Hello Adam 1

I hope you don’t think that this is letter is impersonal because I typed it. It’s just that I type faster than I can scribble and this way it’s easier for you to read. :)

I’m so glad that you’ve decided to invite us (the family) back into your life. It was very hard on everybody not knowing how you were doing or what you were thinking. Don’t ever think that any of us (and especially me) will ever give up on you or stop caring. You’re my brother for chrisakes and that means a lot to me. I know we’ve had our struggles and trivialities growing up and I still to this day feel bad about some of the ways I treated you. But we’re both very different people now that we’ve grown up and that’s all in the past. Since our teens, I feel that we became close as friends as well as siblings and was proud to list you among my A-list.

You were so much fun to hang out with. Those times I went up to St. Cloud to hang out with you and Ben were good times. And even though I know that side of you was fueled a lot by alcohol, I know (and I knew then) that there’s more to it than that. You’re a smart kid, Adam. And confident too, even if you didn’t feel that way. It’s not that drinks at the bar gave you confidence, it’s that your true confident self was able to come through uninhibited with the aid of a little party-juice. That’s what the ladies were attracted to. It’s self-assurance and a strong self image that makes a person attractive to another.

I consider myself a bit of a self-proclaimed authority on this matter, cause as you well know, I wasn’t very popular in high school either. I had Todd Kirchoff and my card buddies. But no real girlfriends. That is until I lost my glasses, cut off the mullet and found out that the “game” was as easy as pretending to be confident. By my senior year, I had amassed all kinds of friends (girls and guys). Soon I didn’t have to pretend at all anymore, I simply could be myself and be proud of who I am and people liked me for that. It was a great life lesson to learn. And one that I still consider to be the best. It was this self-assurance that captured Angie back in the day.

But I was still growing emotionally and had a lot of mental fulfillment to complete. You remember my very bad habit of theft for profit. Stealing not from anyone I knew, but I rationalized that if I stole from a large corporation, no one would care. Shopko and Knox were both victims. And it all came tumbling down that day the private investigator at Knox busted my ass. That was the most embarrassing day of my life. I had been dating Angie for almost a year. I had earned the respect of her parents and our parents and friends and peers and now everyone was going to find out what I’d been doing behind their backs. I really felt like shit.

But it was an opportunity to learn another great life lesson. Family and friends are always there for love and support. NO MATTER WHAT! The key was honesty. I remember vividly the day I took Angie’s parents out to eat at Bonanza to tell them I had been caught stealing $12,000 worth of tools from Knox. And when I told Angie the night I was caught, it was humiliating and I was so scared I’d lose her. But remarkably, everyone stood by and helped me weather the storm. It was because I was honest about the whole thing and didn’t lie that they felt they could trust me again. It took a long time to rebuild that trust, though, even for Mom and Dick. And I rebuilt that foundation by continuing to be honest and not steal anymore. And I haven’t. Since that day I was caught back when I was 19, I haven’t stolen a single item. (I’ll consider online copyright infringement such as downloading music or copying DVD’s another thing all together).