An organized mind

It's interesting to me, how people evaluate relationships.

Jay and I were sitting on my couch, messing with my wireless card (for which he found a workaround today). During the course of the conversation, it comes up that he considers me the most important person in his life.

I couldn't decide whether I felt warm-and-fuzzy or wicked confused and uneasy. The former, because who doesn't want to hear things like that? The latter because, well, I wasn't sure if I could say the same.

I've been turning it over in my head for the past day, and I still haven't come to a conclusion. I just don't rank people in terms of "importance". If you asked me who the most important people in my life were, I'd naturally list Jay, but I'd list my mom and dad, my little sister, my grandma, Elizabeth, a few others. But there is no one person on that list that I would say is "most important". They are all important for me, for very different and unique reasons.

That seems to be the problem: I don't have a single standard that I measure people by in my life. Everyone has their own niche. Sure, I have wide groups of people - family, close family, close friends, acquaintances, co-workers, whatever - but I don't have a list, from one to whatever, of people ranked by how well they do x or personify y.

Jay is amazingly important to me, and I would do things for him that I would do for no one else. But that doesn't make him more (or less) important than my grandma, who had a very strong hand in raising me, or Elizabeth, who is the sister I didn't have growing up, or anyone else in my life.

Being the most important person in his life is a lovely sentiment, and I'm honored (and a little frightened) to be there. But I just can't say the same. It doesn't make sense with the way I organize my world.