“My brothers,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift a fraction. Encouraging, not surprised.
“Tell me about that,” she says.
“I’m the oldest,” I say. “I was always the one who had things sorted. Career. Money. Direction. I left first. Did the exciting thing. Lived the life people nodded approvingly at.”
“And that has changed?”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the ceiling like it might offer absolution, “they're both settled… loved up, and I’m… here. Retired before I'm fifty. Single. Accidentally involved in a pregnancy I didn’t plan. Of course I'm happy for my brothers. But my life is chaos and theirs is all sorted.” I let out a short breath. “It’s not how it was meant to go.”
She nods slowly. “And how does it feel,” she asks, “to no longer be the one who looks like they’ve got it all figured out?”
The question lands cleanly. No judgement. No trap.
“Unsettling,” I admit. “Like I missed a memo.”
She smiles faintly. “You built an identity around momentum. Achievement. Independence. And now you’re in a phase that values presence, connection, and uncertainty.”
I wince. “You say that like it’s a lifestyle choice.”
She chuckles. Proper chuckles.
“Not a choice,” she says. “A transition. And transitions have a habit of showing up in the body when we don’t give them space elsewhere.”
“So my dick’s basically staging a protest,” I say.
She grins. “If you want to put it that way, yes.”
That gets a proper laugh out of me. Short, surprised, a bit rusty.
“What I’m hearing,” she continues, “is a man who’s used to being ahead suddenly finding himself in unfamiliar territory. Responsibility without a script. Intimacy without distance. A future that isn’t neatly mapped out.”
I swallow. “I don’t like improvising.”
“Most people don’t,” she says. “Especially high-functioning ones.”
I rub my thumb along my finger again, slower this time. “What do I do,” I ask, “if I can’t fix it?”
She leans forward slightly. Not crowding. Just present. “You stop asking your body to perform while your life is recalibrating,” she says. “You take pressure off intimacy. You allow closeness without expectation. And you get curious about what you’re really feeling, rather than what you think you should be feeling.”
I grimace. “That sounds like work.”
She nods. “It is. But it’s different work. Less about control. More about honesty.”
I sit with that. The room feels quieter now. Not tense. Just… attentive.
“And the brother thing?” I ask. “The being-the-oldest-and-still-single thing?”
She tilts her head. “That sounds like grief.”
I blink. “For what?”
“For the version of yourself who thought he’d be first,” she says gently. “First to settle. First to arrive. Instead of first to change direction.”
That lands harder than anything else she’s said.
I exhale slowly.
