I'm an uncle!
Grayson Christopher Duane was born today at 1:16 PM, weighing 8 Ibs 3oz. The news came to be between classes, while I was working my way through Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for a paper, and frankly, it caught me completely off-guard! I had known it was going to happen today, Chris had mentioned it in an email a few days back, giving me an exact date, but for some reason or other, I didn't really considered the magnitude of what this meant. The mere idea of it all was too daunting and too huge to think about. My brother is a father now, he's five years my senior and he's a father, he's starting his own family and settling down while I'm still not sure what the hell I want to do with my life. It seems selfish to think of myself when something so incredible just happened to Chris - a healthy baby boy! - but I just have this feeling that if everything was alright, and I truly had my shit together as much as I thought I did, I would at least know how to feel about this. Why am I not happy, or anxious or nervous or anything?! This is a big deal!
Every time I picture the person I'm working towards being, that reliable, comforting, friendly, intelligent, witty man I decided I wanted to be after high school, he's freaking animated, he's emotional, he's the kind of guy you seek out and tell everything to because you know what he's gonna say is going to brighten your day, put things in perspective, be worth something. How can I be that man if I don't even know how to respond to my brother's newborn child? Am I that incapable of being excited? It's maddening, this lack of energy, the way everything just seems like work. I really do hope this gets better with exercise, because if that's not it, I'm the littlest bit afraid I'll have to live in spite of this apathy for the rest of my life. I'm willing to do that, if that's honestly what it takes, but it's going to be tough as hell enjoying it.
Anyways, told Sean I'd meet with him and a couple friends tomorrow for lunch before we visited Chris, Jen and Gray at the hospital. I still don't know what I'm going to say when we get there, I know that I don't really want to say anything, but I should say something, I should let Chris know how happy I am for him, how glad I am that it's completely healthy, how this is the start of a whole new part of his life and how awesome it is that I'm there to see it. What would that man do in this situation? He'd be louder, more excited, more celebratory than I will be, he'd make them feel great about this, instead of just... okay with it. I don't feel happy, I feel alright, I feel normal. I need to figure this out, and figure this out fucking soon.