jennifee.

My big sister, Jen and I, went to see Breaking Dawn: Part 2 today. It's one of many movies we've seen together, like Harry Potter 4 when we went the next night instead of the premiere. Naturally, we talked about the book afterwards and what we've thought of certain characters. We commented on Les Miserables as we saw the poster for the movie walking past. I told her about college, and she told me about her cute little boys. I finally opened up and told her about some guys in my life who I had kept hidden from my family because of the pain they caused me. She listened. She didn't judge. We laughed. We talked about the most trivial things, as well as bigger things, just as we always do. It was as easy as breathing.

And so today, I'm thankful for Jenny.

Growing up, Jen was my absolute idol. In fact, looking back, some of the things that I still love today are things I owe to her, because when I was little and saw that she loved them, that automatically made me love them. And that "idol" love turned into genuine love, like my love for astronomy and the universe. or my love for boy bands. don't deny it, Jen. We all knew you wanted to marry J.C. from NSYNC.

One of my favorite memories as a kid is from one of the many times I went into her bedroom after a nightmare. This one in particular was about a tornado. No idea why, but for some reason I had gone through this stage of being deathly afraid of them. Which is ridiculous, considering I live in Utah and we get one in maybe a century. Either way, it was a pretty bad dream, and naturally, being four or five years old at the time, I was pretty shaken up and bawling my eyes out. Well, Jen, to lighten the mood, drew me the most amazing picture in the history of ever. I wish I still had it. As I mentioned before, Jen and I were both NSYNC fans. Well, she drew a picture of a tornado going through town, trying to be scary, while singing NSYNC's "Bye, Bye, Bye." Instead of everyone being afraid of it, she drew them finding it so comical that they just pointed and laughed, and the tornado couldn't hurt them. Funny enough, it stopped my fear of tornadoes and turned that fear into its opposite: fascination. Now, I cannot get enough of them. I am so grossly fascinated by them, that Twister is one of my favorite movies. All because of Jen.

Anyway, Jen did a lot for me growing up. She did a lot for all of us. Being the oldest, she had to look after us kiddies a lot and put up with our shenanigans. She dealt with me going into her bedroom in the middle of the night, often, because I had just had a nightmare. She was always the referee between Just and Kenz, who weren't each others' biggest fans at the time. She was always the babysitter. The chauffeur. The cook. The nurse. She stayed up all night to help me finish my science project on nebular in the 5th grade. Then stayed up all night the year after that, to help me finish my project on Mummies in the 6th grade. She was the second mom, basically.

And never, not once, did I hear her complain. 

She also let me play with her and all of her friends, because they were in high school and as a five-six-seven-year-old, I thought they were the coolest. I remember fondly her friends forming two teams and playing a game where the goal was simply to have me. Jen ran me into her room and put a glow-in-the-dark star on my little overalls. She said "keep this on. This way, I'll always know where you are." It was one of my favorite nights, being the goal of her and her friends' game. I don't even know if she remembers that. But I do.

Jen is one of the most selfless people I know. I don't tell her thank you nearly as often as I should; it's not like I deserve any of the things she has done and continues to do for me. But she does them anyway. And I'm so thankful to her for that. Her two little boys are so lucky to have a mom like her. She is so strong. She is so loving. She has such a testimony of this Gospel, and the light of Christ really does shine through her. She is so much like Him. And, in addition to all of that inner beauty, her outer beauty has always been something I've really envied; especially her fashion sense and piercing blue eyes.

Even though Jen and I are the oldest and youngest, it's always been us that's more a like, with our middle siblings being more alike. We're the drama queens. The fashionistas. The astronomy/nature obsessed. The bookworms. The school nerds. The attention wanters. The sometimes-over-the-toppers. We have our differences, of course, which make us, as people, better.

I'm so thankful for yeh-yeh/dah/jenny. When I was little, I wanted to be just like her. Now, the years have passed, and we've both grown. . But even now, I still do. 

BROTHER.

I realize I skipped days twelve, thirteen and fourteen, but I need to talk about this. Like, now.

Every college student can understand the headache that is Spring registration. Logging in a half an hour before midnight and refreshing the page over and over again. Then midnight hits, and just seconds after, the servers go nuts over thousands of students refreshing their computers at the EXACT same time... and crash.

Ten minutes until midnight, all Freshman housing is silent. Midnight hits, and everyone explodes, bursting out of their rooms, screeching cries of pain. It's madness, really.

So I'm dealing with the headache of internet going on and off, on and off. Finally, it's on long enough for me to get into Banner and sign up for classes! Yay!

Then, sike, I still have money left to pay. So is registering going to happen? Seeing how I'm broke as a joke, not in this century.

Last night was emotional, that's for dern sure. Suddenly I thought I would HAVE to go home, but didn't think in any way, shape or form, that that's what I thought I was supposed to do, as I've said before. Calling my mom today in tears, I didn't know what to do. I don't have the money. They don't have the money. So how the flip am I supposed to go to school next semester?

I won't say how much it is, but I will say it's a lot for any single person to ask another single person for. Especially a sibling. And yet, there I was. And to keep it simple, I'll tell you there was almost zero hesitation from the other line of the phone. Of course, despite the madness of my request, Brother was going to help me out.

