Eternal Ephemerals

True calling

The late afternoon light streamed through the window, casting a soft glow over the kitchen table. Max sat there, the usual mess of papers scattered in front of him—notes for his latest project, a half-read book, and his laptop open to another article on something he'd been curious about this week. His mind worked quickly, as it always did, processing information, connecting dots, finding solutions without much effort.

It was easy for him. It always had been.

He leaned back in his chair, glancing out the window at the fading sky. Another successful day, another task crossed off the list, and still, there was time left for everything else he loved. He would head to baseball practice in a bit, maybe squeeze in a few pages of a new book before dinner, and later, he'd tinker with a side project he'd been working on—learning a new coding language, just because it was fun.

It wasn't lost on him how lucky he was.

For as long as he could remember, academics had come naturally to him. He didn't know why. Maybe it was genetics, maybe blessings, maybe just the way his brain was wired, but he could focus less on his studies and still manage to ace every exam. While his friends stayed up late cramming, he could breeze through with half the time and still come out on top. It wasn't that he didn't work hard—he did—but it never felt like a struggle. Learning was something he enjoyed, something that energized him rather than drained him. It opened doors for him, gave him the time and freedom to pursue everything else he loved.

I'm grateful for this, he thought. He was always careful not to take it for granted. Being academically gifted gave him opportunities—to read, to play sports, to learn kung fu, to explore so many things that mattered to him. He knew that the ease he experienced in school allowed him to be more than just a "good student." It allowed him to live. And not everyone had that.

He thought about his sister, Ellie, and a familiar weight settled into his chest.

She was sitting at the dining table now, headphones in, flipping through pages of her textbook with a focused frown on her face. The sight tugged at something inside him. She wasn't bad at school. Not at all. Ellie was smart, hardworking, driven. But for her, it didn't come easy. She had to fight for every grade. She had to study long hours to get results, had to double-check everything, re-read every chapter. Her grades were good—above average, really—but they were always just a few steps behind what their parents expected. Just short of "the best."

Max saw it, that flicker of disappointment in her eyes whenever a test came back with an A-minus or a B-plus, just a notch below what she had hoped for. It wasn't that she didn't try. She tried so hard. But it didn't come naturally to her the way it did to him.

It's not her fault, he reminded himself. Just like it wasn't his fault that academics came easily to him. People were wired differently. Just because she didn't breeze through her studies didn't mean she wasn't capable of excelling in other areas. He believed that—knew it in his heart. Ellie was creative, kind, intuitive in ways he wasn't. She had a way with people that he'd never had. But that kind of success wasn't as measurable. It didn't show up on report cards or in standardized test scores.

And sometimes, Max worried that she was getting lost in the shadow of his success.

His parents didn't mean to compare them. Not really. But it happened in small ways, subtle ways. Comments like, "Max always figured this out quickly," or "Your brother never struggled with this." They weren't trying to put her down, but Max could see how it landed with Ellie. He saw it in the way her shoulders tensed, the way she sighed after they left the room, the way she tried even harder the next time—only to feel the same frustration when the results weren't what she'd hoped for.