Hey Jealousy

Photo by Egor Litvinov on Unsplash

The first time I met the green eyed monster was in childhood. I didn’t know what it was named. I only knew that I had this burning in my chest and my face felt engulfed in flames as I watched all of my friends get ready for the Daddy & Daughter dance at the church. They had something I wanted - a father who was there and willing to be part of their life.

I had a ghost buried in a bottle of booze and lines on a counter top.

I was irrationally angry at them, though they’d done nothing wrong. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I just wanted to hide and be left alone. I didn’t have language to understand what I was experiencing.

I give little me a lot of grace.

Once I learned what jealousy was, I traced it back to that moment. I had a name for it, but the damage was done. I had self exiled. I never felt the same about church or that particular group of friends again. I felt alien, othered, and ashamed.

The next time I experienced jealousy was over a boy in elementary school - I had the biggest crush on a boy who had no idea I existed. He was the popular kid and I was the nerd with coke bottle glasses and “poor” kid clothes. He only saw the pretty girls. And they only saw him.

I was invisible.

Burning inside with wanting to be seen, to be chosen, to have what they had. Knowing that I didn’t. I was so mad at them and they had no idea. They went about their days without any idea that I was harboring all these feelings, wishing I could be them instead of the “nerdy gifted kid” that I was. I had half a dozen reading awards and they each had half a dozen friends.

I was lonely.

By the time I reached Junior High, I was no stranger to the burning ache of wanting something I couldn’t have. At this juncture in my adolescent life, I still wasn’t someone who acted on my jealousy. I burned quietly. Watching everyone I knew find “love” and first real kisses. My first real kiss had landed me on the ground with a near concussion and an unwanted tongue in my mouth - which I was then punished for on my first day of 7th grade. The boy who’d made me fall and then kissed me, decided to trip me in front of everyone on the first day of school because my terrible kiss wasn’t humiliating enough - I was on crutches by the way. The laughter of that moment still echoes in my mind. While I was brushing myself off, friends were draped all over their boyfriends.

I was alone.

And then one day-

I wasn’t invisible anymore.

On the first day of 8th grade, I was deemed pretty by boys and girls. I suppose I’d finally “made it”? Having shed the pink coke bottle glasses for rounder sleek silver frames, stylish haircut, and “cool” kid clothes. I arrived ready to be seen for once, my ugly duckling turned swan moment.

A few months later, I had my first real boyfriend, one of the cutest boys in school and he only had eyes for me. For about a month. And then the phone calls started while I was at his house. He’d usually let his answering machine pick up while we were hanging out. Girls began leaving him messages telling him to leave me, that I wasn’t as “hot” as they were and that I wouldn’t do for him what they would. He told me not to let it bother me.

I burned alive instead.

He didn’t put a stop to it.

I felt invisible again.

I stayed and he looked elsewhere over and over again. Never setting me free and I was too afraid to walk away. What if he was the only boy who’d ever like me? I couldn’t see that he didn’t. That he was using me. Until one day, I heard a familiar voice on his machine, a voice of a friend telling him that he was better off without me and what did he see in me anyway?

I decided she was right. Only I was better off without him and her.

I learned then that even the “closest” of friends could stab you in the back if you had something they wanted. I was jealous quietly, they were open and loud and hurtful.

At 13 years old, I became quite the expert at identifying jealousy when it was aimed at myself, because of my own quiet jealousies towards others.

I was terribly jealous as a teenager and into my 20s. I got loud about it a few times - with good reason though, mostly because I knew when someone else was encroaching on what was supposed to be “mine.”

Once you experience it, you never really forget it. The behaviors might look a little different from person to person, but the motive is almost always laid bare if you know what you’re looking for.

Throughout the course of my life, over and over again this happened to me, with boys, jobs, etc. And I watched it happen to friends. I’ve watched it happen to my husband.

Jealousy, when left unchecked, can create irreparable harm.

This pattern has been with me now for decades. Still I trust. Still I believe in people I shouldn’t. And still I am stabbed by people who think I have or am something they’re not.

I become invisible.

I get eaten alive by a larger green eyed monster.

Jealousy in adulthood hits different. I feel differently now regarding jealousy than I did even ten years ago. I think this is due to my age and the no-fucks-left-to-give era that I’m in. I simply cannot muster the ability to be jealous or to care really anymore if someone else is jealous of me.

What gets to me now is the mischaracterizing that happens when someone else is jealous. The way another decides to perceive me as someone I’m not, hurts. Period. No other qualifier.

Am I immune to feeling jealous of others? No. I absolutely feel those pangs sometimes, but they are few and far between and last for about thirty seconds. I’ve learned to let a lot go. I’ve also learned that there’s enough for everyone - so what’s the point in wanting what someone else may have or may only be perceived as having?

I’ve learned to ask myself what am I really feeling?

Fear.

Lack.

Insecure.

Once I’ve named the underlying issue, I can let go of that pang and put the green eyed monster to rest.

I so very much wish others would do the same.

And now for funsies - some of my favorite songs about jealousy: