#70 Jealousy

Only the good die young. Certainly Eric was good. Does this mean he was better than me? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die, but I do want to be good. At least better than Eric anyway. Oh, that sibling rivalry…

Eric and I were always very close. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have our moments or petty jealousies. Because we did, we definitely did.

I hated that he was funnier that I was, that the same phrase spoken by him would make people laugh and spoken by me would get me into trouble. I hated that when he got into Harvard my mother ran around calling everyone she knew. She didn’t do that when I got into college. For a while I called him the golden boy because amazing opportunities (and salaries) seemed to just fall into his lap. Just when one thing would go bust, another, better opportunity would come along.

What other new college graduate could call the company he wanted to work for and have them tell him to write a job description complete with salary requirements—and then convince them to go for it??

What other person could decide he felt like living in London and almost immediately find a spectacular job there?

I was jealous, but I was also proud. It never really affected our relationship; it was just there in the background. I’m sure there were things about me that made Eric jealous. There better have been anyway; otherwise it’s just not fair.

Maybe it’s my jealousy. Maybe that’s why I’m not as good as Eric. I’m not jealous anymore, hadn’t been in a while. Things were good between us. Maybe he should have been a little less good.