When Brave Looks Boring
My brother, Todd, and I live on the same street. We share a
lawnmower, and he stops over for a drink and to say hi to
the boys a couple of times a week after work.
One night, Aaron was working and the boys were
playing and Todd and I had a rare quiet moment, sitting
alone together in the kitchen.
Something had gotten tangled up between Aaron and me
that week. I can’t even remember what it was, but I made
some comment to my brother about the joys of matrimony.
He’s single, and profoundly independent. I know our
messy, loud kid-house makes him half crazy.
But that night, he said, “I think you and Aaron are really
brave. Look what you’ve done. Look what you’ve built.
You’ve built a marriage, a home, a family. You’ve stayed
with it, even when it was hard; you’re patient with the kids
even when that’s hard. I think that’s brave.”
Todd’s one of those people who’s done like a million
exciting things, among them, sailing around the world. He
told me that people used to always tell him, “You’re so
brave!”
He looked at me evenly while he spoke. “Sailing around
the world isn’t necessarily brave. Leaving real life for two