it sounds cheesy, but they’ve also inspired me. You have to admit they’re pretty creative with their plans, and this is just a few stories out of the hundreds I endured growing up. When he wasn’t scaring me, my brother used to write scripts for TV shows and movies and have me star in them. When we were even smaller, we would put on Disney Movie productions for our family, using paper plates and crayons as costumes. My dad was the person who got me involved in theater in the first place, in a play which he wrote. The man I married is a musician, who occasionally lets me be involved in his songs, and live performances. I am so lucky to have such creative minds in my life, especially as I was growing up and shaping myself. Without theater, I would be lost; and without my family, I wouldn’t have theater.
So to sum it up, Happy Birthday and thank you to my brother and my dad. You have let me soak up and watch your creativity, and I believe it has made me a more creative person. You allowed me to be fearless when it came to performing and be scared in other areas of life, like being left watching a movie with you two :) I love you dearly.