Letters to My Siblings: Nique

Nique,

Last summer I wrote you a letter. You know the one. This one is different.

I can already see you rolling your eyes. Here he goes. The self-described introvert getting dragged into her brother's shenanigans again. Just sit with me for a minute.

You know what I admire about you most. It's not something I've said out loud, at least not the way I mean it. You uplift your friends with reckless abandon. You believe in people before they believe in themselves. I saw you do it at that dinner in Vegas. Your friend was doubting himself, saying all the things people say when they're scared, and you just. Held him there. Told him what was true about him until he could hear it. I watched you do that and I thought, that's the one. That's the Douglas gift she got.

I get the overconfidence from pop. You got the dreaming. The believing. I think that's the better inheritance, honestly.

I'm embarking on something new. We haven't talked about it yet. I've been meaning to call. You know how that goes.

Here's the thing I haven't told anyone. I feel human in a way I don't usually feel. The pressure of this isn't really about me, and that's the strange part. I want to be great at this because of the folks depending on me. So many people. More than I think I let myself count most days.

I don't have a belief problem. You'd be proud. I know I can do the thing. What I have is harder to name. The problem I'm carrying doesn't exist yet. Or it does, but only I know what it is, and I'm struggling to call it by its name. It's the shape of something. A square without edges.

This is the part where you'd say something real to me. Something short. You always know what to say when it counts and nothing when it doesn't, which is its own kind of wisdom.

I called you the other day. You called back. We missed each other. That's been us lately. You just moved from Vegas to LA and I haven't seen the new place yet, not really. I saw it on Instagram. I scrolled through the rooms like a stranger. Looking for you in a place I've never been. I could almost see you there, almost, and then the video ended. This is how we live now. Through screens.

I don't know if that's a tragedy or a small miracle. Probably both.

Text me back. Or call. Or don't, and let me call again tomorrow. Maybe I'll fly west just in time to test out the view and the new sofa.

Later Nerd,

Jared