I feel as if I ought to have a post full of post-travel angst, bemoaning the fact that it is impossible to answer the question "how was it," as if the person asking really cared (5% of all cases care, the rest are compelled by your absence to ask it). I have created a 30 second soundbite of the last month of my life, filled with deep sighs and "oh, it was incredible. A real life changer." If you want to hear it, let me know. Otherwise...? Well, you'll never know. Unless, of course, you want to know, and have at least an hour in which to go about knowing. So, enough said. I am home, my heart has grown and been battered about, but I am whole and more Me than ever.
The being home though has been delightful this last week and a half, as all of my best friends were in town for Kevin and Sarah Graham's wedding. The first of us guys to go the way of the dodo. It was, more or less, three straight days of revelry, my house being turned into a dormitory for the out-of-towners. I couldn't have been more happy. Literally, I'm not just saying that.
You see, I've realized something. There are two kinds of jealousy: there is the envy-green, sapping kind that will leave you withered in an attempt to live someone else's life, because yours is quite simply too dull or painful. You are with your friends, coveting the things they have, the experiences they get to participate in, the places where they live, the people they have who love them, and you begin to dislike them because it seems life has dealt them a better hand. I don't recommend going about life in this manner. But, I think there is a second kind of jealousy, a whole one. One where you go to your friend's wedding and see the love he has with his new wife, and you are jealous not because it is something you can't have but because it is something beautiful enough to desire more than anything. You welcome home a friend who has been away for a year and you hear all of the crazy adventures he has had, you watch as all of your other friends crowd about to hug him and to celebrate him, and you are not jealous because you are no longer the center of attention or because you seem less interesting standing next to him, but because you love him so much and are so happy for the experiences that he has had that you want nothing more than to tell him so. Is this even jealousy still? I'm not sure. It seems like it, but in the end, it leaves one full, struggling to suppress outright laughter. It is reaching a place where you think, "oh, it's as good as that is it? Well, I'd rather someone be experiencing that than no one." And you are happy in that thought alone, that someone you love has found something worth celebrating.
In the end, this is a summary of my trip, and of my weeks at home. I am in love with so many things, and jealous of so many more. I only thank God that it is the kind of jealousy that gives and gives and gives. As I said, I am whole, and more Me than ever.
As I was reading, I began to fantasize about us writing a book together...is that weird? Perhaps. I also have a more realistic fantasy, which involves me buying your book and then cutting in line at the book signing at borders. You sign it, "Regards, ol' chap!" and I walk out of the store with tearful eyes of joy.
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