A Brush With My Old Friend Jealousy

I would like to state for the record that I suck at repressing my memories, am unable to deceive myself for more than a week, and only if drunk and unconscious, and I am constantly appalled at just how petty and shallow my initial reactions to things are.

As such, I tend to have to deal with my crap pretty quickly and effectively because it is humiliating not to have gotten the victory over some pretty stupid sins. If I ignore problem emotions, they party in my sub-conscience like it’s 1999, and they begin to pop up unexpectedly, and become harder to recognize and harder to root out.

Here’s what happened.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been a bit depressed, somewhat moody, and generally feeling anxious. I’ve found myself remembering painful things about Chef and our horrible break-up. I normally avoid the subject of Chef altogether these days, so this was a bit concerning. What made this all SUCK so much more was that I knew pretty much just what had launched this latest trip through my memory’s painful past, and it was something just plain retarded.

I found out that Chef is living with a young woman and her two year-old daughter. I found out from a third-party, and my first reaction to hearing this was to feel jealous. Jealous!!

What the hell is wrong with me?

I carefully schooled my features so no one could see that I was jealous, and thankfully, this little surge of jealous emotion doesn’t even begin to compare with what I felt when he was cheating on me with Tanya. Still, I was annoyed with my own reaction. I quickly blew it off though, thinking it was just one of those things people who divorce each other go through. I gave myself one of those pep talks designed to make you feel powerful and in control, and assured everyone around me that I could not possible care less about Chef and his new family.

I am bothered by being bothered by this news. It’s so high school and 90210-ish! 

Since that little tidbit about Chef’s new life came to my attention, I have found myself being more resentful about things that I consider hardships I’ve incurred because Chef decided he wanted a young girl for a mate instead of me…. so he could stay young….. and make something better out of the rest of his life. Not one of his decisions benefited anyone but himself, but they all still changed my life.

I am angry that I can’t pay all my bills, and still have enough to buy food. This has been my situation for a

long time now, but lately, I feel a tinge of anger instead of endurance. The same goes with other things, like Jake’s up-coming appointment to be put down, or the fact that I still can’t afford furniture, and the million other regular things that we all deal with in life. Yet lately, I feel resentful.

I am pissed that he lost every single material thing I had collected throughout my life either because he gave them away to strangers, or because he destroyed them while building drug-induced masterpieces, but he now lives in a fully furnished home in the country, with a dual income from his new girlfriend.  He has the audacity to rant at me about his embarrassment during a court hearing that was about other people we didn’t even know existed two months ago who read my blog and threatened to use it in court, but doesn’t want to even talk about anything that he did or said that hurt me, choosing to leave the past in the past, and live for the future.

I am envious that he seems to be enjoying the same level of financial well-being and committed relationship we once had together, and experiencing none of the hardships I’m going through these days. I know. He was actually homeless for a few months, but somehow that seems so trivial at the moment.

It is so easy to look at someone else’s life and think they are having a better time of it than we are. On the surface, it does look like Chef ripped up my life and still arrived into his present day reality without a scratch, smelling like roses, and well on his way toward a happy future with a beautiful young woman and new little girl to raise as his own.

But what does any of that have to do with me? The reality of life is that the sun shines down on both the good man and the evil man as well. Despite what Chef’s choices cost me, watching for God to strike him down in the name of Justice isn’t going to benefit anyone. It simply does not matter what roads Chef travels from here on out, whether they be a path of joy and peace, or trails laced with inconsolable sadness and painful regret. They are his paths down his life, and they don’t make anything I’m experiencing better or worse. My life is where it is right now, and the hardships, fears, and anxieties would not be lightened by Chef’s life being equally hard, or infinitely miserable. If I spend time worrying about Chef getting what I think he deserves, however, my life will become infinitely miserable for me. Forgiveness isn’t for those we forgive; it is for our benefit.

As for Chef’s new girlfriend, I accept that I had a pang of jealousy, as embarrassing as it is to admit to it. I have no reason to compare myself with this new girl. I know Chef in such a way that I chose to end our relationship rather than to try to repair so much damage. This time, Chef did not leave me for someone else. He just found someone else while he was out there alone. She is nothing to me unless I make her something to compete against. And since the reward would be Chef, I decline to participate.

When it is all said and done, I do not want my life to be lived in constant comparisons with Chef’s, nor do I want to be the kind of person that would enjoy his misery either. I want to be better than that. I hope someday I won’t always react in such shallow, selfish ways when I hear about Chef’s successes.

~ Bird