Apparently after I got off the phone with my mom, she texted him and said "call Megs. She needs her big brother." She was right. And as always, my big brother was exactly what i needed him to be.

Just like when I was 7 and went flying off the tube when we went boating. A wimp at the time, I was of course bawling. And who was the first one to swim to me and make me laugh and make sure I was okay? Brother.

Just like how he always wants to kill any guy that's ever wronged me. And how he's extremely picky about the kind of guy I date/end up marrying, but that's just because he thinks me and my sisters deserve the best.

Just like how there's no one who makes me laugh harder than he does. He is literally the funniest human being I have ever met.

Just like how he never judges me when I make mistakes, like not being careful enough with my money. He's made mistakes too, and gets that no one is perfect. He helps and guides me in the most loving, nonjudgemental manner.

Most of all, he is my ultimate protector and advocate. He looks after me and all my sisters. Most guys I know are a heck of a lot more scared of my S.W.A.T/Marine/policeman brother than they are my dad. My dad's waaaay nicer when it comes to that. Mostly because of how undyingly my brother has got our backs. Plus, he is our literal protector now, as he is a member of the armed services. A soldier, willing to lay down his life for not just his sisters, but his Spiritual Brothers and Sisters as well.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes he makes me so mad I'd punch him he wasn't so much stronger than me and didn't have the reflexes of a jungle cat. But he's my brother and he's there for me when it really counts. By the way, I keeping saying just "Brother" because that's what us sisters call him.

So today, I'm thankful for Brother.

peace

~just megsie

soldiers.

Today is Veteran's Day. Veteran's Day is a big deal in my family. I mean, way may not necessarily go out to celebrate or anything. But it's a day that still crosses all of our minds. How I miss performing in the Veteran's Day Concert in high school, with 800 high school voices ringing through the Huntsman Center. I bawled my eyes out every time, of course. Especially because for me, this day is really personal. And singing those songs makes me thing of so many things.

Both of my grandfathers served in the United States Marine Corps. My Grandpa Poulsen served in the South Pacific during World War II. He was even the #1 Machine-Gunner in the battle of Guadalcanal. Yeah, he's kind of a bad-a. They both served valiantly and, thankfully, serving never took their lives. But they still sacrificed a lot. Grandpa Poulsen was away at war when his first child was born... his first son, who died just hours after his birth. My grandma helped to serve too by working in the factories, of course. Grandpa never talked about the war until years and years after he served... we didn't start hearing stories until the 90's. It wasn't until then that we heard of how he held a a fellow soldier in his arms when he died, after the man jumped on a grenade and saved the whole platoon. He didn't talk about the way he felt fighting the Japanese.. the way he looked at them as fellow human beings who he shouldn't be fighting, up until he'd watch a comrade be shot by them. It was too much for him to even be able to talk about, until so many years later.

My Grandpa Dolan took more pride in being a Marine than anything in the world, except for maybe his grandkids. Or his motorcycle. Both men enlisted voluntarily.

Then, there's my brother, who joined the Marine Corps in winter 2010 and completed boot camp in September 2011. My brother is probably the bravest person I know. He has a genuine desire to fight for this country's freedom. I fear for the day when he is deployed. There is no more heartwrenching a thought than the fact that my brother could leave for a place like Afghanistan, and return in a flag-covered casket. It's something a lot of people don't really think about unless they have a member of their family who did serve or does serve. I hope people will start taking Veteran's Day more seriously. Giving gratitude to the people who preserve our freedom is really important. I haven't even had anyone close to me die at war. But the thought of such a sacrifice being served makes me feel for the families who have lost loved ones, and so thankful for the soldiers who willingly lay down that precious life. It's not like they do it for money, or for glory. They do it because we need them.

The last picture is heartbreaking to anyone who sees it. Our choir director showed it to us last year, and upon searching for it again, a came across this article.

Marine Staff Sgt. Marcus “Marc” Golczynski, was killed in Iraq on March 27. At his funeral in April, Daily News Journal photographer Aaron Thompson captured Marc Golczynski’s teary-eyed son, 8-year-old Christian, accepting a U.S. flag from his father’s casket.

After the photo was released, a citizen wrote to Nasville's paper, The Tennessean. Part of the letter said:

As one would expect, many of your readers were touched by this incredible picture. Staff Sergeant Golczynski had previously served one full tour in Iraq. Shortly before his death on March 27 he wrote to his family that he had volunteered to do this a second time due to our deep desire to finish the job we started. In his letter he said, “We fight and sometimes die so that our families don’t have to.” Tragically, Staff Sergeant Golczynski had only two weeks remaining on his second tour. We look at the photograph of Christian every day. It is displayed prominently in our home. Our hearts ache for Christian and for all those who have lost loved ones in this controversial conflict.

Our nation is at a historical crossroads. Do we call an end to the struggle in Iraq or press on? Staff Sergeant Golczynski eloquently told his son how he felt about not giving up. Perhaps there is a lesson for all of us in this man’s life and the choices he made. He was undeniably a man of tremendous courage and conviction. America must now choose whether to complete the job.

When looking at the fact of Christian Golcynski I am reminded that doing what is right is not always easy and doing what is easy is not always right. Christian's dad knew that too.

Today, I'm thankful for soldiers.

peace

~just megsie