I Still Get Jealous

Green has never been my color. In fact, I would go out on a limb and say that green isn’t anyone’s color. I’m willing to be the face of the petition that fights to end the color green. Green is ugly. It’s envy, and jealousy, and bitterness, and resentment.

Green is a monster that lies dormant inside of me. Green is the color that seeps through my veins when that monster is rattled.

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I was talking to an old friend the other day — someone who’s known me for the better half of my life. She’s been going through a rough time lately and needed someone to vent to. We’ve known each other a long time and have seen each other through some of the darkest and brightest moments. We were there for each other during the twisted middle school and angst-filled high school years. We were each other’s backbone and support in times of familial discord. We saw each other through heart aches and many of life’s obstacles. We’re adults now — having gone our own way after high school, but we still find our way back to each other. We still keep in touch.

I listened to her vent about how nothing’s going right for her. How it feels that even the smallest inch forward is accompanied by a sudden tug backwards. I felt for her. I’m sure we can all relate to feeling hopeless — to feeling like when one bad thing happens, it’s quickly followed by a snowball effect of bad things. To feeling like nothing good is happening to you, while everyone else seems to be doing well. I understood where she was coming from more than she believed.

I imparted my own wisdom. I shared with her my own opinion and take on it. I told her how I fight the monster that is envy all the time. But, she didn’t believe me. In our conversation, she told me that from the outside looking in, it seems like I have it all together. She said, with absolute confidence, that I handle things better than her. That I somehow made it past all the heavy crap and somehow landed here — whole, full, happy.

There’s a lot of truth to what she had to say. In comparison to the nightmare of a child that I was in middle school, or the angsty high schooler I was, I am a much different person. Those years are hard for everyone. But in retrospect, those years straightened me out and taught me about quiet strength in the face of difficulties, and persistence when the odds are stacked against you. Time brings us back to the present. Brings us back to what’s important — not high school dances, or crushes who choose your friend over you, or arguments with your parents. I went on to college, and then graduate school. And every day, I hear stories that humble me. That make me step back and look around at what I have, and who I am, and how I live. And all of that leads me here — whole, full. happy. But there seems to be a misconception about people who offer advice — people who are the ears for those who desperately need to speak, people who want to mend the broken hearts of the world.

For one reason or another, we’re placed on this pedestal. Another wall that symbolizes a stereotype that I desperately want to break down; and it’s hard to shake that persona. How does offering my ears and pieces of my heart make my life perfect? How does helping someone else mean that I sometimes don’t need it myself? I wanted to jump out of my skin. I wanted to yell I struggle too. I get frustrated too. I get jealous too. But it wasn’t about me.

—

The truth is, I’ve been struggling to tame that monster inside of me lately.

She taunts me. Overwhelms me. Laughs in my face when I unknowingly set her free. Jealousy turns me into the ugliest version of myself. Sometimes, even when I try to fight it, I am overcome with the near fatal sensation. No matter how you shake it — envy, bitterness, resentment — it’s all the same. The feeling seeps into our pores and controls us. And we’re left the shake it off. We’re left to put on our boxing gloves and fight our way out. We’re left to stand tall in the face of jealousy.

And I will be the first to say that it’s hard. It’s hard to not look on at others doing well, accomplishing incredible things, making dreams come true, and not feel a twinge of envy. I think part of this is my feeling stuck in the middle of what I thought was going to be the most exciting and accomplished years of my life. But being in this transitional stage — still working towards a degree, while people around me have been settled in their career since we graduated from college in 2011, is isolating. But the other part of me believes that this jealousy is fueled by getting older and questioning whether or not I did all that I intended to. Whether or not it’s too late to chase after some of the goals I had for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I am blessed to have some incredible people in my life — all successful in their own right, who make me proud to be a part of their lives. Any and every good thing that’s happened in any of my friends lives have been about hard work, never luck. They deserve all the good things that have come their way. So today, this isn’t about them.

This message today is for myself.

But it’s also for anyone who feels like my friend that I mentioned earlier. Anyone who feels like me. Feels stuck in a strange period of transition — not quite settled into a career, but very close to it. Anyone who has a job that just pays the bills, but doesn’t make their heart burst at the seams. Anyone who struggles when they scroll through Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram and see friends and acquaintances seemingly doing better than you.

Sometimes, words fail. I can tell you to look Jealousy and Envy and Bitterness and Resentment in the eyes and tell them to take a hike. I can tell you that comparison is the thief of all joy. I can tell you to stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your middle to someone else’s end. And if I did tell you all of that, it would still hold so much truth. But sometimes we need more than the truth. Sometimes, we need permission to let our heart feel what it needs to feel.

If you want to have a cup of coffee with Jealousy, go ahead and do it. If Envy wants to have a seat at the dinner table, set her a plate. If Resentment comes knocking on your door in the middle of the night, let her in. Not many people will tell you this, but just for today, I will. It’s okay to feel like you’re at the end of your rope, swallowed up by the incessant sting of jealousy. It’s okay to raise the white flag. It’s okay to want more.

It’s okay to let them visit, but please don’t ever make a home for them.

I think when it comes down to it, it’s important to remember that in this life, you are always going to be behind someone and ahead of someone else. You are always going to look towards someone and see them doing better than you. But, you’re also going to be that person to someone else. I don’t have it all together. I don’t even feel remotely close to being there, but the fact that someone thinks I do reminds me that perhaps the people I look to with green-tinted-lenses are doing their best, just as I am, to truck through this life.

Remember, life is not a scale. It’s not a boxing ring. It’s not a fight with others to get to the top.

Whenever good things happen to other people, it doesn’t take away from me. In fact, it has little to do with me at all. And I think that’s the takeaway message here. When we are in the throes of envy, when we wear resentment and bitterness like a cloak on our shoulders, remember that what someone else has, does, or achieves, can’t take away from what we have. Even in the moments when we are desperately fighting off our demons, trying to pry our eyes away from yet another accomplish that someone got to before us, remember that.

You’re doing all you can with what you have right now. Stop beating yourself up over it.

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” -Steve Furtick

The title of this post comes from lyrics of the song ‘Jealous‘ by Nick Jonas.