The phone vibrates gently but insistently in my pocket, rousing me from the almost impenetrable reverie that consumes me whenever I'm scanning Pinterest, gazing at food, frocks and fine ideas for home decor. It's a new text message.
From you.
"They need an attorney to remain in DC for a bit longer, until they can justify hiring more. I told them I'd be willing to stay here, so...eeeeeek! PRAY that I get it, please. :)"
And now you have put me in the strange position of wishing myself further misfortune. Because when you rise, I fall and neither of us can be charmed concurrently.
Though I am mired in unemployment (and its attendant, bureaucratic hell), blue moods and other worries that will remain until I find a new job (with health and dental), I will not hesitate to expend every fallen eyelash, every auspicious stroke of the clock, every wish I encounter for you.
It's been years since I've seen you like this. It's been years since you've spoken to me like that. It's been years since you received what you deserve.
I don't know why we are never allowed to shine simultaneously, but the lack of such knowledge or the brutal one-sidedness of it does not surprise me. Why should we two, who are sides of the same coin, exist outside the universal principle of balance. It would be like day with no night, black without white, spring without fall.
So I will wait. I will bide my time, until it is my time. Because during those rare moments when I have the world on a string, no one is happier for me than you. No one worries about me more than you. One day, when my family is gone, all that will remain is you. So fly. Thrive. Win.
When you win, I am reminded that I never lose. When you soar, I will be glad to linger below you on this brown earth. I will watch you rocket towards heaven and I will have the opportunity to be mindful, not of how blessed you are, but of how blessed I am, that G-d has heard the words I fervently whisper to him, for you. For this. For such happiness.
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Dedicated to-- though not inspired by-- a very rude friend in London.
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