Talking

Yesterday I had the pleasure of enjoying a rare lunch with the smartest girl I know, my dear friend Jasmyne. Naturally, coming off an earth-rattling e-mail from my brother, much of the early conversation revolved around those developments (thankfully our conversation did turn to less grave things like her allergy to the words "tits" and "bootleg" and my one Christmas wish, cuddle time with Kristen Bell). It was the first time I've had the chance to talk (face-to-face) with a friend about the changes in my life and my family since my brother left. As always, her insight was invaluable.

I have ties to many smart people. After lunch with Jasmyne, I spent three hours talking politics with my grandfather and Uncle Joel. I'm sure I could do the same with any number of my relatives. But it's always ideals and rhetoric and philosophy, which is remarkably impersonal despite our passions. My conversations with Jasmyne are different though. They're conversations about people, often about me.

I have a tendency to hide my feelings from even my nearest and dearest, and several years ago my friendship with Jasmyne was borne of that self-revelation. In the same moment she crushed my romantic advances, she became the first peer with whom I felt comfortable talking. In a peculiar way, I often viewed people's worry as condescension, like somehow people who offered me advice felt they were above me. Who are they to give me advice? I recognized the error in that judgment talking with her yesterday; sometimes people just care about you.

At one point in our lunch, Jasmyne asked me a rather perilous question: Was I jealous of the attention being paid my brother? Two years ago, I would have given an answer with more spin than an 80's DJ, but when I don't have to worry about somebody leaving me at the table or not returning my phone calls I can be more candid.

The answer is yes, but as I said to Jasmyne, it's not a "Look at me" sort of jealousy. Though I could never have walked the path my brother did, his life has had a consistant trajectory since he was 18 and got accepted into West Point. Two years my junior, my brother is doing something with his life, something honorable at that. When he leaves the Army (if he does), he will not have these years of transition, wondering what he's going to do. He'll have a job right out of the gates that will likely pay double what I've made in my best year (economically). Meanwhile, I have blown my savings during my year in Florida and have returned to my parent's home (no longer mine) to replenish my bank account and see if maybe I could finally find some direction for my life. Long story short, I'm not jealous of the attention; my brother deserves all the attention he gets. I'm jealous because I don't have anything remotely comparable in my life that would be worthy of attention. I remain a wandering dreamer, while my brother has his head down charging into the future.

There are many things in that confession that I wouldn't care for any girl I was courting to know. Jealousy is a particularly ugly trait, not to mention the admission of a lack of career direction and personal pride. So, it's hard for me to put into words how remarkable I find it to stare across a table at one of the most stunningly beautiful girls I've met and admit these things without worrying about how it makes me look or what she'll think of me. No longer worried about dating her (thank God her boyfriend Andy rescued me from that perilous pursuit), pretense becomes superfluous, and I'm a streamlined kind of guy. If there's no need for it, cut it.

At the beginning of what I hope is a therapeutic three days with friends and family, my lunch with Jasmyne was a great primer. I don't doubt if aftershocks of our conversation show up for weeks to come.

Smart, smart girl.