The Green-Eyed Monster

Lately, I've been finding myself jealous of other people. Lots of other people . . . for lots of reasons. One could easily attribute this new found jealousy to the hurdles and speed bumps I've been experiencing in my own daily life. After all, the grass is always greener . . . and it seems to glow a sweet, neon green when your life seems tougher than usual.



I've found myself jealous of my 25 year-old sister in law. In the last few months, she's fallen in love with a darling guy, and they are already talking about marriage. They've gallivanted around the country this spring and summer . . . going to weddings and meeting each other's friends and family . . . each proudly displaying the other on his/her arm. I'm so, SO happy for Julie and all the fun that she's experiencing, but I am jealous at the same time.



I'm jealous of the point in her life that she's at . . . a new relationship, looking forward to a wedding, everything so new and shiny. I remember that so well. It's a glorious time in your life, truly it is. No responsibilities, blind love with no inhibitions, the giddiness, the excitement. Any of us that are married and have been for a while can look back on that time in our own lives with such fond memories. And . . . I think we could all agree that that time is over. It's a little sad . . . and it makes me a little jealous of what she gets to enjoy right now in her life.


When I look back at myself and why I'm jealous, I know it's meerly jealousy . . . and nothing more. I know with confidence that I am exactly where I want to be in my life. I might be envious of the 'newness' in my sister-in-law's relationship . . . but where Jim and I are in our marriage is even better than the beginning of any relationship. We've been through 7 years together, the ups and downs, the children . . . it's priceless and I wouldn't change a thing for the world. Still, I think it's OK for me to be a little jealous of Julie . . . what she's got is fun and exciting, too.



One of my dearest friends was recently promoted to an Assistant Principal at the school where she teaches, and she began her new role just a few weeks ago on the first day of school. She called me that evening to give me the full report on how her day went, and I honestly had been waiting all day to hear from her. As I listened, I pictured in my mind what her day might have been like . . . the chaos, the confusion, the fun, the thrill of taking on a new job. I sighed and told her as she finished up her story, "Ahhh . . . I'm jealous." What had I done that day? Taken the girls to the pediatrician and to Target. My most outstanding accomplishment for that day -- as my friend took on a fantastic new job and about 500+ middle schoolers -- was completing my 4 loads of laundry.



I'm a stay-at-home-mother, and I love it. It is, undoubtedly, what I want to do for my family at this point in my life, and I've known that for quite some time now. But . . . I worked so hard to complete my graduate degree in elementary education . . . and hearing Tricia's tales-from-the-schoolyard make me so very envious of what she is doing with her life. I would love to be a teacher again one day, but today isn't the day. So, I look at Tricia with jealously running through my mind, much the same way that my grocery lists, naptimes, and household chores run through my brain as I look down the barrel of another day at home. Tricia has a sense of accomplishment that comes from her job, she has adult contact daily, and she helps provide for her family in ways that I simply do not. I envy that. And maybe she envies my time at home . . . who knows. We both have it pretty good, in my opinion . . . just in very different ways.



We all look at other people's lives and sometimes wish we were more like them, had what they have, or did what they did. If you are honest with yourself, you know how true this is. I think it's OK . . . perfectly normal, really. As long as we take a minute to understand the root of the jealousy and to understand that our own lives are great in their own right, jealousy of others is nothing more than a passing fancy. Julie doesn't have the wonderfulness that comes from the stability I have in my life, and Tricia has to manage the exhaustion that comes from working a full day then returning home to care and love her two boys. Both of those are hard to deal with, I realize. I'm jealous of them in some ways, but in other ways I'm not. My life has it's goods along with it's bads, too. All of our lives do.

The Green Eyed Monster rears his ugly head . . . but I know that it's only temporary.