In the 5th grade, the most popular girl in our class was Natalie. She was tall and thin, very pretty, and she had perfectly winged hair (a la Farrah Fawcett). She had older sisters, divorced parents, and she had great clothes; that was always the popularity trifecta at that age. I recall that toward the end of the school year, there was some sort of talent show that would be put on for the parents. I remember these talent shows vividly for some reason in junior high (probably because there was always one girl who sang that song that I want to say was West Virginia, but that can’t be it, and everyone loved it and she was the hit of the show), but not in elementary school so I don’t remember the actual performances, but I do remember that Natalie invited a group of girls to be in her dance to Rockin’ Robin (think the scene in Mean Girls where they do the sexy Christmas song number, without sexy costumes, this was fifth grade after all). I don’t know if it was six or eight girls and I don’t even remember which girls, but at least two of them were friends of mine and I was so hurt that I was not asked to be in it. There were plenty of valid reasons she would not have asked me. I had never spoken to her. We were not friends. I was a tomboy and couldn’t dance to save my life (How does that work anyway? If you can’t perform a particular Britney Spears dance move, someone would actually execute you? Just wondering…). She asked girls that had been on the drill team, the popular girls, and then my friend Collette, who had taken dance classes since she could walk. Let’s be fair about this. I would not have asked me to be in the Rockin’ Robin dance either. But I was not thinking fairly in the fifth grade. I was jealous. There, I said it. Of course I didn’t know I was jealous at the time. I just acted out and when Collette excitedly told me that she was going to be in the Rockin’ Robin dance with Natalie - - it just came out of my mouth.
“Well, I think that’s just stupid,” I said. Yep, that’s what I said to my friend Collette and she was shattered. She went over to the group of girls around Natalie and told them all what I said. I guess I had always wanted Natalie to speak to me, but when she walked over to me and expressed her displeasure at the remarks I made about her dance, I wished she had never, ever spoken to me at all. I felt about two inches tall and like a mean girl. It was so awful. I don’t remember what happened after that at all. Maybe I blocked it out. I wasn’t tortured by it. I don’t even remember the performance at all. What I recall distinctly though, is that moment of shame for feeling jealous and for lashing out instead of just being happy for someone else.
Jealousy has always caused me to feel a great deal of shame. It makes me feel like a bad person. But was it jealousy or envy? I had to look it up to find the difference between the two. Envy occurs when someone else has something that you wish you had. For example, I envied my friends for being invited to be in the dance. Jealousy, however, occurs when you fear you will lose something (usually a person) to a third party. I was also jealous because I thought Natalie was taking my friends away from me.
I’ve had these feelings periodically over my lifetime and it always fees icky. A “good person” would be happy for others to have wonderful things and not want them to be run over by a bus. OK I don’t exactly want anyone to be harmed. I sincerely want people to have everything their heart desires and to be happy. I just personally want better things than them and to be just a teensy bit happier. Does that make me an awful person? Maybe.
When I was younger, I think I reacted more to these feelings and didn’t understand where my irritation with certain people came from. If someone at work received accolades for a project, I might start gossiping about them behind their backs. If they looked bad, then I looked good right? Ugh, what a miserable existence. I don’t recall doing anything really over the top and certainly nothing violent. It was mostly in my head.
I can see now that those reactions to my jealousy and envy came from a place of just not feeling very good about myself. As my life grew more fulfilling, I had less jealousy and envy. It didn’t mean it exactly went away though. I remember once a friend asking for another friend’s phone number and my jealousy went into full alert. They were going to go out and be best friends now and I would be all alone and have to live in a box under a bridge in Cedar Park (that’s how all of my shame spirals end).
It helped for me to get honest about what was happening in my head and to notice when I was feeling jealous or envious. The hard part was understanding that it was perfectly human to feel that way and to stop berating myself for it. The problem emerged when or if I chose to react to the jealousy or envy. When I got to the point where I could recognize it and then realize that I was just a human being (before stabbing someone in the neck with a pencil), I felt OK with myself and was no longer two inches tall.
I once had a “friend” whom I had told about my shame of jealousy and envy. We had talked at length about how much it just crushed me when it happened. We later parted ways for many reasons and I saw her at a group function. She gave me a civil and polite hug hello. You know the one where you just hardly even touch the other person, making sure they know it is not a hug of actual friendship. A few minutes later, a mutual friend walked in and this all sounds so silly in hindsight and I’m embarrassed to even share it, but I noticed my ex-friend walk over to our mutual friend and she looked directly at me and then gave her the biggest bear hug you have ever seen. It was a very clear “fuck you” to me and obviously, the fact that I noticed it, means it meant something to me, but I didn’t crumble. I didn’t even really have a reaction at all. That’s when I knew I was better. That I had enough. Enough of everything. I didn’t need more accolades, or love, or attention, or friends, or stuff. I was completely OK exactly as I was. And that is pretty damn perfect.
