“You sound great,” I say spontaneously. “You’ve been practicing.”
Jamie’s head snaps up like I’ve startled her. “Thanks. Yeah, I have. You should hear the band sometime.”
“Sure,” I say. I continue toward the stairs, then pause, hit with a pang of regret from our fight. We haven’t spoken much since she found the Chronicle story, only pleasantries when we run into each other outside the bathroom. With Ethan’s confession of not knowing what he wants ringing in my ears, I remember Jamie saying I didn’t ask her enough questions. I never heard her side.
I return to the front room, where Jamie looks up quizzically. Her strumming hand drops from her guitar, and I’m hit with guilt recognizing how ready she is to talk. She hasn’t congratulated me on Harvard yet, not really. But I hurt her first, and it was wrong of me. “Hey, Jamie,” I say. “Did you know what you wanted when you graduated from Columbia?”
Jamie puts down her guitar. Her expression is serious, her carefree enthusiasm gone. She pauses, really considering the question, and I’m grateful for her entertaining what is admittedly an out-of-nowhere existential inquiry on a Friday night. “I thought I did,” she says finally. “But when I got those things, I realized they didn’t make me happy. Then I started questioning all of my decisions.”
I nod. Like Ethan’s explanation, it fits. It’s just not what I expected. Part of me wants to leave the conversation here. I’ve done what I should’ve done when I wrote the story. I understand Jamie better. The other part knows, I haven’t gotten all the facts yet. “Like your relationship with Craig?” I ask.
The ghost of regret crosses Jamie’s features, the first such reaction I’ve seen regarding her engagement. “Yeah, maybe a little. I think he realized I wasn’t who we both thought I was. I don’t blame him for breaking it off.” Her voice is resigned, not rueful. “But everything I thought was a constant in my life was suddenly gone, and the worst part was that I didn’t miss it. Not as much as I should have, anyway. So I wondered if I’d gotten any of it right. What I studied in college, things I’d sacrificed to achieve my goals, friends I’d made, the city I was living in. Was any of it what I wanted?”
I sit down on the window seat next to her, trying to put myself in her position. It’s difficult. I can’t imagine regretting my choices. But, then again, here I am, starting something with Ethan. Ethan. Will I regret the years we spent fighting? Or will I regret this? I’ve seen how changes can ripple into every corner of your life, shaking up what you once thought permanent.
“Has moving home helped you figure it out?” I ask. The house feels huge and empty in a way I can’t explain. The lights are off in the rooms past this one. I don’t hear Mom or Dad, who I figure have gone upstairs to catch up on work. It’s just me and Jamie. I wonder if she ever feels lonely in the house when everyone’s gone during the day.
“It has and it hasn’t.” She gazes into the dark dining room. “I think in high school and college, we’re told what to want and aspire to. With grades and degrees, I had these obvious signs of success. It became easy to mistake them for what I really wanted and easier to let those markers guide my decisions. When I was in the real world, I had to choose for myself what success should mean.”
Her words hit close to home. While I enjoy working hard, I’ve never exactly felt fortunate for the immediate, comprehensible checkboxes of grades and graduation. It’s unnerving, recognizing for the first time I’ll reach a point in my life where I won’t have them defining my days.
“Back home, I can figure it out without distraction,” Jamie continues. “But I kind of feel like my life’s on pause. I don’t want to rush my decision, but I don’t want to get comfortable, either.”
I say nothing, feeling stupid. When my sister graduated from college, I figured her life was just one never-ending series of Instagrammable moments. Her Chicago neighborhood, brunch on the weekend with Craig, the shiny new job she’d gotten out of college. Then she came home. I read a newfound lack of motivation into her unscheduled days, not realizing she was dealing with a very real existential upheaval.
She laughs. “I guess you wouldn’t really understand.” There’s no judgment in her voice, which I’m realizing is one of my sister’s greatest virtues. There never is. “You’ve always known exactly who you are.”
“You were just like me in high school,” I argue. “What if I’m wrong about myself?” I wonder if the rest of my life will feel like Jamie’s first year in Chicago did for her. It wouldn’t be dissimilar to this conversation, relearning and revising the impressions I wrote about in the Chronicle, except I would be rewriting my understanding of myself. Even when you think you’ve found your story, you might need to change it later if the one you’re living doesn’t work. It would require finding new “facts”—what Jamie’s doing now—and conceiving of a new narrative. I could be a completely different person in ten years. It scares me.
“Maybe,” Jamie says. “But you’re constantly seeking out new challenges for yourself instead of settling for the ones in front of you. I think if anyone knows who they are and what they want, it’s you.”
Touched, I feel grateful I have Jamie. I had no idea she was this insightful. For once, I don’t resent being the younger sibling. I’m fortunate to get to peer through Jamie into a possible future.
“I mean, you got into Harvard, Alison. That’s freaking incredible.” She smiles, and I know it’s genuine.
“Thanks. I’m really happy about it, but I don’t want you to think that just because I’m excited means you have to regret the choices you’ve made.”
She looks at me curiously. “You think I was upset you got in? Jealous?”
“Not exactly. But I’m younger than you, and I’m embarking on the exact path you’ve walked away from. It’s sort of a reminder of what you’ve given up.” I speak slowly, choosing my words carefully. I want to be honest with her though, and I’m starting to realize Jamie’s a lot tougher than I gave her credit for.
She laughs. “Sure, but I’m glad. Seeing you do all of this and with such passion and determination . . . I never felt that. It makes sense to me now, why I wasn’t happy.”
It’s a relief to hear, not only that she’s figuring out what she wants, but that she believes in me and trusts me to make the decisions she regrets for herself. While she clearly understands me, I realize I haven’t returned her careful consideration, not until too late. “I’m sorry about the Chronicle piece I wrote,” I say.
“Thanks.” Jamie stands, and I know it’s behind us. Leaning her guitar on the seat, she eyes me, her usual enthusiasm returning. “Starbucks run?”